Frank Luntz and Ben Shapiro dissect the 2020 election, noting Trump's 50-year low unemployment despite divisive rhetoric like "wall" versus "barrier." They analyze swing states including Michigan and Arizona, rank Elizabeth Warren as the most electable Democrat, and critique the GOP for squandering its 2016–2018 majority. The conversation reveals a fractured conservatism struggling between anti-leftism and core values like economic freedom, while acknowledging climate science amidst severe political polarization and institutional decay. [Automatically generated summary]
I got another three or four more to go before we reach New Year's I do know how mad we are.
I do know how how this ugliness this Damn desire to be heard not to listen not to learn but to be heard How it's undermining so many things and it doesn't have to be this way.
On an accomplishment level, what he's actually done is incredibly impressive.
The unemployment rate at a 50-year low, Black unemployment at an all-time low, Latino unemployment at an all-time low, wages going up, the economy strong, even with all the yelling over China.
Economically, it's been pretty incredible.
Tax policy, people get to keep more of their hard-earned income.
In foreign policy, we're not in the middle of a war.
On what he's done, it's pretty impressive.
On how he says it, how he communicates, I'm not sure how much of it I like.
He and I have talked infrequently, but enough, and I've expressed some concern.
I'll give you an example.
He likes to talk about building the wall, which I'm sure that most of your viewers appreciate.
The problem is, when you talk about building a wall, you've got 40% support, 60% opposition.
If you talk about building a barrier, it goes up to 60%.
If you talk about using human intelligence, technology, a physical barrier where it's necessary, if you're precise about it, it goes up to 79% support.
Trump's idea of instilling border security?
It's a winner.
The public supports it.
Democrats support it.
But when you just talk about a wall, it's a great applause line for his supporters, but it doesn't get you where you need to go.
And on issues like this, sometimes what he says actually undermines what he wants to do.
So a lot of his supporters will say, well, the world of politics has changed.
He understands that we live in a base-only world, that the moderates don't exist anymore, there aren't any swing voters, it's just a matter of getting your base excited.
And also, they might say something like, well, if Trump says build a barrier, then the next thing that happens, the media just spin on that language, and suddenly barriers are bad.
Because no matter what Trump does, the media will always caricature it as the greatest of all evils.
So, you obviously spent your career picking the words that work, trying to help people figure out what's the best way to express themselves, to be convincing.
And I have to admit, I had an argument with the president over stuff that he said about Baltimore, which is a very troubled city.
I know something of it because I used to go to sporting events there, and on occasion I would travel into the community.
And it is not a healthy city.
But it should not be derided that way.
I just, I have, I felt very bad for the people because I thought they were being insulted because one of their congressmen was challenging Trump directly.
And what I got back from his campaign manager is that I'm elitist.
I come from the old-fashioned establishment.
I don't understand that under Donald Trump, we call things what they are.
And my parents taught me at a very young age, and I should know because I'm overweight today, that you don't walk up to a fat person and say, hey, you realize you're fat.
You don't say everything that comes to your mind.
You don't insult people when you don't need to.
And if you disagree with them, you find a way to bring them over rather than trying to bludgeon them.
And so his communication for me, and I've said this to him, is very problematic.
But I won't let that get in the way of what he's accomplished.
And I won't let what he's accomplished get in the way of how he communicates it.
They are both important.
America's a great country because we're a good country.
It is not that we have a wonderful GPA, a GPA, wonderful GNP.
It is not that we are, geez, my head is in academia.
It's not that we are wealthy.
It's that when people are hurting, Americans come.
When people are suffering, we're the ones who do something about it.
We're always the first and we don't ask for a thank you.
We just do it because it's who we are and what we're about.
And I want us to be a good people, not just a successful people.
And I wish that some of the language were a little bit more gentle.
I think he can still really energize his base.
I think he can be just as successful if he tones this stuff down a bit.
Yeah, I mean, one of the things I've suggested to members of his campaign is that, for me, it's not even necessarily the language he uses, although I have many of the same problems.
It's the targets of the language that he uses.
Meaning that if you want to speak bluntly about You know, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi whining and whimpering in a cave.
I don't think that many Americans have a problem with that.
I think if you apply similar language to Mika Brzezinski, then suddenly a lot of suburban women go, no, I'm not super interested in that.
I do wonder if the, because the art of politics is the art of persuasion, and Trump is not a persuader.
He's just a blunt instrument who says whatever comes to mind.
And so he thinks that because he went from 38% approval in 2016, and he's at 43% now, he's going to do even better in the election.
And what I've tried to communicate is, you're losing people who would vote for you otherwise, but they just don't like what you say.
And they feel so uncomfortable about it, and they don't want to go through four more years of this.
anger and yelling and then everything being a crisis or everything being in chaos and again i know your viewers the first thing they're doing right now we're only six minutes into the show they're typing away that i'm a traitor or i'm a rhino or i don't get it but the thing is i do because unlike most of your viewers i'm in virtually every state in the country every year I've already been in 30 states.
I got another three or four more to go before we reach New Year's.
Not many people talk to as many people as I do.
And I do know how mad we are.
I do know how this ugliness, this Damn desire to be heard, not to listen, not to learn, but to be heard.
How it's undermining so many things, and it doesn't have to be this way.
Not Pennsylvania, but yes in Michigan and yes in Wisconsin, but there are other states.
You have to look at Ohio because Sherrod Brown could be a vice presidential nominee with any Democrat.
And that means Ohio switches.
You have to look at Iowa because of the trade war and the farmers being particularly hurt and Trump's Unfavorability has been rising over the last three or four months in that state.
Obviously, look at North Carolina.
I consider that state to be the most evenly divided of any in the country.
Then two others, New Hampshire and Arizona on the Republican side.
And frankly, there's a chance that Republicans could win Minnesota from the Democrats.
So those are the states that I'm following.
You'll notice I didn't say Florida.
They actually think Trump will do okay there.
But these states are too close to call.
The Democrats know just as much as the Republicans do.
And in those states, we're going to have $3 billion spent on eight or nine states.
And there's only 6% of the population that is truly undecided.
So imagine spending $3 billion on 20% of the states and 6% of the people in those 20%.
We should just buy them a car.
But that's what it's going to feel like.
It's going to be $1,000 per voter to try to influence them.
So I agree that Biden, I've been saying this for years, that Biden is the strongest candidate to go up against Trump, mainly because it's not bad to be an actual corpse running against Trump.
Meaning if you're just a default, non-alive human being, then you're probably going to perform better against Trump than somebody who doesn't have it all baked into the cake.
So Biden, I've been saying for a long time, because he is 100% name ID, because he's not scary, and part of the fact that he's not scary is the fact that he doesn't seem completely functional.
He just seems like a default candidate who's there.
That's actually a pretty good position to be in, as opposed to somebody like Warren, who Trump can rightly point to somebody like Warren and say, you really want to screw up this whole country just by electing somebody who's got these crazy policy proposals.
Biden doesn't seem to know which state he's in.
And I actually don't think that cuts necessarily against Biden.
I think that actually cuts against Trump in some ways.
So this has been my going theory, is that if the election is a referendum on the Democratic candidate, the Democrats lose.
If the referendum is an election on Trump personally, then Trump loses.
And I felt the same way in 2016.
I think what everybody got wrong about 2016 is they thought it was going to be a referendum on Trump because he was this out-of-the-box character, and it actually was a referendum on Hillary Clinton with a huge number of Democrats saying, number one, she's going to win, so I'm not showing up to vote, and number two, I don't like her that much, so I'm certainly not getting up in the middle of the winter to go vote for this person not like very much who's certainly going to win.
And my great fear with Biden as a Republican is that you're not gonna have, it's not gonna be a referendum on Biden.
Because how do you have a referendum on a piece of paper?
Like it's just, he's, he's, he's. - What do he do to you? - He's just, he's a boring, nothing of a, like he's a man who's run for president 87 times and lost each time.
The only reason he's even on the stage right now is because of his association with an all-time great politician, Barack Obama.
And even with the fact that he has the glow of Obama cast over him, he still can't break 30% in a national poll among Democrats.
It feels like the Democrats saw a guy who was kind of the default candidate, and then they said, well, let's take a look at all these other candidates.
And then you got the rotating wheel of candidates, just like in 2012, where suddenly Herman Cain was Then he gets hurt.
for five minutes.
And then it was back to the original guy.
He's like, okay, fine.
We tried all these other people.
I guess we'll settle on him.
And it feels that way with Biden, especially because nobody's been able to crack any amount of black support except for Biden once he gets to the South.
Do you think that the primary schedule is going to matter here at all?
If he loses both Iowa and New Hampshire, how bad do you think?
And with Bloomberg coming into the race, and I would say to you, Bloomberg has no chance or had no chance because Democrats don't like billionaires.
But when you're the only one with money and 36% of the delegates are up in one day and everybody has spent everything that they have and you still have tens of millions of dollars to spend, you can't write them off.
I notice as I'm traveling, I'm at airport restaurants, or I'm in my hotel room, I turn on the TV, and there's a Bloomberg ad everywhere, constantly.
I know how much this costs.
This guy is advertising everywhere, and it's going to have an impact.
It may not have an impact in Iowa and New Hampshire.
It may not have an impact nationwide.
But on Super Tuesday States, he's going to be a player.
You know the rules.
Unlike the Republicans, where it was very much winner-take-all, so all you had to do was get 35% in some state.
In the Democratic rules, if you get 15% in a congressional district, you get delegates.
You get 15% statewide, you get delegates.
So it's very hard.
You can be getting 15 or 20% in state after state, and you're still running up a good percentage of delegates for the national convention.
We could easily have a situation where it is brokered.
She spent the last eight years rebuilding herself from the radical who was saying her husband was going to heal the soul of the country, and she was writing theses about how America was systemically racist.
And now she's everybody's aunt.
She's writing these nice books about how she raises her kids.
What do you think are the chances, in a second I'm going to ask you, the chances of Hillary Clinton jumping back in the race?
Because she obviously is... Okay, well that answers that question.
So I'll ask you a different question in just one second.
But first, it's holiday season.
And let me tell you someone you're not.
You're not Santa.
And that means, why should you drive around a vehicle with lots of presents in it?
Especially to the post office.
Instead, use stamps.com.
Stamps.com brings all the services of the U.S.
Postal Service directly to your computer.
Whether you're a small office sending invoices or an online seller shipping out products, or even a warehouse sending thousands of packages every day, Stamps.com can handle it all with ease.
Simply use your computer to print official U.S. postage 24-7.
Any letter, any package, any class of mail, anywhere you want to send it.
Once your mail is ready, just hand it to your mail carrier or drop it in a mailbox.
It's like, well, the racism thing, it's like Barack Obama never existed.
And I am amused by watching Cory Booker call his own Democratic Party base racist if they don't put him on the stage, because obviously He's the only other black person in the race.
And so now that Kamala's out, he's like, I'm so sad about it.
I thought it was I just I laughed for like five minutes after that was done.
I think I have to give the highest odds to Senator Warren, and here's why.
She's raising among the most, if not the most.
Second, she's got the best organization, second to Bernie.
Third, she's been at this and she's had a national platform, so she's not going to have A mistake.
She may do something wrong, such as being honest about Medicare for All and how much it's going to cost, but she wanted that discussion.
That wasn't a mistake.
To her, that's about explaining why the rich and corporations need to pay more.
So, she wants that debate.
And I think the Democrats want to nominate a woman.
I really do.
I think they want to make up for what happened with Trump and Clinton.
So I give her number one.
I give Joe Biden number two, even though I think he loses both Iowa and New Hampshire, simply because his national numbers are very impressive.
His support within the African American community is very strong.
And then third would be Mayor Pete.
I don't think Bernie Sanders is any shot at the nomination because Elizabeth Warren is taking away his votes and because at some point I'm just expecting him to do what Jim from Taxi did.
He just, he doesn't remind me of Larry David, he reminds me of Jim from Taxi.
That he's just going to be waving his arms and suddenly he's just going to drop.
Bernie Sanders is so old, it takes him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.
He's so old, his favorite painting is The Last Supper.
If you look carefully, he's the second waiter from the left.
Bernie Sanders is so old, the only time he doesn't have to pee is when he's peeing.
Come on, crew.
Some reaction here.
You know all three of Trump's wives are immigrants?
All three of them.
It's living proof that there are some jobs only an immigrant will take.
So let's talk about the genius in the Republican Party right now.
So the Republicans have the Senate, they had until recently the House, they have the presidency, they were dominating at the state level, and it seems like all of it is slipping away, and it's slipping away pretty quickly.
How much of that is due to Trump personally, and how much of that is just a crisis of identity inside the Republican Party?
It feels as though the Republican Party is splitting in a thousand different ways, and that there's no coherent glue holding it together, other than mere Opposition to the left, which is a glue, but it can't be the only glue, I would think.
In 2016, they had more governorships, more senators, more congressmen, more state houses, more state senates, more mayors than they'd had in 100 years.
There were more elected officials who were identified with the Republican Party than any time in a century.
And what did they do with it?
Did they reform government?
No.
Did they transition and transform and transcend Washington's control and influence and send it back to the states?
None of that.
Did they offer the country a specific vision on health care with a policy to go with it?
They could have done anything.
And the truth is, they accomplished some things, but not what would have deserved them having as much power as they did.
And it'll never come again.
And the amazing thing, and the one that I'm most angry about, is that they could have shifted power back to the states and localities.
They had the votes to do it in the House and Senate, because they had a whole bunch of Democrats who did not want Trump making those decisions, so they would have done it.
You had California Democrats who would have voted with Southern Republicans to take power out of Washington and send it back to the states where it belongs.
I do wonder if some of the big kind of Republican talking point items are even doable in today's America.
Speaking specifically here of entitlement reform, for example, which was Paul Ryan's bugaboo and he was never able to get anywhere with that.
How much of that is because Republicans don't know how to talk about entitlement reform and how much of that is because people actually just do not want to hear entitlement reform and every country that has ever undergone any sort of entitlement reform has been forced to it by austerity measures?
One of the great debates inside the Republican Party, and this is taking place before Trump but it's been exacerbated and accelerated by Trump, is the debate over which direction to move in the future.
So after 2012 there was the famous Republican document from the RNC that came out and said we need to reach out to new demographic groups, and maybe that means shifting policy on things like— And how's that worked out for them?
Yeah.
As I was about to say, President Trump came back with a different sort of analysis, if you can call it that.
But there are certainly people doing this analysis, saying it's easier to win an additional 5% of the white vote than it is to win an additional 15% of the Hispanic vote.
And so you double down on what brought you here.
And the future of the Republican Party basically lies in immigration restrictionism and economic subsidies and really catering to the white working class, building up those numbers so that it's 2 to 1, 3 to 1.
So I have my own point of view, and nobody cares to hear it.
They want to know who's going to win, and they want to know how to win.
They don't really want to know my philosophy, but I do question this.
My grandparents are immigrants.
They came here from Ukraine.
I was over in Ukraine, and this is your exclusive.
I was in Ukraine while all this stuff was going on, and I had no idea.
I was there to do some speeches for the State Department, to talk to students, to talk to elected officials.
They were telling me that they were seeking American aid and they weren't getting it.
It's fascinating to me because I was hearing stuff that did not make sense and then a couple months later it made sense.
We're not hostile to Ukraine.
A lot of us consider Ukraine to be allies because they're hostile to the Russians.
Why suddenly is Ukraine the enemy?
I'm sorry to those people who say that they tried to intervene in our election, but the Russians tried to intervene in our election, not the Ukrainians.
We have to figure out a way to get along with China.
And I say this as someone who challenged the science of climate 20 years ago.
We've learned a lot in 20 years.
I don't want the same equipment that would have operated on my brain 20 years ago operating on me now.
Our science gets better.
Our knowledge of the economy gets better.
Our information gets better.
And by the way, I thought to be a conservative meant that you respected and celebrated the work of the CIA or the FBI, that we respected and appreciated the efforts of the police and the first responders, and the idea that we are now trashing our intelligence services.
That, to me, I didn't know that that's the side that conservatives are taking.
To me, that was always on the left.
So tell me, because I don't know.
What is conservatism?
What side are we on?
What do we believe?
Because the things that I was raised from Jim and William Buckley and Jean Kirkpatrick and Richard Perle and Ronald Reagan Some of those things don't seem to be conservative today.
So in a second, I want to ask whether you think that's a result of Trump and you think that that's a durable ideological change inside the Republican Party, or do you think that this is just sort of a temporary Trump was the vessel, he defeated Hillary Clinton, and then once Trump is no longer president, then this actually plays out in real time and we get to have that intellectual fight.
But first, it's the holiday season.
That means it's time to think about your death.
No, no, really it's not.
But if you don't want to think about death, probably you should just get your life insurance now and then you don't have to think about death anymore.
If life insurance is one of the things way down on your holiday list, Policy Genius might be able to help you cross it off.
They will find you the right life insurance at the best price and do all the work you need to help you get covered.
Policy Genius makes finding the right life insurance a breeze.
In minutes, you can compare quotes from the top insurers and find your best price.
You could save $1,500 or more a year by using Policy Genius to compare life insurance policies.
Once you apply, the PolicyGenius team handles all the paperwork and the red tape.
And PolicyGenius doesn't just make life insurance easy.
It can also help you find the right home and auto insurance, disability insurance.
So, if you need life insurance, you're not sure where to start, though, why not start at PolicyGenius.com?
It only takes a few minutes to find the right life insurance policy, apply, cross another thing off that Christmas to-do list.
PolicyGenius.
When it comes to life insurance, it's nice to get it right.
And it's kind of important, because if you plot before you get it, you're in serious trouble.
Is it that we're going to have different definitions of conservatism and we're going to fight it?
Is conservatism pro or anti-immigrant or should we not be having this argument?
Don't conservatives care about the environment?
If we are supporters of tradition and legacy, don't we want to ensure that the air that we breathe and the water that we drink is safe for generation because we believe in delayed gratification?
Isn't conservatism about border security and alliances with NATO?
And North America?
Isn't Canada one of our strongest allies?
Should we be fighting with the Canadian Prime Minister?
I mean, I think that conservatism today is anti-leftism, and that is not enough.
And this is a case I've been making consistently for years, is that there was a very famous talk show host, of whom I grew up as a fan, who in 2016 shifted his definition of conservatism.
He had the Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, is what he called it, Rush called it this.
And then in 2016, he shifted it to the Institute of Advanced Anti-Left Studies.
And I thought that that was a very telling move, because basically what it suggested is that the radicalism of the left was to be opposed, and that the political correctness of the left was to be opposed.
But I think, and this is really a question for you, why did conservatives stop making the moral case?
Because I think that's really where this broke down.
I think that there was a point in my life where the case was made that markets were not moral, that you had to add on top of that, like the very idea of compassionate conservatism was A good pitch, but I remember having problems with it when I was 16 years old because I thought to myself, I don't know why we are being redundant.
Because the idea there is obviously that without the modifier, conservatism is not compassionate.
I mean, I think that my main objection to the idea was that common sense is not compassion.
I mean, the idea of conservatism is that when you make those tough decisions, you're doing something good for people.
And that when you cut people a check, very often you're doing something bad for people.
What you're actually doing is enervating them and making them unable to support themselves and making them dependent.
And so by pitching conservatism as Well, it'll be conservatism, but it'll be nice.
It's like, well, you just took the heart right out of what it is you're talking about, and you're setting up an expectation that without the big government spending programs, conservatism is actually just mean and petty and cruel.
So there's this idea that's been built up in the conservative movement, you see it manifest right now, that conservatism is about heartless markets.
And you see conservatives say this sort of stuff.
It's about heartless markets, free markets that are nasty to people, and so we have to curb their application, because we have to chain the markets up and make them work for us, though the markets are not an I don't hear that.
Markets are a reflection of a basic individual right to alienate your own labor.
They are inherently moral.
And the idea that a market is not moral, that you have to curb the market, chain it up, make it work for the people.
But markets on their own are not necessarily compassionate.
That we are making a decision as a society, which I believe, and this is where my politics has changed, that there are times when markets don't function correctly.
That the free market is not always free and does not always choose the right thing.
And that there can be perversions that cause real damage.
And that the best form of an ideology is one that admits those cases where it is wrong, and always seeks to improve it.
I think it's one of the great things about Western religion, is that it goes through a reformation constantly, as it re-examines its principles, its morals, its values, acknowledges where it got it wrong, and then seeks to fix it.
Not through wholesale changes.
That's progressivism.
But through tinkering at the edges to correct those things that went wrong.
There's nothing wrong with that.
My issue is twofold.
One who believes that markets are evil and those who believe that markets should not be touched.
We have become so polarized right now.
I'm scared to death of the Wall Street Journal because I know that there is income inequality.
I can admit it.
There are rich people and there are poor people, and it is not the fault of every poor person, or even a majority of them, that they are poor.
They've been denied a decent education, they were denied a decent family, they were denied the same opportunities that we got.
You got them and I got them.
We were put on the right path.
We are responsible for our success or our failure, but we at least got on the right path.
What about the 20 or 25% who don't have that opportunity, who get stuck in schools that suck, who are taught by teachers who don't want to be there, that want to get out of class as soon as they can, are taught by teachers who have trouble with the lesson plan itself, and they shouldn't be there.
It is not their fault.
That they have one parent or no parents.
It is not their fault that everything around them teaches them about bad behavior.
You can't tell someone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they don't own boots.
And over the last three or four years, I'm working with kids who are teaching me that.
They joke that they're my life coach.
But they are teaching me about the 20% that I did not see.
And every time I sit with them, I hear about another pathology, another horrible story of what they went through.
And it isn't their fault.
And markets won't help them.
We have to intervene.
But...
If we destroy economic freedom in this country, we destroy all the greatness of the last 230 years.
We can help so many more people individually, personally.
Well, I mean, I wonder if, again, it's the language of a certain materialist point of view toward government that seems to have taken over.
What I mean by that is that the original bargain of the founders was that we would have an extremely limited government that was not capable of doing a great many things in order to protect our rights, and that a government too powerful would have the ability to invade those.
But that was balanced by a feeling of duty that we had for one another.
Well, no, this is, I think, what I'm arguing about with regard to materialism.
I think that both the right and the left believe that the solution is going to come through some form of government interventionism now.
And it seems like that's, I mean, the Republicans are spending as much as the Democrats or more.
And the Republicans are not looking to cut programs in any real way.
They're looking to maybe trim around the edges, but they're not looking to restore the value of a social fabric in absence of government.
Instead, what you hear conversations about are the failures of capitalism, but you never actually hear about the morality of capitalism for the sphere in which it operates.
I've actually told conservatives stop using the phrase capitalism because it undermines your philosophy.
Rush Limbaugh came at me by name saying that I'm a sellout.
And I say to him, because I know he watches you, I say to him, if you defend capitalism, you're defending the parts of the economy that the American people resent and they want to vote out of office.
But if you defend economic freedom, those are the principles of the founding fathers.
Those are the principles that have held this country so strong for so many decades.
And it all actually goes back to one issue, which we haven't talked about.
It's not been brought up in the democratic debates.
No one ever talks about it because we say it's a local issue.
And it is at the core, it's at the root of everything that is going wrong.
And that is the sorry state of our public schools.
If we can't educate, and I've got my staffer here, who insists on using 22 words when 16 will do.
Why does he write so much?
Because he was told, I need a 700 word essay.
Not valuing each word but just trying to get as many words onto a page.
We have schools that allow kids to graduate with diplomas they cannot read.
That they actually discourage those who are smartest and they bring them down to the average so that no one can excel.
I think we are destroying the fabric of this country by allowing our schools to be destroyed.
And it's not That I'm anti-public school.
I want all of our schools to do well.
But I don't care whether it's public or private.
I don't care whether it's merit pay, performance pay, or what you call it.
Show me another occupation where we pay the best people no better than where we pay the worst.
Show me something more important that we value more than our TV sets and our cars.
If our car doesn't work, we'll go to the shop, and if they don't fix it the first time, we'll yell at them.
Our kids are coming out more damaged than on televisions and our cars and we let it happen.
That parents aren't involved in the lives of their kids because they don't have time or they don't know what they're being taught.
And that we have principals who cannot ensure that their schools are a safe learning environment.
It is a disaster.
It is a tragedy.
And I am begging these Democratic candidates to talk about it.
And someone needs to look at a camera, straighten the eye, and say, if you allow this to happen anymore over the next 10 years, then it is your fault when our kids are speaking Chinese.
It is your fault when the Chinese companies are coming in with better technology, better manufacturing, And better capability to out-compete our kids.
I care about nothing more than I care about teaching.
And NYU Abu Dhabi is the most global education in the world.
The highest percentage of any student are Emiratis themselves at 14% and Americans are at 12%.
There's no place where you get this mix.
Over a hundred countries are represented in the 1,200 students.
My Chinese students, I'm going to get yelled at for this too.
My Chinese students want to know how to get an A. My Chinese students are lobbying to keep the library open 24 hours a day.
My Chinese students are trying to figure out what they need to know, what they need to learn, how they will succeed.
And my American students are looking for the bar.
They're looking to have a drink and they're looking to have fun.
There was a survey that was taken of Chinese mothers and American mothers, what they prioritize for their kids.
American moms wanted their kids to be happy.
Chinese kids wanted their children to be educated.
Well, the Chinese kids got what they wanted.
The parents got what they wanted.
They're kids educated and they're really unhappy.
The American kids are really happy and really uneducated.
And if we don't get our act together, then this country will not survive.
The yelling and screaming about Donald Trump or Nancy Pelosi or impeachment, that is all irrelevant.
If we have a healthy school, a healthy classroom, we can survive anything, because we will produce students who are able to handle the problems of the 21st century.
But if we continue to allow our schools to deteriorate, if we continue to fight over charter, if we fight over the teachers' unions... Education is not an employment program.
If Teach for America works, let those teachers in there.
The unions are fighting to get Teach for America thrown out.
You know why?
Because those young people teach better than the teachers who are 25 years older than them.
Because they care.
And they want to spend time with their students.
We need institutions like NYU Abu Dhabi who are teaching a global population, global issues, global concerns, global threats.
We're going to solve them in America.
And we're going to do good things for the world.
But if our kids can't compete with the kids from China, Japan, and Korea, and the other European nations, if we continue to score 20th in language and 30th in math, God knows what we score in science.
So in a second, I want to ask you about—go back to a topic we addressed very briefly originally, and that is, is it possible to sell anybody anything, basically?
Can you sell ice to an Eskimo using the correct language of politics?
But first, you may not know this, I'm a watch guy.
All Vincero watches are crafted with top quality materials, including surgical grade stainless steel, real top grade Italian leather, and the back of the watches includes a piece of genuine Italian marble.
These are materials you wouldn't expect in a watch at such an affordable price.
Because here's the thing, the price point is really, really good.
With the holidays coming up so fast, you need to head over to VinceroWatches.com forward slash Shapiro, and you can see my favorite picks and use code SHAPIRO at checkout for 15% off your entire order.
Plus, they are covering shipping costs.
So I have this engraved watch.
One of the things they do is they'll engrave the back of your watch that says, facts don't care about your feelings.
I know.
These timepieces make an incredible gift.
It is the perfect time to pick up a timepiece for that significant other.
In fact, I've done this with my wife.
Half my family have Vincero watches at this point.
With multiple collections for both men and women, you're bound to find a design that matches their look and style perfectly.
They will thank you.
Vincero believes watches can do more than tell time.
They tell the world what you're all about.
They make a statement about who you are.
It immediately establishes you as ambitious, smart, successful, without you needing to shout it.
Or, you can lie about being all of those things by wearing a Vincero watch.
People just get it.
when they see you wearing one of their watches.
The deal is fantastic.
Go to vincerowatches.com/shapiro, that's vincerowatches.com/shapiro, and use code Shapiro to get 15% off.
Okay, so let's talk about the use of language in politics, which of course is your specialty.
I think people get uncomfortable when we talk about the use of language in politics because, and this is sort of, I think, what Trump may be getting at when he says, "I don't even care, I'm just gonna say what I feel, "and that's my appeal." Do people feel, I certainly can see it, people feel like if the question here is just about using the right words, do the ideas even matter?
People have to feel that you should not be taxed just because you die.
That a death tax is not fair to a family that is going through a great tragedy and they have to get their assets in order and they have to figure out what they're going to have to write to their government.
We think that if parents are going to sacrifice, their kids should be able to enjoy that sacrifice.
It does matter if it's a scholarship.
Or a voucher.
A voucher is a piece of paper.
An opportunity scholarship is a chance for a better future.
Even something so simple.
We've got water here.
Sparkling water.
If this is carbonated, it means it's got chemicals.
But if this is sparkling, it's a refreshing taste.
So yeah, the words do matter.
I was criticized for Obamacare because in my research, we called it a government takeover.
Now the people who criticized me backed away.
Three years later, because people really did lose their doctor, they really did lose their hospital, they did lose their health care plan, it actually was government involvement in health care.
And then it took three years for them to back away from it, because we saw that what the Republicans had said about it turned out to be true.
That said, Messaging does matter.
How you communicate it does matter.
Paul Ryan had the most complicated, convoluted defense of his healthcare plan.
And we were able to summarize it in 14 words.
The choice and control you want, the affordability you need, and the quality you deserve.
Simple.
And that's what the plan did.
But he talked about competition and selling health plans across state lines.
It was just unintelligible for most people.
So yes, language matters, but you cannot sell ice to Eskimos.
And it is not manipulation.
You actually have a responsibility to clarify what you mean.
You have a responsibility to say what you mean and mean what you say.
And that's what I try to help I really stopped doing it.
I'm not really involved in much policy anymore and I'm not involved in any campaigns.
Because they don't like it.
It's 97% negative and I don't want to do it.
And I realized this 10 years ago.
But it does frustrate me and I cannot look at a political ad without...
That woman over there should be 20 years older.
The kid that just came in, too young.
We need someone slightly older.
Where's the line?
My biggest bugaboo about political ads is that they love to film them in kitchens because kitchen table economics or balancing your books at the kitchen.
The truth is most people don't use their kitchen table for it.
They do it in their den.
Second is that all the kitchens I see in these ads have islands.
Most of your viewers, do you have an island in your house?
You learn from people by asking them questions, which is what you do here.
I wonder what percentage of your guests ask you questions back again.
Because that's what this is about, is asking the viewer what you think, what you know, what you believe, what you're afraid of, what you want the most.
How can I inspire you to do more, give more, be more involved in helping others?
It is awesome because it allows you to explain in your words, not mine, what matters most.
It's why I learned about the word imagine.
Most powerful word in the English language.
When you ask people to imagine a better America, you would say what?
Every one of them has a different definition of it, but every one is correct.
That's what a focus group does.
It explains this.
It allowed me to understand the importance of efficient, effective, accountable government.
Not small government.
Not limited government.
But a government that's more for less.
A government that only does what it does well, and a government that's held responsible if it doesn't deliver.
That's efficient, effective, and accountable.
Something that's meaningful and measurable.
They taught me that through focus groups.
So much of my language comes from asking questions and listening to the responses, rather than just putting it out on a very dry survey where you have five or seven or nine different choices.
The focus group allows you to go wherever you want to go, and it also shows me intensity and passion.
And that's what's frightening to me right now.
When I used to moderate these, people would be expressive, but they knew when to stop.
The groups I've done over the last three or four years, the one I did for CBS News two nights before the election in 2016, if you go back to the video, because they kept it in, I walked off the set.
Again, I'll give you something I never told anyone.
I quit that night.
We were two days before the election.
I was livid at these people because they were just shouting at each other, yelling at each other.
You could barely hear it.
In fact, the sound guys said at one moment it went into the red.
It actually was distorted.
And you hear it happen.
And I'm telling them, stop!
And they won't stop.
And I just walked off.
And I told the executive producer at the time, I quit.
This is what you all have created.
This is what Clinton and Trump and the media have created in the American psyche.
You go live with it.
I'm going to New Zealand.
And he said to me, I can't use bad language, but he said to me, get the hell back in there.
Stop complaining and do your job.
We put a lot of money to put these cameras here.
Do your damn job.
Get in there.
And I thought to myself, wow, you're a really mean guy.