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Jan. 24, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show

56:31

Hunting For Hunter | Ep. 939

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	Democrats unwittingly opened the door for a Hunter Biden's testimony while targeting Donald Trump.
	Bernie gained ground in New Hampshire and Bernie comes under fire for touting a Joe Rogan endorsement.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN YouTube.
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	Protect it at expressvpn.com slash ben.
	Well, I know you're yawning because, after all, we're still covering impeachment.
	Why the hell are we covering impeachment?
	I know it's supposed to be super duper important, but here is the reality.
	People are bored.
	Now, I know the media is going to tell you that this is a figment of the right-wing imagination, that actually people are on tenterhooks, but the ratings do not lie.
	The ratings continue to be abysmal for what is supposed to be one of the great historic moments in American history, the moment when Adam Schiff saved the republic.
	I do not think that the American people are tuned into this thing.
	I don't think the American people care deeply.
	I think all of this is baked into the cake at this point.
	So, the fact that the Democrats keep trying to sell this thing, like the entertainment press is trying to sell female Ghostbusters, is entertaining to me.
	It's also entertaining to me how the Democrats have decided to ramp up the theatrics.
	So, in the end, the case that they are making about President Trump is not completely implausible, right?
	They're making the case that Trump tried to pressure The president of Ukraine into going after Joe Biden to benefit Trump in 2020 solely.
	That is their case.
	Now, is that a plausible read?
	It's not totally implausible, but is it evidentiarily based?
	No, it is not.
	And when you're trying to prove a case, you actually have to provide the entire chain of evidence.
	The Democrats have not done that.
	And so instead, what they're doing is Al Pacino in An Justice for All, banging the table, yelling at the moon.
	This whole court is out of order!
	So you have Adam Schiff, who is just a partisan hack.
	I mean, a real partisan hack.
	A man who, as I've said before, went on television for two years claiming he had secret information that was going to damn President Trump to impeachment for collusion with Russia.
	You have Adam Schiff pretending to be a leader of the moral hierarchy in the United States.
	You have Adam Schiff, the same fellow who within the last week has openly lied about content he knew he was lying about.
	Notes from Lev Parnas to Rudy Giuliani concerning a meeting with the head of Burisma.
	He portrayed it as a meeting with the head of Ukraine.
	Adam Schiff, the same guy who was pretty much openly cooperating, his office was, with the whistleblower and then pretending he had no idea who the whistleblower was and all of this, which I don't believe for half a second.
	Adam Schiff, a deeply dishonest human being.
	He was out there making his closing argument last night and it was as dishonest as you would suspect, but it was also as emotional as you would suspect.
	He took CNN's Dana Bash's, Dana Bash had a suggestion yesterday.
	She said, the American people, they don't seem all that invested in this.
	What we need is we need more props and more emotion.
	We need the Democrats to get up there and do an episode of The Muppet Show.
	We actually need Kermit the Frog talking about Donald Trump and Ukraine.
	Miss Piggy!
	Oh, Kermit!
	And then in the background, you could have the two old guys up on the balcony going, this show is terrible!
	Ah!
	And then the American people would actually be interested in this thing.
	So Adam Schiff put on his own Muppet eyes and decided that he would go for it, that he was going to really up the emotion.
	Here is Adam Schiff choking up.
	Now, do you believe that Adam Schiff is actually getting choked up here?
	Do you believe that Adam Schiff, a former prosecutor, longtime congressperson, that he is actually getting emotional here?
	That Adam Schiff is just, he was overwhelmed with the moment.
	That he was so overcome with the moment that he was getting choked up because morality matters and right matters.
	Okay, if you believe this, you're an idiot.
	Seriously, if you believe in the emotion of politicians generally, you're an idiot.
	The only time I've ever seen politicians get truly emotional and I thought, okay, this is pretty real.
	is when George W. Bush after 9-11, because everybody was so shaken up by 9-11, or you might say like Edmund Muskie in 1972 when his actual family is being attacked.
	Like I believe it when Joe Biden gets pissed about Hunter Biden or Beau Biden.
	I totally get it, right?
	Somebody attacks your family, that is a place where you are going to get...
	upset.
	But do I believe it when politicians on the grand stage in their closing argument suddenly turn into Jimmy Stewart from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?
	No, I don't believe that for a second because Jimmy Stewart was an actor.
	And you know what?
	This is what we call acting.
	John Lovett's acting.
	Here we go.
	Adam Schiff acting.
	Here, right is supposed to matter.
	It's what's made us the greatest nation on earth.
	No constitution can protect us. - Yes.
	Right doesn't matter anymore.
	And you know, you can't trust this president to do what's right for this country.
	If you find him guilty, you must find that he should be removed.
	Because right matters.
	Because right matters.
	And the truth matters.
	Otherwise we are lost.
	Oh my god.
	Yes.
	And people were going gaga for this.
	This trended.
	Right Matters trended.
	Because, oh, it was not scripted.
	It was just a spontaneous moment.
	It was just a moment.
	Mr. Smith goes to wash and Claude Rains in the back room shooting himself.
	Or alternatively, this was highly produced and really silly and quite ridiculous.
	And again, the whole argument is quite ridiculous and self-contradictory.
	Because when you actually look at what Adam Schiff said yesterday, so many of the things that he said were just not true.
	So here was Adam Schiff, for example, talking about Barack Obama's Ukraine policy.
	So one of the points that the Trump team has made is that you keep complaining about the Trump team's treatment of Ukraine.
	You keep complaining that Team Trump is really, really mean to Ukraine.
	Well, Team Trump provided actual killing aid to Ukraine, like military aid to Ukraine that included weaponry capable of protecting them against the Russians, which is something the Obama administration did not do.
	And yet you had Adam Schiff saying, no, no, no, you don't understand.
	Obama rallied the world against Russia invading Ukraine.
	Really?
	Did he?
	Because it seems to me that Russia is still in Crimea.
	Like now.
	Today.
	And that rallying the world involved President Trump basically doing nothing for months on end, and then every so often saying that it was very, very bad, that Russia was doing a very bad thing.
	Which is exactly what he did in Syria also.
	So here is Adam Schiff just lying about Barack Obama's record.
	President Obama used his calls with foreign leaders to contain the fallout from the global economic crisis, assemble an international coalition to fight the Islamic State, and of course to rally support for Ukraine following Russia's invasion of Crimea.
	No matter what you think of the policy views or priorities of these prior presidents, there is no question that they are examples of the normal diplomacy that happens during presidential telephone calls.
	And then there's the normal diplomacy that happens when you're on the stage with Dimitri Medvedev and telling him that you'll offer his country flexibility after the election so long as they back off before the election.
	That was the part that Adam Schiff didn't play on tape.
	But he's a deeply honest man.
	Right matters.
	Right matters.
	We're going to get to more of Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler and the rest of the Democrats.
	Also, I've got to tell you about this amazing controversy that has now broken out over my friend Joe Rogan.
	Apparently Joe Rogan is now cancelled, which you knew was coming, but cancelled for the most bizarre reason.
	It's pretty incredible.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
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	Okay, speaking of Adam Schiff pushing silliness.
	So Adam Schiff also made the case that President Trump was pushing Russian propaganda about Ukrainian interference in the election.
	Now, I think that President Trump buys into confirmation bias in an extraordinary way.
	I think that President Trump bought into a bunch of stories about all the stuff that was happening in Ukraine.
	And a lot of those stories were not true.
	The conspiracy theory that CrowdStrike was a Ukrainian-operated business that was hiding the reality that Ukraine had hacked Hillary Clinton's server, that Hillary Clinton's actual server was buried in a forest outside Kiev or some such nonsense.
	I agree that that's nonsense, but the Democrats really overplayed their hand here when they suggest that there was no Ukrainian interference in the election.
	We know that there was Ukrainian interference in the election.
	Politico reported there was Ukrainian interference in the election.
	The two are not mutually exclusive.
	And that's not to say that the Ukrainian interference was anything like on the magnitude of the Russian interference.
	It was not.
	But for the Democrats to overplay this thing and then say there was no interference, which is what they now have to claim in order so that they can say that it was really about Donald Trump trying to manufacture information about Joe Biden for 2020, they have to fib.
	So here's Adam Schiff fibbing a little bit.
	What the president is talking about here is a very specific conspiracy theory.
	Going to the server itself.
	Meaning that it was Ukraine that hacked the Democratic server, not the Russians.
	This theory was brought to you by the Kremlin.
	Okay?
	So we're not talking about generic interference, we're talking about the server.
	We're talking about CrowdStrike, at least that's what Donald Trump wanted investigated.
	Or announced.
	This completely bogus Kremlin pushed conspiracy theory.
	And so again, the reason that he is saying this is because if he acknowledges that maybe there could be legit interest in what Ukraine did and maybe what Trump was doing, even if it was based on wrong information, was not badly motivated.
	And the problem is the Democrats have to assume motive in order to get where they want to go right here.
	Meanwhile, the Democrats are opening the door to testimony by Hunter Biden.
	So Sylvia Garcia, Representative Garcia, she's one of the other impeachment managers in the House.
	And she, like Adam Schiff, they do not want Hunter Biden to testify.
	So they want to have it both ways.
	They want to have Lev Parnas testify.
	They want to have Mick Mulvaney, as we'll get to, testify.
	They want everybody to testify except for Hunter Biden.
	They do not want Hunter Biden to testify.
	And so they've been making the argument that Hunter Biden should not testify because they're trying to protect Joe Biden.
	Sheryl Gay Stolberg reporting for the New York Times, House Democrats sought on Thursday to preemptively dismantle President Trump's core defenses in his impeachment trial, invoking his own words to argue that his pressure campaign on Ukraine was an abuse of power that warranted his removal.
	Democrats sought to make the case that Trump's actions were an affront to the Constitution, and they worked to disprove his lawyer's claim that he was acting only in the nation's interest when he sought to enlist Ukraine to investigate political rivals.
	In doing so, they took a calculated risk in talking at length about President Trump's targets, including former VP Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and underscored the political backdrop of a trial unfolding only 10 months before the election and likely to reverberate long after the verdict.
	Even if the president wanted an investigation of Hunter Biden, there is no basis for that either.
	about Hunter Biden, no reason to be concerned about Hunter Biden.
	The Democrats are playing a dangerous game here because once they say we want additional witnesses and then they say we don't want Hunter Biden, people are going to say, OK, why why is the central issue here not being addressed?
	Here's Sylvia Garcia opening the door wide.
	Even if the president wanted an investigation of Hunter Biden, there is no basis for that either.
	Now, how do you know?
	Well, Ukraine's former prosecutor general admitted that the allegation against Vice President Biden's son was plainly false.
	Even the Ukrainians believe that Biden's son did nothing wrong.
	We've got a couple problems here.
	One, some Ukrainians say that Hunter Biden did nothing wrong and Joe Biden did nothing wrong.
	Then you have other prosecutors like Victor Shokin, the one that Biden went after, who is actually apparently selling the information that Biden did do something wrong.
	Also, if your line is that Ukrainians said that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden did nothing wrong, you know who has said that Donald Trump did nothing wrong?
	All of the Ukrainian leadership.
	So if you're going to cite the Ukrainian leadership to the effect that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden are off the hook, the same people have also said that Donald Trump is off the hook, but you don't cite them in support of one proposition, but you cite them in support of the other proposition.
	So all of this is a bit of a mess for the Democrats.
	We're going to get to More of this in just one second.
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	Now the Democrats, again, are trying to manipulate the process more than a little bit here.
	The way that they are doing this is they are targeting people deliberately, whom they know have executive privilege, specifically so that they can claim that obstruction is going on.
	This is the argument being made by Senator Tom Cotton.
	This is obviously true.
	They did this in the House.
	They would say that they wanted a particular witness.
	The witness would say, well, I'm going to appeal that to a court.
	And then the Democrats would say, we don't want you to appeal it to a court.
	And now you're obstructing.
	We're not going to go through the process and also you're obstructing.
	Well now, it looks like what the Democrats want to do is call people like Mick Mulvaney, the chief of staff.
	Or John Bolton.
	People who are subject to executive privilege.
	Particularly on foreign policy, executive privilege does run pretty wide.
	Tom Cotton says what Democrats are doing right here is they're attempting to call people who will cite executive privilege so they can then claim that obstruction is taking place.
	The Democrats have not sought the testimony of Rudy Giuliani, a private citizen, or say, Secretary Rick Perry or Secretary Mike Pompeo, who regularly testify in front of Congress.
	Why are they going after the President's closest advisors, those most likely subject to executive privilege?
	It's because they care more about trying to create a campaign issue against Republican senators than they care about getting relevant testimony.
	Okay, and again, that is underscored by the fact that they keep saying that Hunter Biden should not testify.
	Lindsey Graham, who is fairly close with Joe Biden, right?
	I mean, they're pretty friendly.
	He says, listen, I don't think Joe Biden is corrupt, but we sort of have to ask the question at this point, and let's be straight about this.
	If Hunter Biden was named Donald Trump Jr., and he was doing all this stuff right now, wouldn't the Democrats be taking precisely the opposite position?
	Here's Senator Graham.
	From the time they raided the president's home, Joe Biden called the president of Ukraine four times, got on a plane, and said, if you don't fire this guy, you don't get the billion dollars.
	I love Joe Biden.
	But I can tell you, if the name was Trump, there'd be a lot of questions asked.
	I don't think Joe Biden's corrupt, but I don't think he's beyond being looked at.
	Here's what I would say.
	How many members of the body's children are on foreign boards Receiving this kind of money.
	Okay, again, these are legit questions.
	Senator Ted Cruz saying the same thing.
	And the Democrats keep saying, we're not going to allow Hunter Biden to testify.
	It's irrelevant.
	He's not going to testify.
	Senator Cruz keeps saying, okay, well, that is the president's defense.
	And now you're trying to deny him his main defense, which is that he was legitimately interested in corruption in Ukraine, including Hunter Biden's corruption.
	Here is Senator Cruz.
	Adam Schiff's arguments to open the day-to-day directly drew into question Hunter Biden and made not only his testimony relevant, which it already was, but it is now critical because the House Democrats have built their entire case on the proposition that any investigation into Baris and corruption was a sham, that it was completely debunked.
	The problem is, there is very significant prima facie evidence of corruption.
	Okay, well, we'll find out.
	Because again, if we call additional witnesses, I think there's very little doubt Hunter Biden ends up on the stand.
	And at the very least, that's not gonna look great for Joe Biden.
	No matter whether Joe Biden did something wrong or whether he didn't do something wrong, it doesn't look great when you're squiring your son around and he's using your last name to pick up bags of cash.
	In foreign countries.
	Meanwhile, the other big news from impeachment gate is that CBS Evening News is reporting that apparently somebody, and it's unclear who, somebody, either a Republican in the Senate or a Republican in the White House is telling people in the Senate that their head will be on a pike, that their head will be on a pike if they oppose President Trump in this impeachment effort.
	Now, why that exactly is newsworthy is beyond me, honestly.
	Like, I understand that the language is very colorful, but do you think that those sorts of threats do not happen literally every single day in the legislature?
	Why do you think that people back down before Nancy Pelosi?
	Do you think it's because she wheedles them?
	Or do you think that she says, guess what, I'm not going to fundraise for you, and the guillotine is prepared in the back room?
	You can say what you want.
	All I'm saying is that your head may not be connected to your body.
	You can't portray her as the Queen of Dragons without there being a little bit of a threat involved, which is exactly the way the Democrats have portrayed Nancy Pelosi for years.
	But apparently it's very, very bad for the White House to employ its leverage over Republicans.
	Now listen, would it be better, would we live in a better world if nobody ever applied leverage to their own congresspeople and everybody just voted their conscience?
	Of course.
	Has that ever been the way that American politics works or any other politics for that matter?
	Not in the slightest.
	I'm treating this as a shock that the White House or that Mitch McConnell's office is trying to apply leverage to its own members.
	Why exactly is that shocking?
	They literally do this on every bill.
	On every bill you attempt to apply leverage.
	It's just a question of degree.
	Nonetheless, CBS News reported that senators were warned.
	They don't say by whom.
	An unnamed source close to the president.
	Which could be anybody, right?
	Really anybody.
	It could be somebody who is a staffer for the president.
	It could be George Conway because he's close to the president by proxy.
	It could be anybody telling CBS News that apparently senators were warned, quote, vote against the president and your head will be on a pike.
	And then the Daily Mail reports, it's unclear from the report whether the warning was issued by the White House or Republican leadership in the Senate.
	So we don't even know who issued the warning.
	It could have been just some guy on a street corner going, your head will be on a pike!
	And CBS News is like, well, that's a threat.
	That's a threat.
	What does that mean?
	Does anybody actually believe that President Trump is going to stomp on over to the Senate?
	And he's going to take out a broad axe?
	And he's going to start going to town if somebody votes against him on impeachment?
	No, it means that he's applying political pressure, which again, if you think political pressure was not applied on Democrats during the Clinton impeachment, you're out of your mind.
	Political pressure is always applied.
	That's the nature of politics.
	But this is now being used as a case in point of Trumpian intimidation, when in reality, that's just the nature of politics.
	What's more interesting than that report, and this one is not getting any play, is the fact that Democrats are not approaching any of the moderate Republicans.
	The Washington Post reports That the most closely watched senators of President Trump's impeachment trial are oddly isolated.
	They say that President Trump is keeping his distance because White House advisors are telling him that outreach wouldn't help his cause, which is obviously true.
	If Trump calls up Susan Collins, she's going to say that he is trying to intimidate her and she's going to stand up to him, right?
	If he calls up Mitt Romney, that's not going to go great for him.
	But meanwhile, Democrats say there is no serious effort to privately lobby the Republicans, with the party instead relying on public opinion and the House prosecutors to squeeze them into breaking ranks.
	What does that go to show?
	It shows that they know that they're not going to get those Republican senators on their side.
	They're just trying to gin up public sentiment in advance of the 2020 elections.
	That's really what that is about, right?
	If the Democrats truly cared about trying to win this impeachment vote, they'd be out there lobbying the Republican senators like day in and day out.
	But they're not doing any of that.
	Instead, they are pushing a different idea, which is public opinion, right?
	They're trying to push public opinion to push the senators, which really suggests that this isn't about winning the impeachment battle at all.
	Really, what this is about, in effect, is trying to undercut those senators for purposes of 2020, which, of course, is what this entire thing is about in the first place.
	In just one second, I'm going to get to the 2020 race because frankly, all of this is about the 2020 race and there is a fascinating example of the left shooting itself directly in the foot because they cannot help themselves.
	Truly cannot help themselves.
	It's amazing.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
	First, we're three days into this impeachment trial.
	It is clear that the Democrats are going to manipulate this thing with everything they've got.
	The media are going to help them out.
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	Meanwhile, in the 2020 race, I am amused by the radical left.
	I'm amused by them.
	So yesterday, Joe Rogan, who's a friend of mine, right?
	Full disclosure, I'm friends with Joe.
	I think Joe's a good dude.
	We disagree on a wide variety of topics, but what's fun about Joe is that Joe is really open-minded.
	He's willing to discuss with anybody.
	Like, he'll have anybody on his show.
	He'll have tons of people from a variety of different viewpoints.
	He's had me, he's had Bernie Sanders.
	He's had Barry Weiss, and he's had people who I think are wildly not Barry Weiss, right?
	I mean, he's had people from virtually every area of life.
	Well, Joe Rogan was asked by Barry Weiss on his show I think I'll probably vote for Bernie.
	Him as a human being, when I was hanging out with him, I believe in him, I like him, I like him a lot.
	What Bernie stands for is a guy who, look, you could dig up dirt on every single human being that's ever existed if you catch them in their worst moment and you magnify those moments and you cut out everything else and you only display those worst moments.
	That said, You can't find very many with Bernie.
	He's been insanely consistent his entire life.
	Okay, so Rogan is saying, what really is Bernie's appeal?
	Which is that Bernie has been this old commie for his entire life.
	Now, I don't find that appealing, right?
	I think that his ideas have been bad since, basically, he emerged from his mother's womb at age 82.
	But, like, he's like the high school principal in Back to the Future.
	The man never had hair, right?
	I mean, he was always like this.
	But, That is his appeal, right?
	The appeal of Bernie is the authenticity.
	It's the reason why people have not turned to Elizabeth Warren.
	They feel she's inauthentic.
	People who like Bernie believe that he is authentic, and so they're like, okay, at least he believes what he believes, and that goes a long way with Joe.
	Now, again, I disagree with Joe on this.
	I think Bernie Sanders is a trash heap.
	I think he's awful.
	I think he associates with the worst people.
	I think that he champions the worst people.
	But what's hilarious is the left, which has no problem whatsoever with Bernie Sanders hanging out with Linda Sarsour, no problem with him being endorsed by Sean King, no problem with Bernie Sanders touting the endorsements of some of the most radical people in American life.
	Joe Rogan said that, right?
	He said, I'd be likely to vote for Bernie Sanders.
	And Bernie Sanders had the temerity to put that up on his Twitter page.
	And now, that is trending number one on Twitter.
	Number one.
	Not because Rogan said that he'd be likely to vote for Sanders.
	That's not actually a huge surprise, right?
	Joe is an out-of-the-box dude.
	That's not, it really is not super shocking.
	And authenticity matters an awful lot to Joe.
	The reason people are mad is because Joe Rogan has had people like me on his show.
	And the fact that Joe Rogan has had people like me on his show means that Joe Rogan is a very bad man who's very bad and very bad.
	And that means that Bernie Sanders touting his endorsement is really awful.
	Because Joe Rogan believes things like sometimes he says that men are men and women are women and that men should not fight women in MMA.
	That's a thing he has said, and that is quite terrible.
	And also, Joe Rogan is a comedian, which means he has said very politically correct and offensive things in the past, and that is very bad.
	And so now, Bernie Sanders is being attacked by the woke left for the sin of touting the fact that the most popular podcaster in America, right?
	I mean, Joe is huge.
	That Joe came out and said that he would vote for Bernie in a primary, or is likely to vote in a primary.
	The left is so self-defeating, and Bernie deserves every bit of this, of course, because Bernie has courted this.
	For all the talk about Bernie's authenticity, here's where Joe, I think, is wrong.
	Bernie is authentic until the point where he is challenged, at which point he backs down like a little pansy.
	He is absolutely authentic until the point where he's attacked on it and then he runs screaming from the room.
	To give an example, he was endorsed by Cenk Iger.
	So Cenk and I have our disagreements, to put it mildly.
	You can find a debate with me and Cenk online.
	It's a pretty fun debate.
	Hey, Cenk is running for Congress out here in California.
	He also has a big show called The Young Turks, which is weird since for a long time he didn't believe in the Armenian genocide.
	But in any case, Cenk has a long history of saying pretty wild things.
	Hey, but Cenk was always a Sanders supporter, right?
	He always supported Sanders.
	Right?
	It's like he's always supported him.
	And So Cenk endorsed Sanders.
	Sanders said thank you.
	And then people started filling up Sanders' feed with all the things that Cenk has said over the years, and Sanders basically withdrew his endorsement of the endorsement.
	He basically disassociated from Cenk, which is the most gutless move in the entire world.
	I mean, super duper gutless.
	It's not like Cenk was hiding the ball.
	Cenk has been Cenk forever.
	Yeah, the same thing with Rogan.
	I would not be surprised if Bernie Sanders backs off of this.
	I would not be surprised if Bernie Sanders pulls down the tweet and says, while I'm grateful for Joe Rogan's support, I don't agree with everything that Joe Rogan says, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	That would not be surprising to me at all.
	This is, and he deserves that.
	I mean, that's what he, he has, he has facilitated the rise of this woke left.
	He has.
	He didn't have to.
	He could have been the guy standing up to it, but he has facilitated that rise.
	He has catered to that rise.
	And now he's feeling the blowback from it.
	So fine.
	But it is amazing that the world the left wants to create.
	It really is an incredible world.
	I mean, Rogan has had on a variety of Democratic candidates, and many of the candidates have asked to come on, and he has said, I don't really want you to come on, right?
	But, Andrew, I'll give you another example of how the woke left is ruining America.
	So Andrew Yang, right?
	Andrew Yang is, according to the Emerson poll, now running fourth, right?
	He has like 8% in national polls, according to some polls, which is amazing for a dude who has been completely shut out of the media.
	Andrew Yang had the temerity to appear with me on a Sunday special where he had an hour-long discussion of universal basic income that was completely cordial and interesting and fun and informative.
	It has millions of views online.
	He was blasted for the sin of that.
	Blasted for it.
	One of the reasons Andrew Yang is popular is because Andrew Yang is willing to have conversations with people who disagree without demonizing them.
	Meanwhile, you get Pete Buttigieg.
	Pete Buttigieg has catered to the woke left every step of the way, very early on in the campaign when he first announced, I invited Pete Buttigieg to come on the Sunday special.
	And his campaign manager said he'd love to come on the Sunday special, because at that point he had no attention.
	And then, they got so much blowback that he just ghosted, right?
	Then it was like, nope, don't exist anymore, not interested in coming on, not even going to respond to emails.
	That is not how you build a coalition, obviously.
	But the Democrats are not interested in building a coalition.
	The woke Democrats, at least, are not interested in building a coalition.
	And let's be frank about this.
	I hate giving advice to Democrats.
	Let's be frank about this, Democrats.
	If you are going to force Joe Rogan out of your circle, if you're going to tell you that Joe Rogan cannot, you cannot tout an endorsement from Joe Rogan because he said some bad things about how men are men and women are women.
	Good luck to you.
	Good luck to you.
	You're going to have to win some people like Joe Rogan if you hope to win an election.
	And you want to push Joe Rogan over to my side of the aisle?
	Keep doing this kind of stuff.
	Seriously.
	You want to push people like Joe Rogan, people like Andrew Yang over to my All you have to do is keep being vicious jackasses all the time and dredging up old comments and then suggesting, well, this person is very bad.
	This is a very bad person.
	And it's incredible how the media not only go along with this, but facilitate all of this.
	So Sam Stein, who is a quote unquote reporter with the Daily Beast, which is to say that he is an activist with the Daily Beast.
	It's pretty incredible.
	Sam Stein had an exchange with Glenn Greenwald.
	Okay, Glenn Greenwald is hardly a person with a sterling record when it comes to controversy at the very least, right?
	He's a very controversial figure, Glenn Greenwald.
	This is a guy who helped Edward Snowden release documents at the behest of the Russian government, allegedly, right?
	I mean, Glenn Greenwald I think he does some good work.
	I think he does some work that I disapprove of.
	I don't particularly like his point of view at all.
	I will note here, by the way, that right now he's being prosecuted in Brazil.
	That's completely inappropriate.
	I don't see any evidence that he's violated the law in Brazil.
	Here I am defending somebody I completely disagree with and I think has vicious views on a variety of topics.
	But Glenn Greenwald, he has an exchange with Sam Stein.
	Sam Stein's a reporter for the Daily Beast.
	And Sam Stein starts criticizing Bernie for the Rogan stuff.
	Right, he tweets out, I totally see the merits in Bernie touting the Joe Rogan endorsement, but I'm also deeply cognizant that I'm not from a community of people that he has attacked and ridiculed, and I have to imagine this is very hard for them.
	Very hard for them.
	Just terrible, terrible.
	Okay, and then Glenn Greenwald responded, quite appropriately, well, you know, it makes kind of sense that he is touting the endorsement from Rogan, because if you actually want to win a coalition, then one of the things that you're going to have to do is Appeal to people who may disagree with you on a variety of other topics.
	And Sam Stein then responds, Right?
	I mean, this is how far they've gone.
	The way that they've gone is, first of all, I would never endorse Bernie Sanders, but the thought experiment goes something like this.
	If Joe Rogan, who has said bad, mean things, is endorsed by Bernie Sanders, or at least his endorsement is endorsed by Bernie Sanders, that's very bad.
	Where are you going to stop?
	Where's the line?
	Is the line that you're going to say that it's okay to tout an endorsement from Ben Shapiro?
	Sam Stein, alleged reporter for the Daily Beast.
	This is what the left wants.
	What the left wants is to circle the wagons, shut that Overton window so tight that anybody who's outside that Overton window cannot ever be acknowledged as a human being.
	And to make it so that if somebody endorses you, you have to agree with every one of their views in order for you to accept the endorsement.
	Now listen, it would be perfectly appropriate if neo-Nazis endorsed Bernie Sanders for Bernie to say, I don't want their endorsement, right?
	That's perfectly appropriate.
	There are certain views that obviously are outside the bounds of, shall we say, the mainstream in American society.
	Men are men and women are women is not outside the bounds of mainstream in American society.
	Joe Rogan is the most popular podcaster in America.
	The fact that the Democrats see fit to go after Bernie Sanders for the great sin of acknowledging that people who disagree on transgender issues might support him.
	Have at it, guys.
	Really, enjoy.
	Enjoy.
	This is the world you want.
	This is the world you're gonna get.
	And Bernie Sanders will lose running away if he caters to you guys.
	At some point here, Bernie's actually gonna have to stand on his hind legs.
	It's amazing.
	For a guy who is considered so courageous, when's the last time he actually stood up on his hind legs and said no to anybody who wasn't the capitalist?
	It's the only issue where he won't back down is when he's ripping on capitalism.
	When it comes to the woke left, there's been no point anywhere along the line here where he has just said, nope, this is a bunch of crap.
	Not one point.
	Anywhere along the line.
	Instead, he just caters and caters and caters.
	We'll see.
	I have my doubts that he's going to stick by the Joe Rogan tweet.
	I have a feeling that he's probably going to back down.
	Now, maybe he doesn't.
	He'd be a fool to.
	He's kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place now.
	But good luck.
	Good luck to Bernie Sanders.
	Meanwhile, Team Obama is going after Bernie Sanders, too.
	So, an ex-Obama campaign manager basically said that Bernie is the worst candidate in the field.
	The war on Bernie has begun.
	And that war will not stop until Joe Biden is the nominee.
	Here is one of Obama's ex-campaign managers explaining that Bernie is a terrible candidate.
	Bernie, a lot of what he says, the message is basically, you can live your life for free.
	We'll have free college tuition.
	We'll have free this.
	We'll forgive you student debts.
	It's a powerful message.
	It is, but in the general election, it's a message that I think is going to get him killed.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I think he's the worst candidate in a general election for exactly that reason.
	You think Bernie's the worst candidate?
	Oh, I don't think there's a question about it.
	Okay, so the guns have opened up from Team Obama on Team Bernie, and that is not particularly surprising, but this is the time for Bernie to fight back.
	This is his last stand.
	This is the Alamo for Bernie.
	This is where Bernie has to stand.
	This is Stalingrad, to use a better analogy, because Bernie is indeed a Stalinist.
	The people who are attacking him are not Nazis, though, so I guess I'll have to think of another analogy.
	All right, in any case, the fact that the Democrats are going after Bernie and that they're going after him for the great sin of unwokeness is amusing to me.
	I am enjoying it, and enjoy, really, enjoy yourselves, guys.
	Okay, in just a second, we're actually gonna do the mailbag.
	We haven't done that in a few weeks, so I would love to take your questions in the mailbag, and we are gonna do that momentarily.
	First, Let me talk about the fact that you will have a better life when your teeth are straighter.
	You know, it's funny.
	We all we all are very angry that we live in a society where people judge each other based on appearance.
	This is called all of human society forever and always will be.
	Well, one of the things that you judge people based on is the beauty of their smile.
	Science proves this is so.
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	Okay, we're going to get to the mailbag in just a second.
	First, it is that glorious time of the week when I give a shout out to a Daily Wear subscriber.
	Is it you?
	Is it you?
	Well, unless you're Joe Gottschall, it's not you.
	But if you are Joe Gottschall, today is the day.
	Joe Gottschall knows there's only one thing that can help sustain you through the insanely long lines at theme parks.
	It's the day.
	In this picture, Joe and his son are wearing matching blue Lion King t-shirts, standing out in the hot sun, proudly carrying our glorious tumbler.
	The caption reads, I don't always do Disney, but when I do, I stay hydrated with the greatest in all beverage vessels, the Leftist Tears Hot or Cold Tumbler.
	At Ben Shapiro, hashtag Leftist Tears Tumbler, hashtag always full.
	Fantastic.
	Good on you, Joe.
	Hope you and your family had a great time on your vacation.
	If you're at Disneyland, I hope you had a good time at Galaxy's Edge.
	It's a fun place.
	Thank you for the picture.
	If you know anything about this show, also, just while we're at this, right now we have a special deal, okay?
	We are a pro-life show.
	You know that we're a pro-life show.
	If you've ever listened to the show, you know this.
	We broadcast live from March for Life last year.
	What you may not know is that because we did that, the leftist activists, the same people going after Joe Rogan today because this is what they do, they decided to go after our advertisers.
	And we actually lost some revenue.
	That's not the first time.
	It won't be the last time that the left attempts to shut down pro-life voices.
	We're not the only targets.
	Live Action is a great pro-life group run by my friend Lila Rose.
	Live Action is terrific.
	They work on education on the abortion issue.
	They make undercover videos that expose Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics for horrific human rights abuses.
	And they're cracked down routinely by social media.
	So Twitter is cracked down on them.
	Pinterest is cracked down on them.
	If you want to help them out, there's a great way to do it.
	And help us out too.
	You can go to dailywire.com right now.
	And right now when you subscribe at dailywire.com and you use promo code LIVEACTION, a portion of your subscription membership is donated to LIVEACTION from now until January 31st in expectation of the March for Life.
	So that's a pretty great deal.
	Use promo code LIVEACTION and you can get our subscription and give money to a great cause when you go to dailywire.com and make your pro-life voice heard.
	We are the largest, fastest-growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
	Okay, so Chelsea writes, we're going to do some mailbag.
	So Chelsea writes, hey Ben, yesterday you talked about how you think Elizabeth Warren would be able to push through universal childcare.
	With increasing frequency, Republicans are warming up to this idea, even if they understand it would be just another step of the government interfering with and replacing the family.
	What are the best arguments against universal childcare?
	Thank you.
	Well, actually Elizabeth Warren, back in 2003, wrote a book called The Two Income Trap, in which she discussed the problem with universal childcare.
	One of the problems with universal childcare is it now assumes that both members of a family have to work.
	That is the basic premise of universal childcare.
	The problem with that is that once you have both members of the family working, she makes this point in the two-income trap, is that it actually drives up real estate prices.
	It drives up prices.
	It requires you to earn more in the market in order to get what you could have gotten for cheaper before when there was only one worker in the household.
	And so what you end up with is a broader labor pool, which does drive down wages.
	Not only does it do that, it requires both members of the family to be working.
	And then in order to buy that house in the suburbs that you want, you need both members of the household working.
	And if you are a stay-at-home mom, you are disadvantaged.
	So it does disadvantage stay-at-home moms.
	It basically subsidizes working moms at the expense of stay-at-home moms, is the idea.
	Also, it subsidizes single moms at the expense of married moms.
	Beyond that, there's a basic premise to universal childcare, which is that all women find fulfillment in working.
	So, the best that you could do, maybe, if you're really concerned about this, here's a great idea, just lower taxes.
	And then if people want to pay for childcare, they can pay for childcare.
	And by the way, there are plenty of workplaces right now that are offering childcare for kids.
	Like seriously, they have childcare downstairs and mom can drop off the kids for the day after school.
	I'll take care of it.
	But the idea that universal childcare is an inherent good because mom has to work is an assumption being made about what mothers should be doing that I think cuts against the very grain of female choice in a lot of cases.
	And beyond that, it also creates a weird economic structure whereby everybody is expected to work, including women.
	So it actually removes the choice from women to work or not work in many cases because Now, the idea is that you are expected to work because, after all, universal childcare is available to you.
	I mean, this is the case that Elizabeth Warren, again, herself made while she's pushing universal childcare now.
	So she's reversed herself on that in some pretty dramatic ways.
	Then there is the general libertarian argument, which is, it's none of my business what you do with your kids.
	It is your job to take care of your kids as a general rule.
	Now, I'm all for charity.
	I'm all for making sure that those kids are taken care of.
	And if you're in economic straits, I'm all for giving you direct charity.
	But the idea that it is society's job to make sure that you are working a 10-hour day, and that your child is in childcare.
	Also, there's an assumption that childcare is better for kids than being at home with mom, which again, I think is not backed by social science.
	The notion that A family is better off when mom is dumping the kid in child care all day.
	That has some significant drawbacks as well.
	Now, again, local communities can do this, but the idea of a federally mandated universal child care, in which we are all supposed to pay in and that's going to cover everybody, it does incentivize, it creates a perverse incentive.
	It creates a perverse incentive for people to take advantage of the universal child care, and again, makes the government into mommy, which is not a good idea.
	Michael says, hey Ben, If the Chief Justice is presiding over the impeachment trial, why can't he be the deciding factor in calling witnesses?
	Love the show, thanks.
	Well, the way that these procedures usually work is that the Senate actually has to vote for the procedures.
	It's not up to the Chief Justice to vote for the procedures.
	He just gavels in whether the procedures Uh, have been applied or not, right?
	He makes sure that the procedures are actually followed, but he's not the one who makes the rules.
	The Senate makes the rules, so it's not up to the Chief Justice to do that.
	Tim says, I hear the terms communism, socialism, and Marxism often used seemingly interchangeably.
	Could you briefly explain the differences between them, or is it all one thing that in the future we could call Bernieism?
	Well, the problem is that folks on the left like to distinguish between these things based on whether they think it's successful or not.
	So what you'll hear from Marxists is that there are very, there are many types of Marxism.
	That there is guild Marxism.
	That there is Sort of Trotskyite Marxism, and there is Stalin Marxism, that there is Cuban Marxism, and there's Norwegian Marxism.
	These are all different forms of Marxism.
	That's a way of hiding the ball.
	That's so that you don't actually have to be pegged down when Marxism is actually tried in a country like Cuba or the USSR.
	You can just say, well, that's not true Marxism.
	True Marxism has never been tried.
	And the same thing holds true with communism.
	So communism, it's hard for the Democrats or anybody on the left who is a Marxist to run away from the communist label anymore because communist countries, ones that have self-declared communists have been complete failures every time it's tried.
	So instead what they try to do is distinguish socialism from communism.
	The reality is that if you're calling for public ownership of the means of production, then what you are really talking about is communism.
	What you're talking about is socialism, communism, Marxism, they're all equivalent in this way.
	This has been a longstanding sort of confused debate Von Mises writes about it in his book Socialism from 1920.
	He suggests that really, if you're going to define Marxism, Marxism in the end is not even about the principle from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs.
	It really is about the public ownership of the means of production.
	And there are a lot of aspects to Marxism.
	And different aspects can be analyzed on their own or in combination.
	But the root of economic Marxism is the idea that we cannot have private industry because private industry is profit driven.
	Profits are bad because they are excess and because you are stealing from the workers.
	And the only way to remove those excess profits is to have the workers own the business, but not in a private market.
	Instead, you have to have the government run everything to make sure that workers could be just as capitalist as anybody else.
	Instead, the government has to decide supply demand.
	The government has to decide pricing.
	The government has to create a pricing mechanism.
	All of this is utterly unworkable on a practical level.
	So what you see is aspects of like kind of kind of food coloring of Marxism dropped into a capitalist that and then called Marxism.
	So what you'll see is people on the left say, well, democratic socialism is Marxism.
	It is not.
	A capitalist system with socialist welfare benefits is a capitalist system with socialist welfare benefits.
	And then we can determine whether the socialist welfare benefits actually achieve what they are seeking to achieve.
	So a nationalized healthcare system is, in fact, socialism.
	That is a socialist system.
	But if it exists in the context of a free market for drugs, for doctors, if it exists in a free market In general, that is drawing from taxpayer revenue, then you have to distinguish between the socialist aspect and the not socialist aspect.
	Socialism is basically the idea that the entire capitalist system should be overthrown.
	I mean, that is the basis of Marxism.
	Now again, you can have welfare benefits.
	Welfare benefits are socialist in orientation, but if the system is not itself socialist, then it's not a socialist system.
	Ryan says, Hey Ben, I'm 17 years old from Massachusetts.
	I listen to all three hours of your show every day.
	Unlike Greta Thunberg, I do not hold global warming as one of my highest priorities.
	It honestly doesn't worry me all that much.
	However, I've researched nuclear power as a possible energy source.
	It appears to be the best solution I've come across.
	What are your thoughts on nuclear power?
	Do you think any further steps need to be taken to stop global warming?
	Sure.
	I mean, global warming by best available evidence is occurring.
	It is largely man-caused by best available evidence, even people who are sort of lukewarmers like Roy Spencer, who you've heard on Rush Limbaugh's program, for example.
	Even he will say he believes that over 50% of global warming is being caused by man-made activities and carbon emissions.
	So I don't believe the sort of full-on denial case at all.
	What should we do about that?
	Well, the best answer, honestly, is not going to be a global carbon tax, which is never going to take place.
	China and India will never sign on to that, and it won't be effective without China and India signing on to it.
	Instead, what will be effective is actual economic development.
	The substitution of natural gas for oil in the United States has been responsible for the United States actually dropping its carbon emissions, its rate of carbon emissions, over the last several years.
	Nuclear power is an excellent solution.
	There are new, smaller nuclear plants that can be built using newer technology that's basically been stymied by the environmentalists.
	If you want to know if an environmentalist is serious or not about climate change, just ask if they're trying to ban nuclear power.
	If the answer is they're trying to ban nuclear power, they're not serious about climate change.
	Most of the people who say they're serious about climate change are not, in fact, serious about climate change.
	They don't want to talk about adaptation.
	They don't want to talk about building seawalls.
	They don't want to talk about the possibility of carbon capture.
	They don't want to talk about any of those things.
	They just want to rail against the moon.
	And that's why they love Greta Thunberg, because she will say things openly like, we should just get rid of all carbon-based fossil fuels on planet Earth and not use them anymore, which would reduce pretty much everybody back to the level of our homo erectus ancestors in terms of living standards.
	It would not be wonderful.
	Is this beneficial?
	What do you think of the notion that the Electoral College should move away from a winner-take-all system and instead proportionally allocate electoral votes?
	It seems like this would make candidates focus on states that are not swing states.
	Is this beneficial?
	Well, the whole purpose of the Electoral College originally was to balance out the needs of states and the needs of the population generally.
	And it's sort of the same balance that you see in terms of the United States Congress.
	And we ourselves today very often don't even understand why the states ought to matter, because we've lost the concept of federalism and localism entirely.
	So you see Democrats militating against the United States Senate, saying the United States Senate is not representative.
	After all, Montana has as many votes in the Senate as California, and Montana has nine people and California has 50 million.
	So what exactly, why are we doing that?
	The answer is the proportional representation Makes states irrelevant and states never would have signed on to the Constitution if they had known that they were going to become adjuncts to basically, there were going to be barnacles on the whales of California and New York and Massachusetts and New Jersey and all the big population states.
	So the Electoral College, I do not think it should be proportionally allocated.
	I think if you want to do that, just go to a popular vote.
	It doesn't seem to actually mean anything to be proportionally allocated beyond just a reflection of the popular vote.
	Alrighty, time for a quick thing that I like and then a quick thing that I hate.
	So, things that I like today.
	There's a good movie that was really undercovered.
	I enjoyed it.
	I think that it was really well made.
	I'm a sucker for Westerns.
	So I really like Westerns.
	This is a pretty good Western.
	It was not greatly covered by the media.
	The media didn't seem to like it very much.
	I'm not sure why.
	Honestly, it's a pretty good Western.
	It's a really interesting take on Billy the Kid.
	So if you don't know anything about Billy the Kid, shot to death at age 21.
	But his record of killing was a lot more checkered than most of the sort of criminals of American history.
	He never robbed a bank.
	He never robbed a train.
	He was not, in fact, there's real controversy as to just how much of a criminal Billy the Kid was because he was really involved more in sort of farming disputes and neighbor disputes.
	And then there were some disputed circumstances where he was killing other bad men.
	In any case, the basic premise of the film is that there's a kid who he and his sister Are present when his father is beating his mother and the kid shoots the father and then tries to escape, run away with his sister.
	They're sort of taken under wing by Billy the Kid.
	Pat Garrett is chasing Billy the Kid at the time.
	And so all of this takes place in the context of that very, very famous pursuit.
	Here's a little bit of the trailer.
	One, two, three, and four!
	The devil's knocking at your door!
	Did you think you could run from me?
	No one has to die today.
	Well ain't that one of life's harsh realities?
	Now hold on one more step and it will be your last!
	So Chris Pratt shows up in the movie for like five seconds.
	And they sort of pitched him as one of the stars of the film.
	He's only in it for maybe ten minutes.
	But the real bad guy, there is no real bad guy in the film.
	He's the only true baddie in the film is Chris Pratt.
	And he's unrecognizable.
	Like if you didn't know that was Chris Pratt, you'd be surprised that's Chris Pratt.
	I happen to be a big Ethan Hawke fan.
	You have to be a fan of sort of mannered acting to like Ethan Hawke, but I like Ethan Hawke a lot, and he's very good in this film.
	So, it is, it's worthy of the watch, The Kid.
	Also, my good friend Adam Baldwin is in this movie, so any movie with Adam is worth watching.
	So go check it out, The Kid, with Ethan Hawke.
	Kind of a fun thing.
	Alrighty, time for, you know, instead of a thing I hate, let's do a little bit of Bible talk.
	I've missed it the last several weeks.
	So, every week, the Jews read a portion of the Bible.
	And this week, the Jews read from the Book of Exodus.
	This is the portion of the Bible in which the Jews are basically preparing to leave Egypt, and Moses goes and he's threatening Pharaoh, and he's telling him that if you don't let the Jews go, things are gonna get real bad for you, real quick, right quick, here.
	So, there's a really interesting part of this week's Parsha, right?
	There's this particular Torah portion.
	That is the bizarre statement that God says he's going to harden Pharaoh's heart.
	He says that Pharaoh is going to be willing to let you go, and then I'm going to harden his heart.
	And people, all the commentators in Jewish lore, and Christian lore too, they go, like, how is that a thing?
	God is not supposed to interfere with your free will.
	Why is God getting involved in hardening Pharaoh's heart to make him do a bad thing, right?
	Why is it that God is telling Pharaoh, like, Pharaoh's willing to let the Jews go, and then this whole thing comes to a sort of Natural denouement.
	Instead, why is God hardening Pharaoh's heart?
	It's very bizarre.
	And God says, I shall harden Pharaoh's heart, and I shall put my hand upon Egypt, and I shall take out my legions, the children of Israel, from the land of Egypt.
	So, how can you harden Pharaoh's heart and then hold him responsible for what he's doing?
	Because that's what happens, right?
	Pharaoh is held responsible, his army dies in the sea, things go real bad.
	So, why would God do that?
	Well, God acknowledges in the Torah, so this brings up questions of free will generally.
	How much free will do human beings actually have?
	This is a pretty live question, right?
	In the scientific community it's a live question.
	How much do we actually have the ability to control our own actions?
	How much of that is environmental?
	Marxist materialists say it's all environmental.
	It's all environment and biology that determines everything.
	And then they say we can magically change our own system using free will, right?
	We can supplant Capitalism with communism, that will change the social system and then we will all be better people.
	So they contradict their own philosophy in the middle of their philosophy, but the sort of materialist point of view generally is that we don't have any free will.
	This has led to some really interesting debates between me and Sam Harris, another person who is no longer welcome in the hard left for having conversations with people.
	Sam takes the materialist position that we don't have any free will.
	I take the position that we do have free will and that we have the ability to overcome, to at least a certain extent, our own biological drives in order to make better decisions.
	Sam takes the position that basically you're screwed, right?
	I mean, whatever you are, you are.
	Whatever decisions you think you're making, you're not making those decisions.
	That is your biology in conjunction with your environment.
	So how much free will do we actually have?
	Well, the Torah suggests that man is a biological creature, but then also suggests that biology does not determine man's fate.
	Right?
	That you actually do have the capacity to make decisions beyond your own biological imperatives.
	So, the question is, when God hardens Pharaoh's heart, Does God actually, is he actually making the decision for Pharaoh?
	Or is he making it easier for Pharaoh to make a decision?
	Because there's another way to read Hardin's Pharaoh's Heart.
	One way is to read it as God is making it so that Pharaoh says no.
	The other way is to read it that God is stealing Pharaoh for what is to come.
	That God is saying, okay, I understand that you're afraid.
	I understand that you are living in fear of the next plague.
	But this is actually making it harder for you to make the decision that you want to make.
	And I know what kind of decision you actually want to make.
	So instead, I'm making you braver.
	Right?
	If you'd heard that somebody in battle hardened their heart, you would figure, okay, this guy just got wrecked.
	He had it.
	He was brave now.
	Now he had put aside his fear, and he was more brave.
	So when the Bible says that God hardens Pharaoh's heart, what he's actually doing is he's giving Pharaoh the capacity to choose more broadly.
	He is saying, I know what you want to do, and I'm giving you the capacity to choose more broadly.
	So God is actually changing Pharaoh in order to allow him more freedom of choice.
	So in that same way, this is basically what psychologists do every day when they engage in cognitive behavioral therapy or exposure therapy.
	They're helping you get over Whatever fear you have so that you have more freedom of choice available to you.
	So this is how God gives us free will, right?
	He limits his own control.
	It's not that he is telling Pharaoh what to do.
	He is limiting his own control by giving Pharaoh a greater capacity for free will.
	So what exactly is free will and why should it matter?
	Well, in politics it matters an awful lot.
	You cannot build a system on anything other than free will.
	We assume in our politics that free will is the be-all end-all.
	That's why we feel that personal responsibility is a thing.
	And if you want people to have a better life, you have to give them credit for their own free will.
	You cannot tell them they're environmentally driven.
	You try to steal them for that.
	You say, don't be afraid, make your own decisions.
	In this case, Pharaoh makes the wrong decision.
	In this case, he feels stronger to make the decision and he makes a bad decision.
	But what we should be doing in our normal lives is giving people the capacity to make decisions for which they end up taking responsibility.
	Social psychologist Roy Baumeister, he explains what scientists mean by free will.
	He says, self-control counts as a kind of freedom because it begins with not acting on every impulse.
	The use of abstract ideas such as moral principles to guide action takes us far beyond anything you will find in a physics or chemistry textbook.
	And so we are free, in the sense of emergence, of going beyond simpler forms of causality.
	Again, we cannot break the laws of physics, but we can act in ways that add new causes that go far beyond physical causation.
	Now, when I talk about free will, I don't mean that every decision is subject to it, right?
	You can't decide right now whether your heart should beat or not, right?
	I mean, that part is a naturalistic part of your brain.
	But, it does mean that when we make plans, that when we think things through, we are capable of changing our own behavior.
	This is why Pharaoh still bears responsibility for his actions.
	So what we should be doing as a society is granting people the capacity to make freer decisions, telling them that they have the strength to make their own decisions, and then holding them responsible for their decisions.
	If it's good enough for God and Pharaoh, it should be good enough for us as well.
	Okay, we'll be back here later today with a couple additional hours of content, all your updates on impeachment and all the rest.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.
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