Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

May 1, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:07:16

Biden Speaks! | Ep. 1002

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Joe Biden finally speaks about Tara Reade's accusations, the media preemptively declared Georgia's opening a failure, and evidence mounts of the FBI's manipulation of Michael Flynn.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN's Surf the web with peace of mind.
	Sign up now at expressvpn.com slash Ben.
	We're going to get to all of the news in a moment.
	Joe Biden finally speaks.
	It's like Garbo speaks.
	For people who are movie history literate, there was an actress named Greta Garbo, a very famous silent actress, and when she finally appeared in talkies, That was the big headline was Garbo speaks.
	Well, Joe Biden is unable to put together English sentences and has been hiding out in his basement for a while, and he'd been completely silent about the Tara Reid allegations.
	Now he has finally spoken, and it didn't go awesome.
	We'll get to that in just a second.
	First, let's talk about the fact that You're lounging around right now, but you also need to look decent for your Zoom meeting that is going to be taking place later today.
	The boss doesn't want to see you once again in those ratty old sweatshirts.
	He doesn't want to see you with the ratty old sweatshirts and the unkempt hair.
	Look good and be comfortable with Tommy John.
	Tommy John has something for everyone, no matter what your working from home situation is.
	From super soft and breathable underwear for answering emails in bed to loungewear for when you are running to get takeout, Tommy John is here to keep you comfortable right now.
	Tommy John is offering all customers 25% off Site-wide.
	Treat yourself.
	Upgrade to a few pairs of Tommy John underwear in the softest, most breathable fabrics you have ever worn.
	These things are great.
	Not just for men.
	I'm wearing some Tommy Johns right now.
	But also for women.
	The Tommy John undergarments for women are fantastic.
	My wife loves them.
	She, in fact, asked me to order some extras of them.
	All of Tommy John's loungewear and leggings are built for next-level comfort.
	Whether you're in the hunt for lounge pants or sleep shorts or lazing around joggers, Tommy John has got you covered.
	These make a great Mother's Day gift as well.
	Remember, get your order in before May 7th and you can ensure delivery by Mother's Day.
	Tommy John is so confident in their underwear that if you don't love your first pair, you can get a full refund with their best pair you'll ever wear or it's free, guaranteed.
	Tommy John.
	No adjustment needed.
	Once you go Tommy John, you won't go back.
	Go to TommyJohn.com slash Ben right now for 25% off your order.
	That is TommyJohn.com slash Ben for 25% off right now.
	Tommyjohn.com slash Ben.
	See the site for details.
	Tommyjohn.com slash Ben.
	Okay, so Joe Biden's had himself a rough 24 hours, a very rough 24 hours.
	So here's what happened.
	Over the past 48 hours, the dam has started to break on the Tara Reade allegation.
	So Tara Reade came out almost over a month ago, I believe, and made the allegation that back in 1993, when she was a Senate staffer for Joe Biden, he called her into a little used corridor in the Senate,
	And there he proceeded to sexually molest her essentially like pick up her skirt and then put his fingers inside her like actual penetration penetrative sexual assault I mean it's a sexual assault by definition any penetration forcible penetration is sexual assault so she alleged this and then everybody ignored it and then she came forward with a bunch of people who she had told contemporaneously now That is not dispositive.
	For people in the media who don't understand the word dispositive, dispositive means that does not mean that the case is disposed of because of these allegations.
	Meaning, just because you told somebody at the time something happened doesn't mean it went down that way, doesn't mean that you remembered correctly, but it does mean You've been telling the story for 30 years.
	You didn't make it up in the last five minutes.
	So Tara Reade originally had a couple people she had told.
	She told her mom.
	She told her brother.
	Her mom called into Larry King Live and actually made a sort of oblique reference to it back in 1993.
	And then it turned out there were two additional people who said, on the record, that she had told them about this allegation.
	So all of this starts to mount because, after all, the Democratic Party has been pushing the Believe All Women, Hashtag Me Too movement for years, mainly to get Trump.
	Remember, nobody cared about Harvey Weinstein in Hollywood for years, and then Trump was elected, and it was like, okay, we're gonna have to get rid of all these bad, bad, terrible men.
	Sure, we had Bill Clinton, and sure, we had JFK, and sure, we had Ted Kennedy, and sure, we had Chris Dodd, and sure, we had, you know, a lot of people who are sort of famously going around town and molesting women, but...
	Or allegedly molesting women.
	But at the same time, you know, they were important people.
	Trump, we've got to get out of office now.
	It's time to change the standard.
	We'll hold ourselves to a better standard.
	And they did overtly change the standard.
	Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who had been hobnobbing with the Clintons, turned on a dime and said, if I had been around when Bill Clinton was doing this, maybe we should have gotten rid of Bill Clinton in 1998 after all, over the Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones stuff.
	Maybe we should have gone ahead and done that.
	OK, well, now Joe Biden is the nominee and this allegation comes forward.
	And Joe Biden's original strategy is, we'll put out a statement denying it, and then that's all we're going to do about it.
	We're just going to sit here silently.
	And the media basically go along with this.
	Tara Reid, the person who made the allegation, is not asked on a single national news show.
	There was an entire article in the New York Times yesterday about this by Ben Smith, who's actually doing a pretty good job over at the New York Times.
	He used to be the editor-in-chief over at BuzzFeed.
	Now he's reporting over at the New York Times.
	He's their media columnist.
	And he says, And he says, the mainstream American media in 1999, for reasons that are hard to explain or excuse today, got cold feet on a credible allegation of rape against the president.
	He's referring to Juanita Broderick.
	After NBC News sat for weeks on an exclusive interview, Broderick went on to the only people who would listen to her, Mr. Clinton's partisan enemies at the Wall Street Journal editorial page.
	That move helped turn her straightforward allegation into a weaponized political story.
	And while Americans watching at home could make up their own minds about Juanita Broderick's credibility, they were left with new reasons to shake their head at the media.
	The same thing is about to happen again.
	A former Senate aide for Joe Biden, Tara Reade, has accused the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee of sexually assaulting her in 1993.
	Reporters have found other accounts that indicate she's been telling her version of events for a long time.
	There are, as with Juanita Broderick, reasons to doubt her story.
	There aren't good reasons not to hear her out.
	And yet, Reid told me Wednesday the only offers she's had to appear on television have come from Fox News, including a call from primetime host Sean Hannity she has so far turned them down.
	She said, I've been trying to just kind of wait to get someone in the middle.
	I don't want to be pigeonholed as a progressive.
	I don't want to be pigeonholed as a Trump supporter.
	CNN, MSNBC, MSNBC, whose DNA, even a pandemic, is politics, have covered her on their websites and on air, but have not put her on camera.
	Reid said, they're not offering to put me on TV.
	They're just doing stories.
	No anchors, nothing like that.
	She'd most like to tell her story to a network television anchor she admires.
	CBS's Gail King is one, she said, but they haven't called.
	So she is planning to accept Fox News's offer for an interview to air this weekend, but with someone a little more up the middle.
	Apparently she's going to talk with Chris Wallace.
	That is something that she has been considering.
	Ben Smith says some of the reasons this story seems muffled right now are fairly straightforward.
	The global coronavirus pandemic.
	There's also the way Ms.
	Reid first tried getting attention, mostly on Twitter, stumbling forward with no PR person and no attorney.
	She says, I emailed Ronan Farrow like four times to the point of stalking, and I didn't hear back.
	Now, of course, he's one of the investigative reporters on this.
	Reid said that she had meant that Farrell had not initially responded to her, but they were now actively communicating.
	Then, she found partisans willing to hear her out.
	Remember, this allegation first aired on a Bernie Sanders, pro-Bernie Sanders podcast by a woman named Katie Halper.
	Then The Intercept, which is also a leftist website, reported that a friend and brother of Ms.
	Reid's recalled her describing the incident.
	The traditional media waded in carefully, then Business Insider had to report it.
	The reporter, Rich McHugh, I'd first taken the story to Vanity Fair, and Vanity Fair wouldn't publish it.
	Can you imagine Vanity Fair not publishing Christine Blasey Ford's story?
	Of course not.
	The broadcast television network CNN and MSNBC have covered the story on their websites, but there's been no clear explanation for why Reid was not booked on mainstream TV.
	CNN and MSNBC declined to explain why they have not booked a woman who is, whether you believe it or not, one of the few newsmakers right now who could cut through the pandemic.
	The posture is all the more strange.
	I mean, this is a great piece by Ben Smith.
	He's actually being honest here.
	The posture is all the more strange because at this point, it's essentially symbolic.
	In 1999, you could argue that NBC's decision to hold back Lisa Myers' interview with Broderick had real political consequences.
	Taped in January, as the Senate took up impeachment charges against Clinton, it didn't air until after the Senate voted not to convict the president in February.
	Back then, the only way Americans were going to hear her voice was on television.
	But these days, if you want to judge Reed's story, you can listen to the original podcast interview.
	You can find her talking about it in different places.
	So it's pretty amazing that TV has refused to have Terror Read on, and it does demonstrate the bias of the media.
	Remember, Christine Blasey Ford was put on the cover of Time magazine with her face comprised of various quotes from her about all the horrible things that happened to her in a hero's pose, holding up her hand and taking the oath to tell nothing but the truth, the whole truth.
	But Tara Reade, they won't even have on national TV.
	They'll have on clowns like Sean Penn to talk about the global pandemic, but they won't have on Tara Reade, who's making an actual allegation of direct sexual assault against a presidential candidate.
	They're willing to have on everybody who's making those sorts of allegations against Trump back in 2016.
	But when it comes to Joe Biden, complete silence from national TV.
	So Joe Biden rightly thought he could hide out from this for quite a while.
	And now it turns out, by the way, that Joe Biden is doing more to hide out from the story.
	We'll get to that in just one moment.
	First, let's talk about the fact that if your car is having trouble right now, the internet has a solution for that trouble.
	You should take care of that right now.
	There's not a worse time ever to go to an auto parts store.
	First of all, you shouldn't have to go to an auto parts store.
	Anyway, rockauto.com has you covered.
	They've got cheaper parts.
	They have better parts because the parts are going to be specifically matched to your car.
	Go check out RockAuto.com.
	They always offer the lowest possible prices rather than changing prices based on what the market will bear like airlines do.
	Well, I spent up to twice as much for the same parts.
	Chain stores have different price tiers for professional mechanics and do-it-yourselfers.
	RockAuto.com's prices are the same for everybody.
	They are reliably low.
	RockAuto.com always offers the lowest prices possible rather than changing prices based on what the market will bear like airlines do.
	rockauto.com is for everybody and does not require membership or account login.
	Best of all, prices at rockauto.com are always reliably low and the same for professionals and do-it-yourselfers.
	Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need.
	Check them out at rockauto.com.
	Literally, this is the worst time in history to go to an auto parts store, except for when automobiles didn't exist.
	Go to rockauto.com right now and see all the parts available for your car or truck.
	Write Shapiro in there.
	How did you hear about us, Box?
	So they know that we sent you.
	That's rockauto.com.
	Write Shapiro in there.
	How did you hear about us, Box?
	We really appreciate that.
	Okay, so...
	Joe Biden is also engaging in a bit of a cover up here.
	What I mean by that is that Joe Biden has been asked to open his personal papers to inspection.
	So he donated his Senate papers, his personal Senate papers, to the University of Delaware.
	And now he's running for president.
	Well, now would be a pretty good time to, you know, actually reveal those personal papers from the archive.
	If you didn't want to donate them, Joe, you shouldn't have donated them.
	But the idea that we are going to keep them in the dark and make them irrelevant, For years on end, in the middle of this, it's pretty ridiculous.
	It's amazing.
	The media will go totally after Trump about not releasing his tax records.
	For the record, I said many times Trump should release his tax records.
	I think full transparency from presidential candidates is a very good thing.
	The American public deserves to know more.
	By the way, I felt the same thing about things like Barack Obama's college records.
	I thought that was interesting.
	I thought it would be good to know what kind of classes he took back when he was in college and what kind of papers he was writing and all of that.
	I mean, some of us have been public since we were 17.
	So I sort of like the idea that if you are in the Senate on the taxpayer dime and you have notes that you have donated to a public university, I believe University of Delaware is a public university, that you should now have to release those as a condition of running.
	Like this seems like a thing that you should do.
	But apparently Joe Biden will not release those records.
	Tara Reid says, I'm calling for the release of the documents being held by the University of Delaware that contain Biden's staff personnel records, because I believe it will have my complaint form, as well as my separation letter and other documents.
	Maybe if other staffers that have tried to file complaints would come to light, why are they under seal?
	Why won't they be released to the public?
	So Biden's campaign has denied the claim from Reid.
	Biden says that there won't be any references in the records to any of this, but you could just release the records.
	You could.
	You know, Biden today suggested that the records won't exist there, that they'll only exist at the National Archives.
	There's only one problem.
	People called up the National Archives and said, you have personnel records from Senate offices.
	They said, no, that's not what we do here at the National Archives.
	So no, you're actually going to have to release those records.
	And Biden is holding those records pretty close to the chest.
	So all of this starts to mount this week.
	So it's amazing.
	Media don't ask Biden about it for weeks on end, right?
	They'll ask Stacey Abrams about it.
	They'll ask Christian Gillibrand about it.
	They'll ask Kamala Harris about it.
	They'll ask Amy Klobuchar about it.
	They'll ask Trump about it.
	They asked Trump about it yesterday.
	And frankly, Trump was kind of circumspect about it, considering that Trump is usually the guy who, like, you hand him a brick and he will clock you directly in the forehead with it.
	Instead, Trump was actually kind of circumspect because, in Trump's opinion, he's been falsely maligned about this sort of stuff many times.
	And so he's not going to jump to guilt.
	Well, that's actually Trump being consistent, shockingly enough.
	Trump saying, listen, I know all about false accusations, so I'm not going to suggest that Joe Biden is guilty merely because an accusation was made.
	That's actually Trump being far more consistent than Joe Biden has ever been on this stuff.
	Here is Trump.
	I don't know anything about it.
	I don't know exactly.
	I think he should respond.
	It could be false accusations.
	I know all about false accusations.
	I've been falsely charged numerous times.
	And there is such a thing.
	If you look at Brent Kavanaugh, this is an outstanding man.
	But I don't know.
	I can't speak for Biden.
	I can only say that I think he should respond.
	I think he should answer them.
	Okay, and that is a fairly circumspect answer, again, from the President of the United States.
	So, in the middle of all this, again, the momentum is gaining, and then Joe Biden has himself a couple of awful days, awful political days.
	Here's an example.
	Yesterday, Joe Biden was on national TV, and Joe Biden literally suggested, on national TV, Quote, I view myself as a transition candidate.
	My job is to bring the Mayor Pete of the world into this administration.
	So he's openly acknowledging that he's not actually the candidate for president, that he is just a dead person.
	Right?
	You can't openly acknowledge that and run for president.
	I mean, if he had said that on the stage, imagine if he had said that on the stage.
	Imagine if he had said on the stage, listen, I got nothing new to offer.
	You know, people know my name.
	I'm kind of a corpse.
	And, you know, if you elect me, then Mayor Pete will be president.
	Mayor Pete would have been like, I'm right here, dude.
	Like, if I want to be, if people want me, they can vote for me.
	Why exactly would you vote for a guy who, in a general election, who is actually Kamala Harris?
	Or who is actually Mayor Pete?
	Or who is actually Amy Klobuchar?
	I mean, that's an amazing statement.
	He's basically betting that people hate Trump so much that he's elected president.
	That may not be a bad bet, but it's a horrible campaign tactic.
	Suggesting that you are running, not because you have a vision for the country or because you add anything to the political debate, but because you are an empty vessel who is likely to collapse and die two years into your term.
	This is the first time in my lifetime that the VP selection is actually going to matter a lot.
	If Joe Biden selects Kamala Harris, Donald Trump will run against Kamala Harris.
	He will not even run against Joe Biden.
	He will say, Joe Biden has said he's a transition candidate.
	Joe Biden is senile and not healthy.
	By the way, Joe Biden does look senile and not healthy.
	And that is perfectly acceptable to say.
	People say, oh, that's ageist.
	No, it's not ageist.
	There are plenty of 80-year-old people who don't look like Joe Biden.
	I used to take violin lessons from a guy named Abraham Stern.
	Amazing violin teacher.
	He was 80, vibrant, totally with it.
	Not Joe Biden.
	We all know this.
	Maybe it's impolitic to say this.
	Too bad.
	In a presidential race, there's no such thing as impolitic.
	By the way, everybody on the left has been speculating that Trump is a few apples short of a barrel for a long time.
	So suggesting that Joe Biden does not, he's not even Joe Biden of eight years ago, right?
	Joe Biden cannot string sentences together.
	I'll show you proof that Joe Biden can string sentences together, actually.
	Here's a video yesterday of Joe Biden suggesting that what he wants to do about coronavirus is fly flags at half-staff in the White House.
	This is his big suggestion to cure coronavirus, is that he's going to lower the flag to half-staff at the White House.
	Well, problem solved, Joe.
	And this was a video the campaign released because they thought it made Joe Biden look good.
	Joe Biden looks like he cannot string a sentence together.
	He repeats himself no less than twice in the course of about a 45-second video.
	He stumbles over himself, and his big suggestion for curing coronavirus is he is going to lower the flag at the White House, which is just, wow.
	Problem solved here, Joe.
	Here is the presidential candidate for the Democrats.
	It's April the 29th.
	By the end of this month, we have lost more people to coronavirus dead than we lost in the entire Vietnam War.
	America's lost in the entire Vietnam War.
	You know, I think the president should lower the flag on the White House to half-mast to recognize their loss and all they leave behind, all those families they leave behind.
	Many of them were first responders who gave their lives trying to save other lives.
	Folks, I think if he does not do that, When I'm president, I promise you that's what I'll do.
	They thought that this was a good video for Joe Biden.
	So he's campaigning as a corpse.
	The problem is, a corpse who allegedly sexually molested someone in 1993 is not quite as good a candidate as a corpse who didn't do that.
	Right?
	Who doesn't have those allegations out there.
	And so what you've seen is some of the Democrats starting to come out of the woodwork and a bit of a gap opening up in the Democratic Party.
	All this is the lead up to his disastrous appearance on Morning Joe this morning.
	It was really, really bad for him.
	We're going to get to that in just one second.
	First, let's talk about the fact that now more than ever with this level of economic uncertainty, You need to be on top of your business data.
	It is imperative that you're on top of your business data.
	There's enough uncertainty to go around right now.
	The only way to keep your business in the black or even running at this point is to be granular about your approach to your own information.
	This is why NetSuite exists.
	NetSuite will reduce your uncertainty by giving you visibility and control.
	With so many critical decisions to make, you need the right numbers.
	You need them right now.
	NetSuite by Oracle is the world's number one cloud business system.
	With NetSuite, we give you financials, cash flow, payroll, inventory, and more all in one place so you have clear visibility and total control of your business.
	NetSuite customers have the flexibility to work from anywhere with immediate clarity on critical information directly at their fingertips.
	No more guessing.
	No more waiting.
	Make smarter decisions with confidence because you've got crystal clear visibility into your numbers.
	Join over 20,000 companies who trust NetSuite to stay in control.
	It's irresponsible business not to be on top of your data right now.
	Be responsible.
	Get NetSuite.
	Receive your free guide managing business uncertainty and schedule your free product tour right now.
	at netsuite.com slash Shapiro.
	That is N-E-T-S-U-I-T-E dot com slash Shapiro.
	Get that free guide.
	Schedule that free product tour. netsuite.com slash Shapiro. Once more, netsuite.com slash Shapiro.
	Okay, so you start to see the gap open up in the Democratic Party, and this is when Biden has to go on TV.
	So you have the true believers like Nancy Pelosi.
	First, I need to show you this tape that's...
	I'm not sure who compiled it, but it's totally correct.
	Nancy Pelosi on Tara Reade versus Christine Blasey Ford.
	So here's what she had to say about Christine Blasey Ford back when Justice Kavanaugh was being questioned.
	Remember, the phrase credibly accused was being thrown around a lot.
	Credibly accused.
	Have you heard credibly accused about Tara Reade?
	There is more evidence that Tara Reade actually has been telling the same story for 30 years than there ever was that Christine Blasey Ford was telling the truth.
	Tara Reade is a much more credible witness than Christine Blasey Ford.
	Flat out.
	Christine Blasey Ford made an allegation and not a single thing that she said was verifiable.
	None of it.
	Tara Reade at least can point to a bunch of people she said, I told them at the time, right?
	So here is Nancy Pelosi suggesting that Christine Blasey Ford should be believed, that Justice Kavanaugh was probably a rapist, and then we'll hear her on Tara Reade.
	And suffice it to say, she is not consistent.
	There's been statements from his campaign, not his campaign, but his former employees who ran his offices and the rest, that there was never any record of this.
	Instead of asking questions, the Republican leadership fears the truth.
	There was never any record.
	And that nobody ever came forward or nobody... Really?
	They're so afraid of the truth, and they're so afraid of women, that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, for the truth that she will steal.
	Wow.
	So that's what she had to say about Christine Blasey Ford way back when.
	Tara Reid, very different story.
	Yesterday, Pelosi was asked about this, and she started getting angry at reporters.
	By the way, we've been told that every time a politician gets angry at a reporter, ever since Donald Trump, that this is an attack on the free press.
	Listen to this vicious attack on the free press, putting all of our freedoms at stake.
	How dare Nancy Pelosi.
	Here is Nancy Pelosi looking worse and worse these days, honestly.
	I mean, this is a stressful time for her.
	Being basically ripped up and down by the media and being forced to suggest she doesn't need a lecture.
	I respect your question, and I don't need a lecture or a speech.
	Here's the thing.
	I have complete respect for the whole MeToo movement.
	I have four daughters and one son.
	And there's a lot of excitement around the idea that women will be heard and be listened to.
	There is also due process and the fact that Joe Biden is Joe Biden.
	Joe Biden is Joe Biden.
	So this was trending yesterday.
	Joe Biden is Joe Biden.
	First of all, Joe Biden is Joe Biden.
	I just don't know if Joe Biden knows that anymore.
	Really, the man is not with us.
	But Joe Biden is Joe Biden.
	Isn't that exactly the case that was being made for Brett Kavanaugh?
	People were saying, well, here's a bunch of women that Brett Kavanaugh knew who never could imagine that he would do anything like this.
	People were saying, well, that's not good evidence.
	You can't say that.
	He isn't the woman making the... Those aren't the women making the accusations.
	Joe Biden is Joe Biden is not a defense.
	So some many Democrats begin to begin to buck against this.
	Hakeem Jeffries from New York.
	He says, well, you know what?
	Maybe we should investigate this.
	Maybe we should actually take a look at this.
	And the dam starts to break.
	It's got to be taken seriously because it's a serious allegation raised by a serious individual and needs to be investigated seriously.
	But in terms of what the appropriate mechanism is, you know, that remains to be seen.
	I've got to dive deeper into The evidence that has emerged.
	And I've also got to dive deeper into Joe Biden's response.
	And we probably should hear from him at some point directly as it relates to the allegation.
	All right.
	So the dam starts to break and people start asking, why isn't Joe Biden going on TV?
	Why won't Joe Biden answer questions?
	So, Morning Joe books Joe Biden on this.
	And this morning, Joe Biden appears on Morning Joe, presumably because he thinks he's going to get a fairly warm treatment.
	After all, Mika and Joe are not exactly warm to President Trump these days.
	This is not 2016 anymore.
	In 2016, they were fairly friendly with Trump all the way through the primaries.
	Then, of course, Trump turned into Orange Man bad.
	Joe Biden probably expected fairly easy treatment.
	Instead, Mika Brzezinski clocked him with just a cartoon mallet.
	She went directly at him and she asked precisely the kinds of questions that Democrats were asking about Brett Kavanaugh.
	And by the way, people who are angry at Mika, you should have been angry when Democrats were asking this stuff about Brett Kavanaugh or about Donald Trump.
	At least Mika Brzezinski is holding to a consistent standard.
	Now, I think the standard is stupid, by the way.
	I don't think the standard should be, if you are asked about an allegation, you say the allegation is false, you now have to justify why you say the allegation is false.
	And if someone accuses you of rape and you say, that never happened, you then do not have to say, but the woman's story, you know, we should, we should totally take her story seriously.
	You're allowed to say, no, that, that, that story is complete crap.
	Sorry.
	I don't know why she would do that.
	The story is, it's garbage and I'm angry that I've been accused of something I didn't do.
	That is called a normal human reaction.
	And the fact that we live in a stupid time where if you are accused of a crime that you did not commit, you are supposed to be in some way tolerant of the person who is making the accusation is insane.
	I mean, the standard itself is stupid.
	That was the standard set by Democrats.
	Okay, so, Mika Brzezinski actually holds the same standard for Brett Kavanaugh.
	And Joe Biden can't hold up to the standard.
	You know why?
	Not because Joe Biden is guilty, but because no one can hold up to the standard because the standard's idiotic.
	The standard is moronic from the very start.
	The standard that if I, Ben Shapiro, were accused of sexual assault and I said, are you insane?
	Are you an insane person?
	I'm an Orthodox Jew.
	I've only had sex with one person in my entire life and I'm married to her and it was after I was married to her.
	Are you out of your damn mind?
	And whoever makes that accusation is scurrilous.
	It's disgusting.
	And if I were to say that, people would be like, oh, you're not respecting the woman.
	Why the hell should I respect someone who's making a false accusation about me?
	It's an idiotic standard.
	But that is the standard Democrats are using.
	You have to believe all women, even if you're the one who knows it's not true.
	So no one can hold up to that standard.
	And predictably enough, Joe Biden, who held that standard, doesn't hold up to the standard, which is why, again, it was a terrible appearance by Joe Biden for a couple of reasons.
	We'll get to those in just one second.
	The biggest reason?
	Because anybody who's asked these questions cannot answer them.
	Basically, Mika Brzezinski asked Joe Biden, Senator, when did you stop beating your wife?
	That's the famous sort of formulation of questions that cannot be answered.
	When did you stop beating your wife, right?
	Because the implication is, of course, that you started beating your wife.
	The question itself is the condemnation.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
	First, let us talk about the fact that we all have regrets in life.
	How do we get things so wrong?
	Like joining Twitter, for example.
	Life regrets.
	Waste of time.
	Terrible people.
	But, you know, that's life.
	You make mistakes.
	But here's one thing you really can't afford to make a mistake about.
	That is life insurance.
	Why?
	Because by the time you correct a mistake, you're dead.
	We really need to make sure that you have that life insurance as a responsible human being.
	This is why you need PolicyGenius.com.
	PolicyGenius 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 PolicyGenius to compare life insurance policies.
	Once you apply, the PolicyGenius team will handle all the paperwork and the red tape for free.
	And PolicyGenius doesn't just make life insurance easy.
	They can also help you find the right home and auto insurance or disability insurance.
	So even if you look back on the days before Twitter and you think, oh, wasn't that a better time?
	The fact is, you don't have to regret anything if you go get your life insurance right now from PolicyGenius.com, protecting your family against the Evil vicissitudes of life.
	Go check out policygenius.com.
	Get your life insurance, disability insurance, home and auto insurance.
	Shop competitively, save yourself money, and don't waste your time.
	Go to policygenius.com once more.
	That's policygenius.com.
	Go check them out right now.
	Okay, so finally, Joe Biden appears on Morning Joe, and it does not go well.
	So Mika asked him a couple of different lines.
	One is, so Joe, you used to say, believe all women.
	You said that you thought that Christine Blasey Ford was credibly accusing Brett Kavanaugh.
	What happened?
	Why shouldn't we hold you to the same standard?
	And here was Joe Biden's answer.
	From the very beginning, I've said believing women means taking the woman's claims seriously.
	When she steps forward and then vet it, look into it, that's true in this case as well.
	Women have a right to be heard and the press should rigorously investigate claims they make.
	I'll always uphold that principle.
	But in the end, in every case, the truth is what matters.
	And in this case, the truth is the claims are false.
	He says that my standard was that we should rigorously investigate anything and the claims are false.
	That was not his standard.
	This was not his standard.
	He says, I'm saying unequivocally, it never happened.
	It didn't.
	It never happened.
	But again, the reality is that Joe Biden did not hold that standard until five seconds ago.
	Joe Biden has completely shifted his standard.
	His standard was, no.
	His standard was, I'm not going to.
	I think that if a woman makes an accusation, then we will believe her.
	But now it's, unless it's me, in which case you should totally fully investigate this.
	Here's what Biden said in 2018.
	said in 2018, for a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus nationally, you've got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she's talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it's been made worse or better over time.
	So Brzezinski asked, is the essence of what she is saying real?
	Why do you think she's doing this?
	And Biden says, I'm not going to question her motive.
	I'm not going to get into that at all.
	I don't know why she's saying this.
	I don't know why after 27 years, all of a sudden this gets raised.
	I don't understand that.
	But I'm not going to go in and question her motive.
	I'm not going to attack her.
	She has the right to say whatever she wants to say, but I have a right to say, look at the facts, check it out, find out if what she says is true.
	Why?
	Why is it real for Dr. Ford but not for Tara Reid?
	As it pertained to Christine Blasey Ford, high level Democrats said she should be believed.
	You said if someone like Dr. Ford were to come out, the essence of what she is saying has to be believed.
	Why?
	Why is it real for Dr. Ford but not for Tara Reid?
	And Biden's saying, Biden says, I'm not suggesting she has no right to come forward.
	Any woman, they should be heard and then it should be investigated.
	And if there's anything that is consistent with what's being said and she makes the case or the case is made, it should be believed.
	Again, he is now shifting back to due process, which should have been the original standard.
	But the problem is, that was never his standard.
	No one can, the point of this, no one can uphold the standards that Democrats set for Brett Kavanaugh.
	And this is the point many of us were making at the time, that you have set a bar that is impossible to surpass.
	It is impossible.
	It is literally, the guilt is the accusation, because believe all women, all women have to be taken seriously no matter how outlandish their claims, no matter if they're claiming that Brett Kavanaugh was lining up women and boofing them, In high school?
	And that boof actually meant not getting drunk, but raping people?
	Right?
	The whole thing was ridiculous.
	And Joe Biden held by that.
	And then she asked another follow-up, Mika Brzezinski, along the same lines.
	She said, Stacey Abrams said during the Kavanaugh hearings, I believe women, I believe survivors of assault should be supported and with voices heard.
	Kirsten Gillibrand tweeted, do we believe women?
	Do we give women an opportunity to tell their story?
	We must be a country that says yes every time.
	They now both support you.
	Are women to be believed unless it pertains to you?
	And Biden says, women are to be believed, given the benefit of the doubt.
	If they come forward and say something that they said happened to them, they should start off with the presumption that they are telling the truth.
	Then you have to look at the circumstances and the facts, and the facts in this case do not exist.
	They never happened.
	Okay, so now he's shifting his standard.
	Which makes him look pretty bad.
	Because again, the standard was never capable of being upheld.
	And maybe Democrats are willing to allow this sort of shifting standard.
	And maybe it's better for the world if we go back to a rational standard.
	I think it is.
	But let's just acknowledge what happened here.
	That the Democrats shifted their standard from Nina Berlay's Time magazine piece in which she claimed That she would perform a Lewinsky on Bill Clinton in order to maintain the propriety of abortion.
	They moved from, we don't care about sexual assault if it's a Democrat, to every woman must be believed when it was Donald Trump who was in the crosshairs.
	And then they moved from that to, you know what would be great?
	Due process.
	When it's Joe Biden back in the crosshairs.
	So just understand, there are no standards for Democrats.
	None.
	I've held the same standard all the way through.
	Allegations have to be substantiated by actual evidence.
	That should be the standard for all of these things, should it not?
	Okay, now Joe Biden, then Joe Biden was asked on Mika Brzezinski about the document release over at University of Delaware.
	And he seems stunned that he's even being asked the question.
	Now he's released a statement trying to clarify.
	Here he was being stunned.
	I mean, first of all, Joe Biden has a perennial look of being stunned these days because he, again, he is not with us.
	But here is Mika Brzezinski and Joe Biden.
	There are no personnel documents.
	You can't do that.
	You wouldn't, for example, if you worked with me or I worked for you and you had my income tax returns, you had my whatever.
	They're private documents.
	They don't get put out in the public.
	They're not part of the public record that, in fact, any senator or vice president or president has in their documents.
	So, question.
	Why did you give them to the University of Delaware?
	Like, basically you're okay with people perusing your notes, just not right now.
	Then you shouldn't have turned him over, buddy.
	He puts out a full statement today.
	And the gall of the man.
	Here's Joe Biden's full statement that he put out on Friday morning.
	Quote.
	April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
	Every year at this time, we talk about awareness prevention and the importance of women feeling they can step forward, say something, and be heard.
	That belief, that women should be heard, was the underpinning of a law I wrote over 25 years ago.
	To this day, I am most proud of the Violence Against Women Act.
	So, each April, we are reminded not only of how far we have come in dealing with sexual assault in this country, but how far we still have to go.
	So, again, he's being I'm going to use the phrase, credibly accused, because I guess now that's the phrase that we use, credibly accused of sexual assault.
	And he opened his statement with, here are all the great things I've done for women.
	I was reliably informed that it does not matter whether you've treated women well your entire career, that has no relevance to a sexual assault allegation.
	I was reliably informed of that when it came to both Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh, actually.
	Biden continues.
	When I wrote the bill, few wanted to talk about the issue.
	It was considered a private matter, a personal matter, a family matter.
	I didn't see it that way.
	To me, freedom from fear, harm and violence for women was a legal right, a civil right and a human right.
	And I knew we had to change not only the law, but the culture.
	So we held hours of hearings and heard from the most incredibly brave women.
	We opened the eyes of the Senate and the nation.
	We passed the law.
	In the years that followed, I fought to continually strengthen the law.
	So when we took office and President Obama asked me what I wanted, I told him I wanted oversight of the critical appointments in the office on violence against women at the DOJ.
	and I wanted a senior White House advisor appointing directly to me on the issue.
	Both of those things happened.
	As Vice President, we started the It's On Us campaign on college campuses to send the message loud and clear that dating violence is violence and against the law.
	We had to get men involved.
	So there's this long preamble about all of these wonderful things that he has done for women.
	And then he says, It's on us, and it's on me as someone who wants to lead this country.
	I recognize my responsibility to be a voice, an advocate, and a leader for the change in culture that has begun but is nowhere near finished.
	So I want to address allegations by a former staffer that I engaged in misconduct 27 years ago.
	Well, no, the allegation is that you forcibly sexually assaulted her, not that you engaged in misconduct.
	He says, They aren't true.
	This never happened.
	While the details of these allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault are complicated, two things are not complicated.
	One is that women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and when they step forward, they should be heard, not silenced.
	The second is that their stories should be subject to appropriate inquiry and scrutiny.
	Again, there's that shifting standard.
	Appropriate inquiry and scrutiny apparently did not involve, you know, actual scrutiny and inquiry for Christine Blasey Ford, or any of the women Donald Trump was involved with, or any of the rest of us.
	Responsible news organizations should examine and evaluate the full and growing record of inconsistencies in her story, which has changed repeatedly in both small and big ways.
	But this much bears emphasizing.
	She has said she raised some of these issues with her supervisor and senior staffers from my office at the time.
	They, both men and a woman, have said unequivocally she never came to them and complained or raised issues.
	News organizations that have talked with literally dozens of former staffers have not found one, not one, who corroborated her allegations in any way.
	Indeed, many of them spoke to the culture of an office that would not have tolerated harassment in any way, as indeed I would not have.
	There is a clear critical part of this story that can be verified.
	The former staffer has said she filed a complaint back in 1993.
	But she does not have a record of this alleged complaint.
	The papers from my Senate years that I donated to the University of Delaware do not contain personnel files.
	It is the practice of senators to establish a library of personal papers that document their public record.
	Speeches, policy proposals, positions taken, and the writing of bills.
	There's only one place a complaint of this kind could be.
	The National Archives.
	There's only one problem with this.
	This is not true.
	This is not true.
	Okay, it is Nicole Einbinder, who is a reporter for, I'm trying to see which outlet, Business Insider.
	She says, this is not right.
	She says, the National Archives does not hold records from the Personnel Office, the Office of Fair Employment Practices.
	Instead, a Senate Historical Office staffer said the Fair Employment Practices records are governed by Senate resolution mandating that records containing personal privacy information closed by statute and records of executive nomination are closed for 50 years.
	That staffer said that the rules for filing a complaint to the Office of Fair Employment Practices were complicated, and it was possible a staffer attempting to do so without proper guidance may not have taken the necessary steps to get an investigation started.
	According to the congressional testimony from 1995, 479 people contacted the office between 1992 and 1995 seeking assistance.
	Of those, only 102 entered the office's five-step dispute resolution process, which included a formal complaint and hearing.
	If Reid's complaint was filed to the Office of Fair Employment Practices, the record will remain closed until 2043. 2043!
	Also, it is possible the reason that she wants the University of Delaware records exposed is because they're actual records because she met formally and informally with several Biden aides, according to her, including his former chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, about her concerns, which included allegations she was told she dressed too provocatively and asked to serve drinks at a fundraiser because Biden liked her legs.
	She believes notes from those discussions would be in any personnel files the archive might contain.
	So it's not just about a formal complaint.
	It's also about, did Joe Biden ever mention her in any of his notes?
	He refuses to release those notes.
	And now he's putting out a statement lying about how he can't release those notes.
	So he says, as a presidential candidate, I'm accountable to the American people.
	We've lived long enough with a president who doesn't think he's accountable to anyone and takes responsibility for nothing.
	And then he goes on and talks about how we need to stop gender-based violence, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
	Bottom line is utterly insufficient from Joe Biden.
	Not by his own standard.
	Not by his own standard.
	And by the standards that people held for Trump, by the way.
	So, does that really damage Joe Biden in a race against Trump?
	He can always point to Trump.
	On a comparative level, he can say, listen, he has a far worse history than I do of bad allegations.
	And that's true.
	It is 100% true.
	It is also true that Joe Biden was perceived widely by the media as pure as the driven snow.
	Not anymore.
	It's going to be difficult for him to have these allegations dogging him.
	The rest of the race.
	OK, in just a moment, we're going to get to all of your coronavirus updates.
	By the way, quick further note on Joe Biden.
	Joe Biden also has now enlisted Chris Dodd to aid in his search for a female vice president.
	The Connecticut Democrat allegedly assaulted a waitress during his tenure there.
	There's a famous story where Chris Dodd and Ted Kennedy were sandwiching waitresses.
	That's literally what that was in a report from Michael Kelly writing for GQ.
	Quote, "It is after midnight and Kennedy and Dodd are just finishing up a long dinner in a private room on the first floor of the restaurant's annex.
	They are drunk.
	Their dates, two very young blondes, leave the table to go to the bathroom.
	The dates are drunk too.
	They'd always get their girls very, very drunk," says a former brasserie waitress.
	Betty Lowe, who served the foursome, also leaves the room.
	Apparently, a woman named Carla Gaviglio is told that the senators want to see her.
	Cavillio enters the room.
	The six foot two, 225 pound plus Kennedy grabs the five foot three, 103 pound waitress and throws her on the table.
	Kennedy then picks her up from the table and throws her on Dodd, who is sprawled in a chair.
	And then Kennedy jumps on top and begins rubbing his genital area against her, supporting his weight on the arms of the chair.
	Chris Dodd is there the whole time and involved in this in this sandwiching.
	Dodd, she adds, says, it's not my fault.
	OK, so that that's the guy that Joe Biden just chose to help him search for a female So good luck there from the Biden campaign.
	Okay, we're going to move on to other matters that I think concern people more.
	Namely, are we all going to die or not?
	We'll get to that in just one second.
	First, let us talk about the fact that your favorite devices are a major source of blue light.
	And this means they are keeping you up at night.
	And if you are playing with your phone right before bed, it is likely to keep you up.
	You're on your screen so much now because we are all stuck at home.
	It is very important to protect your eyes from that blue light.
	It can give you headaches.
	They can keep you awake at night, which leads to greater stress levels.
	What you need is a good-looking pair of Felix Grey glasses.
	There are lots of situations where you could get involved in eye strain.
	It gives you headaches.
	Common symptoms from spending too much time in front of screens are things like blurry vision and tired eyes.
	Stop with the blue light.
	Instead, get the Felix Grey glasses.
	I have a pair.
	I wear them a lot.
	They are great.
	Many blue light glasses don't actually filter enough blue light, especially in the range that matters.
	Screens produce the most blue light at a certain point in the spectrum, namely 455 nanometers.
	Most clear blue light lenses only filter about 2 to 3 percent in that range.
	But Felix Grey uses a proprietary filtering technology to filter 15 times more blue light in the same exact range.
	Order online.
	The glasses will ship directly to you with a hard case and lens cloth included.
	By the way, these things are much more durable.
	You'll actually see people marketing blue light glasses online where the film is sort of painted on them and then they start cracking.
	And they start bubbling and they fall apart really easily.
	Not Felix Grey.
	This stuff is going to last you a lifetime.
	This week, only Felix Grey is giving you 15% off all glasses at FelixGreyGlasses.com slash Ben.
	Head on over to FelixGreyGlasses.com slash Ben.
	Enter Ben at checkout for this special offer.
	If your screens aren't easier on the eyes, you can send them back for a full refund.
	Try them for 30 days risk-free.
	That's FelixGreyGlasses.com slash Ben.
	Promo code Ben.
	Shipping and return is totally free at Felix Grey.
	FelixGreyGlasses.com slash Ben.
	Use that promo code Ben.
	Alrighty.
	Well, we're going to get into everything coronavirus related because the idiotic controversy over when to reopen continues.
	I say idiotic because we're not actually having the intelligent conversation.
	At this point, it's basically people who want to lock down forever against a few people who want to open everything up in willy-nilly fashion, and then a bunch of people in the middle saying, how about we go back to work in tranches and act responsibly?
	I think that's like 70% of the American public at this point.
	Seriously.
	I think if you poll people and you say, here's our three options.
	Lock down until there's a vaccine.
	And you lose your job, and the government will try to pay you, but the economy collapses.
	Just get out there willy-nilly and start smooching strangers.
	Or, we can responsibly reopen right now, starting with healthy populations.
	We can wear masks and we can socially distance.
	I think 70% of the American population will be in that last group.
	We'll get to that in just a second.
	First, this Sunday we have a great Sunday special for you.
	It is with Amity Shlaes.
	Super relevant.
	So Amity is the author of a fantastic book called The Forgotten Man about FDR and the 1930s and why all the measures taken during the Great Depression were absolute garbage.
	She also has a fantastic book on the Great Society and how government attempts to alleviate poverty have been a giant backfire and a giant fail.
	It's deeply relevant at a time when you have the Democratic Party calling for a whole scale remaking of the economy yet again.
	Here's a little bit of the preview.
	Guaranteed income tends to break up families.
	It makes it easier to be a single, autonomous adult.
	With a guaranteed income, you don't have to stay together.
	Families need to depend on one another in order to be strong.
	Okay, it's really a great episode, a really informative episode, and her books are really tremendous.
	Meanwhile, it is that glorious time of the week when I give a shout-out to a DailyWare member.
	Today, it is Laura Dykstra, who clearly knows how to count her blessings.
	In this pic, two adorably, patriotically dressed babies are sitting on the floor together, one deep in thought, the other fully surprised to be getting photographed with not one, but two examples of the world's most elite beverage vessel.
	The caption reads, good things really do come in pairs.
	Couldn't have said it better myself, Laura.
	Those two are a cuteness overload.
	And the babies are also really cute.
	Thanks for sending in that magnificent pic, and good luck.
	You've clearly got your hands full.
	By the way, I believe that our offer for two separate Leftist Tears Tumblr is still on the table.
	So you can not have those twins, but you could actually have the two Leftist Tears, or you could have these twins.
	Aw, twins, man.
	Okay, you can check out those leftist-serious tumblers right now when you go over to dailywire.com slash subscribe.
	I believe also we are offering all AXS members 20% off.
	So go check out dailywire.com slash subscribe.
	Subscribe if you're listening to the largest, fastest-growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
	It seems that many in the media now have a vested interest in locking down forever.
	And the case they are making is not that they have a good alternative.
	That locking down forever is even credible.
	It is not credible.
	People are going to go out.
	They are.
	And politicians understand right now, because of the media coverage, That the best available option for them is blame Trump for the economy and then take credit for saving lives by locking down your city or locking down your neighborhood.
	Unless you're a responsible governor, in which case you are looking to responsibly reopen.
	And there are some bipartisan responsible governors.
	Again, you're looking at people like Jared Polis in Colorado looking at reopening.
	He doesn't get any sort of media play because they're too busy, the media, turning this into a polarized political issue when it shouldn't be politicized.
	Here's the narrative the media are now generating.
	The media is that if you want to reopen in any way, it's because you don't care about human life.
	And this follows hard on the Joe Biden line.
	So Joe Biden has been saying since the beginning of the week, his new line is, we need to fly flags at half staff, that this is going to fix everything.
	So I played that clip a little bit earlier of Joe Biden stumbling and bumbling his way through that suggestion.
	Within four hours, the New York Times on its front page put a piece suggesting that President Trump is mean and doesn't care about dead people.
	The actual headline was, amid a rising death toll, Trump leaves the grieving to others.
	You see, Trump's really mean and terrible.
	By the way, here was Donald Trump yesterday talking about mourning for every life lost.
	Tragically obscene, the virus poses the greatest risk to older Americans.
	Together as one nation, we mourn for every precious life that has been lost.
	And there have been many.
	There have been many.
	We're so saddened by it.
	Through our aggressive actions and the devotion of our doctors and nurses, however, we have held our fatality rate Far below hard-hit other countries such as Spain and Italy and United Kingdom and Sweden.
	Yeah, also, first of all, when it comes to the fatality per million rate, that's not actually true.
	We are below UK, we are below Spain, we are below Italy, we are not below Sweden.
	I don't know why he's beating up on Sweden these days other than Trump himself seems confused as to what his actual policy should be here.
	The point here is that the media have generated a narrative.
	The narrative is if you reopen, you're killing people.
	And if you call for reopening, you're calling for killing people.
	And so they're going to pick on Trump here.
	The headline at the New York Times was, as the death toll from the coronavirus over eight weeks surpasses the total American military casualties in eight years of major combat in Vietnam, Mr. Trump has led no national mourning.
	That sentence in and of itself demonstrates how stupid the media coverage is.
	That's Peter Baker from the New York Times.
	This is not a war.
	This is not a war of choice like Vietnam.
	This is not we got in and the military strategy decided how many people would die.
	That is not how this works.
	This is a pandemic disease.
	Are you insane?
	Anybody who makes a Vietnam War comparison, it's amazing.
	You get blasted by the media if you compare this to the flu.
	Because it is not like the flu in terms of deadliness or ease of spread.
	But it's a lot more like the flu than it is like the Vietnam War.
	The Vietnam War was not contagious, you morons.
	The Vietnam War was about military strategy.
	I'm gonna need a way in which this is like the Vietnam War other than there are a lot of dead people.
	It is utterly unlike the Vietnam War.
	And yet you keep hearing this comparison because the idea is that it's Trump's Vietnam.
	Always, it's Trump's Katrina.
	It's Trump's Vietnam.
	Come on, it's just irresponsible nonsense.
	And again, all of this is driving a narrative.
	The narrative is that you're very mean and very bad if you try to reopen the economy.
	And the media love picking the nuts, right?
	They like picking on the people who are being most irresponsible in protesting this sort of stuff.
	So for example, yesterday, there were a bunch of protesters who descended on the Michigan Capitol because Michigan legislators are voting on whether to extend the stay-at-home orders.
	And in the dumbest possible fashion, protesters show up carrying guns, And by the way, I will note, even this was miscovered by the media.
	Here's what's dumb about this.
	Screaming at police officers who are attempting to enforce social distancing, getting right in their faces while the police officers are only wearing medical masks, which means that the police officers are protecting others from being infected.
	But a medical mask, unless it's an N95, is not going to protect you from being infected by others because you intake air every time you breathe.
	Getting right in the faces of police officers who are just trying to protect legislators and keep people safe is idiotic.
	Do not do it.
	It is idiotic.
	And showing up here with guns as though you're going to invade the Capitol is a horrible look.
	It is a stupid look.
	I've been saying for a while, you want to protest this stuff?
	Go right ahead and protest it.
	Here's how you should do it.
	You should go to the Capitol.
	You should socially distance.
	You should wear a mask.
	Because the whole point you're making is you're responsible enough not to infect tons of other people.
	You're responsible enough to be given your freedom.
	So when you appear to be irresponsible and crazy, all you are doing is giving the other side the baton to smack you with.
	It's really, really stupid.
	Okay, these were bad optics.
	It was stupid optics.
	Again, I think most of the people there are well-meaning.
	I think most of the people there are correct that the economy should reopen.
	But you're really doing the opposite of what you are intending to do with stuff like this.
	And the media loves it, right?
	The media are totally into it.
	By the way, when I say the medium has covered even this, let's be frank about this.
	It is not against the law to come to the Capitol with a gun unless they can show hostile intent.
	So members of the media, because they're scared of guns and they think the guns are inherently evil, they think it shows hostile intent to show up anywhere with a gun.
	So they said a pro-gun rally in Virginia, which involved Like, 10,000 people bringing guns and involved zero actual violence was super, super threatening.
	Anytime reporters see a gun, they freak out.
	Like, absolutely freak out.
	These are the same kinds of people who say that if I have armed security at my kid's school, that this is somehow damaging to my child, which is purely insane.
	But, was it good optics?
	No.
	Also, quick note on media malfeasance here.
	Every single one of those protesters was temperature checked before they entered the building.
	That doesn't mean they're coronavirus free.
	There's asymptomatic transmission.
	It does mean that these people were nonviolent enough to submit to a temperature check before entering the Michigan Capitol.
	Okay, put all that aside.
	So on the one side you have the people in the media who obviously want to lock down forever, and then you have people like this who are being irresponsible in how they protest and creating bad optics and being stupid.
	And then you have everybody in the middle who's like, you know what guys?
	There are serious costs to this thing and we're gonna have to reopen.
	I'm amused to see that the New York Times is finally recognizing that capitalism raises people out of poverty, and that when you shut down forcibly the world economy, that people get poor again.
	There's an article in the New York Times that sort of tacitly admits this.
	There's a headline, millions who had risen out of poverty are pulled back in by the pandemic.
	Let's be frank.
	It's not just the pandemic that has pulled people back into poverty.
	It is governments forcibly shutting down the free market economy that has pulled people back into poverty and changing free market economy conditions based on people not going out and participating in a free market economy.
	If government was the solution to poverty, I'm wondering, why did millions of people just sink back into poverty during the greatest government enforcement action in the history of mankind, transnationally?
	Just wondering.
	Just worth noting.
	In the real world, shutting down the economy is actually quite a bad thing.
	Quite a bad and foolish thing for doing it very long.
	And what you're seeing is people who are taking actions that are completely unrelated to responsibility.
	So Gavin Newsom in California.
	Again, the media have created this bizarre perception, super bizarre, that Gavin Newsom in California has done an amazing job, Ron DeSantis in Florida has been evil and horrible, Greg Abbott in Texas has been evil and horrible.
	Last I checked, California has about five deaths per 100,000 population from coronavirus.
	Texas has three deaths per 100,000 population from coronavirus.
	Florida has six deaths per 100,000 population from coronavirus.
	So why is it that Gavin Newsom is a hero and Ron DeSantis is a fool when Ron DeSantis has about the same stats as Gavin Newsom except he didn't shut down his entire state and is not threatening to shut down every beach?
	Gavin Newsom, by the way, even had to walk that back.
	A couple of days ago, Gavin Newsom suggested he was going to shut down every state park and beach in the state because a bunch of people showed up at Newport Beach.
	As I mentioned, this is like the dumbest possible policy.
	Why?
	If you're at the beach socially distancing from other people, that is basically the safest place you could be right now.
	Sunlight and free air kill the virus.
	Sunlight and free air keep you away from infecting other people in close proximity to you.
	Like, this is it.
	There was a study from China, two, count them, two cases of coronavirus transmission in the open air, and it was apparently two people talking to each other at like one foot distance with no masks.
	So Gavin Newsom had to walk that back.
	He said that he is, he's only going to close state and local beaches in Orange County.
	Which means, of course, now he's closed L.A.
	County, right?
	L.A.
	County is closed.
	Orange County is closed.
	So what is everybody gonna do?
	They're going to drive to San Diego.
	They can drive to Oxnard.
	That's all that's going to happen.
	And then there will be overcrowding there.
	Because when you squeeze people out of certain areas, they go to other areas, you idiot.
	They're going to go to the city parks that aren't closed.
	People are doing that here.
	In the area where I live, we're just going to drive over to Burbank or Pasadena.
	We're not going to stick around in LA County.
	We're just going to drive over to another city that isn't completely insane.
	In Washington, D.C., there are officials saying the city may not reopen for three months.
	For another three months in Washington, D.C.
	To this point in Washington, D.C., there have been a grand total of 190 deaths.
	And they're going to shut the entire city of Washington, D.C.
	for another three months.
	Based on what?
	To accomplish what?
	A testing and tracing regimen that is only operative to prevent spikes?
	You know, by the way, when you're first going to see those spikes, you're first going to see those spikes not in the testing and tracing regimen, not unless you ramp up the testing to millions per day.
	You're first going to see it in hospital cases, when people suddenly spike in a particular area.
	I'm all for testing and contact tracing, but can we stop pretending that it's a utopian solution in which the virus stops spreading and that the R goes below 1 because of testing and tracing?
	In a country of 330 million people where asymptomatic spread of the disease is prevalent and we have over a million cases that we've already identified, 900,000 of them that are still active?
	Okay, none of this is going to happen in the near future.
	So, let's be real about this.
	There's stupid people who just say, go out there and swap spit with your local neighbors, no matter your age, doesn't matter.
	There are very few of those, very few.
	Then, there are the media elite who are like, locked down forever, and anybody who suggests differently is evil and terrible.
	And then there's everybody in the middle.
	And guess what?
	Everybody's going to end up in the middle.
	Every single person who is not insane is going to end up in the middle, no matter what the media try to push here.
	They're not going to listen to Dr. Karen Landman over at the New York Times saying Georgia went first and it screwed up.
	Because guess what?
	Somebody was going to have to go first.
	And there's no evidence that Georgia screwed this up.
	And if you just say, oh, well, there'll be an elevation in cases, guess what?
	That's called reality when you let people out of lockdown.
	Of course there's elevation in cases.
	Frankly, I'm kind of shocked that we still are not getting national data on who exactly is dying and from what.
	There are stats out today, by the way, that demonstrate that the vast majority of people who are dying, again, and who are young, are people who have serious underlying conditions, not just hypertension if you're under 50.
	People who are obese, people who have HIV, people who have asthma.
	If you are young and you are healthy, statistically speaking, you are not going to die of this disease.
	The chances of you dying of the disease, I read the stats yesterday, are extraordinarily low for young people.
	And so what you're going to start seeing is everybody treating this like Sweden.
	That's what's going to happen.
	And that's the responsible way to treat this thing.
	It's just everybody's late on it, of course.
	And the polarized media production here is something to behold.
	Okay, time for some things I like.
	And then a quick thing that I hate, or not so quick thing that I hate.
	So, things I like today.
	So, there is a series that came out in 2018 on FX, I believe.
	It is now on Netflix.
	It is a mini-series called Waco, about the Waco assault by the federal government.
	And it is the most absurdly libertarian series in the history of television.
	I mean, absurdly libertarian.
	Because the entire series is basically about how the FBI, like all other federal agencies, is staffed by people who are self-interested, by people who want to maximize their budget and not lose their jobs, and how they will use the elements of law enforcement in order to maximize their political They're political upside and take risks with the lives of other people that are completely unjustified.
	That's really what this is about.
	The series traces the FBI and its activities from Ruby Ridge through Waco.
	It starts off with Ruby Ridge.
	Now, a lot of people are not old enough to remember Ruby Ridge.
	Frankly, I don't really remember Waco particularly well.
	It happened in 1993.
	I was nine at the time and I didn't follow it too closely.
	But Ruby Ridge was a situation in which there was a gun charge.
	That was brought against this guy who was sort of a quasi, what the accusations were that he was a white supremacist.
	He was a sort of libertarian anarchist.
	And he had a farm up in a place called Ruby Ridge in Idaho.
	And the federal government came in, the ATF and the FBI came in.
	And they proceeded to negotiate with him for like two minutes.
	And then the FBI got in a gun battle with his son and killed his 13-year-old son.
	They shot his 13-year-old son to death.
	In a kind of confrontation in the woods.
	Then they proceeded to shoot his wife and kill his wife.
	Then he came out.
	He was convinced to come out by negotiators with the FBI.
	He was put on trial for the gun charge.
	And he was acquitted.
	So the FBI went in guns blazing in a situation for a gun charge.
	This underscores a basic point that I've always made.
	When you are calculating whether a law is worth enforcing or making, understand that at the end of every law is the threat of death from the government.
	Every single law, the threat of death from the government exists at the end of that law.
	Why?
	Because let's say that you have a high flush toilet and you violate an EPA standard because your toilet flushes too much water.
	And the federal government comes to your door and they say, we're going to fine you.
	You say, you know, I'm not paying that fine.
	They say, we're going to lien your property.
	You say, well, I'm not liening my property.
	And I say, well, then we're going to come arrest you.
	You say, well, I'm not going with you.
	At the end of every law, at the end of every law, is if you resist the law, they will shoot you.
	And so, knowing that, you should take pretty seriously the kind of laws that we make in this country.
	Understanding that most people are not going to resist the law, understanding that most people will pay the fine, understanding all of that, and understanding that there are certain areas where there is interest in regulation, right?
	You are going to have to regulate people from damaging each other.
	But, if you are doing something that doesn't damage another human being, and the federal government is threatening to murder you over it, then that's kind of a big problem.
	The series makes that point with regard to the Branch Davidians in Waco.
	The Branch Davidians were not good people.
	The Branch Davidians were engaged in a cult in which the leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh, was essentially engaged in sexual assault of young girls, in which he was engaged in polygamy, in which he was fathering children by other men's wives with their permission.
	But some of these people were girls.
	I mean, it was like one of them was 14 when he married her.
	Pretty gross stuff.
	But the series makes the point that pretty much all of this was legal in the state of Texas.
	And even the gun charges that the ATF went into police could have been alleviated with like a $25 fine.
	And so they went in, guns blazing, to a compound of 130 people.
	76 people died, including 25 children.
	And the series traces, like every step of this, in apparently fairly accurate fashion, because they were consulting with somebody who was inside the compound and ended up escaping at last minute.
	And they consulted with Gary Nesner, who was the negotiator on behalf of the FBI.
	The series, you know, there's a case to make, the series is too sympathetic toward Koresh, that it really should have examined more of the bad stuff that Koresh was doing.
	But as people in the series point out, there's an actual radio host in the series who is talking about it, almost as running commentary, the ATF is not an enforceable child abuse agency.
	There were accusations that Koresh was abusing children.
	We have agencies for that, right?
	We have child protective services.
	That's not the ATF's job.
	The ATF going in guns blazing over gun charges that were fairly minute.
	And then basically bringing tanks into the area for political gain is fairly insane.
	Here's a little bit of the trailer.
	It is, it's disturbing stuff.
	And again, it is a great reminder That we should be very careful about the power you give to the federal government because you never know when that power of the federal government is turned against you.
	And that power is enormous.
	The government, as I've said before, is a giant gun.
	And at the end of every law is that giant gun.
	So be very careful how you deploy that giant gun.
	You've looked to me to be your leader.
	To guide you on this journey.
	But I'm no leader.
	I'm a follower.
	Just like you.
	God has instructed me to stay here and wait for his sign.
	This is our time to prove through suffering that we are worthy of the miracle that's to come.
	I mean, it is the most libertarian series I have ever seen in my life.
	And it is fairly well-rounded in the sense that, you know, Koresh is obviously not a good person.
	Koresh is obviously a bad guy, but he is a true believer in his own shtick.
	They don't make it as though he's a cynical user, which he may very well have been, right?
	He may have been a guy who just wanted to shtip everybody else's wife, and so he created a false prophecy in which he had to shtip everybody else's wife, and people went along with it.
	But the series is pretty definitive on its own view that the federal government is responsible for the deaths inside that compound.
	It does not make any bones about the idea that this was not a mass suicide, that this was in fact the federal government completely blowing it.
	It's worth watching as it is an excellent reminder for all those who love government force and are willing to use it in nearly any circumstance, that it's all fun and games until the government decides that you're the bad guy based on whatever pretext they can raise that day.
	Okay, time for a thing that I hate.
	The utter and essential dishonesty of members of the media who are taking people out of context on this pandemic thing is truly, it's extraordinary.
	It's extraordinary.
	So you remember early on, President Trump suggested that the Democrats were engaged in a hoax by blaming him for all the impacts of coronavirus.
	And this became a talking point for the Democrats who then claimed that Trump was actually saying that coronavirus itself was a hoax.
	He never said coronavirus itself was a hoax, but this became the talking point.
	And Nancy Pelosi went on TV and repeated it every day.
	It didn't matter.
	It was a four Pinocchio claim, according to the Washington Post.
	Did not matter.
	It has been trotted out ever since to claim that President Trump claims that coronavirus itself was a hoax.
	Well, now the Democrats have a second round of this.
	So Jared Kushner, who's the chief advisor to the president, he goes on television and he says, listen, the federal response to this thing has been a success story.
	Not the coronavirus is a success story.
	The federal government's response to this is a success story because we responded as governors need us to respond.
	Here's what Jared Kushner said.
	And then we will explain and then we'll show how it has been deliberately twisted by members of the media to suggest that Jared Kushner is celebrating 60,000 dead Americans.
	It's just this kind of stuff is just sheer garbage.
	Here is Jared Kushner on Fox and Friends the other day.
	We're on the other side of the medical aspect of this, and I think that we've achieved all the different milestones that are needed.
	So the government, federal government, rose to the challenge, and this is a great success story.
	And I think that that's really, you know, what needs to be told.
	Okay, so again, he is saying that the federal government's success here is a story that needs to be told.
	100% true.
	100% true.
	All you have seen, you saw it for weeks.
	Where are the ventilators?
	Where are the ventilators?
	Why isn't Trump doing a better job on ventilators?
	People are going to die because they don't have ventilators.
	First of all, that was always exaggerated to a certain extent because guess what the death rate on ventilators is?
	It is, by most studies, in excess of 90%.
	But beyond all of that, guess what didn't happen?
	30,000 ventilators needed in New York.
	It was not necessary.
	And when Trump said, They're not going to need 30,000 ventilators in New York.
	He was torn apart for it.
	Andrew Cuomo says they will.
	How many ventilators were needed?
	Not 30.
	I don't believe they need 10.
	The federal government got them the ventilators.
	The federal government has been responsible for getting people the personal protective equipment.
	The federal government has been responsible for a $7 trillion bailout.
	The federal government response here has been as active as any response in the history of America and more active than virtually all of them.
	And you know who is saying that sort of stuff?
	Democrats.
	Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey.
	No ally to the President of the United States.
	He says, New Jersey's getting pretty hard hit right now.
	He says, listen, the federal government is giving us the supplies we need.
	We're receiving what we need from the Trump administration.
	You've heard the same message from Andrew Cuomo.
	You've heard the same message from Gavin Newsom.
	Democrat Jay Inslee.
	Democrats across the nation have been consistently saying over and over and over, we asked the federal government for this and we got it.
	Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan says this.
	Frankly, I'm shocked that the Trump administration has not cut an ad so far or the Trump campaign has not cut an ad.
	It just has all the various Democrats saying we asked for what we need and we got it.
	Because that is true.
	Here is Phil Murphy yesterday saying this.
	We can't thank the president and his team enough in terms of what we've gotten already in terms of ventilators, bed capacity for the Army Corps, PPE, etc.
	But we are Embarking upon a very significant partnership to more than double expand our testing amounts and numbers in New Jersey by at latest the end of May.
	Okay, so there he is explaining the federal government has done its job.
	The federal government, I know.
	Buried lead.
	The federal government has done its job.
	This is not Trump's Katrina.
	By the way, Bush's Katrina wasn't Bush's Katrina.
	But this is not Trump's Katrina.
	It's not Trump's Vietnam.
	The Trump administration, put aside the dumb stuff that Trump says in press conferences.
	Because that's just Trump being Trump and we all get it.
	And anybody who pretends not to get it is being deliberately obtuse.
	We all understand what Trump is and what he has said and we understand what he does.
	We all get it.
	And anybody who doesn't is lying to you.
	Here's the reality.
	The federal government did its job.
	That is a success story.
	The media will not tell that success story.
	I would guarantee that if you do a search for ventilators right now in the media, if you just search the word ventilators at the New York Times and the media, you will see this enormous spike in the early days when the demands were ventilators, ventilators, ventilators, ventilators.
	And then the federal government got them the ventilators and then gone.
	When's the last time you heard somebody on national TV mentioned the word ventilators?
	It's been a while, huh?
	You know why?
	Because New York didn't exhaust the supply of ventilators.
	No one has.
	Remember when they said we don't have enough hospital beds in New York and the feds were like, okay, but we'll get you the hospital beds you need?
	Guess what didn't happen?
	An overrun of the hospital system.
	Andrew Cuomo sent away the U.S.
	Navy ship Comfort.
	Remember the huge story when the Comfort arrived?
	Not as big a story when it went away, was it?
	So when Jared Kushner says it was a success story by the federal government, that's because it was a success story by the federal government.
	And they continue to work to provide for the needs of states, many of which should have been providing for those needs themselves.
	Okay, so this all leads up to the media deliberately misinterpreting Kushner because Kushner is very bad.
	He's a very bad guy because Jared Kushner works for Trump and he's related to Trump because he's married to Trump's daughter.
	And this means that Kushner is bad and evil and terrible and no good and very bad.
	By the way, in the history of American politics, I understand.
	I'm not a big fan of nepotism either.
	But to pretend that Jared Kushner is unique in the history of American politics is a complete absurdity.
	This goes back quite a way.
	The person who was effectively running the country when Woodrow Wilson went down in 1919, right, he had a heart attack and he was basically not with us, was Edith.
	His wife was running the country.
	His son-in-law, McAdoo, William McAdoo, was the Secretary of War under, so the Jared Kushner of his time was the Secretary of War, not an advisor to the president, the Secretary of War under Woodrow Wilson.
	I believe.
	So nepotism, the Kennedys, the Clintons.
	Tell me about nepotism.
	Okay, so here was the view.
	Here was the view yesterday, deliberately misinterpreting Kushner's comments to suggest that he was saying that it was a success that 60,000 people had died.
	Those were some of the most tone-deaf comments I've heard from the administration.
	We know that Jared Kushner has been sort of the behind-the-scenes task force leader, corona task force leader.
	He's been instrumental in this response, this piss-poor response, and 60,000 Americans have lost Okay, Sunny Hostin, I'd like to hear you define the piss-poor response.
	Really, what should they have done better?
	What were the things they should have done better?
	And the Democrats were stumping for heavily in February.
	The widespread media lie that the federal government's response has been piss-poor is absolutely rebutted by Democratic governor after Democratic governor saying we asked for what we needed and then we got it from the feds.
	And the attempt to twist what Kushner is saying into, yes, we're happy with 60,000 dead is insane.
	It's totally insane.
	But again, this is the media basically saying that Trump is a bad, mean man who doesn't care about human beings, and that's why he wants to reopen.
	And it's all ridiculous.
	Alrighty, so we'll be back here a little bit later today with two additional hours of content.
	We'll get to all the Michael Flynn stuff then.
	We'll also be getting to your questions in the mailbag.
	So go subscribe over at dailywire.com slash subscribe.
	We have a special deal on.
	This is the last week, by the way, when our all-access live episodes are gonna be available to non-all-access members.
	So you should subscribe right now because we're gonna keep those going.
	Like next week, I'm still gonna be answering your questions and wearing t-shirts and all the rest, but you're not gonna be able to see any of the gun show unless you are actually an all-access live member.
	So head on over to dailywire.com slash subscribe.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Colton Haas.
	Directed by Mike Joyner.
	Executive producer Jeremy Boring.
	Supervising producer Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.
	Assistant director Pavel Lydowsky.
	Technical producer Austin Stevens.
	Playback and media operated by Nick Sheehan.
	Associate producer Katie Swinnerton.
	Edited by Adam Siovitz.
	Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.
	Hair and makeup is by Nika Geneva.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.
	Copyright Daily Wire 2020.
	You know, the Matt Wall Show, it's not just another show about politics.
	I think there are enough of those already out there.
	We talk about culture, because culture drives politics, and it drives everything else.
	So my main focuses are life, family, faith.
	Those are fundamental, and that's what this show is about.

▲