Ben Shapiro dissects CNN’s Project Veritas fallout—$100M libel threats, retracted Scaramucci stories, and Elmo as a "Syrian refugee expert"—while mocking their 103% disapproval ratings. He ties media bias to fabricated controversies like John McEnroe’s Serena Williams remarks and feminist suppression of gender truths, framing leftist lies as tools to reshape reality. A listener’s mailbag question on self-defense leads to martial arts praise, while a Christian’s challenge to GOP-as-God claims is dismissed as political conflation. The episode culminates in Churchillian reflections on truth over materialism, arguing reality aligns with mythic, spiritual principles. [Automatically generated summary]
In the wake of a Project Veritas undercover video that proves CNN is a dishonest, biased, intellectually bankrupt den of anti-American liars with shriveled souls that look like the desiccated polyps cursed by the sea witch Ursula in Disney's The Little Mermaid, CNN has responded by issuing a statement saying, quote, we are not covering this story on air and therefore it doesn't exist, sort of like the corruption in the Obama administration, unquote.
Privately, CNN protested strongly against the videos, saying they had unfairly shown the news network to be purveyors of false news and had thus interrupted CNN in their important work of firing journalists who had gotten caught reporting stories that weren't true.
Fortunately, CNN says their newsroom is still well staffed as many of their reporters have not yet been caught.
At the same time, CNN released a new poll showing that 90% of Americans believe every story that CNN reports and 97% say CNN is the best station ever in the whole wide world and 103% say that anyone who doesn't like CNN is a stinky poo-poo head, especially if he's president of the United States and is mean and ugly.
The poll goes on to predict that Democrats will win every election from now on and then everyone's health care will be free and no one will die.
Also, the poll shows 87% of Americans say that anyone who doesn't believe CNN polls is a danger to the First Amendment or whichever amendment has the whole press thing in it.
Meanwhile, CNN, quote, reporter, unquote, Jim Acosta is very angry because Sean Spicer has stopped allowing cameras during the daily press briefing.
In a furious on-air rant, Acosta said, quote, freedom of the press will not survive if I can't grandstand on camera by shouting obnoxious yet meaningless questions that I can then play on air to make it seem like I'm a courageous journalist instead of just kind of a loudmouth debag, unquote.
By shouting on camera rather than actually reporting, Acosta said he was trying to be like his hero Dan Rather, the revered father of the fake news industry.
In truth, this hasn't been the best time for CNN.
The crappy news network was forced to fire Kathy Griffin after she posed with a facsimile of Donald Trump's severed head.
They then had to fire Riza Aslam after he posted foul-mouthed tweets about Trump.
They then had to fire three reporters for publishing a false anti-Trump story.
They then had to admit that every story they had run since Trump was elected had been completely made up, and then the entire staff had to stand in a circle and fire one another until the place was empty.
Finally, CEO Jeff Zucker had to sever his own head and punch it in the face while screaming, why did you ever leave NBC where you were allowed to just make stuff up?
CNN's Crisis Moments00:12:46
All in all, the cable station has managed to live up to its slogan, the most busted name in news.
Now maybe I heard that slogan wrong.
Trigger warning, I'm Andrew Clavin and this is the Andrew Clavin Show.
I'm the hunky-dunky, life is ticky-boo.
Birds are ringing, also singing, hunky-dunky-doo.
Ship-shaped ipsy-topsy, the world is a bitty zing.
It's a wonderful day.
Hoorah, hooray!
It makes me want to sing.
Oh, hoorah, hooray!
Oh, hooray, hoorah.
All right, it's mailbag day, and if anybody were here with me, somebody would shout woohoo, but unfortunately, they're out there in the hall.
They're still building the champagne fountain and corralling the naked dancing girls and the elephants, and they're shouting woohoo.
They would be shouting woohoo if they weren't so busy building our new studios, which are going to be like a stately pleasure dome.
It will be unbelievable what you see.
But we'll get to that.
I have to say, I have to acknowledge that the New York Post stole the punchline of my opening monologue with their headline.
I wrote my opening monologue yesterday, somewhere in the afternoon, and I had the most busted name in news, and that's the headline of the New York Post, which also had a very good story, which I'll get to in a minute.
Before I do, I want to say we have a long Clavenless weekend up ahead because it's July 4th, so I don't think we'll be on the air either Monday or Tuesday, and then we'll be back Wednesday, Thursday, and I'll do a Friday show, and that's how we'll get in at least three shows to make up for that.
But if you want to, a little something to sustain you over the Clavenless weekend, City Journal has a short story of mine, a science fiction short story, in fact, that I think is one of the best short stories I've ever written.
It's called End of the Working Day.
If you Google City Journal, it won't be posted until Sunday.
I believe on Sunday it will come up.
I'll remind you tomorrow, and again when we come back, but it will get you through the Clavenless weekend.
So we are still dealing with the fallout of these Project Veritas James O'Keefe videos of CNN, you know, CNN producer basically saying that everything they do is for money and they have no ethics and this Russia story has been nonsense.
And we now have found out, and this is in the New York Post, that the real reason CNN had just pulled this story about this guy, Anthony, what was his name, Scaramucci?
Is that what it is?
Yeah, Anthony Scaramucci, who's a friend of Trump's, and they had this false story saying he was involved with some Russian bank or whatever, and they had to pull it and they fired three people.
And this post says now the real reason was because he was threatening a $100 million libel suit.
It was not because it didn't live up to their journalistic standards because I don't even know what it would mean for something not to live up to their journalistic standards, which are so lousy.
But if you think I was kidding in this opening about CNN, I mean, you have to see some of the stuff that was going on yesterday.
It was unbelievable.
Hey, before that, I have to just say, if you want to be with us for the mailbag, that will be after the break where we leave Facebook and YouTube.
So you will want to come over to thedailywire.com and you will want to subscribe.
So A, you can be in the mailbag next week and have all your problems solved instead of living the life that you're living now.
But B, because our rates are going up on July 10th.
Right now, it is just a lousy $8 a month.
If you subscribe for the year, you get Ben Shapiro's new book, Say It So, written with his dad, David Shapiro, about the 2005 White Sox Championship season.
But even if you just subscribe for a month, you can put your questions in the mailbag.
It's a lousy $8 a month.
But on July 10th, our rates go up.
I think they go up to $15,000 a minute.
They go up so high that we have to have guys named Shiv come and collect the monthly rent.
But it will not go up if you've already subscribed.
I guess you have to subscribe for the year to keep your prices down.
So do it now.
Do it now.
All right.
So if you think I was kidding about Jim Acosta, Jim Acosta has just covered himself in shame.
I mean, Jim Acosta is so upset that Sean Spicer on his daily briefings turned off the cameras.
And he did it for an obvious reason.
With the camera on, Acosta becomes a grandstander.
And I really do think he thinks he's Dan Rather, because Dan Rather used to shout at Richard Nixon and used to shout at all, and that's how he made his name.
It ain't reporting.
It's just grandstanding.
So they took the camera away, and he feels like, oh my God, this is like setting the Constitution on fire.
I just have to play this one.
It's only audio.
But it is Sean Spicer trying to call on another reporter.
And Jim Acosta is like, where are my cameras?
Where are my cameras?
Listen to this.
Jen, Jane, Sean, Sean, can you answer whether the president still believes the question?
There's no camera on, Jim.
Maybe we should turn the cameras on, Sean.
Why don't we turn the cameras on?
Why don't we turn the cameras on?
I'm sorry that you have to do it.
Jen, go ahead.
Why not turn the cameras on, Sean?
They're in the room.
It seems to have been a drastic shift, starting from maybe the week before the president took his first trip abroad, but now we see you on camera about once a week.
Is that a new normal that we would expect?
We'll see.
We'll continue to mix things up.
Why are the cameras off?
Why are they?
Why did you turn them off?
Can you just give us an answer to that?
Can you tell us why you turned the cameras off?
Why are they offshore?
It's a legitimate question.
If you are a taxpayer Trump spokesman for the United States government, can you at least give us an explanation as to why they're off?
Can we get this out of the way?
Can we address the cameras issue?
Do you think this will be?
Yes, some days will happen, some days we won.
The president's going to speak today in the Rose Garden.
I want the President's voice to carry the day.
And I think, you know, so look, this is nothing inconsistent with what we've said since day one.
I think that, you know, I wish Spicer had just been honest with him.
It's like, because we're tired of you making a fool out of yourself by parading yourself on camera.
And he can't, you know, I really do think he wants to be Dan Rather.
And he's getting there.
Dan Rather was kind of a halfwit and made a lot of noise and didn't really do all that much, and finally ended up in disgrace.
And I think Jim Acosta is kind of following that career path, except a lot faster.
And Acosta tweets, does this feel like America where the White House takes questions from conservatives, then openly trashes the news media in the briefing room?
I mean, look, pal, after eight years of letting Obama do whatever he liked, letting him corrupt the Justice Department without asking any questions, letting him corrupt the IRS without asking any questions, doing no dives into the corruption that spread like a stain through the Obama administration.
You have no credibility.
Nobody cares what you think.
Nobody wants to hear you.
Nobody wants to see you on camera.
It's like so long.
And, you know, Britt Hume was on Tucker Carlson.
And normally, you know, I let other commentators go their way.
But Britt Hume has expertise in this because he was in the White House press corps.
And Tucker asks him, asks him, you know, is it important?
Is it important that there are cameras or whether there are cameras?
Listen to Hume's response.
No reporter for a news organization as sizable and as important as CNN should be relying on the briefings to get news.
A reporter, a CNN correspondent can get his or her calls returned.
New York Times reporter, Washington Post reporter, Fox News correspondent.
We can get our calls returned at the White House.
It's for the lots and lots of dozens of smaller news organizations that cover the White House on a daily basis.
And the briefing is really kind of there for them to give them a chance to get a question, get it answered, and then to learn sort of what the schedule for the day is and the rest of it.
It's, you know, if you had a really good question that really led somewhere, you'd never ask it in the briefing because you don't want to inform the entire rest of the press corps what you're working on.
It's kabuki.
It's cedar.
So you were there for a long time for the networks for ABC News.
Did you go to the briefing every day and show questions?
Well, I went, as a rule, but most of the time the briefings are not very helpful under any administration.
I mean, you know, the best press secretary in my time was Marlon Fitzworld, who was there for Breggan and then later for Bush.
He was very good.
But oftentimes the briefings aren't particularly informative.
I usually had a crossword puzzle open in front of me at the briefings.
And after a while during the Clinton administration, they got to be so uninformative that I didn't even go.
So that's what a reporter sounds like.
He knows that you make the phone calls, you talk to the people, you get people to go on the record.
If you get stuff off the record from anonymous sources, you confirm it on the record with somebody.
I mean, you know, this is the way journalism is done.
And they're not doing journalism.
He just wants to shout on camera and be seen.
Okay, so CNN wanted stuff on camera.
Boy, oh boy, they got it.
Because Sarah Huckabee Sanders, you know, I believe actually that they should now, you know how Melissa McCarthy has been doing that very funny Sean Spicer imitation on Saturday Night Live?
I believe they should bring Melissa McCarthy in as Spicer's backup.
And if they're not nice to Spicer, they'll just unleash McCarthy on her.
But Sarah Huckabee Sanders is also proving, maybe it's Saunders, is also proving to be a spectacular backup for Spicer.
And he goes in, she goes in, I'm sorry, she goes in, and one of the reporters says, well, you know, CNN fired three reporters and they pulled the story.
Why are you still picking on us?
Isn't that enough?
And here's her response as cut one.
Why isn't their response good enough for the president?
I don't know that it's that the response isn't good enough for the president.
I think it's the constant barrage of fake news directed at this president probably that has garnered a lot of his frustration.
You point to that report.
There are multiple other instances where that outlet that you referenced has been repeatedly wrong and had to point that out or be corrected.
There's a video circulating now.
Whether it's accurate or not, I don't know, but I would encourage everybody in this room and frankly everybody across the country to take a look at it.
I think if it is accurate, I think it's a disgrace to all of media, to all of journalism.
I think that we have gone to a place where if the media can't be trusted to report the news, then that's a dangerous place for America.
And I think if that is the place that certain outlets are going, particularly for the purpose of spiking ratings, and if that's coming directly from the top, I think that's even more scary and certainly more disgraceful.
I hope this news corps gets some kind of sexual gratification out of being spanked by women because that's what's happening to the media.
It's just, it's embarrassing.
It's embarrassing.
And of course, O'Keeffe retweets this.
Now she's directing the public.
She's on camera directing the public to the O'Keeffe videos, which are just embarrassing for CNN.
And, you know, O'Keefe is retweeting this with this cat ate the canary look on his face.
And CNN is saying, well, the producer that O'Keeffe caught on tape, he's just a minor, a medical producer, which is what O'Keeffe's waiting for because he was trained up by Andrew Breitbart.
Let me just briefly tell you the story.
I'll go back to this press conference because it becomes amazing.
But, you know, O'Keeffe got his start by turning in those Acorn videos to Andrew Breitbart.
And Breitbart called me, I remember it was December, I guess this was 2009, so it must have been December 2008.
And he came on and he said, I have come into these videos that show this Acorn, this liberal Acorn activist group just so corrupt, how corrupt it is, and it just exposes all this stuff.
And here's what I'm going to do.
And he then described to me for about an hour his strategy because he knew how corrupt the press was and he knew what they would do.
He said, I'm going to release this part and then they're going to say it's edited and then I'm going to release the whole thing and show that the edited thing is even the unedited thing is even worse and then they're going to say this and I'm going to do this.
And he just every single detail, he laid it out what the press was going to say because he knew them so well.
Well, it then all happened.
Everything happened.
I mean, that was when I just sat back and I thought, wow, Andrew Breitbart has a genius for the flow of information.
He knows how corrupt the media is.
He knows what they're going to do.
So when CNN came back and said, well, this guy's a minor producer, O'Keeffe's tweeted, yeah, I knew you were going to say that.
Now I'm going to release, you know, the real tapes that I have, the rest of the tapes I have.
And I just thought, well, you know, it's like Yoda, the student has become the master.
And so I think Andrew Breitbart would be proud of him.
It was a beautiful, beautiful thing to see.
But before we take the break, before we say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube, I just want to play this one exchange, this incredible exchange between Sarah Saunders and this reporter who now goes nuts as she is telling them, as she is just giving them what for, how bad they have been with Donald Trump, because they really have been bad.
And I'll talk about that after the break.
But just watch this reporter.
It is worth it.
It is worth it.
This is cut three.
Elmo's Masterstroke00:08:28
If we make the slightest mistake, the slightest word is off.
It is just an absolute tirade from a lot of people in this room.
But news outlets get to go on day after day and cite unnamed sources, use stories without sources.
Have, you know, you mentioned the Scaramucci story where they had to have reporters resign.
Come on.
You're inflaming everybody right here, right now, with those words.
This administration has done that as well.
Why in the name of heavens, any one of us, right, are replaceable.
And any one of us, if we don't get it right, the audience has the opportunity to turn the channel or not read us.
I think.
You have been elected to serve for four years at least.
There's no option other than that.
We're here to ask you questions.
We're here to provide the answers.
And what you just did is inflammatory to people all over the country who look at it and say, see, once again, the president is right and everybody else out here is fake media.
And everybody in this room is only trying to do their job.
I disagree completely.
First of all, I think if anything has been inflamed, it's the dishonesty that often takes place by the news media.
And I think it is outrageous for you to accuse me of inflaming a story when I was simply trying to respond to his question.
It's like snowflake news.
All right, we'll talk more about this after the break.
And then we will have the mailbag.
The mailbag, your questions answered, answers guaranteed 100% correct.
They will change your life on occasion for the better, but you got to come over to the dailywire.com and hear it.
And you got to subscribe to be part of it.
so come on over.
So this guy, you're inflaming us.
You're triggering us.
We need a safe space.
This is a guy in the White House press corps.
He's so triggered.
He doesn't know what to do.
Oh, yes.
Yes, we lied about you removing the Martin Luther King bust from the Oval Office.
Oh, yes, we lied about the James Comey, you know, didn't tell you you were under investigation.
You weren't under investigation.
Oh, yes, you know, you were going to mobilize the National Guard to round up immigrants.
And Jeff Sessions called illegal immigrants filled.
Okay, we lied about all that, but why are you triggering us?
Why are you triggering us?
It's like when you get in an argument and somebody attacks you and then you defend yourself and they say, don't get defensive.
It's like, why should I get defensive if you're attacking me?
I mean, this press score has, and it's not Trump, it's Obama.
That's when they covered themselves.
That's when they disgraced themselves.
If they had treated Obama like they treated Trump, I would say, fine, fine.
The guy's the president.
Go at him with everything you got.
But they treated Obama with kid gloves.
They treated him like a retarded child.
They treated him like he was somebody who could not take care of himself because they're racist.
That's why.
They thought they didn't want to, oh no, you know, he must be the greatest.
He's the first black president trademark.
You know, we don't want to say a word because they are pathological about race.
They are pathological about race.
And they also agreed with him.
And those two things together, they just sat there for eight years and let him turn Washington into Chicago and didn't say a word.
And Donald Trump walks through the door and he's a Russian spy.
This nonsense story they've been hammering us with.
And suddenly they don't know why Trump is attacking them.
He's attacking them because let's look at this.
The other day, the Supreme Court upholds Trump's travel ban and the press tried to underplay it because they made one little exception for people who actually have a reason to come here.
And so the Trumps said it was a partial victory.
It was a total victory for the president because basically it slapped down the lower courts saying this is the president's bailiwick.
Keep out of it.
Don't let your politics get into your decisions.
It was an absolute slap against the lower courts, especially our lovely Ninth Circuit Court, telling them that it had overstepped their bounds, okay?
So suddenly now this travel ban isn't a fact and it's just a, you know, it's just a, he calls it a travel ban, but it's a lull in travel from certain countries that Barack Obama designated as failed states and said they were dangerous, so be careful about them.
So he put that list out there and they're keeping people out so they can get better vetting, better security to keep people safe.
This is how CNN covered it.
I believe this was on Facebook.
They brought in an expert on Syrian refugees, Elmo from Sesame Street.
Look at this.
Elmo, can I just start by asking you, because I know you went to visit a refugee camp in Jordan, right?
Back in February?
Yes.
What was it like?
It was really wonderful.
Oh, Elmo and Miss Shelley went to Jordan together.
We did.
And it was really wonderful because Elmo got to meet a lot of new friends.
A lot of new friends.
And did you find that the Syrian little girls and little boys were a lot like your friends here in America?
Yeah, they really were.
It was very interesting because they like to play and learn, just like Elmo and Alec was friends on Sesame Street.
And they loved Elmo.
They loved meeting Elmo.
Mr. President, you are killing Elmo.
You're killing Elmo, according to CNN.
And then they don't know why you're, you know, somebody tweeted today that, oh, Paddington Bear, the lovable Paddington Bear from the British story comes to Paddington Station.
And he said, Paddington Bear was a refugee.
And I said, yeah, but he didn't blow people up shouting alohu Akbear, you know.
Paddington Bear is make-believe.
Elmo is make-believe.
This is a real problem that we have.
It's a real problem with actual people who do actually bad things.
And CNN is interviewing Elmo, you know, and it's not, of course, CNN is just the one who's got caught in the ringer.
It is all of them.
It's the New York Times, it's the networks, it's the Washington Post, New York Times today, you know, the vote on the health care bill on the Senate version of the health care bill was postponed.
So they didn't get it.
They wanted to get it in July 4th.
Donald Trump, President Trump, had a meeting with the 52 Republican senators.
Since the Democrats have just absconded and are not doing anything to help the country, they've just decided we're resisting.
That's the way we raise money to win the elections, even though we then lose the elections because we haven't done anything.
But Trump gets together with them and he says he's going to talk to them.
Here's just a cut of Trump before that meeting.
For the country, we have to have health care.
And it can't be Obamacare, which is melting down.
The other side is saying all sorts of things before they even knew what the bill was.
This will be great if we get it done.
And if we don't get it done, it's just going to be something that we're not going to like.
And that's okay.
And I understand that very well.
But I think we have a chance to do something very, very important for the public, very, very important for the people of our country that we love.
So this is the president trying to learn how to deal with the wrangling cats in Congress.
You know, he's trying to learn, trying to grow into the job.
Good for him.
Didn't work in terms of getting the vote done July 4th.
Okay, so they postponed it.
They come back, I think, July 10th.
I can't remember.
They have a brief break for July 4th.
Then they come back.
So hopefully they'll get it done before the August break.
Here's the New York Times.
Here are the stories in the New York Times on the front page.
Vote delayed amid GOP disarray on health care bill.
Senate leader's reputation as a top tactician takes a hit.
This is Mitch McConnell, who's supposed to be the brilliant master of the Senate.
And so he didn't get it done for July 4th, so his reputation takes a hit.
Trump kept that arm's length in Senate health talks.
I don't know why Trump would be in those talks, but key constituency against Bill governors of both parties, four negative stories, and then on the op-ed page, or as I call it, Knucklehead Row in the New York Times, a former newspaper, the healthcare hoax has been exposed.
The misery of Mitch McConnell.
Let me just put forward this idea that this is what they did in the House bill.
McConnell has time to negotiate.
He has money because the CBO said this was going to save a lot of money, so he has money where he can put stuff back and negotiate with some of the people.
If they come back from the break and vote the bill in, is there going to be any correction in the New York Times that maybe McConnell was a better tactician than the New York Times thought he was?
Maybe this whole thing is just theater to let some of these senators show that they had some say, that they had some input.
Serena Williams Debate00:09:22
Maybe it's all just, as they say, kabuki.
I'm not sure why it's always kambuki theater, but maybe it's just a theater to let these senators show that they won some points and all this stuff.
I don't know.
I don't know if that's the case.
Maybe the whole thing is going to go down in flames.
But this is the way this White House is being covered.
And not on the op-ed page, but on the front page, not in the opinion section, but in the places that we're supposed to be getting the news.
And that's what makes the news fake.
It's not when they make mistakes.
It's not when they lie.
It's not when they tell the truth.
Yes, those are fake.
That's fake news.
But it's the way they report every story.
It's all fake.
And it's all of them.
It's all the mainstream outlets.
So let's just move on.
I want to move on quickly before we get to the mailbag to two stories about feminism that sort of point out an underlying underlying structure here.
One is John McEnroe.
You've probably heard about this.
John McEnroe, former great tennis player.
He's on NPR.
He's being interviewed by Lulu Garcia Navarro.
And they're talking about rating the different players.
And she says, we're talking about male players, but there is, of course, wonderful female players.
Let's talk about Serena Williams.
You say she is the best female player in the world in the book.
McEnroe, best female player ever, no question.
She says some wouldn't qualify it.
Some would say she's the best player in the world.
Why qualify it?
McEnroe says, oh, she's not.
You mean the best player in the world, period.
And she says, yeah, the best tennis player in the world.
You know, why say female player?
McEnroe says, well, because if she was in, if she played the men's circuit, she'd be like 700 in the world.
And he says, that doesn't mean I don't think Serena is an incredible player.
I do, but the reality of what would happen would be, I think, something that perhaps it would be a little higher, perhaps it would be a little lower.
And on a given day, Serena could beat some players, I believe, because she's so incredibly strong mentally that she could overcome some situations where players would choke because she's been at it so many times, so many situations.
But the men's circuit, that would be an entirely different story.
And this is something McEnroe says all the time, that there is no comparison between female players and male players.
And by the way, one of the only women's sports that I like watching is female tennis, women's tennis.
And I could make jokes about it being the short skirts, and partly it is.
The tennis players are always very attractive.
But it's not just that.
It's because they play.
They don't have the strength.
I don't like watching Serena Williams play because she's so strong.
She almost plays like a man.
And I actually, what I like about women's tennis is that it's slower.
So I can watch the strategy.
I can watch them outsmart each other instead of having to just overpowering each other.
It's a much more subtle game.
I like women's tennis, whereas I don't like, never watch women's basketball or any of those other sports.
Nobody does, as far as I can tell.
So he's saying she's not as good.
This is what they call a non-troversy, right?
There is no controversy that Serena Williams is not the best player in the world.
Any top male player would crush her, okay?
Would crush her.
I mean, any top one or two or three top-seeded player would just destroy her, all right?
So now, McEnroe, they create a controversy of this.
McEnroe has to go on CBS and look at the way he's treated on CBS.
I'm just waiting.
Would you like to apologize?
No.
But the offer is this, because it seems in tennis, unlike other sports that they're always asking about how women, they always ask me how I would do for someone.
Why is it this old bag John McEnro?
How would he do against Serena?
Why don't you combine to solve the problem?
I'm sure the men would be all for this.
Do men and women play together.
And then we don't have to guess.
But John, you didn't answer Charlie's question.
You really should.
You really do need to answer Charlie's question.
What was it?
I didn't.
You're right.
I wasn't saying anything.
It wasn't necessary to do this.
Yes.
It wasn't necessary.
It was not necessary.
You knew it would create.
I didn't know it would create trust.
I didn't know.
John.
Has anybody ever seen?
I've said this a thousand times.
Charlie, anything to you?
What do you think, Charlie?
You're a tennis guy.
You like to play tennis.
I see you on the tennis court.
What do you think that Serena Williams would be ranked if she played in the minutes?
I had no idea.
So maybe this is all a setup.
I mean, maybe the NPR, the NPR question almost sounded like a setup.
Maybe they're creating some controversy so McEnroe can sell his new book.
It looks like he has a new book in the background.
Maybe that's what this is all about.
But why should he apologize for telling what everybody knows?
Why should anybody even ask him?
Why should that actually be a thing that happens on TV where a guy is asked to apologize?
You know, the other story is this article in the Federalist in which this young lady, very attractive young writer, Inez Felscher, at the Federalist writes, staying fit for your husband is one of the best gifts you can give him.
Having been sold a pack of feminist lies that make both men and women unhappier, those of us in the millennial generation who are interested in happy marriages have had to rediscover a lot of politically incorrect truths from scratch.
There's one truth that is particularly difficult for our genderless, sexless culture to accept because it eviscerates not one but two shibboleths of the age.
First, that men and women desire the same things in relationships, and second, that a selfish be-yourself attitude is a good prescription for marital bliss.
The unspeakable truth is this.
A spouse's physical appearance is much more likely to be important to men than women.
Maintaining their figures and beauty through reasonable efforts is one important way that women can make their husbands happy.
And of course, again, all this stuff on Twitter, all these screaming and yelling.
Why?
Because it's obviously true.
And this is the thing, is that we have gone through this period of this culture created by the left and sustained by the news media where lying is supposed to be a virtue.
It is supposed to have an effect on reality.
If you lie, reality will conform to your lies.
So if you say, don't go around saying that black people commit more crime in America, that won't be true.
And you're a bad person if you say it.
If you say women are weaker than men or women are not as good at math or something as men, then you're evil because you are affecting reality by saying that.
There is no reality, so your words can change it.
And this is the problem that CNN and ABC and CBS and NBC and New York Times, this is the problem they have with what's going on, is they think their right to change reality by lying it into submission has been taken away from them.
And they don't understand.
You know, there's an old expression that a lie will travel around the world before the truth gets its pants on.
That's true, but once the truth gets its pants on, it will curb stomp a lie.
And that is why the minute somebody speaks politically incorrect truth, there's controversy when everybody knows that it is in fact the truth.
All right, the mailbag.
Woohoo!
Khafippi!
Kaffee!
It's the mailbag.
Question, Supreme Commander and Count Blinglord of the Multiverse Clavin, upon whose head the light of the sun reflects almost as brightly as the truth of God does off his silver tongue.
Hail.
I just may end the whole mailbag right there.
I think I'm done.
I'm just not a naturally big guy.
I'm shorter than most people, and although I do exercise regularly, I'm never the strongest guy in my class.
I also have had a very privileged childhood in which I never had to get in a fight.
You often talk of the importance of manhood, and something I associate with that is protecting one's family.
I'm just a teenager, but as I think about the possibility of being a parent, this concerns me.
How can I convince my kids to stand for truth if when a push comes to shove, I can't?
Do you think it is important for a man to know how to fight?
And if so, how should I go about learning thanks a fellow brother in Christ, Silas?
You know, I think it's a, let's say, I think it's a good thing for a man to know how to fight.
Anyone can lose a fight.
Anybody can lose a fight.
You can always be sucker-punched.
You can always be overpowered.
A bigger guy can beat you no matter how.
You know, this is why when real self-defense people are training women in self-defense, they say, if you're attacked by a man, strike once, disable him, and run like hell, because in a long fight, a man will overpower a woman.
And once it comes to grappling, it is very hard for a woman to overpower a man.
Still, you are absolutely right that there are situations that you get into where you don't want to get into a fight, where if you can fight, that fight can be avoided.
I was in a lot of fights as a kid, but after a while I stopped because I realized it was insane.
I haven't lifted a hand in anger in adulthood, and I hope never to have to do it.
But I am a black belt.
I have a black belt in karate.
I studied it.
I had my son study it.
He had a double, triple black belt or something like that.
I mean, he's really good at it.
You know, it's a good thing.
It gives you confidence.
It gives you strength of purpose.
And courage is that virtue.
Courage is a virtue without morality, right?
You can be courageous and evil, and you can be courageous and good, but you can't stand up for your other virtues if you don't have courage.
And having physical courage helps.
It helps you have spiritual courage.
So do I think it's important for a man to at least feel that if he has a shot, he can at least get out of the way and maybe run for it, or at least he won't be human.
There's no humiliation in losing a fight, but there can be humiliation in running away.
I mean, there are times when he can't run away.
And so that's the thing.
So I think it's important.
I think it's a good thing for a man to know at least how to handle himself.
And as you say, especially if you've been in a situation where you've never been in a fight, it's a good thing to know what it feels like to be hit because it's not fun.
You know, people who have been punched and I have punched, I've been punched and I've punched people, it's not fun.
And you want to know what that feels like before it happens to you when it matters.
All right.
Faith Beyond Politics00:08:19
From John, as an independent voter who was agnostic for many years before finding Christ, I oftentimes struggle with the proclamation that Republicans are inherently the party of God.
I've heard many people say that the values of the Bible parallel the values of the GOP.
I believe that conflating a religion with a political movement is very dangerous, as we see with Islam and its political and religious doctrine.
What are your thoughts on such conflation and how would you approach a conversation to dispute such claims?
Well, I think it's totally ridiculous.
I do not think the Republicans are any closer to God than the Democrats.
I think that religion is to politics as an ant farm is to the world.
I mean, in politics, you're dealing with some very practical things.
People get all blown up about, they start talking in these big terms.
But most of the time in politics, what you're dealing with is how to finance things and what should be financed and all this stuff.
And of course, there are good people on both sides who are trying to do the right thing.
And God loves them and God wants to direct them and he wants to be in their hearts.
And I just don't think that it's an issue.
I mean, I think, of course, if you find the people who excoriate religion as bigoted, they're going to be on the left and all this stuff.
And that's obviously anti-religious and anti-God and all those things.
But that's their choice.
It is not true of all Democrats.
It's certainly not true of even all liberals.
And certainly God includes them in His enormous tent.
Why?
I don't know.
That's just the way God is.
If He had asked me, He'd only include conservatives.
But He didn't, and I do believe that politics is far, far bigger.
It's just far bigger than politics, which is why when preachers start talking politics, I get uncomfortable even if I agree with them.
And that's not in all cases.
I think things like abortion are also spiritual issues.
But a lot of political issues are just what they seem.
They're people, good people, trying to figure out different ways to make things work in the world.
Let's see.
We're running out of time, and I want to make sure I get to the good ones.
Here's a tough one from Stephen, dear Lord Ruler Clavin.
A moral question is frequently posed to Christians.
You're in a foreign country, and the nationals stop the bus and unload everyone at gunpoint to identify the Christians for execution.
They instruct everyone to spit on a Bible.
Any who don't die, Christ says, Those who deny me, I will deny before my Father, but he also says, Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.
Is it a fair perspective to say, I will follow the instructions of the government force I am presently under?
In that moment, can the good book be just a book created by men, copied and printed?
You get the idea.
So, should you spit on the Bible to save your own life?
You know, there's no answer to this question.
There is no right answer to this question.
Many martyrs have gone to their deaths rather than denying Christ.
We know when we look at this, we know that something high and mighty and grand and beautiful has been done, and we know that a level of faith has been demonstrated that brings other people into the fold.
And I think that that is, you know, for the first 100 to 200 years of its existence, that is how Christianity spread by people showing that kind of heroism and that kind of sainthood and faith.
And that is one of the reasons we call them saints.
Not everybody is a saint.
Not everybody is a hero.
If you choose to live over spitting on the Bible, you'll probably pay a price.
Everything you do costs something, you know, so you'll probably pay a price in your soul.
You'll know that you didn't show that kind of ultimate faith, but nobody can ask that of you except yourself.
And so that is something that each person in that moment is going to have to decide.
I think that obviously it is a higher thing to live your faith right up into death, but I think that not everybody is called on to do that.
I know I am never brought to that question myself.
So it's like there's no answer to the question because when somebody's a hero, that's a special thing.
You can't ask everybody to be a hero.
You can't ask everybody to be a saint.
You know, I want to end with this letter that I got.
I asked this man's permission.
His name is Ted.
I asked him his permission to read this letter.
And I just want to end with this.
It says, Hello, Mr. Clavin, I have been using and mostly abusing drugs and alcohol for the past five years.
You have opened my eyes about faith politics and what it really means to discover truth or what we strive to perceive as being truthful.
When I first started listening to your show, I still used.
However, as I listened to you explain things that once seemed meaningless, my eyes were opened.
I began to stop at a church on the way to work every morning and prayed for sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes 30.
I can attest that by pushing myself to question what I believed in and praying to God for the ability to cut through the resistance that was keeping me from discovering all the things that I once ignored, I was able to stop drinking and using drugs.
I really can't thank you enough since all this time you didn't know I existed.
But I hope there are other conservatives out there who are facing the same problems I did and can take what you say to heart and become a better person.
At the end of the day, I have learned that becoming a better person isn't about me, it's about others.
My relationships have changed for the better.
I see things around me with clarity and compassion.
And truthfully, I couldn't be here without tuning in every day for 45 minutes and learning something, laughing about something, and discovering an identity that is defining a much brighter future for me and my family.
God bless the lost and the damned, and God bless the shepherds who bring them to the light.
Ted, you know, obviously I'm deeply moved by this.
I'm incredibly moved by it, and it's gratifying to have been any part of it.
Obviously, it is not me.
You know, the old prayer, non nobis domine, which translated means not to us, O Lord, but to thy name give glory.
It doesn't help to lead somebody into church if nobody's waiting for him when he gets inside.
But I think the reason I wanted to bring it up is because, look, you know, I'm not a preacher.
I'm not a priest.
I don't get anything.
If you find God, it's only all I truly, truly believe is that we have been sold a bill of goods, just like they sell a bill of goods about men and women, just like they sell us the lies about, you know, Islam is the religion of peace.
This idea that intelligent people, that realistic people, that sophisticated people don't believe in God is a nonsense.
It is how it is a lure.
They're putting it out there.
They're trying to surround you with an atmosphere that you can't think outside.
The only reason, the only reason I talk about God is because I believe in reality and I believe God is reality and I believe that you know God is reality.
Each and every one of you know that God knows that God is reality and you are being kept from him by this kind of cloud that's put around you saying, no, no, now we have science, there's no God.
Now we have technology, there's no God.
Now we're sophisticated.
This was a primitive thing, but now we are modern people and there's no God.
That's a lie.
It's funny.
It is part of a progression of Western thought that was very natural and didn't start out as a lie, but only became a lie over time.
And I really believe that progression is coming to an end.
I really believe that science has reached the point where it is starting to understand that the internal experience of humankind, which is where God lives, is real.
The experience of love is not to be toyed with by science.
You know, if they inject something in you and you think you're in love, you're not in love.
But if you are in love, whether they can find it on a chart or not, you are in love.
And the same thing is true with God.
God, you are, you are a path to God.
You were made by your Creator as a road that leads you back to Him.
It is not about what the priests tell you.
It's not about the theology.
Look, I believe in theology.
I really do.
And I believe that the reason, well, look, I don't have time to go into that, but I will say I believe in theology, but that's not the point.
Theology is not the point.
The point is you are a path to God, and you can travel that path.
And you will be, once you're on that road, just being on that road, suddenly you think like, oh, I get it now.
I understand what life is, what life is, and what life is not.
It ain't about the drugs.
It really isn't.
It's not even about the sex.
God knows I love sex.
It's not about the sex.
It's not about any of those things.
It is walking that path because it's what you are made for.
And you just shouldn't buy into anything else because once you find it, once you see it, you'll never unsee it.
And it will lead you to a better life and hopefully a better afterlife as well.
Encouraging Thought: Decide Your Path00:03:03
Stuff I like, which is stuff to think about during July 4th.
And yesterday I was talking about the deceptive nature of victory, that victory makes you think that everything you believe is right.
You must be right because you won.
If you ever talked to people who get very rich, sometimes they won't listen to you anymore because they think, well, I must be right because I'm so rich.
But victory includes a lot of accidents.
Success includes a lot of accidents.
And it doesn't always mean that the things that you were fighting for are the right things.
You might have fought for the wrong things and won by superior force and just by luck.
But, but in struggle, in struggle, the true nature of things is revealed.
And what I want to talk about is just briefly a speech that Winston Churchill made in June of 1941.
He received some kind of award from a university in Rochester, I guess, a degree, an honorary degree.
And he wanted America to join the war.
And he made a radio speech to America in which he just unleashed the whole Churchill bag of tricks.
And this is a famous piece of that speech that was quoted later by Ronald Reagan.
He said, the destiny of mankind is not decided by material computation.
When great causes are on the move in the world, stirring all men's souls, drawing them from their firesides, casting aside comfort, wealth, and the pursuit of happiness in response to impulses at once awe-striking and irresistible, we learn that we are spirits, not animals, and that something is going on in space and time and beyond space and time, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.
And this speech, you probably have thought of this before, but this speech is echoed in Lord of the Rings when Frodo turns to Gandalf and says he wishes he were out of this.
I wish the ring had never come to me.
I wish none of this had happened.
So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time of disguising us.
There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of Eview.
Bilbo was meant to find the ring, in which case you also are meant to have it.
And that is an encouraging thought.
That's an encouraging thought that we are meant to be where we are, that it is only for us to decide what we do with the time.
And the reason Gandalf can echo Churchill so completely is because in those moments, in those moments when reality becomes mythic, we start to understand that the myths are true.
The myths are true.
The Bible is true.
The gospels are true.
And we only see that in those times when life elevates itself to those levels.
Most of the time, life sort of slips beneath it and seems like a matter of flesh and blood, seems like a matter of sex and drugs, seems like a matter of pleasure and pain, but it is really a matter of the spirit.