Ben Shapiro dissects Jeffrey Toobin’s hypocrisy—suspended for misconduct yet shielded by left-wing media—while linking Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas to wartime longing and C.S. Lewis’ "inconsolable joy," framing modern political divisions as a distraction from shared human brokenness. He contrasts feminist critiques of motherhood with scientific nurturing truths, mocks media’s selective praise for Democratic women, and exposes Homeland Security hearings where Republicans like Ron Johnson face smears over election integrity despite 74 million voters’ distrust fueled by Hunter Biden scandals and China’s election interference. Closing with Apollo 11: What We Saw, he pivots to cultural wars—defending Love Actually against leftist puritanism, praising Die Hard’s conservative themes, and urging faith over politics as the holiday’s true unifier. [Automatically generated summary]
The New York Times, a former newspaper, has launched an attempt to restore the career of master journalist and bait, Jeffrey Toobin.
Toobin, a New Yorker writer and CNN legal analyst, was suspended from both jobs after he was caught with his pants literally down, Rubin is Toobin, during a Zoom call with other left-wing journalist colleagues, some of whom use the pronouns she and her because they're women.
The Toobin Rubin Toobin is apparently exempt from the Me Toobin movement because of all his great left-wing journalism, like the time he knocked a girl up who wasn't his wife and then tried to stiff her on the child support payments.
His other left-wing journalism includes relentlessly attacking Donald Trump's morals and yanking his crank during a Zoom meeting.
The writers at the New York Times have sympathy for Toobin because they also practice left-wing journalism, though hopefully they do it off camera in the privacy of their own homes.
Indeed, many at the times believe that after all the great left-wing journalism Toobin did at the New Yorker, he shouldn't be penalized just because he did it once when ladies were present.
The question is, if Jeffrey and his Toobin are to be allowed to work again, what job would be suitable for a man who plays with himself on camera?
One idea is that he might become a legal analyst at CNN.
He could think of the Zoom call as a sort of audition.
Or he could become Louis C.K.'s opening act, or he could run for governor of New York, kill thousands through pure incompetence, then write a book about how great he is and win the Emmy for best Jeffrey Toobin.
But whatever is next for the Toobin Rubin Toobin, I think we've all learned an important lesson.
One should always treat women with respect and perform sexual acts only with consent.
Unless you're a left-winger, then all bets are off and you can put your Toobin anywhere you like.
Mothers' Role in Humanity00:10:22
Trigger warning, I'm Andrew Clavin, and this is the Andrew Clavin Show.
I'm the hunky-dunky, life is tickety-boo.
Birds are winging, also singing hunky-dunky-dee-dee.
Ship-shaped ipsy-topsy, the world is zippity-zing.
It's a wonderful day, hoorah, hooray!
It makes me want to sing!
Oh, hoorah, hooray!
Oh, hooray, hoorah!
All right, we are back.
The last show before the holidays and before the show changes.
So, you know, should I get sentimental and tear up and say something?
Nah, forget it.
But don't let this stop you just because I won't be here.
Don't let it stop you from going on the Andrew Clavin YouTube channel and subscribing.
We have over 200,000 subscribers.
We're trying to get down to seven or eight.
So we're in the process of trying to alienate every single listener.
It's not, we will get you eventually.
I know some of you are impatient, but we will reach you eventually and alienate you.
But in the meantime, press that little bell and, you know, we will come to your house and alienate you in person if every time there's new content.
And also if you leave a comment and it is sufficiently alienating, we'll just add it to the show because you can help out.
You know, you can be part of the help.
LaShelly says, I could never come up with an argument convincing enough to justify to my husband the need for an oil painting of the Clavin.
Yesterday, I delivered the sad news of only one show per week.
I must have looked desperate because he just said, hey, you can always get that painting you have been talking about.
That was, for those of you who subscribe and don't hear the ads, I did a Paint Your Life ad in which I suggested the best way to use Paint Your Life is to just get a tremendous mural of me that takes up an entire wall.
I have one, and I think my wife loves it.
I haven't seen her for a couple weeks, so I'm not sure.
Since we're going into Christmas, let's be Christmassy and talk about some Christmas stuff.
One of my favorite Christmas songs is Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
We were talking about this the other day, and I like Silent Night as my favorite of the old Christmas songs, but of the modern Christmas songs, modern to me is the 1940s, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is my favorite.
I think it's the best songs written in that period.
It was first introduced by Judy Garland in the movie Meet Me in St. Louis.
And at first they didn't want to do it because it was too melancholy.
And then the lyricist Hugh Martin rewrote it and made it a little less melancholy, but it still has a very wistful, sorrowful tone to it.
Next year, all our troubles will be far away, but until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow, and so on.
It was right for that time.
It was the right song for that time.
It was 1943.
Many faithful friends who were dear to us were overseas fighting a war whose outcome was still in doubt.
And after the war, at the behest of Frank Sinatra, they actually cheered the lyrics up a bit, but it still has a very sad story.
And of course, the sad version is right for this year too, a horrible year when so many died and the grief and anger are so overwhelming that those of us who have survived can barely talk to one another.
The left blames Donald Trump for our division and we blame the left.
And with the media on both sides making a living off our anger, it's not going to be easy to find common ground, assuming there is common ground, which is still an open question.
But beyond all that, there is always a feeling, I think, of wistfulness and sadness to Christmas.
A lot of the really great Christmas songs have that sad tone to them, like White Christmas does, the Christmas song does, I'll be home for Christmas.
They all have a sense that there's something beautiful that we've either left behind or it's just beyond our reach.
And that's the way that C.S. Lewis described joy.
He once defined joy.
He said, joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general, but even from aesthetic pleasure.
It must have the stab, the pang, of inconsolable longing.
And the reason for this, I think this is the way C.S. Lewis, I think I'm relating what he thought pretty accurately, the reason for this is that the thing we all really want, the thing we're truly searching for when we're out searching for love and beauty and money and power and sex and pleasure and peace, there's really something we're searching for beyond all that.
And it lies beyond the veil of life.
We just can't see it face to face.
It's something we can never quite get to.
And we have to trust that it's there on the other side of life and that we will see it eventually.
The first Christmas was when that longed for something broke the barrier and came onto the earth.
And when we celebrate the day, we are sort of boldly declaring our faith in the reality of that event and the truth of its meaning, that God is really there, that he really loves us, that the moral logic of life is larger than life itself, the unfairness we see and the cruelty we see and the evil we see in life and sometimes just the natural unhappiness of life is not the whole story.
And we are not yearning in vain.
I think maybe at this time of year, it might be good to remember that sometimes that the people we hate the most, the people we disagree with the most, the people we want to strangle the most, are also yearning for something beyond their grasp.
They're broken just like we are.
They're sorrowful like we are.
And they may not even have, some of them, the consolation of our hope and faith.
Next year, all our troubles will be far away.
It will not be another year like this.
But this year, as we muddle through, we might find that if we can love our enemies even a little, as it was recommended to us, it will provide a consoling taste of a beauty that waits for us on the other side.
I think that is the purpose of love, is that it is a hint of the thing to come.
The other thing I want to just say about Christmas, and it's the thing that makes me a little bit of anathema to central conservatives, to conservative conservatives, people like the Fox News group when they were still conservative.
I think it's the reason they don't bring me on, is because I believe that Christmas is also a celebration of motherhood and its urgent importance in the creation of human beings.
And I know that sounds silly because mothers literally create human beings, but what they literally create are babies, and it's motherhood that actually turns those babies into human beings.
And I think that that is part of the story of Christmas, that, you know, you would think that if God wanted to become a human being, he just could have said, I'm a human being.
But in fact, he chose to have a mother.
And he chose to have a mother because mothers make babies into human beings.
When a baby is born, it has no individuality.
It gains that individuality by its interactions with the mother.
And I've talked before about Wordsworth writing about this in his long poem, The Prelude.
He talks about how the mother's love for an infant infuses the world with love.
He begins to see the other as a loving place, a place that was made in love.
And he begins to react with nature as if it had the mark of a living creature, a living creator on it.
And he becomes an individual, a creative individual that way.
He becomes essentially the poet in the sense that we're all poets, that we see the world and we create a world that we see that's individual to us.
And that turns out to be scientifically true.
It turns out that there are these things called mirror neurons that are set into motion when the child interacts with the mother.
There's this typical argument going on on the left and right where suddenly, all of a sudden, the media is celebrating all the mothers in the Biden transition camp, like that woman, the chief of staff, General Malley Dylan, who just called Republicans a bunch of effers, you know, and Maggie Haberman is saying, putting aside everything else, it's rare to hear a woman speaking unapologetically and unself-consciously about life, having kids and an intense job.
And of course, that's total crap.
Amy Coney Barrett talked about it.
Kaylee McInenney has kept a diary of her children raising her children while she's working.
But, you know, Republican women don't count.
Just like Pete Buttigieg, who is now, what, transportation secretary, they're calling him the first gay cabinet member, and they've completely forgotten Rick Grinnell, who is Trump's DNI.
He just doesn't exist.
And so this thing about, you know, our women, our working women are no good, and their working women are just so incredibly sacrificial and beautiful.
My problem, and the reason this makes me kind of anathema to certain mainstream conservatives who want to get on the feminist train, is my problem is I think actually we should be encouraging more women not to work out of the home.
You know, in Proverbs 31, it describes the perfect woman and she works all the time, but she works in the home.
She buys land, she creates clothes, she creates food, she creates the stuff that food is served in.
She does all this stuff, but she does it all out of the home.
And really, the Industrial Revolution paid to that, and that's why feminism was born with the Industrial Revolution.
It took away clothing manufacturing, took it out of the home, it took away food production out of the home, into factories, all those things.
And women began to lose their economic usefulness.
And everybody wants economic usefulness.
I mean, everybody wants to be a part of the world.
And so I think that at Christmas time, we also remember that being a part of the world is not actually our objective.
Our objective is humanity.
The things that women do, that mothers do, are priceless.
They turn houses into homes.
They turn meals into gatherings.
They turn life into life, into humanity.
And I think that's something else we should think about at Christmas, that this is that the gift of life comes even to God through a mother.
That's to alienate the feminists.
All right.
So I'm getting ready to get on a plane the minute this show is over.
I'm rushing out of here.
And one of the things I worry about most when I'm getting on a plane is that I will forget to pack my dop kit.
But I never do now because I have this great dop kit I got from Bespoke Post.
It was in their box of awesome.
They sent it to me.
It's beautiful.
It keeps everything I need in it.
It really is flexible, so it keeps everything I need and it looks good as well.
The curators at Bespoke Post have done it again this winter with an all-new lineup of essential Box of Awesome collections for guys, guaranteed to upgrade your life, whether it's showcase pieces to level up your indoor hosting skills or cozy threads for those blustery days.
Bespoke Post only sends guys the best stuff every month.
No matter what you're into, Box of Awesome has you covered.
Suspicion During Information Crisis00:14:54
To get started, take the quiz at boxofawesome.com.
Your answers will help them pick the right box of awesome for you.
It's free to sign up and you can skip a month or cancel anytime.
Each box costs only 45 bucks, but has over 70 bucks worth of gear inside.
Get 20% off your first monthly box when you sign up at boxofawesome.com and enter the code Clavin at checkout.
That's boxofawesome.com, code Clavin, for 20% off your first box.
And you want to know how to spell Clavin, I know, because the show is, you know, it's the last show of the season and you're thinking, oh no, if he goes away, I won't know how to spell Clavin.
It's K-L.
Listen carefully.
It's K-L.
There you go.
V-A-N-U-K-L-A-V-N.
I just make it look easy.
But now, let's go on and talk about what's happening in the news a little bit, and then we're going to get back to Christmas toward the end.
But I do want to say, in the Christmas spirit, I'm going to look at some of the arguments that are going on between our friends on the left and ourselves.
And in the spirit of loving our enemies, I'm going to try and understand the arguments that the left is making before completely demolishing them and mocking them and using foul language about them.
Yesterday, there was this interesting hearing on the election with the Homeland Security Committee, which is Ron Johnson's committee.
He's the head of that committee.
And it blew up.
It was really an argument.
And the thing that was interesting about it is it was partly a show.
It was partly the Republican Party speaking to all the people who believe the election was stolen and saying, we hear you and we do believe that there were problems and we do think those problems should be fixed.
And I think that's right.
I think they should have done that.
But it also, of course, had the Democrats screaming like banshees about how terrible, what a terrible thing it was to do to even hold the hearing.
Here is Gary Peters from Connecticut going after them and all Trump supporters everywhere.
This is cut six.
Rather than creating fake news, it seems as if Russia has simply used state-controlled news outlets to basically push President Trump's own statements and lies about a rigged election.
Our adversaries don't have to be technologically advanced.
Our adversaries don't have to be creative to sow that doubt.
All they have to do is air the words of American elected officials on their state-owned news networks.
I think what our friend, I mean, in a loving, you know, in a way of love, way of love, sorry.
Let me get my straight face back.
In a way of lovingly trying to understand the arguments, I think what he's saying is that, you know, you're all a bunch of Russian plants who are serving the Soviets, the former Soviets, in their attempt to disinform the public.
Ron Johnson, not in the spirit of Christmas, that loving spirit, actually just went off on this guy because remember, Ron Johnson with Chuck Grassley put out a report on Hunter Biden's activities that was laughed to scorn and covered up by the media, talking about state-sponsored media, the real state-sponsored media.
Here's Ron Johnson responding, cut four.
The purveyors of Russian disinformation, Hillary Clinton's campaign, the DNC, the Steele dossier, the ranking member Peters accusing Senator Grassley and I of disseminating Russian disinformation.
That's where the disinformation is coming.
That's where the false information, the lies, the false allegations.
I can't sit by here and listen to this and say that this is not disinformation, this hearing today.
This is getting information we have to take a look at to restore confidence in our election integrity.
We're not going to be able to just move on without bringing up these irregularities, examining them, and providing an explanation and see where there really are problems so we can correct it moving forward.
Senator Paul.
Mr. Chairman, I got to respond to that.
I mean, you're saying I'm putting out information.
Well, one, it had nothing to do with this report.
You lied repeatedly.
You lied repeatedly in the press that I was spreading Russian disinformation, and that was an outright lie.
And I told you to stop lying, and you continue to do it.
You know, in parliament in England, you're not supposed to use the word liar.
They usually don't in the Senate either, but he is really ticked off.
Both Johnson and Grassley are big time ticked off at having their report buried, their oversight ignored in the service of getting Joe Biden shoveled up into the White House before he collapses.
And so that's what that is about.
And, you know, while they're talking about Russian disinformation and disinformation in general, let us remember, you know, I had actually forgotten about this, that 50, 50 former intelligence officers said that the Hunter Biden story had all the hallmark of a Russian disinformation campaign.
And Joe Biden used that in the debate.
And that's really important the next time we hear from the New York Times, a former newspaper, that intelligence sources, you know, anonymous intelligence sources said anything, anything, because spies, this is what spies do.
They spread disinformation, and clearly there is a very, very strong left-wing strain in our intelligence agencies.
And there really lately has been for quite a long time.
I believe that the leaks during George W. Bush's administration were far, far worse and then suddenly shut down during the Obama administration.
They really did.
And here is Johnson on TV, not at the hearing, talking about basically what he thinks, you know, the real problem is not Russia, obviously, but China.
This is cut five.
They're investing in influence.
And let's face it, we see how long-term thinking, how strategic they are.
Look what they did with Congressman Swalwell.
I mean, they groomed this guy.
They saw, here's an up-and-comer.
Let's fund his campaigns.
Let's see what he can do.
Let's see how far this guy can go.
And they get him placed in the intelligence committee of the House.
And Nancy Pelosi knows about it.
So is it that far-fetched to think they were grooming Hunter Biden as well and his connections to his father?
You know, we don't even know all the connections.
So luckily, though, Joe Biden has finally given a complete, you know, deep, really responsible response to the Hunter Biden story.
He really outlined his feelings about this in a very, very extensive, complete way.
Here's Cut 16.
Are you confident your son Hunter did nothing wrong?
I'm confident.
Me too.
I'm confident too.
I'm really confident.
I'm not confident in Hunter Biden, but I'm just that kind of guy.
I'm just a confident guy.
You know, what's interesting about this is that Catherine Harridge, who is formerly Fox News's State Department reporter, is now at CBS, and she has been doing a lot of deep dives and a lot of investigative reporting.
And it's going to be really interesting to see what happens to her because CBS lost Cheryl Atkinson because they wouldn't let her report on Barack Obama.
They wouldn't let her report on Barack Obama, even though she had reported fairly on George W. Bush.
He attacked George W. Bush.
She went after him.
Cheryl Atkinson is just one of those old-time reporters who just wants to get at the powerful.
She just wants to find something wrong with the powerful.
She doesn't like them.
She knows they are misbehaving.
She just wants to find out how.
And so she went after George W. Bush.
And when she went after Barack Obama, she writes about this in her first book.
She went after Barack Obama.
Started to censor her.
Catherine Harridge, though, so far they have let her go, and we'll see if that continues in the Biden administration.
Here's what she says about the election.
This is coming from DNI John Ratcliffe, cut one.
DNI Radcliffe leads the 17 intelligence agencies, and he has access to the most highly classified information that is held by the U.S. government.
And he told CBS News that there was foreign election interference by China, Iran, and Russia in November of this year.
And he is anticipating a public report on those findings in January.
So, you know, this is really kind of interesting.
Now, you know, obviously, China, Russia, Iran, they're always going to be trying to fiddle with our elections.
I'm sure we do the same to them.
It's a question of how effective they are and how extensive their work is.
But all of this stuff should come out.
And, you know, and we remember what they did with their Russian, you know, their Russian hoax story.
But this should come out and we should address these problems because we do have to restore some kind of faith in our systems.
So, you know how the price of gold has been skyrocketing lately?
There is a new way to buy gold through a company called Acre, where you don't have to shell out all that cash all at once.
Acre lets you subscribe to gold bars for as little as $30 a month.
You pay each month, and once your gold stash reaches the price of their gold bars, they discreetly ship Acre Gold to your house.
Acre lets you invest in physical gold without coming out of pocket all at once.
Acre keeps you updated on your gold stash every month and ships once you reach the price threshold.
You know what the stock market is doing.
It's soaring, it's going up, but that always means there's going to be a reckoning.
Gold is a good value and it's a good thing to have in your portfolio.
Visit getacregold.com/slash clavin and start investing in physical gold today.
Make sure you go to this URL because Acre is giving away a gold bar, not to everybody, but to qualify for the giveaway, tweet or post why you should be the recipient and mention at getacre.
Again, that's getacregold.com/slash clavin.
We love AcreGold.
They support the show, so you should support them if you're getting gold.
Faith in our systems is not a bad thing.
Neither is suspicion.
Suspicion is a good thing, especially during this information crisis when the media is lying en masse.
And they're lying en masse on behalf of globalism and what I call Chinese capitalism, which is money for the big corporations, but no freedom for the little guy.
And so, you know, we have to be suspicious, but we also have to have the sense that, yeah, all right, some of this is being taken care of.
So the hearing, I thought, was actually a good thing to do.
And I think that there, you know, I've said this repeatedly, even though people don't hear it.
There was a lot of shenanigans going on with this stuff.
And Josh Hawley talked about this.
This is a cut three and just talked about the fact that the people who believe this are not crazy.
They're not, you know, far writers.
They're not QAnon people necessarily.
They are people who saw what was happening.
They saw the lack of transparency.
And they deserve for their government to hear them.
This is cut three.
To listen to the mainstream press and quite a few voices in this building tell them after four years of nonstop Russia hoax, it was a hoax.
It was based on the whole Russian nonsense was based on we now know lies from a Russian spy.
The Steele dossier was based on a Russian spy.
After four years of that, being told that the last election was fake and that Donald Trump wasn't really elected and that Russia intervened.
After four years of that, now these same people are told, you just sit down and shut up.
If you have any concerns about election integrity, you're a nutcase.
You should shut up.
Well, I'll tell you what, 74 million Americans are not going to shut up and telling them that their views don't matter and that their concerns don't matter and they should just be quiet is not a recipe for success in this country.
It's not a recipe for the unity that I hear now the other side is suddenly so interested in after years, years of trying to delegitimize President Donald Trump.
Now, that makes a lot of sense to me.
That is something, someone talking about this election.
You know, I'm sorry to hear people saying, you know, this isn't over yet.
It's over.
You know, it's done.
And the faster we get on to the fights we can win, the better, as far as I'm concerned.
But that doesn't mean this doesn't need to be fixed and these things don't need to be addressed.
They do.
But in the spirit of Christmas bright goodwill and loving our enemies, let's hear the argument from the other side, from Chris Murphy, who says 74 million people basically are totally wrong.
This is cut eight.
There are regular patriotic Americans out there who don't believe that Joe Biden is actually president.
And you know why?
Because as patriotic Americans, they've been told to listen to the president of the United States, to listen to U.S. senators.
And so when the president and U.S. senators tell them over and over and over again that the election was rigged, they believe it.
Not because they're crazy, but because they have faith that people in positions of power are going to tell them the truth.
So this becomes this circular logic in which Republicans say, well, we got to talk about this because everybody thinks that the election is rigged.
By the way, the election was rigged, everybody.
There's no way out of that sort of black hole downward spiral if Republicans are willing to stir up the conspiracy theories and then claim that because people are listening to them, we all of a sudden have to talk about it.
Now, that argument would actually be completely correct if it weren't totally wrong.
He's talking to a guy.
I can be open-minded.
He's talking to a guy who called ordinary patriotic Americans teabaggers.
Their disdain for ordinary patriotic Americans drips from them.
They lied to them.
They lied about Hunter Biden.
They lied about Tara Reed and Joe Biden by covering that story up.
They lied about Kavanaugh.
They lied about Trump.
And now they're saying, why don't you believe us?
Oh, it's because Trump is telling you lies.
Well, Trump may be playing people.
There may be truth to that.
But there's nowhere to go where there are trustworthy people to tell you that he's wrong.
So as long as they keep lying, as long as people like Anderson Cooper and CNN and NBC and CBS and ABC, as long as the New York Times and the Washington Post keep covering up for Democrats and lying about Republicans, Donald Trump is golden.
You know, whatever Donald Trump says, people are going to believe because there's no one to say, hey, you know what?
I disproved it when Barack Obama lied, and now I'm going to tell you that Donald Trump is saying something wrong.
We'd listen to that.
People would listen to that.
But why should they listen to anybody who treated Barack Obama like a plaster saint and is now treating Joe Biden like basically a child?
They are treating him like a child.
The questions they're asking him are child questions.
And, you know, I sympathize.
He's obviously compromised, but still the guy is going to be president of the United States.
He needs to be able to answer hard questions.
Rand Paul, who has been the most aggressive about this because he understands, he understands how much shenanigans there were and how much things were rejiggered too late and done, how rules were changed without the legislature operating.
Rand Paul understands that this is a matter for the states.
It's not going to be solved by Texas suing Georgia.
That's not going to work.
Crisis After Another00:04:34
It's a matter for the states.
But the states could get a little goose from the federal government.
And it is a state-by-state election, but it's a state-by-state election for federal office.
And it's not a bad thing for the federal government to shine a spotlight on what they're doing.
This is Rand Paul.
I think there's a lot of work to be done.
While we will not dictate it to the states, I think we should have hearings going into the next year hearing from state legislatures and what they're going to do to make sure election law is upheld, not changed by people who are not legislators.
And we do have an interest in that.
I don't want it to be federalized.
Many on the other side of the aisle would just soon federalize it and mail everybody a ballot and we'll have this universal corruption throughout the land.
But what I think we need to do is keep it at the state level.
But we can't just say it didn't happen.
We can't just say, oh, 4,000 people voted in Nevada that were non-citizens and we're just going to ignore it.
We're going to sweep it under the rug and say, oh, the courts have decided the facts.
The courts have not decided the facts.
The courts never looked at the facts.
The courts don't like elections and so they stayed out of it by finding an excuse, standing or otherwise, to stay out of it.
But the fraud happened.
The election in many ways was stolen.
And the only way it'll be fixed is by in the future reinforcing the laws.
You know, I think except for the fact that when he says the election in many ways was stolen, I think it's possible that he is talking about the fact that the press rigged the election.
And there's no question about this.
You know, this is where we get the information from.
There's absolutely no question that the press had a, you know, the press always has a pro-Democrat effect on elections.
It always does.
But this was untoward because it was just a pack of lies, not reporting Hunter Biden, reporting that it was a Russian disinformation campaign.
That was a pack of lies.
And of course, everything, you know, I wouldn't blame people, even on the right, from feeling, well, Donald Trump is gone, but at least we won't be living at this constant state of crisis all the time.
But that's what the press does.
And I told you about that when Trump was elected.
I told you about that four years ago when Trump was elected.
I said, what the press will do is they will create a constant sense of crisis.
Everything Donald Trump does will be a crisis.
And eventually, because there's always a crisis in every presidency, eventually when the crisis hits, then it'll be like, oh my God, they're right.
It's one crisis after another.
They did this with George W. Bush and the hurricane down in New Orleans.
But running up until that, they were hitting him again and again.
Everything he did was a lie.
Everything he said was a lie.
Everything he did was a disaster.
Everything he did was a crisis of authoritarianism and our Constitution was in danger.
And then when a hurricane hit and George W. Bush made the mistake of not going down there for a photo op, that was his mistake.
They ripped him to pieces and there was this feeling like, oh, this presidency is a disaster.
They did it to Trump too.
Trump was not as good at handling it as George W. Bush was.
And George W. Bush didn't handle it well either.
The way you handle that is you address it every time, but not by shouting and yelling.
You address it quietly, saying, This is what you guys are doing.
You have to play postmodernism with the press because they are playing postmodernism with you.
They are lying and creating this atmosphere.
You have to deconstruct the atmosphere.
You have to say to the public, what they're doing is they're making a crisis out of everything because I'm a Republican.
And then when there, and there will be a real crisis, and then they'll tell you, oh, look, it's one crisis after another.
And that's what they did to Trump with the pandemic.
Trump played into it.
And that's been my complaint about him all along is he didn't really know.
He knew how dishonest they were.
He knew and was the first Republican to fully understand that you are always running against the press because they're lying Democrat toadies.
He was the first Republican to really grasp that and understand it, but he didn't really have the full complement of tools to dismantle it.
And that's a problem.
It's a problem.
You've got to be able to say, no, that's wrong because of this, this, and this.
And he didn't do it.
And when he came out and said, oh, like everybody else, like Nancy Pelosi, like everybody else, when he came out and said, oh, this pandemic will just be over, you know, just suddenly disappear, it was easy for them to take him down.
It really is the danger we're facing.
It's so interesting to me, who has been kind of screaming about this, to watch this dynamic because I really do believe that Trump has changed the game because every Republican, every Republican who has any sense whatsoever, any idea whatsoever, understands that this is what he has to do in the future.
Dividing Lines in American Cinema00:12:20
It's going to be a fascinating year coming up.
I think there's going to be a lot of division on the left, a lot of left, middle, moderate division that is going to be very difficult for them.
I think on our side, there's going to be how to manage Donald Trump while getting new leaders out there who can take us in the direction that Trump was heading to a stronger America, and a stronger world through a stronger America and a better economy and also conservative principles.
Those are the things that are going to have to happen.
But I'm pretty hopeful about it.
I know this has been a rotten year, but I'm pretty hopeful going forward that we can get that stuff done.
On Monday, December 21st, which is coming Monday, the historical docuseries, Apollo 11, what we saw will be available exclusively at dailywire.com.
It was originally released as an audio podcast for Apple and Spotify.
It will now be available to watch as well as listen to on the Daily Wire, Apple TV, and Roku app.
It's really good.
It's really amazing to see, really.
And Bill Whittle does a great job.
Apollo 11, what we saw is a fantastic story to watch with your loved ones over the holiday break.
And we will give you 20% off your subscription with CodeWatch if you become an insider or above member over at dailywire.com slash subscribe.
Make sure to download the Apple TV or Roku app to get all of our content on the big screen, including our podcast and special live streams like Monday's Christmas edition of Backstage.
I will be visiting Backstage, but I won't be a full participant because I have very, very serious family business to go take care of.
And I will be, the minute I finish this show, I will be dashing out of here to the airport.
That's dailywire.com slash subscribe to get 20% off your membership with CodeWatch and access to all of our new and existing content.
let's talk some more about Christmas.
So I think the most important thing we can do about Christmas is argue about it, you know, because I think what good is it if we're not fighting with each other over Christmas and, you know, battling and burning each other at the stake and things like that.
And one of the things that is funny about the war on Christmas is that the left is so good at doing this.
They're so good at maneuvering us into a position where what they're saying is the standard that we're all dealing with.
So they wage war on Christmas and we say, you're waging a war on Christmas.
They're like, oh, God, these people are always making a fuss over every little thing, you know, just because we say happy holidays.
But they're waging a war on Christmas.
And the most important part of our arguments about Christmas are Christmas movies when we argue about Christmas movies.
There are two movies.
This is really interesting to me.
There are two movies that are a source of great, great division in our nation today and are tearing us apart at the seams.
And whether or not these are good movies, whether they're Christmas movies.
And I think we should delve into this question as Christmas comes so that we have something to really fight about as we sit around with our friends and relations and then all get sick and die.
Oh, by the way, this is this new thing that they're telling us now that we shouldn't have Christmas.
They told us we wouldn't have Thanksgiving because there was going to be this horrific Thanksgiving spike.
But apparently that hasn't shown up, the horrific Thanksgiving spike.
So let's ignore them.
But one of these movies is this movie, Love Actually.
And this is an amazing thing.
Love Actually is a romantic comedy.
It's written and directed by Richard Curtis, who is the only guy who really does.
I'm not a big romantic comedy fan, but he does romantic comedies that I always kind of like.
Four weddings and a funeral was his.
And what was the other one?
Oh, the one about the actress, Julia Roberts, falling in love with a bookseller.
I can't remember the name offhand, but there it is.
But anyway, he does good ones.
He's very funny.
He's got a really good sense of humor.
And so I went to see this movie and I liked it.
You know, I didn't think it was great.
I took the family.
I didn't think it was the greatest movie ever, but I thought it was really good.
It was a little too long, but it has all these different love stories going on.
And each love story is different and about a different thing.
And the message of the story is that it begins with Hugh Grant narrating it and saying, you know, when 9-11 happened, because it was coming out 2003, when 9-11 happened, we thought, you know, it was about the anger and hate, that the last words that everybody said when they called up their relatives before they were killed and they knew they were trapped, they were messages of love.
And the point of the movie is that love is actually all around.
Then it goes and shows you very different kinds of love.
So I went and saw it and I thought, well, that was charming.
You know, it was a little too long, but it was very charming.
I had an agent then in England because I'd only just moved back from England.
And I called her about something else.
And she started talking about love actually.
And I can't repeat what she said because it was so foul-mouthed.
It was so like, it's terrible.
It's garbage.
It's a piece of...
Now, this is a funny thing about Britain, because Richard Curtis, with the movies Four Weddings and a Funeral, and the other one I can't remember the name of, that restored the British movie industry.
And then the British, because they only think a movie is good if it's about poor people, preferably colored people, preferably gay, you know, like My Beautiful Laundrette was basically there.
That was their perfect movie.
And if it's not about that, they feel it's about, you know, they're real socialists.
They're socialists are not make-believe socialists like ours.
They're the real deal.
If it's not about that, they feel it's not art.
That's what art does.
That's what art is.
Art is like the great socialist commentary.
So they hate movies that are fun, that have pretty people in them, that are beautiful.
So I didn't think much about it.
But then over the years, this became this huge, huge deal.
And so here's like from the Independent.
This is a British paper, and I'll get to an American one, because all the power and agency in the movie belongs to the male characters, while women, often their younger employees, are silent, appreciative, pretty things.
The ones who have any cares or responsibilities beyond pleasing men seem to get punished, missing out on love and having to listen to Joni Mitchell.
It also seems astonishingly heteronormative, as if most people were straight.
Astonishingly heteronormative, nine stories all straight.
So that's, you get the feeling what that's what the left is doing.
And then in the Atlantic, he says, this guy in the Atlantic, I mean, this is all over the internet, this argument.
The guy in the Atlantic says it elevates physical attraction over any of the other factors typically associated with romantic compatibility.
And that's not true.
There is a subplot that he mentions, and he says he liked this subplot.
Martin Freeman and Joanna Page are doing these nude sex scenes for movies.
They're stand-ins.
And they do the nude sex scenes, and they're just bored out of their mind.
I mean, she is absolutely gorgeous, and she's naked, and he's doing all these things to her, but it's a job.
But they fall in love in spite of that.
So it really is telling you there's all kinds of different love.
There's sacrificial love.
There is love that stands the test of time, love that people betray.
There is love that, you know, where you put everything aside and give yourself to the other person, all kinds of different love.
And so it's just not true.
There is one great scene, however, that confirms all of the left's fears and arguments, which is a great, great scene.
It's a guy named Colin who is just, he's a failure at love.
He can't get girls to look at him.
And he keeps saying, you know, if I could just go to America, I know that I would just meet all these hot girls and that instantaneously I would be making out like a bandit, right?
And so he goes to America.
He knows nothing about America.
He lands in the middle of nowhere.
I can't remember where he is, Omaha, something like this.
And he walks into this bar in the middle of a snowstorm, and suddenly all his dreams come true.
Three of the most beautiful women come up to him.
Here's the clip.
Where are you staying?
I don't actually know.
I guess I just check into a motel like they do in the movies.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
That is so cute.
No, no, no.
Listen.
This may be a bit pushy because we just met you, but why don't you come back and sleep at our place?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, you know, it's not too much of an inconvenience.
Hell no.
But there's one problem.
What?
Well, we're not the richest of girls, you know, so we just have a little bed and no couch.
So you would have to share with all three of us.
And on this cold, cold night, it's going to be crowded and sweaty and stuff.
Yeah.
And we can't even afford pajamas.
It's just like all his dreams come true.
Two of the girls went on to have real careers, Alicia Cuthbert and January Jones, who was the wife in Mad Men.
And they're absolutely gorgeous.
And that scene is, that's that scene actually made me laugh out loud, really roared.
The other picture I was trying to think of was Notting Hill.
I knew it was a neighborhood in London, but I couldn't remember which one.
Notting Hill is the other one that he wrote.
And, you know, so anyway, this film, I just feel, should not be controversial.
It is a good, solid, romantic comedy.
It's very touching.
It shows you all kinds of different forms of love, and it's just about British people.
They're, you know, all kinds of different British people in different positions.
And if it doesn't fulfill your personal identity politics, go watch something else.
But the anger and the hatred it inspires, I think, really speaks well of it.
It has made me like the film more than I did.
Like I said, I'm not a big romantic comedy fan, but the anger and hatred it inspired on the left has made me like the film.
Now, of course, the other controversial one is Die Hard.
And Die Hard came out in 1988.
And I was staying with my wife out at a house on Long Island.
And we were just staying there as part of the Christmas holidays.
And I just said one day, you know, I'm getting kind of housebound.
I'm going to go to the movies.
So I went out and the ad for Die Hard was just a guy sitting watching the movie being kind of blown away with a kind of wind blowing up.
So it didn't tell you anything about what the movie was about.
So I had no idea.
I just knew it was a thriller and I liked Bruce Willis and he was kind of an up-and-comer at that point.
And so I went to the movie and had no idea what it was about.
And I was like absolutely riveted to show you how foolish I was, how completely swept up in it.
I actually thought that Bruce Willis might die in the movie because I didn't think about the sequels.
I didn't think there would be sequels.
I just thought this was just this great, great thriller movie.
It was a spectacular, spectacular film.
But is it a Christmas film?
It takes place at Christmas.
You know, it takes place at an office Christmas party, and I'm sure everybody's seen it.
The terrorists come in and they take over the building during the office Christmas party, but they forget Bruce Willis, who is a New York City cop who's come out to try and make amends with his wife who has left him.
And he is left alone and he goes on and takes them on alone in the building.
And it is a spectacular, spectacular thing.
And Alan Rickman is the chief villain who just recently passed away.
And Rickman suddenly realizes that his absolutely perfect plot has a fly in the ointment, which is Bruce Willis, who has just killed two of his men and is coming to get him.
And this is the scene between the two of them.
Mr. Mr. August.
Are you still there?
Yeah, I'm still here.
Unless you won't open a front door for me.
I'm afraid not.
But you have me at a loss.
You know my name, but who are you?
Just another American who saw too many movies as a child.
Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he's John Wayne, Rambo, Marshall Dillon.
I was always kind of harsh with a Roy Rogers, actually.
I really like those sequenced shirts.
Do you really think you have a chance against us, Mr. Cowboy?
You begay, motherfucker.
Great, great, great movie.
Hymns of Gladness00:03:40
Is it a Christmas movie?
I gotta go down.
No, it is a great conservative movie because it is about the beauty of gender rules.
It is about a man coming to find his wife and a wife accepting that she is his wife.
And it has the famous moment at the end, which was originally from the movie A Star is Born, where she takes on his name again, having dropped it to move away.
It came in the height of the 80s, was the height of that wave of feminism where women were screaming at you if you opened the door for them and so on.
And it really had a sort of a readjustment in there, which I thought was great.
One more film I just want to recommend.
Obviously, the only two great films are It's a Wonderful Life and The Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim.
But there is this film, The Bishop's Wife, which I like to plug every year.
If you've never seen it, you really should.
Not the preacher's wife, the remake, but the bishop's wife with Carrie Grant and David Niven, and who's Loretta Young is the woman in it.
And Carrie Grant plays an angel who comes down from heaven to help a preacher.
And he comes into this church, this little church where the choir is falling apart.
And he finds two little boys, the only people who have shown up for the choir, and he tells them to start singing.
It's an absolutely beautiful scene.
Let's just play that scene.
What do you say?
Okay.
Do you really, Mrs. Duffy?
Oh yes! Hit it!
First the chainsaw Your Lord is born this happy day.
Oh, sing to swear your hymns of gladness.
Oh, sing to God, your hymns of gladness.
He loving hearts, your dream you pay.
Your Lord is born this happy day.
When fierce the sky with songs of gladness, disperse the shades of room and sadness.
Your Lord is Lord.
Sing to swear your hymns of gladness.
That's a great scene.
If you couldn't see it, you could hear what was happening, but Carrie Grant basically just magically brings all the kids in off the street to sing the song, to sing the hymn.
It's just absolutely gorgeous a moment.
And what I love about this film is it's a reminder that there are forces moving among us that are greater than we know, better than we know, more joyful than we know.
And even in a moment like this, in a year like this, we should remember that God is still there.
The angels are among us, and God loves you.
And don't let anybody tell you different.
Even if you're on the left, God loves you.
Gay, straight, black, white, everybody, he loves you.
Call him now.
His lines are open.
If you call right away, he will not only give you salvation, he will send you a Ginzing knife to cut vegetables with.
All right, I just made that up.
Merry Christmas to everybody.
Have a wonderful Clavinless holiday.
If you survive, hopefully, hopefully, we will all gather again on the other side.
And next year, all our troubles will be far away.
The Andrew Klavan Show00:01:19
I'm Andrew Clavin.
This is The Andrew Klavan Show.
And if you want to help spread the word, give us a five-star review and also tell your friends to subscribe too.
We're available on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts.
Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including the Ben Shapiro Show, the Matt Wall Show, and the Michael Knoll Show.
Thanks for listening.
The Andrew Clavin Show is produced by Robert Sterling.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Our technical director is Austin Stevens.
Supervising producer, Mathis Glover.
Production manager, Pavel Vadofsky.
Edited by Danny D'AMico.
Audio mixed by Mike Cormina.
Animations are by Cynthia Angulo.
And our production assistants are McKenna Waters and Jacob Falash.
The Andrew Clavin 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.