Ben Shapiro LIVE from Cornell University

[00:00:00] Corno Republicans and it is my honor to [00:00:02] lead the organization this year. For [00:00:04] almost Thank you. [00:00:11] for almost as long as Cornell has stood [00:00:13] on this hill. This our organization has [00:00:15] proudly promoted the values that make [00:00:17] this country great. The mission of a [00:00:20] university is forming its students, but [00:00:22] so often liberal campuses like this one [00:00:24] fail at this task. Students must be [00:00:27] encouraged to grow. They must grow in [00:00:29] charity for one another and grow in [00:00:31] faith and hope of salvation. This is [00:00:33] especially requires growing in the love [00:00:35] of God, especially on a campus where [00:00:37] professing Jesus is king is edgy, [00:00:40] unacceptable, and potentially career [00:00:42] ending. CRS exists to fill this gap to [00:00:46] share this vision of virtue with our [00:00:48] members and hopefully all of you here [00:00:50] today. We bring speakers for this end, [00:00:54] spreading the good news of virtue and [00:00:56] charity. We are especially grateful to [00:00:58] Young America's Foundation and our [00:01:01] generous benefactor for sponsoring [00:01:03] tonight's event as part of YAF's Things [00:01:06] That Matter lecture series. We must also [00:01:09] thank all of our donors who continuously [00:01:11] support our work. Now, to introduce our [00:01:14] speaker, Ben Shapiro is the co-founder [00:01:17] of The Daily Wire and the host of the [00:01:19] Ben Shapiro show. In addition, he also [00:01:22] hosts several other podcasts, including [00:01:25] Debunked, Ben Shapiro's book club, The [00:01:28] Search, and the very popular Sunday [00:01:30] Special. But most importantly, he is the [00:01:32] father of four and his wife is a doctor. [00:01:35] Please join me in welcoming Ben Shapiro. [00:01:52] Thank you so much. Enjoy time. [00:02:02] Well, thank you so much. It is an honor [00:02:03] and a pleasure to be at the school that [00:02:06] has an agricultural component that can [00:02:07] call Keith Berman an alum. [00:02:11] Well, obviously we have an election [00:02:13] coming up in one week and it's a pretty [00:02:15] important election for a variety of [00:02:16] reasons. I want to go through some of [00:02:18] those reasons tonight. I think the most [00:02:20] obvious reason why election 2024 is so [00:02:23] important is because intersectional [00:02:24] wokeness must die. It must die a painful [00:02:28] death. [00:02:36] Intersectionality, as it's come to be [00:02:38] understood, is the basic theory that you [00:02:39] can adjudicate whether somebody is a [00:02:41] victim or whether somebody is a villain [00:02:43] based on their group's level of relative [00:02:45] success in American life or [00:02:47] internationally. And this is a hideous [00:02:50] ideology. Again, the basic assumption is [00:02:53] that all disparities, any group [00:02:55] disparity is the result of [00:02:57] discrimination. So if one group is [00:02:58] underperforming economically, it must be [00:03:00] that they've been victimized by the [00:03:01] overarching system in some deep and [00:03:04] abiding way. And if one group has [00:03:06] succeeded, that means that they must be [00:03:08] exploiters. And this narrative has [00:03:10] driven so much of American politics over [00:03:12] the course of the last 15 years in the [00:03:14] United States. It's now been applied [00:03:16] internationally. [00:03:17] You can see how it's driven American [00:03:19] politics. Kla Harris, for example, when [00:03:21] she first came into office, there was a [00:03:22] report from the New York Times just this [00:03:24] Friday suggesting that one of the first [00:03:26] things she did is she looked at [00:03:26] intelligence reports, and she doesn't [00:03:28] like to read reports, as we know from [00:03:30] other reporting. This is not her thing. [00:03:32] She doesn't like to read the long [00:03:34] reports. And so instead, what she [00:03:36] decided to spend her time doing was [00:03:37] going through these intelligence reports [00:03:39] for descriptions of female leaders of [00:03:41] other countries, looking for sexist [00:03:43] language to extrapate from the [00:03:45] intelligence reports. So, it didn't [00:03:47] matter what the intelligence report [00:03:48] said. it mostly mattered whether they [00:03:50] were using gendered terminology to refer [00:03:52] to female leaders in other countries. So [00:03:55] they did like a full study. They broke [00:03:57] it down and found actually the [00:03:58] intelligence community for all of its [00:04:00] failings, this is one thing they [00:04:01] actually weren't doing. They weren't [00:04:02] using supremely gendered language with [00:04:04] regard to female foreign leaders in [00:04:05] other countries. That did not stop Kla [00:04:07] Harris from initiating an effort to [00:04:09] educate all members of the intelligence [00:04:11] community as to the preferred pronouns [00:04:13] presumably of various leaders around the [00:04:16] world. Kla Harris, of course, is the [00:04:18] same person who in the 2020 election [00:04:20] cycle put out a ridiculous video [00:04:21] suggesting that the goal of American [00:04:23] life and indeed all of civilization [00:04:25] should be that everyone end up in the [00:04:27] same place. Not that everyone have equal [00:04:29] rights or be treated as an individual. [00:04:31] Her suggestion was that if the system [00:04:33] did not guarantee equality of outcome, [00:04:35] it wasn't truly equity. And equity is [00:04:38] what we ought to seek. And that's why [00:04:39] you see her during this campaign [00:04:40] proclaiming that, for example, she will [00:04:42] give away essentially $20,000 handouts [00:04:45] to black men or to Latino men in pursuit [00:04:47] of their votes in this election cycle [00:04:49] because these are presumably victimized [00:04:50] groups. And the way you can tell that [00:04:51] they're victimized is not by evidence of [00:04:53] actual legal discrimination, which of [00:04:55] course is illegal under the Civil Rights [00:04:57] Act and under the 14th Amendment to the [00:04:59] Constitution. Instead, you can tell that [00:05:00] they are victimized again via disparity. [00:05:04] Now, this philosophy is truly ugly. You [00:05:07] can see its ugliest manifestations [00:05:09] internationally. [00:05:10] This is the manifestation you see via [00:05:12] satanahasi coats with regard to the [00:05:14] Middle East. He takes this framework and [00:05:15] then he applies it to Israel and the [00:05:17] Palestinians. The idea being that [00:05:19] because the Palestinians are less [00:05:20] successful than the Israelis, it must be [00:05:22] that the Israelis are the great [00:05:23] exploiters and the Palestinians are the [00:05:25] great the great exploited. This is [00:05:28] simply put The reason that one [00:05:31] of these groups is more successful [00:05:37] is because one of these groups has [00:05:39] decided to apply concepts like property [00:05:41] rights and democracy and freedom of [00:05:43] speech and free markets to their actual [00:05:46] body politic. And the other group has [00:05:48] decided to elect a terrorist group in [00:05:50] the Gaza Strip, a terrorist group that [00:05:52] then proceeds to kill all of its [00:05:53] political opponents and spend billions [00:05:55] of dollars building a network of terror [00:05:56] tunnels that is larger than the London [00:05:58] Underground. Turns out that that is a [00:06:00] pretty good explanation for why one [00:06:01] group has economically failed and one [00:06:03] group is more successful. That is not a [00:06:05] story of exploitation. It turns out that [00:06:08] in a free society and internationally [00:06:11] solid good decision-making tends to [00:06:13] result in success. When you have a zero [00:06:15] sum view as to success and failure in [00:06:17] the world, you end up at the perverse [00:06:19] result that the worse you are as a human [00:06:21] being, the more violent you are as a [00:06:23] human being, the more unsuccessful you [00:06:24] are as a human being, the better you and [00:06:26] more virtuous you are. And this ends [00:06:29] with suppressing innovation. It ends [00:06:31] with suppressing virtue. It ends with [00:06:33] suppressing good decision-making. That [00:06:35] ideology has to die. It also ends with [00:06:37] suppressing truth. Because one of the [00:06:40] foundations of Western civilization and [00:06:42] of biblical living is the basic idea [00:06:44] that you are responsible for your [00:06:45] actions. And if you act virtuously in [00:06:47] the world, you will indeed live a [00:06:49] better, more fruitful and more [00:06:51] successful life. If you deny that [00:06:53] premise, then the result is you have to [00:06:55] deny a basic truth. And instead, what [00:06:58] you have to do is you have to suggest [00:06:59] that the world owes you something. It's [00:07:01] not that you owe it to yourself and to [00:07:03] your family to make good, solid [00:07:04] decisions that make your life and the [00:07:06] life of those around you better. [00:07:07] Instead, it's that the world owes you [00:07:09] success. The world owes you a feeling of [00:07:12] fulfillment. This is how you end up at [00:07:14] the bizarre supposition that men can be [00:07:15] women and women can be men. Because [00:07:17] again, the idea here is that if I feel a [00:07:19] thing on the inside of me, thus the rest [00:07:21] of the world has to legitimize that [00:07:23] viewpoint no matter how stupid and how [00:07:25] false that viewpoint is. [00:07:27] Intersectional wokeness must die. Okay. [00:07:30] Reason number two, the selection matters [00:07:33] because it turns out [00:07:35] it turns out that economic illiteracy is [00:07:38] a very bad thing. Again, we talk about [00:07:41] zero sum thinking. Thinking of the [00:07:43] economy in terms of zero sum antics is [00:07:46] is ridiculous. It is false. It is untrue [00:07:49] and it is dangerous. Now, one of the [00:07:52] great sort of ideas that has hit Western [00:07:55] civilization and indeed all of mankind [00:07:57] via bleed down effect over the course of [00:07:58] the last couple centuries is the free [00:08:00] market. It's kind of amazing to consider [00:08:02] the fact when you think about it that [00:08:04] every material that Elon Musk is [00:08:05] currently using in his rockets was [00:08:08] available on planet Earth to the [00:08:09] cavemen. There's literally nothing new [00:08:11] under the sun. All the sand that is [00:08:14] being used to make the microchips and [00:08:16] superconductors that power your phone [00:08:18] has been available since literally the [00:08:20] beginnings of Earth. That's an amazing [00:08:22] supposition. So what actually changed? [00:08:24] What changed is innovation. What changed [00:08:26] is property rights. What changed is the [00:08:28] idea that if you make something, if you [00:08:30] innovate, then you can actually keep the [00:08:32] fruits of your labor and then you can [00:08:33] trade the fruits of your labor for [00:08:34] somebody else's labor. And when you do [00:08:36] that enough times, what you end up doing [00:08:38] is benefiting everybody. I've said [00:08:40] before that capitalism is a system of [00:08:41] forced altruism which of course it is [00:08:43] because in order for you to earn a [00:08:45] living you have to benefit somebody else [00:08:47] as opposed to socialism which is simply [00:08:49] selfishness. The idea that somebody else [00:08:51] owes something to you by dent of you [00:08:52] existing on the earth. Now there are [00:08:54] certain people in our society that we [00:08:55] treat in a socialistic manner. I for [00:08:57] example treat my children in a [00:08:58] socialistic manner because they're not [00:08:59] capable of earning a living. Not yet. [00:09:02] They're getting older. I expect them to [00:09:03] get out in the workforce right now. The [00:09:04] oldest is 10. It's time for her to get a [00:09:06] job. But [00:09:09] but the basic concept which is that free [00:09:12] trade, property rights and innovation [00:09:14] are what drive humanity forward. This [00:09:16] idea is somehow fought by an enormous [00:09:18] amount of our political class. I won't [00:09:20] just relegate this to the left. By the [00:09:21] way, there are some on the right who [00:09:22] seem not to understand this either. [00:09:23] There are some on the right who seem to [00:09:24] believe that if there's an economically [00:09:26] dispossessed segment of the population [00:09:29] that it must be that somebody else has [00:09:30] exploited or victimized them in order to [00:09:32] achieve that economic dispossession. [00:09:33] That isn't true either. That's zero sum [00:09:35] thinking. The reality is the vast [00:09:37] majority of the world's population has [00:09:38] been raised from abject poverty over the [00:09:40] course of the last four decades alone by [00:09:42] property rights and innovation. Now the [00:09:44] way that you actually achieve prosperity [00:09:46] is through incentivizing innovation. [00:09:48] It's through incentivizing risk-taking. [00:09:50] It's by rewarding, not punishing, not [00:09:52] yelling at, not treating as the enemy [00:09:54] people like Elon Musk. Elon Musk is [00:09:57] generating things that are good. He is [00:09:59] doing incredible things for humanity. [00:10:01] Whether you like his politics or whether [00:10:02] you don't like his politics, by the way, [00:10:03] I can say that about people I disagree [00:10:04] with, too. [00:10:06] I disagree with Jeff Bezos on politics. [00:10:07] It turns out that Jeff Bezos's Amazon [00:10:09] has done enormous good for the world. It [00:10:10] has made the world an enormously better [00:10:12] place and we have all benefited from [00:10:14] that. That is because of innovation. [00:10:16] It's because of creativity. Any system [00:10:18] that seeks to punish that or treat that [00:10:20] as though somebody has done something [00:10:21] wrong by creating a new good product or [00:10:23] service is an idiotic system. So when [00:10:25] Kla Harris suggests for example that we [00:10:27] ought to have a wealth tax in this [00:10:28] country, the stupidest single economic [00:10:31] idea I have ever heard, an unearned [00:10:32] wealth tax, right? a tax on unearned [00:10:35] capital gains, for example, a suggestion [00:10:37] that she put out early on in the [00:10:39] campaign. For those who don't understand [00:10:40] how dumb that is, let me explain in in [00:10:43] very brief fashion how stupid this is. [00:10:45] Okay, this is the idea that you buy a [00:10:47] house, you buy the house for hers would [00:10:49] apply to people who make about I think [00:10:50] it's $und00 million, but that takes out [00:10:52] pretty much every mid- major business in [00:10:53] the country. So, let's talk about on a [00:10:55] personal level by by analogy. If you [00:10:58] were to buy a house for $250,000 and [00:11:00] then not sell the house, okay, but it [00:11:02] accrrews in value over the course of [00:11:04] years, you haven't sold it, remember, [00:11:06] and now it is worth a million dollar and [00:11:07] we are going to take a 50% wealth tax. [00:11:10] You have not sold your house. The upside [00:11:13] has been $750,000. You will now pay 50% [00:11:16] on that. So more than the house you paid [00:11:18] for, more than you paid for the house, [00:11:20] you will now pay to the government for [00:11:22] the privilege of not having sold the [00:11:23] house. That's the idea of an unearned [00:11:25] capital gain, attacks on unearned [00:11:27] capital gains. It's absolute insanity [00:11:29] and it only comes from economic [00:11:30] illiteracy. Unfortunately, economic [00:11:33] illiteracy is completely widespread [00:11:35] among the American population. People [00:11:36] don't understand the difference between [00:11:38] innovation. They don't investment. They [00:11:40] don't understand the difference between [00:11:41] a wage job and and a and a an ownership [00:11:44] position where you actually absorb the [00:11:45] risk. If you are accepting a wage for a [00:11:47] job, you inherently are not accepting [00:11:48] the risk of the job. You get the check [00:11:50] in the mail every week so long as you're [00:11:52] employed. If you are the person who [00:11:53] started the business, if you don't make [00:11:55] a profit that week, you don't get any [00:11:56] profit. And if the business goes under, [00:11:58] you absorb all of that risk. That is the [00:12:00] reason we incentivize people to take the [00:12:01] risks because the person who does all [00:12:03] the hiring is the person who takes that [00:12:05] is a good thing. That is a positive [00:12:07] thing for the world. Nothing annoys me [00:12:08] more than the lack of gratitude among [00:12:10] people who live in the richest time in [00:12:12] literally human history bitching about [00:12:13] how hard they have it. It really is an [00:12:15] amazing thing. truly, you know, Louis CK [00:12:19] before his untimely demise in terms of [00:12:22] career, but he remains the funniest [00:12:24] comedian working. He has a whole routine [00:12:26] where he talks about the fact that we [00:12:27] sit around whining about conditions on [00:12:28] airplanes. And it's like, people, you [00:12:31] are on a box that flies in the sky [00:12:34] across the world to places that it would [00:12:36] have taken your ancestors literally [00:12:38] years of their lives to get to, and [00:12:40] you're complaining about the quality of [00:12:41] the peanuts. Okay. The reality is that [00:12:44] we live in the greatest of times because [00:12:46] of that innovation. Anything that [00:12:47] hampers that innovation is a bad thing. [00:12:49] We ought to be rewarding and celebrating [00:12:51] entrepreneurs. We all ought to be [00:12:52] aspiring to be those people. Okay. The [00:12:54] third reason this election matters is [00:12:56] because obviously the world is on fire. [00:12:57] The world is on fire from the border to [00:12:59] the Middle East to Ukraine. It is on [00:13:00] fire everywhere. And it turns out that [00:13:02] it's on fire because when America shows [00:13:04] weakness in the world, there is no [00:13:05] substitute for America. America remains [00:13:08] the indispensable power on planet Earth. [00:13:11] Anybody who tells you otherwise is lying [00:13:13] to you. There is no international [00:13:15] rules-based system that is not backed by [00:13:17] American force or the threat of American [00:13:19] force. Anybody who pretends the UN has [00:13:22] any sort of actual real power, that is [00:13:25] insane. They clearly do not. In fact, UN [00:13:28] agencies are far more likely to engage [00:13:30] in hobnobbing with terrorists than they [00:13:31] are to actually stop terrorism as we [00:13:34] have found out from UNIFIL [00:13:37] in southern Lebanon or the UNRWA in the [00:13:40] Gaza Strip. So, what exactly is this [00:13:44] election about in foreign policy terms? [00:13:45] Well, it is about just that. It's about [00:13:47] the credible threat of American force. [00:13:49] Should America be a force in the world? [00:13:51] And for people who don't think this sort [00:13:52] of things matters, I would just if you [00:13:55] enjoyed the inflation of the last few [00:13:56] years, get ready for massive inflation [00:13:57] if America no longer controls the [00:13:59] freedom of the seas. They're just unseen [00:14:02] benefits that we all experience because [00:14:04] of the fact that America is the global [00:14:06] hedgeimon. That is an excellent and very [00:14:08] good thing that America is a global [00:14:10] hegeimon. [00:14:11] And it turns out that you don't actually [00:14:13] have to use force in all of these [00:14:14] places. I think there's been a false [00:14:15] binary that's been created by some on [00:14:18] both the left and the right that [00:14:19] suggests that the only way for America [00:14:21] to be a credible power in the world is [00:14:23] to randomly use force willy-nilly every [00:14:24] which way. We have to we have to just go [00:14:26] to war everywhere. And that of course is [00:14:28] not true. It turns out that when people [00:14:31] don't know what you're going to do, [00:14:32] that's actually also a pretty good way [00:14:34] of doing foreign policy. So, I held a [00:14:37] fundraiser for President Trump maybe [00:14:38] five months ago and President Trump uh [00:14:41] we had a bit of a tetat on on the side [00:14:43] of the fundraiser and President Trump [00:14:45] was saying, "Ben, Ben," he goes, "Ben, [00:14:49] you want to know why Vladimir Putin [00:14:51] never invaded Ukraine while I was [00:14:53] president? While I was president of the [00:14:54] United States, you want to know?" Well, [00:14:56] I called up Vlad and I said, "Vlad, [00:14:58] Vlad, don't you go into Ukraine. If you [00:15:02] go into Ukraine, I'm going to bomb the [00:15:04] out of you. [00:15:14] And the the story continues. This is the [00:15:16] best part of the story. He goes, "And [00:15:18] then Vladimir Vlad said to me, "No, you [00:15:20] won't, Mr. President." And I said, [00:15:21] "Well, Vlad, I might." [00:15:25] And then he turned and he said the moral [00:15:26] of the story which was pretty obvious [00:15:28] which is if you think that the most [00:15:30] powerful country in the history of [00:15:31] planet earth might bomb you, you don't [00:15:33] do the thing. You know when you do do [00:15:35] the thing is when you have a president [00:15:37] who says things like stop and don't [00:15:40] in the in exactly the same sort of [00:15:42] inflection that Willy Wonka uses right [00:15:44] as Augustus Gloop is sucked up into the [00:15:47] chocolate pipe. [00:15:49] Stop. Don't wait. It's a red line. Oh, [00:15:54] it doesn't work. [00:15:57] Well, there there's unfortunately at [00:15:59] least one party and maybe a quarter or [00:16:01] another party that tends to believe that [00:16:02] American weakness on the world stage [00:16:04] somehow makes the world a safer place. [00:16:07] And that is obviously untrue. It is not [00:16:09] true in Ukraine. It is certainly not [00:16:11] true in the Middle East where President [00:16:12] Trump was responsible for the most [00:16:15] burgeoning peaceful era in Middle [00:16:17] Eastern history, specifically because he [00:16:20] was strong on foreign policy in the [00:16:22] Middle East. It also happens not to be [00:16:24] true on the border. It turns out that [00:16:26] closing the border up isn't that hard a [00:16:28] thing. In fact, if you don't believe me, [00:16:29] you should ask Kala Harris and Joe [00:16:30] Biden, who apparently have done it in [00:16:32] the course of the last 3 months by [00:16:33] issuing a couple of executive orders. It [00:16:35] turns out that when you want to do it, [00:16:37] you can. But that's what this election [00:16:39] is about. And finally, believe it or [00:16:41] not, this election is about the [00:16:43] preservation of institutions. This is [00:16:44] the part where everybody starts going, [00:16:45] whoa, hold on. Preservation of [00:16:46] institutions. Trump and Harris and [00:16:48] January 6th, the preservation of [00:16:50] institutions. Okay, so let me talk about [00:16:52] this election from a slightly different [00:16:54] perspective. Okay, the way that I tend [00:16:55] to think about who we vote for, I've [00:16:57] given up on, you know, the question of [00:16:59] whether presidential candidates should [00:17:01] be rich in character. This died, I [00:17:04] think, long ago with Bill Clinton. It [00:17:05] hasn't been a relevant consideration in [00:17:07] American politics since JFK was shipping [00:17:08] interns in the swimming pool. [00:17:12] But since this is now, you know, sort of [00:17:14] popped its way back up into American [00:17:16] politics, here's how I think of my [00:17:18] politicians. I do not see them as iconic [00:17:20] heroes. I do not see them as great moral [00:17:23] exemplars. I see them as plumbers. They [00:17:26] are there to fix the toilet. And if they [00:17:28] fix the toilet, that's pretty much the [00:17:31] thing I care about. Don't care about [00:17:33] much of the other stuff. You want to say [00:17:35] what you want to say? Sure, it could be [00:17:36] better. I would love if we didn't have [00:17:38] the constant tweeting and the stream of [00:17:40] bizarre jokes. That'd be great. But you [00:17:42] know what I really care about? Whether [00:17:44] the toilet is running or not. You can be [00:17:45] as polite as you want to be. You can [00:17:47] spew word salad all day, but if the [00:17:49] toilet ain't fixed, I don't care. And I [00:17:51] don't want to hear it. So, when I look [00:17:54] at the wages of elections, the way I [00:17:56] think of it is that constitutional [00:17:58] government in America is like a giant [00:17:59] strainer. Okay? And every candidate just [00:18:01] tosses in a bunch of stuff into that [00:18:03] strainer. And some of it's good, some of [00:18:05] it's bad, some of it's bad ideas, some [00:18:07] of it is, you know, doing weird stuff [00:18:10] between the November election and [00:18:12] January. Some of it's all that. And then [00:18:14] you have the strainer. And the strainer [00:18:15] is called the constitutional gridlock [00:18:17] system, right? Is the checks and [00:18:18] balances of the constitution of the [00:18:19] United States. It's the checks and [00:18:21] balances between the executive branch [00:18:22] and the legislative branch and the [00:18:23] judiciary and the balance between the [00:18:25] states and the federal government and [00:18:26] all of that. And the strainer tends to [00:18:28] get rid of most of the bad stuff. It [00:18:30] tends to strain that stuff out. But [00:18:32] there is a kind of thing that the [00:18:33] strainer is not built to do. And what [00:18:35] the strainer is not built to do is sift [00:18:37] out the extremely fine and meticulous [00:18:40] attempts to edge around it. So in other [00:18:42] words, very stupid blunderb attempts to [00:18:44] break the strainer tend to fail. But the [00:18:46] kind of stuff that tends to succeed is [00:18:48] where, for example, you take over the [00:18:50] administrative state and you fill it [00:18:52] with people who agree with you and then [00:18:53] gradually through regulatory overreach, [00:18:56] you completely change the way the [00:18:58] economy is done in the United States. [00:19:00] Right? that the system is not really [00:19:01] built for because that's incremental and [00:19:04] it's slow and there's not really a great [00:19:06] check or balance for that sort of thing. [00:19:08] Which is why when I look at this [00:19:09] election, yeah, sure, Donald Trump is [00:19:11] going to say weird things. Donald Trump [00:19:13] is going to is going to every so often [00:19:14] tweet something that mystifies my [00:19:17] original conception of the Constitution [00:19:19] and then the wages of that will be [00:19:20] nothing. And the reason I say the wages [00:19:21] of that will be nothing is because we [00:19:23] already had one term of Trump. So if he [00:19:24] was going to be Hitler, it seems like he [00:19:25] already should have done so at this [00:19:27] point. And as a person who visited the [00:19:30] grave of Rabbi Manaka Mendel Schneerson [00:19:32] on October 7th with Donald Trump, I can [00:19:34] promise you he's doing Hitler real bad. [00:19:41] What I am worried about in terms of our [00:19:42] institutions is, for example, Kala [00:19:44] Harris's pledge to kill the filibuster, [00:19:48] to get rid of the filibuster, and thus [00:19:50] to usher in presumably two new states [00:19:52] into the Senate of the United States [00:19:54] attempting to permanently stack the [00:19:55] Senate in favor of Democrats. to stack [00:19:57] the Supreme Court or term limit the [00:19:59] Supreme Court to expand executive power [00:20:02] willy-nilly. And these are things I'm [00:20:04] worried about. I'm worried about the [00:20:06] continued corruption of the legacy media [00:20:08] under the opaces of a Democrat. And [00:20:11] there's a story that we're going to be [00:20:12] breaking a little bit later tonight over [00:20:14] at Daily Wire. You can check my Twitter [00:20:15] feed. It may go out right now actually, [00:20:16] but you'll see about the predations of [00:20:19] the legacy media that are truly [00:20:20] astonishing. Truly astonishing. And that [00:20:23] sort of stuff must be stopped because [00:20:25] under Joe Biden, they have felt their [00:20:26] oats. You know, free speech applies, [00:20:29] freedom of the press applies, and also [00:20:31] liars should be exposed. And legacy [00:20:32] media have gotten away with an awful lot [00:20:33] of lies, including the lie, by the way, [00:20:35] that Joe Biden is still alive somewhere. [00:20:37] That one's weird to me. So, listen, for [00:20:40] a lot of you, this might be the first [00:20:41] presidential election that you've ever [00:20:43] voted in, which is amazing. I remember [00:20:45] when I was in your seat. It was long [00:20:46] ago, and we had a different slate of [00:20:49] candidates then. And my first election, [00:20:52] let's see, would have been 2004. That [00:20:55] was Bush and Kerry. It's a slightly [00:20:57] different, slightly different optics to [00:20:58] the election. [00:21:00] But it is a very important election. And [00:21:02] the trajectory of where America goes is [00:21:04] indeed reliant on how you vote and how [00:21:06] you think more importantly because even [00:21:08] if you sit out this election, even if [00:21:09] you believe this election isn't for you, [00:21:11] you should recognize the trajectory that [00:21:12] America is on. We are at an inflection [00:21:14] point right now. We are either going to [00:21:15] be a country that values things like [00:21:17] innovation and virtue and hard work and [00:21:19] individualism and free speech and yes [00:21:21] the institutions of a functional [00:21:23] government or we're going to be a nation [00:21:25] that doesn't value any of those things [00:21:26] and in which the federal government is [00:21:28] seen as both the cure all and as the [00:21:30] chief weapon to use against your [00:21:32] opposition. That's the choice before us. [00:21:34] It's a really important choice. I hope [00:21:35] you make the right one. Happy to take [00:21:37] your questions. [00:21:39] [Music] [00:21:58] We're we're now going to move into the [00:21:59] Q&A section of the event. If you would [00:22:01] like to ask a question, there's a line [00:22:04] forming over with my colleague Nikolai [00:22:06] over there. Please form in an orderly [00:22:08] fashion. [00:22:16] I do have uh one rule as always, which [00:22:18] is that uh if you disagree with anything [00:22:20] I've said or anything that I've said [00:22:22] ever, actually, then raise your hand and [00:22:23] go to the front of the line cuz it's [00:22:24] more fun. [00:22:27] All right, if you'd like to ask a [00:22:28] question, please state your name and [00:22:30] then ask a brief question. [00:22:34] Uh oh, sorry. Hello. My name is Jose [00:22:37] Toledo and I I disagree because you're [00:22:40] you created the Daily Wire and obviously [00:22:42] it's very you know right leaning [00:22:44] proposes that and that's all right. [00:22:46] However, it does seem to like divide [00:22:49] more than anything. So my question is [00:22:51] more so how would you see like in the [00:22:53] future a way to unite uh sort of both [00:22:56] parties who disagree so much to where [00:22:58] the goal is to better the lives of [00:23:00] anyone instead of one side winning over [00:23:01] the other. So, I'm not sure that the [00:23:03] goal should be that both parties [00:23:04] eventually are the same, right? I think [00:23:06] it's very good that we have a robust [00:23:07] debate in this country. And I think one [00:23:08] of the problems with with the current [00:23:09] American body politic is that we're [00:23:11] actually not having those debates. [00:23:12] Instead, we're sort of screaming at each [00:23:13] other. So, actually today I did a [00:23:15] conversation with Sam Harris, who's a [00:23:17] Kla Harris voter. Uh that should be out [00:23:19] tomorrow on on Barry Weiss's podcast. I [00:23:21] actually try to facilitate these [00:23:22] conversations. I think they're really [00:23:23] really important and I think that that [00:23:25] that is a good thing. So, me me and my [00:23:27] publication being, you know, openly [00:23:28] conservative, I think is an aspect of [00:23:30] honesty. We're not trying to hide the [00:23:31] ball. We're not saying we're objective. [00:23:33] We'll give you our perspective on the [00:23:34] facts. And as I've said many times, if [00:23:36] you want to know the difference between [00:23:37] the facts and my opinion, what you [00:23:38] should do is you should listen to my [00:23:40] show and then you should listen to Pod [00:23:40] Save America. This is something they'll [00:23:42] never say about my show, by the way. You [00:23:43] should listen to both of those shows and [00:23:44] then wherever there's crossover, that's [00:23:46] probably the common locust of fact and [00:23:47] then everything else is opinion. So, I [00:23:49] think that you have to start with a [00:23:50] common locus of fact and then you [00:23:51] actually have to have those [00:23:52] conversations. The truth is, the problem [00:23:54] with the body politic in America right [00:23:56] now, I think, is less of a top- down [00:23:58] problem and more of a bottom-up problem. [00:24:00] The truth is that the way we used to [00:24:01] experience life in the United States was [00:24:03] as members of a community. I'm lucky I [00:24:05] live in a Jewish community. It's very [00:24:06] close in a Jewish community. And that [00:24:08] means that you know we we share a common [00:24:10] sense of purpose in in the in our sh we [00:24:12] know each other. We know each other's [00:24:13] kids. You know that sort of stuff is [00:24:14] indispensable. As church has fallen away [00:24:16] in American life. It's taken away the [00:24:18] institutions that we used to actually [00:24:20] form within and that's been really a [00:24:22] negative thing. So I think that forming [00:24:23] those institutions again is good. I mean [00:24:25] college can be a place for that for sure [00:24:27] but it actually has to require [00:24:28] commonality of goal. One of those goals [00:24:29] can include open political conversation. [00:24:32] Thank you. [00:24:39] Hi, Ben. Uh, I'm actually one of those [00:24:41] people who doesn't agree with you, but [00:24:43] uh was a fan or am a fan. [00:24:45] Well, I appreciate you coming out. [00:24:46] That's great. [00:24:46] Yeah. Um, I have a question. You talked [00:24:48] about the economic illiteracy of Kla [00:24:50] Harris's wealth tax, but uh Trump is [00:24:54] currently proposing a 10% tariff on or [00:24:56] even more on all goods from every [00:24:58] country, meaning every producer in this [00:25:00] country needs to pay 10% on everything [00:25:02] that they make. And those costs will be [00:25:04] passed on to consumers, as we know, [00:25:06] inflation. So, what do you think about [00:25:07] economic illiteracy on the right and [00:25:09] shouldn't we just be just as concerned [00:25:10] about that? [00:25:16] So, excellent question and yes, the [00:25:18] answer is yes. Tariff across the board, [00:25:20] tariffs are an incredibly bad economic [00:25:22] idea. Obvious that does amount to a [00:25:24] blanket tax on Americans. Now, here's [00:25:26] what I actually think President Trump is [00:25:27] doing. And the reason I think, you know, [00:25:28] that I have to do a deep read of [00:25:29] President Trump is because you always [00:25:31] have to do a little bit of of chicken [00:25:32] and trail reading depending on what [00:25:34] Trump is saying at any given time. The [00:25:35] way that I tend to read President Trump [00:25:37] is by looking at what he did in his [00:25:38] first term. I have a record. So the way [00:25:40] that Trump uses tariffs is that he uses [00:25:42] them as a threat mechanism for other [00:25:44] countries in order to pry things out of [00:25:46] them. So he used to do this with Justin [00:25:47] Trudeau all the time. He you'll recall [00:25:49] that he actually did this with NAFTA. [00:25:50] You remember he said he was going to get [00:25:51] rid of NAFTA. And NAFTA was, of course, [00:25:53] a free trade agreement with Canada, the [00:25:54] United States, and Mexico. He said he [00:25:55] was going to totally destroy it. And [00:25:56] what did he do? He came and he basically [00:25:58] negotiated a deal that was very similar [00:26:00] to NAFTA, but more advantageous for the [00:26:01] United States in a couple of ways. Now, [00:26:03] I'll tell you what what was mildly [00:26:05] interesting is that actually over the [00:26:06] last 48 hours, Trump said that he wants [00:26:08] to do the the blanket tariff, but he [00:26:10] would do that as a replacement for the [00:26:11] income tax. Now, that's kind of [00:26:13] fascinating. Honestly, that one is [00:26:14] actually kind of interesting to me [00:26:15] because on the one hand, you are [00:26:17] certainly increasing prices, but on the [00:26:18] other hand, you get rid of the income [00:26:19] tax, you're getting pretty dramatically [00:26:20] lower prices in the United States. Plus, [00:26:22] you're not going to be penalizing [00:26:24] innovators who earn more. So, you know, [00:26:25] that one's it's not going to go [00:26:27] anywhere, obviously, but that one's more [00:26:28] interesting. So, if I thought that that [00:26:30] were the actual implementable policy [00:26:32] that Donald Trump was going to pursue as [00:26:33] president, I'd be more disqued. Again, I [00:26:35] think that Trump has ideas about tariffs [00:26:36] that are just economically wrong. But I [00:26:38] also think that that is a strategm that [00:26:39] he frequently uses in order to sort of [00:26:42] bluff and pressure people into doing [00:26:43] things in much the same way he did this [00:26:44] with NATO, too. You remember he said, [00:26:45] "Well, you know, I don't like I don't [00:26:47] like NATO. NATO's a NATO's." And then [00:26:48] and then did we pull out a NATO? No. He [00:26:50] used that as a weapon in order to get [00:26:52] other members of NATO to increase their [00:26:53] defense spending. [00:26:55] Thank you. [00:27:00] Hi, my name is Andrew. I am also someone [00:27:02] who tends to disagree with you, but this [00:27:04] is a question that's more neutral in its [00:27:06] in its content. In 2023, [00:27:08] I'll be the judge of that. [00:27:11] In 2023, the surgeon general declared an [00:27:13] epidemic of loneliness. Throughout the [00:27:15] US, Americans are struggling with social [00:27:17] disconnection as social infrastructure [00:27:18] begins to fall apart and we lose [00:27:20] opportunities for us to connect. One [00:27:22] particularly impacted area is rural [00:27:24] communities. What do you think is the [00:27:26] role of the government to help socially [00:27:28] connect Americans in rural areas? And [00:27:30] how can we rebuild the social and [00:27:32] physical infrastructure of these areas [00:27:34] while retaining the rural nature that so [00:27:36] many people choose to live in? This is [00:27:37] such a great question and it was [00:27:38] neutral. So I appreciate that that was [00:27:39] that was well stated. So you know when [00:27:41] when it comes to the building of social [00:27:43] connection, I do not think government is [00:27:44] capable of doing this. I think one of [00:27:46] the great tragedies of government [00:27:47] particularly federal government but it's [00:27:48] true on the local level is the [00:27:50] substitution of government for church. [00:27:52] So take the economic function of what a [00:27:54] church used to be. So, it used to be, [00:27:55] and it still is, and again, close-knit [00:27:56] communities like mine. Let's say [00:27:57] somebody in our community lose a job. [00:27:59] The first thing everybody does is they [00:28:00] start a meal train, right? We [00:28:02] immediately make sure that their family [00:28:03] is taken care of. We make sure that [00:28:04] there's food on the table for their [00:28:05] kids. And then we all immediately start [00:28:06] searching our rolodex to see if we can [00:28:07] find somebody a job. And we do that [00:28:09] because again, we know each other. We [00:28:11] know each other's kids. We all go to the [00:28:12] same synagogue together. And this is [00:28:13] true for churches across the country, [00:28:15] right? And and that can't be substituted [00:28:17] for by government saying, "We're going [00:28:19] to have a job listing or government [00:28:21] saying, "Here's a welfare check." [00:28:22] because you're still disconnected from [00:28:23] your community. And what's worse, you [00:28:25] tend to then feel that you're entitled [00:28:27] to something from the community around [00:28:28] you. See, the thing about being a member [00:28:29] of the synagogue community is you feel [00:28:31] if you're taking from your friends, you [00:28:33] feel bad about that. If you if you if [00:28:34] you're somebody who's receiving from [00:28:36] your community, you feel grateful for [00:28:37] it. You understand people are giving to [00:28:39] you and going out of their way to make [00:28:40] that happen. It's not some big [00:28:41] disembodied thing that supposedly [00:28:43] generates its own money supply. That's [00:28:45] money that I could be using for my own [00:28:46] family that I am giving to you. And what [00:28:48] that generates is a feeling of duty in [00:28:50] the recipient as well as a feeling that [00:28:52] that the money isn't yours in the giver. [00:28:54] Right? That's the purpose of of in [00:28:55] Hebrew it's called saka but but charity [00:28:57] just generally that's the purpose of [00:28:58] charity. The government tried to fulfill [00:29:00] the economic function of church and [00:29:02] instead what it ended up doing was [00:29:03] completely removing all of the social [00:29:05] bonds that actually tie people together. [00:29:07] This is true in so many areas of [00:29:08] American life. So I'm glad that there's [00:29:10] a pension system in the United States, a [00:29:12] government pension system. However, one [00:29:13] of the costs of that government pension [00:29:14] system, social security, is that kids no [00:29:16] longer feel the obligation to take care [00:29:18] of their parents. They feel that social [00:29:19] security is going to take care of it for [00:29:21] them. So, they sort of shuttle mom and [00:29:22] dad off to an old age home as opposed to [00:29:24] what the proper function of grandma and [00:29:26] grandpa was, which was to be in the home [00:29:27] helping with the kids, being part of a [00:29:29] broader kinship network, right? So, the [00:29:31] solution to this cannot be the [00:29:33] government coming in and signing a [00:29:34] check. Now, the surgeon general [00:29:35] declaring an epidemic of loneliness [00:29:37] accomplishes absolutely nothing. You can [00:29:38] declare an epidemic of everything. What [00:29:40] what you actually need is people [00:29:41] re-engaging with true community. Which [00:29:44] is why I say that everybody should go [00:29:45] back to church. Even if you're somebody [00:29:47] who is struggling with God, doesn't [00:29:48] necessarily believe in God. I would [00:29:50] suggest that you find the the utility of [00:29:53] church. Maybe you find God through the [00:29:55] utility of the church, but you need to [00:29:57] find some social institution that exists [00:29:59] outside of government because those are [00:30:02] family is the original one. But whether [00:30:04] it's family, whether it's church, there [00:30:05] have to be little platoon, as Edund [00:30:07] Burke suggested, outside of government [00:30:08] that build the social fabric that can [00:30:10] only be created bottom up. It can only [00:30:12] be destroyed top down. [00:30:13] Cool. Thank you. [00:30:20] Uh hello, my name's also Ben. Um I'm [00:30:22] from Pittsburgh as well. Uh my question [00:30:24] is sort of a follow-up on your take on [00:30:26] foreign policy. You specifically said [00:30:28] Donald Trump would be able to project [00:30:29] American strength abroad. However, [00:30:31] during his first term, he isolated our [00:30:33] allies by imposing large tariffs on [00:30:35] their commodity items and also [00:30:36] disparaged our allies both when he was a [00:30:38] president and now. Are you worried that [00:30:41] these types of policies well uh would [00:30:43] cause our adversaries to take our [00:30:46] threats less seriously and you think it [00:30:48] would cause our allies to feel that we [00:30:50] are not a trustworthy partner and would [00:30:51] make more deals with our adversaries? [00:30:53] So again, I disagree with a lot of your [00:30:55] characterization of what President Trump [00:30:56] did while he was president. Obviously, [00:30:58] he was not fond of Justin Trudeau. The [00:31:00] feeling was absolutely mutual. It turns [00:31:01] out that Bernie Bernie Sanders is [00:31:03] handsome cousin is is not a very good [00:31:06] prime minister of Canada. In any case, [00:31:08] the you know the the the sort of [00:31:09] disagreements that you have among [00:31:10] Western countries are as nothing [00:31:12] compared to the disagreements that [00:31:13] obviously exist between Western [00:31:15] countries and say Iran, Russia, China, [00:31:18] North Korea. President Trump, he says [00:31:20] stuff on Twitter all the time. But then [00:31:22] it turns out that when it comes time to [00:31:24] put the pedal to the metal and actually [00:31:25] face down President Trump, all of these [00:31:27] dictators were significantly less likely [00:31:28] to do so with Trump than they were with [00:31:30] either Barack Obama or with Joe Biden [00:31:32] before and and after Trump. And you have [00:31:34] to ask yourself why. The reason for that [00:31:36] is number one, Donald Trump is very [00:31:37] unpredictable. But number two, if you [00:31:39] are an ally of the United States, say [00:31:41] let's just take the Middle East because [00:31:42] that's an area where the biggest [00:31:43] confilgration has happened. It's either [00:31:45] Ukraine or the Middle East. Those are [00:31:46] really the two big examples of [00:31:47] confilrations. Although again, I could [00:31:49] point out that if we're talking about [00:31:50] betraying allies, there was no worse [00:31:52] betrayal of an ally than what Joe Biden [00:31:54] did to our Afghan allies in 2021. It was [00:31:57] the worst betrayal of an ally in [00:31:58] American history. We walked out on a [00:32:00] group of people who had [00:32:06] who had risked their lives in order to [00:32:07] ally with the United States. They then [00:32:09] stuffed 19 million women back into [00:32:11] burkas or into the basement so that [00:32:13] sixth grade girls would be forcibly [00:32:15] married and couldn't get an education. [00:32:16] We left billions of dollars in military [00:32:18] equipment. People were falling off wheel [00:32:19] wells and Afghan interpreters who had [00:32:21] worked with the American military were [00:32:22] being slaughtered in the streets by the [00:32:23] Taliban. So we're talking about betrayal [00:32:24] of allies. That seems high on the list. [00:32:26] Other things that seem high on the list [00:32:27] would be the distancing of the United [00:32:28] States from Saudi Arabia, from Israel in [00:32:30] the early days of the Biden [00:32:31] administration. The truth is, it has [00:32:33] been much easier to be an American [00:32:34] adversary over the course of the Biden [00:32:36] administration than it ever was under [00:32:37] Trump. And even if you believe that it's [00:32:39] just the crazy man theory, that you [00:32:40] never know when the crazy man's going to [00:32:41] go crazy. Even if that's your theory, [00:32:43] that's still better than the predictable [00:32:45] weakness we've gotten from Biden and [00:32:46] would get from Kla Harris. [00:32:48] Thank you. [00:32:54] First, thank you for coming to Middle of [00:32:55] the Nowhere IA to speak to us. We really [00:32:57] appreciate it. [00:33:02] So, you've written about your commitment [00:33:05] to improving political discourse in [00:33:07] places across the country, especially [00:33:08] left-leaning university like ours here [00:33:10] today. So, despite that, you've still [00:33:13] modeled a fairly combative rhetoric when [00:33:16] doing, for example, your takedown [00:33:18] videos, which while entertaining, don't [00:33:20] really change that many minds. So, I [00:33:22] wanted to ask, how does this align with [00:33:24] what you hope to teach future [00:33:25] generations? So I I think that number [00:33:28] one, the labeling on a YouTube video on [00:33:29] the content of YouTube videos sometimes [00:33:31] are two very different things. So if you [00:33:32] actually watch the take the takedown [00:33:34] videos or the bench destroys videos very [00:33:36] often, [00:33:39] which I will freely admit are titled in [00:33:41] such a way as to gain viewership, right? [00:33:43] I mean, that's just the way that you get [00:33:44] things clicked on on the internet. And [00:33:45] I'm not going to apologize for the [00:33:46] business being the business. I didn't [00:33:47] make the rules. We're just really good [00:33:48] at the game. But with that said, [00:33:55] but with that said, most of the [00:33:57] conversations that I have with students [00:33:58] on campus go very much like the one that [00:33:59] you and I are having right now. They [00:34:00] tend to be actually pretty cordial. I [00:34:03] don't know how many of you saw that that [00:34:04] debate that I did with 25 Kla Harris [00:34:06] supporters, the Jubilee debate last [00:34:08] week. So, [00:34:11] I I would suggest that I wasn't just [00:34:12] cordial. I I bent over backwards to be [00:34:14] extremely cordial during that interview [00:34:15] as I was being bered by a rather large [00:34:18] person uh for for minutes on end. Uh and [00:34:21] and so you know the the same thing is [00:34:24] true when I when I went to Oxford [00:34:25] University and I was debating students [00:34:27] uh with regard to the Israel Gaza [00:34:29] issues. I I really try to have I think [00:34:32] honest conversations with people as [00:34:34] opposed to for example calling their [00:34:35] names. That that's actually not [00:34:36] something that I do in any of the Ben [00:34:37] Shapiro destroys videos. You won't see [00:34:38] any of them where I just start calling [00:34:40] somebody a name. I I don't do that. It's [00:34:42] not my thing. I'll make jokes about [00:34:43] about people on my show because it's an [00:34:45] entertaining show, but when when I'm [00:34:46] doing an exchange with somebody, that's [00:34:47] typically not how it goes. So, I would [00:34:48] urge people to u yeah, sure, click on [00:34:50] the link and then actually watch the [00:34:52] video because if you watch the video, [00:34:53] what you'll notice is that about 98% of [00:34:54] the time, it's a pretty cordial uh and [00:34:56] uh and nice exchange. [00:34:58] Thank you. [00:35:03] Hey Ben, my name is Frank. Um so as of [00:35:05] today the economist uh presidential [00:35:08] prediction model and many other like 538 [00:35:10] polling place Trump about 1% above Kla [00:35:13] Harris. We've saw in like 2016 and 2020 [00:35:15] how uh you know typically the Democratic [00:35:18] candidates are overpulled by about 5% [00:35:20] and then it turns out Trump actually [00:35:21] comes in much closer. Do you think that [00:35:23] this election cycle uh pollsters are [00:35:25] trying to overcompensate for this or do [00:35:27] you think he actually is ahead? [00:35:28] This is the biggest question right? It's [00:35:30] chicken endrails. So I've spoken with [00:35:31] Nate Silver about this who I think is [00:35:32] the best poll analyst in the country bar [00:35:33] none. Uh and and Nate is not sure, [00:35:36] meaning everybody's trying to read tea [00:35:37] leaves. One of the big problems in [00:35:38] modeling an electorate where Donald [00:35:40] Trump is on the ballot is it's almost [00:35:41] impossible. He draws people who are low [00:35:43] propensity voters and high propensity [00:35:45] voters always vote. But to use a high [00:35:46] propensity model, do you use a low [00:35:48] propensity? Like even if you use the two [00:35:49] examples where Trump was on the ballot, [00:35:51] 2016 and 2020, super disperate [00:35:53] elections, right? 2016 very low turnout [00:35:56] election. 2020 the highest turnout [00:35:57] election by far in American history. [00:35:59] Increase of 22 million voters in one [00:36:02] election cycle. So, I think this [00:36:03] election cycle is more likely to look [00:36:04] like 2020 or 20. I think it's going to [00:36:06] look more like 2016. I think that you're [00:36:07] going to see a depressed vote from 2020 [00:36:10] because in 2020, everybody was stuck [00:36:12] inside for the pandemic and because [00:36:13] there was such heavy focus because of [00:36:15] BLM and the and the and the COVID [00:36:16] insanity. I think that that you're [00:36:18] likely to see a reversion to to [00:36:20] something that looks like the main here. [00:36:21] It's very difficult to tell. I think [00:36:23] anybody on the right who's telling you [00:36:24] it's a shoein from Trump from Trump from [00:36:24] Trump from Trump from Trump from Trump [00:36:24] from Trump from Trump from Trump from [00:36:24] Trump's definitely going to win, they're [00:36:26] fibbing. And anybody who tells you that [00:36:27] it's a shoe, Kla is totally going to [00:36:29] win, they're also fibbing, I have no [00:36:30] idea. Nobody has any idea. It's a 50-50 [00:36:32] toss-up race. I can give you my gut [00:36:34] feeling. My gut feeling is that Trump [00:36:35] has the momentum right now. And that gut [00:36:37] feeling is based on a little bit of [00:36:39] polling data that suggests that the [00:36:40] races have gotten significantly closer [00:36:42] also in the Senate. Um, but also that's [00:36:44] based on on Kla Harris's behavior, [00:36:46] right? She she seems to be acting out of [00:36:48] desperation. Now, when when you're [00:36:49] relegated in the last week of the [00:36:50] campaign to basically saying that your [00:36:51] opponent is is Adolf Hitler, that's [00:36:53] usually not a particularly good [00:36:55] indicator that you're doing well in the [00:36:56] campaign, especially because she came [00:36:58] into the campaign basically saying she [00:37:00] wasn't going to do that. Right. That was [00:37:01] Joe Biden's pitch. Joe Biden was that [00:37:02] that Trump was was was orange Hitler [00:37:04] with two mustaches. And that failed [00:37:06] obviously. And so she kind of went in [00:37:08] the joy direction. And then it turns out [00:37:09] that the joy machine started to run out [00:37:11] of fuel about 7 weeks in. And ever since [00:37:14] then, it's just been depression. And Tim [00:37:16] Walls making weird hand motions. [00:37:18] Thank you. [00:37:23] Uh, hello. My name is Kenneth. I'm from [00:37:25] Miami, Florida. If you consider the [00:37:27] southern border a crisis, which I'm sure [00:37:29] you do, why are you not infuriated when [00:37:31] Trump effectively coerced the [00:37:32] Republicans in Congress to shoot down [00:37:34] the border bill that would have capped [00:37:35] the flow of asylum seekers to a running [00:37:37] average of 5,000 a day? Why is this not [00:37:39] a slap in the face to the people in [00:37:41] border states who want permanent action [00:37:43] by Congress and not temporary fixes [00:37:45] through executive actions? [00:37:46] Okay, because the border bill did a few [00:37:47] things. It's a great question. So the [00:37:49] and and it has been the talking point of [00:37:50] the Harris campaign with regard to the [00:37:52] border, right? There would have been a [00:37:53] closed border if only we'd done the [00:37:54] border bill which ignores the fact that [00:37:56] the border bill was brought up I believe [00:37:57] in 2023 and there were two and a half [00:37:58] years of of Biden's open border before [00:38:00] that. But we can put that aside. The [00:38:02] Langford bill, right, and I'll call it [00:38:03] the Langford bill because he was really [00:38:04] the big Republican co-sponsor on that. [00:38:06] There are significant problems with that [00:38:07] bill including what you say which was [00:38:09] the automatic executive kickin as to [00:38:11] executive action taken on the border [00:38:13] kicked in at like four to 5,000 border [00:38:15] encounters a day. That's a very very [00:38:17] high number where the automatic [00:38:18] presidential kickin happens. Meaning [00:38:20] that there are a lot of people like why [00:38:21] is that why exactly is that the floor? [00:38:23] Why is the floor that level of illegal [00:38:25] immigration where you're having this [00:38:26] many border encounters a day? Really the [00:38:29] level should be zero. There should be it [00:38:30] it should be very very close to zero. [00:38:32] And is executive action enough to do [00:38:34] that or are you really I mean it was [00:38:36] when you say bipartisan bill you have to [00:38:38] acknowledge that there were things [00:38:38] Democrats wanted in there too. Like for [00:38:40] example there was a lot more funding for [00:38:43] a lot of the a lot of these sort of [00:38:44] facilitative methods of getting people [00:38:46] into the country very very quickly. They [00:38:48] wanted to process people, put them in [00:38:49] the country faster. It wasn't just about [00:38:51] screening them better. It was about [00:38:53] processing them and getting them in [00:38:54] faster. I listen, I've been down to the [00:38:55] border. The system is obviously broken. [00:38:57] Everybody acknowledges that the system [00:38:59] is broken. There are a few quick fixes [00:39:01] that you can make with regard to at [00:39:02] least stopping the traffic on the border [00:39:03] and Trump had largely implemented those. [00:39:05] Remain in Mexico and revising the asylum [00:39:07] standards would have been big ones. [00:39:08] Also, you're going to at some point have [00:39:09] to overrule the Florida settlement and [00:39:10] start supporting entire families. Right? [00:39:12] something Tom Hman, the former border [00:39:13] patrol chief said, you know, that that [00:39:15] you know, when you have family [00:39:16] separation policies, which nobody loves. [00:39:18] One of the big problems is you have a [00:39:20] family that arrives, the Florida [00:39:21] settlement suggests that kids can't be [00:39:22] held in custody. So, you release them to [00:39:23] an adult custodian and then you release [00:39:25] the parents in order to be with the kid [00:39:26] and now you have an entire family of [00:39:28] illegal immigrants who have crossed the [00:39:29] border. That's not a way to handle a [00:39:30] border under any so that let's put this [00:39:32] there were substantive concerns. Do I [00:39:34] think that Donald Trump read the bill [00:39:35] and and you know, agreed with all those [00:39:36] substantive concerns? I don't think [00:39:37] Donald Trump reads bills any more than I [00:39:38] think Kla Harris reads bills anymore [00:39:40] than I think Congress reads bills. I [00:39:41] don't think any of these people read the [00:39:42] bills. Have you seen the bills? They're [00:39:44] a thousand pages long. I mean, nobody is [00:39:46] reading these things. The lobbyists and [00:39:47] the staffers are reading these bills. [00:39:48] With that said, are there substantive [00:39:50] reasons why that deal was not ideal? And [00:39:52] Trump perhaps thought that with the [00:39:53] Republican Congress, he could do better. [00:39:54] Sure. [00:39:56] Thank you very much. [00:40:02] So, hi, my name is Curtanu. So [00:40:04] previously in this uh talk you've [00:40:06] mentioned how uh wokeness sort of [00:40:08] manifests itself as disparity being [00:40:11] remediated by uh handouts. You've also [00:40:14] in other media have said that uh DEI is [00:40:19] uh responds to disparity. So wouldn't [00:40:21] you say uh wouldn't how Trump being [00:40:24] elected in 2016 sort of be adjacent or [00:40:28] another form of this DEI as states with [00:40:31] disparity uh are being given handouts uh [00:40:36] i.e. more representation uh per capita [00:40:39] uh as right so this is an argument made [00:40:42] in that Jubilee video by one of the [00:40:44] other people right so one of the other [00:40:45] people suggested that essentially the [00:40:47] electoral college of the United States [00:40:48] senate was a form of DEI which to me is [00:40:50] a very bad category error okay what the [00:40:54] constitution of the United States was [00:40:56] was a bargain between sovereign bodies [00:40:58] okay the way the constitution was [00:40:59] created was not just a bunch of people [00:41:01] got together in a room these were [00:41:02] representatives of their sovereign [00:41:03] states these representatives of their [00:41:04] sovereign states had to represent the [00:41:06] interests of their sovereign states. [00:41:08] There would be no United States without [00:41:10] those sorts of compromises. So that [00:41:13] exists. I'm not sure what the hell that [00:41:15] has to do with grouping people by race, [00:41:17] for example, across state lines. Races [00:41:20] are not sovereign bodies in the United [00:41:21] States, nor should they be. I would hope [00:41:22] they never are. You don't have like the [00:41:24] race of black people who now have their [00:41:26] interests, and then the race of white [00:41:28] people who have their interests. We've [00:41:29] had that in the past, actually, from [00:41:31] white people toward black people. And it [00:41:32] was really quite terrible in the Jim [00:41:33] Crow South. So I'd hope that we never go [00:41:35] back to anything like that. Likening [00:41:37] that to sovereign states that were [00:41:38] created originally by British charter [00:41:41] and then got together in the United [00:41:43] States because they were states and then [00:41:45] they were united. And so making a deal [00:41:48] in which those states become united by [00:41:50] bargaining is the nature of making any [00:41:52] sort of governmental bargain that has [00:41:53] nothing to do with with DEI. That has to [00:41:56] do with with a negotiated bargain [00:41:58] between sovereign bodies. [00:42:00] Thank you. [00:42:08] Hi, I'm Anna. I find I fundamentally [00:42:11] disagree with most of your opinions and [00:42:12] beliefs. Um, [00:42:13] thank you for coming anyway. I [00:42:14] appreciate it. [00:42:15] Thank you. Uh, my question is, you've [00:42:18] built so much of your platform in the [00:42:19] Daily Wire's platform on arguing that [00:42:22] woke liberal agenda is threatening free [00:42:24] speech, yet your own party's platform [00:42:26] relies on white evangelical Christians [00:42:29] who like to ban children's books such as [00:42:30] Harry Potter, um, or books like The [00:42:33] Bluest Eye, written by Cornell's own [00:42:34] alumni, Tony Morrison. How do you [00:42:36] reconcile [00:42:38] censorship within your own party and [00:42:41] your own claims that you support free [00:42:42] speech so fully or are you just arguing [00:42:45] against ideas that you disagree with? [00:42:47] Okay, so [00:42:51] I will leave aside my critiques that [00:42:53] Tony Mor I won't leave it aside. Tony [00:42:54] Morrison's one of the most overrated [00:42:55] authors of our time, but [00:42:58] I don't know if I think that needs means [00:43:00] she needs to be banned, though. [00:43:02] It's it's it's irrelevant to the [00:43:04] conversation. I just couldn't resist. I [00:43:06] I have I have a long-standing dislike [00:43:07] for Tony Morrison's work. But that's a [00:43:09] different thing. [00:43:11] If the question is about censorship, [00:43:13] what you are referring to tradition, [00:43:14] typically speaking, is what we allow [00:43:16] children to see. Free speech rules do [00:43:19] not apply across the board with regard [00:43:20] to children. Okay? There's no state in [00:43:22] the union that, for example, bans you [00:43:25] from buying a book from Amazon from Tony [00:43:27] Morrison. It doesn't exist. Okay? I live [00:43:29] in Florida, which is supposed to be like [00:43:30] case 1A of censorship. I can get any [00:43:33] book I want. I can say gay all the time [00:43:34] there. It's actually fine. It's totally [00:43:36] fine. I live there. It's fine. It [00:43:37] happens all the time. The what is [00:43:40] actually happening is that when you have [00:43:41] a school library, local people who go to [00:43:44] the school and the school board set the [00:43:45] standards as for what they wish to allow [00:43:47] their children to see in the library. [00:43:48] That seems perfectly appropriate to me. [00:43:50] That is not a violation of free speech [00:43:52] any more than it would be a violation of [00:43:53] free speech to suggest that, for [00:43:55] example, a sixth grade library not [00:43:56] include Playboy or not include Larry [00:43:59] Flint. Okay. Whatever. [00:44:00] What about Harry Potter? [00:44:02] What? What about Harry Potter? Meaning [00:44:03] that if you want banan Harry Potter, [00:44:05] if if you want to send your kids to a [00:44:06] school that allows Harry Potter in the [00:44:08] library, by all means do so. My school [00:44:09] my kids school does include Harry Potter [00:44:11] in the library. It's a free country. [00:44:13] That is not the same thing as banning [00:44:15] Harry Potter. Banning Harry Potter would [00:44:17] be to say that you cannot under penalty [00:44:19] of law, you cannot disseminate Harry [00:44:21] Potter in say the state of Alabama and [00:44:23] if you sell it in the state of Alabama, [00:44:24] they will prosecute you and put you in [00:44:26] jail. It is a dramatic misnomer to [00:44:28] suggest that. And I like when people use [00:44:29] Harry Potter as the example because [00:44:31] honestly like name name the list of [00:44:33] schools that are that are banning Harry [00:44:34] Potter. I can name you a list of schools [00:44:35] that is much much longer that's banning [00:44:37] say gender queer for fourth graders [00:44:38] which seems totally appropriate to me. I [00:44:40] think that that that risque sexual [00:44:44] content that that countenances a a wide [00:44:48] variety of sexual mores is not [00:44:51] appropriate for fourth graders. And I [00:44:52] don't see what's even remotely arguable [00:44:53] about that. [00:45:04] I I I still think there's something to [00:45:07] be said about don't say gay policies in [00:45:11] public schools in Florida or book [00:45:13] banning of children's books in public [00:45:16] schools. I'm not saying Harry Potter was [00:45:18] banned nationally. [00:45:19] It's not banned in Florida either, [00:45:21] but but I don't think Harry Potter's [00:45:23] banned by any state legislature. [00:45:26] The state legisle does have the ability, [00:45:28] the right, and I would say the duty to [00:45:30] prevent the dissemination of sexual [00:45:31] material to kids K through 8 at a [00:45:33] minimum. I would suggest that there's [00:45:35] actually both a right and a duty for the [00:45:36] state legislature to ban the [00:45:38] dissemination of that material in [00:45:40] schools completely because it seems to [00:45:41] me that that is totally appropriate for [00:45:43] parents and community members to discuss [00:45:45] with their kids, not for taxpayer [00:45:47] sponsored apparatics of the NEA to [00:45:49] leverage their morality on kids. And if [00:45:52] the state agrees with me, they should [00:45:53] vote that way. And that is not a [00:45:54] violation of free speech. who set [00:45:55] standards every single day as to what [00:45:56] kids should and should not learn in [00:45:58] schools. For example, I would I would [00:46:00] imagine that you, for example, would not [00:46:01] be a fan if if a state decided that you [00:46:04] had to, for example, teach creationism [00:46:06] in the classroom. You would not be a fan [00:46:07] of that. [00:46:09] Yes. [00:46:10] Yes. [00:46:11] Okay. So, you don't want that. Isn't [00:46:12] that censorship of creationism? The [00:46:14] answer is it's not censorship of [00:46:15] creationism. School boards get to make [00:46:16] these decisions because you always have [00:46:18] a scarcity of time and a scarcity of [00:46:20] material you can teach kids. [00:46:21] But creationism would be being taught as [00:46:23] science. I'm talking about fictional [00:46:25] children's literature. [00:46:25] Well, I think it's a fiction when you [00:46:26] say that boys are girls and girls are [00:46:28] boys. [00:46:28] Thank you, Mr. Shapiro. [00:46:39] Uh, my name is Quinn Reinhardt. I'm from [00:46:41] Long Island, New York. Ben, thank you so [00:46:43] much for coming tonight. It's an [00:46:44] absolute honor to have you on our [00:46:46] campus. So, my question for you Thank [00:46:49] you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. [00:46:52] Limited time. I'm a proud gay Republican [00:46:54] voting for Donald Trump again this [00:46:56] election, but many in the LGBT [00:47:01] Thank you. Thank you. First time wearing [00:47:04] this hat in campus in public, but [00:47:06] has it been fun for you? [00:47:08] Um, many in the LGBT community feel that [00:47:11] the liberal media has created a climate [00:47:13] of fear centering former President Trump [00:47:16] and the GOP. What message do you have [00:47:18] for these individuals, particularly [00:47:20] those that are undecided, to address [00:47:22] their concerns and concerns and [00:47:25] potentially change their perspectives? [00:47:27] Okay, so first of all, I think that the [00:47:28] the thing to understand about Donald [00:47:29] Trump is Donald Trump has moved the [00:47:31] Republican party further to the moderate [00:47:33] center or to the left on LGBT issues [00:47:35] than any Republican in the history of [00:47:37] the party. This is not this is not [00:47:39] debatable. I mean, he literally took gay [00:47:40] marriage out of the platform for the [00:47:42] RNC, right? I mean that that remains a [00:47:44] very a very strong belief for many of [00:47:46] us, including me, by the way. Right. I'm [00:47:47] I'm a fan of traditional marriage. I [00:47:49] should clarify. I don't mean that you [00:47:50] shouldn't be able to do what you want in [00:47:52] your private life or have the private [00:47:53] arrangement you want. I'm talking about [00:47:54] taxpayer funded arrangements and what [00:47:55] exactly the taxpayers interest is in [00:47:59] human coupling and the production of [00:48:00] children, for example, which is what I [00:48:01] think the taxpayer benefits are really [00:48:03] for when you're talking about marriage. [00:48:05] I don't care about two people's love [00:48:06] life. I care much more about the rewards [00:48:08] or the penalties that we get for having [00:48:10] kids. That said, I I think that the the [00:48:12] sort of scaremongering about Trump on [00:48:14] this issue is so bizarre. Like, what [00:48:16] what is the evidence that Donald Trump [00:48:17] is some sort of insane theocrat whose [00:48:20] handmmaid's tail coming in and banning [00:48:23] gay people from getting together or [00:48:24] getting married or anything remotely [00:48:26] like that. First of all, Ourfeld is [00:48:28] going unchallenged, right? Oberfell is [00:48:30] not getting overturned. That's the [00:48:31] reality. It's the law of the land. I may [00:48:33] disagree with Oersville. I think it's a [00:48:34] terrible Supreme Court decision. It's [00:48:35] the law of the land anyway. Doesn't [00:48:36] matter. Okay. So, with that said, the [00:48:38] the supposed dire threat that Donald [00:48:40] Trump of all humans poses to gay, that's [00:48:43] like one of the dumbest things ever. You [00:48:44] can, you know, I I at least sort of see [00:48:47] the bizarre argument that you can make [00:48:48] about a traditional conservative on [00:48:49] these issues. Donald Trump isn't even a [00:48:51] traditional conservative on these [00:48:52] issues. So, to make that argument about [00:48:53] Trump is a massive stretch beyond all [00:48:55] recognition. [00:48:57] Thank you so much. [00:49:04] Sorry. Hi, my name is Bruce. Uh, I've [00:49:06] actually been watching your videos for a [00:49:07] long time since I was about 10 years [00:49:08] old. So, it's kind of surreal kind of [00:49:10] standing here. But anyways, I'm going to [00:49:11] try to make this quick because I know we [00:49:13] have a long line of people. So, um, a [00:49:15] lot of the videos I initially watched of [00:49:17] you back in like 2016, 2017, you gained [00:49:19] a platform off of what you talking about [00:49:20] what you call transgenderism. And many [00:49:22] of these you and your right-wing [00:49:23] counterparts talk about it as a very [00:49:25] serious national issue. So, my question [00:49:28] for you today is basically what is the [00:49:30] end goal in talking about it? Do you [00:49:32] think that there is something to be done [00:49:34] about it? and do you propose a [00:49:37] quoteunquote I don't know solution to [00:49:39] transgenderism? And my follow-up [00:49:42] question is what makes my right to exist [00:49:44] any less valuable than yours? [00:49:46] Okay. So, [00:49:48] whenever people say right to exist, I'm [00:49:51] not trying to stifle your existence as a [00:49:52] human, but I can disagree with your [00:49:54] opinion about yourself, for example. [00:49:56] Right? my my if you characterize [00:49:57] yourself in a way I disagree with, I [00:49:59] have every right to say that I disagree [00:50:00] with that characterization, particularly [00:50:01] if it's at odds with the actual [00:50:03] definition of words or biology. Okay? So [00:50:05] that is not a denial of somebody's right [00:50:07] to exist is denial that what they're [00:50:08] saying about themselves is true, which [00:50:09] we do to people literally all the time. [00:50:11] Okay? So when it when it comes to, you [00:50:13] know, the importance of the issue, the [00:50:15] issue there there you is there a [00:50:17] solution to transgenderism? No. I mean, [00:50:18] if there's a solution to gender [00:50:20] dysphoria, I would love to hear about [00:50:22] it. Right? The gender dysphoria is the [00:50:24] condition in the DSM5 that characterizes [00:50:27] transgenderism, right? People believing [00:50:29] that they're members of the opposite [00:50:30] sex. Discomfort in their own body that [00:50:31] leads to depression and suicidal [00:50:33] ideiation is is sort of the the [00:50:34] definition in the M5 to take a sort of [00:50:37] broad-based view of of what that is. Uh [00:50:39] that do I have a solution to that? No, [00:50:41] I'm not I'm not a psychologist nor am I [00:50:42] a scientist. What I know is not a [00:50:43] solution to that is pretending things [00:50:45] that are not true. Okay? There's no [00:50:47] other there is no other condition in [00:50:49] which we do this. None. where we simply [00:50:51] say that your perspective about [00:50:53] yourself, even if it is odds with the [00:50:55] actual reality, ought to be humored and [00:50:57] treated as true by the rest of society. [00:50:58] I'm unaware of any other condition that [00:51:00] is remotely like this. It does not [00:51:02] exist. And the idea that we have to as a [00:51:04] society redefine the categories of male [00:51:06] and female to fit people who believe [00:51:08] that they are a member of the opposite [00:51:10] sex, that is that is an assault on [00:51:12] truth. How people choose to live their [00:51:14] lives as as adults, you know, I I may [00:51:16] have personal disagreements with those [00:51:18] things. I have lots of opinions about [00:51:19] lots of things as it turns out. But when [00:51:21] it comes to, you know, the when it comes [00:51:23] to things that we share like the basis [00:51:25] of language or the definition of words, [00:51:27] that's stuff that really does have [00:51:29] significant ramifications. And then, of [00:51:30] course, you can talk about the [00:51:31] ramifications for children. I mean, [00:51:32] there's an article in the New York Times [00:51:33] just last week talking about the massive [00:51:35] cover up that's been done in terms of [00:51:37] studies on on care for gender dysphoric [00:51:40] youth with regard to say surgeries and [00:51:42] hormones, which demonstrates pretty much [00:51:44] no actual effect on suicidal ideation [00:51:47] among gender dysphoric youth using these [00:51:48] sorts of techniques and that's been [00:51:50] silenced by a lot of the scientific [00:51:51] community. That is a real problem and it [00:51:52] does have real consequences for real [00:51:54] kids. So that that's the reason why it [00:51:56] gets discussed a lot. But as far as [00:51:58] people living desperate lives in the [00:52:00] United States of America, I'm not sure [00:52:01] that anybody has a problem with that. [00:52:02] And if they do, I'm I'm confused as to [00:52:04] why other than just, you know, a general [00:52:06] objection to, again, I have lots of [00:52:08] object. I'm a religious person. I have [00:52:09] objections to to people who are of my [00:52:11] religion eating pork, right? I mean, [00:52:13] those sorts of opinions exist all across [00:52:15] the spectrum. I I can think that I know [00:52:17] what makes a happy life and, you know, [00:52:19] what what sort of institutions foster [00:52:20] that happy life. But the the the thing [00:52:22] that I am concerned about when we get to [00:52:24] the issue of transgenderism is the [00:52:26] attempt to forcibly cause people to tell [00:52:29] a lie about reality. And I don't mean [00:52:32] the people who are gender dysphoric. I [00:52:33] mean the attempt to make everybody else [00:52:35] complicit in that lie supposedly in the [00:52:37] name of empathy when in reality I don't [00:52:39] think that's empathy at all. I think [00:52:40] that that's actually something quite [00:52:41] terrible. [00:52:42] Okay. Thank you so much. [00:52:48] Hey Ben, I first want to thank you for [00:52:50] coming here to Cornell. I'm Danielle and [00:52:52] I think I can speak in behalf of many [00:52:54] Cornell students. We appreciate the [00:52:56] introduction of intellectual diversity [00:52:57] here. My question is on the daily wiring [00:53:01] firing situation early this year with [00:53:03] Candace Owens. Given the whole situation [00:53:06] and the central focus on free speech in [00:53:08] this election, if you would have went [00:53:10] back, would you have done anything [00:53:12] differently? [00:53:13] Uh no. Uh so the so when it comes to so [00:53:18] so let me explain we are a publisher we [00:53:22] are not a platform that means that there [00:53:24] is a paniply of views that exist inside [00:53:26] of our of our publishing house that we [00:53:29] are willing to pay for subsidize sponsor [00:53:31] and purvey and then there's a paniply of [00:53:33] views that we clearly are not I mean to [00:53:35] take another example if we were to have [00:53:37] a host who were to come out and simply [00:53:40] say that abortion is an active good it's [00:53:42] an actively good. Abortion is a [00:53:44] wonderful great thing. That person would [00:53:46] not last long on on our publishing [00:53:47] platform, nor should they. That is not [00:53:49] our job. Now, I've not called for [00:53:51] anybody who's previously worked at our [00:53:52] company to be banned from social media. [00:53:54] These people continue to make a very [00:53:55] solid living saying things with which I [00:53:57] hardily disagree and think are very [00:53:59] often not just factually incorrect, but [00:54:00] morally specious. That that I'm not [00:54:03] calling for anybody to be banned. There [00:54:04] are people who have physically [00:54:05] threatened me who I who I've not called [00:54:07] for to to be banned. That is a different [00:54:09] thing than me paying those people to do [00:54:11] the thing. Okay. And so if if people act [00:54:14] outside the standards of the Daily Wire, [00:54:16] we are within our rights and we reserve [00:54:17] the right to say, well, you know, no, [00:54:19] that is not a thing that we wish to pay [00:54:21] for. [00:54:21] Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you, Ben. [00:54:29] Hi, Ben. My name is April. I'm from [00:54:31] Toledo, Ohio. Thank you for coming. You [00:54:33] claimed to be a libertarian in the past. [00:54:36] For example, on Joe Rogan, I believe you [00:54:38] said that your views have shifted [00:54:39] libertarian. So, I was wondering if that [00:54:42] also applied to stuff like uh gay [00:54:44] marriage and uh like trans people's [00:54:47] rights to freely exist, stuff like that. [00:54:50] Okay. So, again, I will separate those [00:54:51] two things. I'm not sure they're quite [00:54:52] the same thing. When you say trans [00:54:54] people's right to freely exist, again, I [00:54:55] object to that sort of language. You [00:54:57] have the right to exist in the world. [00:54:58] That doesn't mean that you have the [00:54:59] right to dictate everyone else's [00:55:01] behavior to you any more than I have the [00:55:02] right to dictate anyone else's behavior [00:55:04] to me. That's not the way that it works [00:55:05] in a society. We have to have common [00:55:07] rules of the road. those are going to [00:55:08] get decided in somebody's favor and and [00:55:10] it's all we every rule affects people [00:55:11] desperately. That's just the way that it [00:55:12] works. A as far as my own [00:55:14] libertarianism, uh I will say that I'm [00:55:17] more libertarian on a national level and [00:55:18] significantly less libertarian on a [00:55:20] local level. So I believe in the [00:55:21] principle of subsidiarity, okay, in a [00:55:23] very diverse country like the one that [00:55:24] we have with 340 million people, people [00:55:26] in San Francisco are not going to choose [00:55:28] to live like people in my area of South [00:55:31] Florida or people in Alabama. And I [00:55:33] think that if we wish to share a [00:55:34] country, we just have to acknowledge [00:55:35] that reality. If I were a dictator, [00:55:37] would I do things differently? I'm not [00:55:38] sure that that I think there's a reason [00:55:40] that being a dictator is actually quite [00:55:42] a bad governmental system. I don't think [00:55:43] you can hold together a body politic [00:55:44] that is diverse by basically cramming [00:55:47] down one set of rules from above, which [00:55:48] is why I'm a big believer in federalism [00:55:50] and localism. So, for example, when it [00:55:53] comes to weed on a federal level, am I [00:55:55] all that interested in the federal [00:55:56] government and its policing of [00:55:58] marijuana? Not particularly. Do I want [00:55:59] my local community legalizing pot? No. [00:56:02] Do I want the state of Florida [00:56:03] legalizing pot? No. Do I think the [00:56:04] federal government should be involved in [00:56:05] that? also not really because I think [00:56:07] that as you abstract up the chain, [00:56:08] you're encompassing a more and more [00:56:10] diverse group of people with a more and [00:56:11] more diverse set of views. So I would [00:56:13] say that I'm governmentally quite [00:56:15] libertarian when it comes to sort of [00:56:16] what the federal government's role is, [00:56:18] as were the founders. When it comes to [00:56:20] my local government, when it comes to [00:56:21] the places where I live, I'm [00:56:22] significantly less libertarian because [00:56:23] that's the environment in which I raise [00:56:24] my children. [00:56:25] Thank you so much for your time. [00:56:32] Hi Ben, I'm Alex. Thank you for coming [00:56:34] here. I think with the election coming [00:56:36] up, the people need to know, should [00:56:38] people who identify as they them be able [00:56:41] to vote multiple times? [00:56:44] [Applause] [00:56:52] No. Only dead Democrats should be able [00:56:54] to vote multiple times. [00:56:57] I have to say I disagree. I think dead [00:57:00] Republicans should be able to vote, too. [00:57:02] Thank you. [00:57:09] Hi Ben, I'm Asher. Welcome to Cornell. [00:57:12] Uh my question is on the Republican [00:57:14] party, there seems to be a rift on [00:57:16] whether America should be a [00:57:17] interventionist state or an isolationist [00:57:19] state. You kind of spoke about this [00:57:21] briefly. What do you think the like [00:57:23] starting original concept of the [00:57:25] isolationist argument was and like how [00:57:28] do you like deconstruct that? Okay. So, [00:57:30] I I think that there is a long history [00:57:31] inside the Republican party of this [00:57:33] exact debate. If you go back to the [00:57:34] 1930s, 1940s, inside the Republican [00:57:36] party, there was a big debate between [00:57:38] more interventionist Republicans and [00:57:39] people who were more isolationist. And [00:57:41] that of course has remained the case all [00:57:43] the way through the history of the [00:57:44] Republican party all the way down to say [00:57:45] George HW Bush and Pat Buchanan in 1992. [00:57:47] I mean, these sorts of battles have [00:57:49] always existed inside the Republican [00:57:50] party. And I think that one battle that [00:57:53] is worth always having discussions about [00:57:55] is less about the broad-based ideology [00:57:57] and more about the proper application [00:57:59] and use of force. So there's a broader [00:58:00] ideological battle as to whether you [00:58:02] think America is a good force in the [00:58:03] world or whether it is a bad force in [00:58:05] the world. There is one wing of the [00:58:06] Republican party that seems to have [00:58:07] taken up the view that America is a [00:58:09] nefarious force in the world that [00:58:10] wherever America spreads power things [00:58:12] get worse. That sort of horseshoes [00:58:14] around to meet Noam Chomsky on the far [00:58:15] left and I find that to be factually [00:58:18] wrong and and also morally idiotic. Then [00:58:20] there is the sort of isolationist [00:58:21] argument which is that if you engage in [00:58:23] too many wars uh and by too many wars I [00:58:26] mean like nearly any wars then that is [00:58:28] going to weaken America internally and [00:58:29] so we should do is sort of retreat to [00:58:30] fortress America. I think that that is [00:58:32] factually I understand the argument. I [00:58:34] think it's factually untrue because I [00:58:35] think that when you retreat from the [00:58:36] world it turns out the rest of the world [00:58:37] tends to come in and fill the gap and [00:58:38] usually it's people you don't like very [00:58:40] much. I mentioned freedom of the seas. [00:58:41] If the United States Navy were to stop [00:58:43] policing, for example, the South China [00:58:44] Sea or say the Straits of Mala, then [00:58:47] very quickly adversaries of the United [00:58:48] States would come to control those [00:58:49] things and that would be very bad for [00:58:51] the United States and our allies around [00:58:53] the world. And then there's the sort of [00:58:55] actual conversation that I think [00:58:56] sometimes this is a mass for what the [00:58:57] actual conversation is, which is should [00:58:59] we get involved in conflict X, right? [00:59:02] And that one there always good arguments [00:59:03] on both sides. So, you know, I've been [00:59:05] labeled an interventionist. I was [00:59:06] against intervention in Libya, for [00:59:07] example. [00:59:08] Yeah. Okay. [00:59:08] Right. like the I can name a handful of [00:59:10] conflicts that have been engaged in. You [00:59:12] know, should we have gotten heavily [00:59:13] involved in Syria? My opinion is no, but [00:59:15] once you set a red line for the [00:59:16] Russians, you kind of have to uphold the [00:59:17] red line. You there there are a lot of [00:59:19] kind of variables in terms of should you [00:59:21] get engaged in a particular conflict. [00:59:23] But the thing that I'm afraid of on the [00:59:25] right and the left is this this [00:59:27] burgeoning isolationism that's rooted in [00:59:29] anti-American view of the world, which [00:59:30] is that America and that that basically [00:59:33] everything bad that happens in the world [00:59:34] is a result of blowback to America's [00:59:36] overreach and interventionism. And I [00:59:38] think that that is an a stupid point of [00:59:40] view because it assumes that the only [00:59:41] people on earth who have agency are the [00:59:43] Americans. So when something bad [00:59:44] happens, they'll say, "Well, it's [00:59:45] because it's because America did X, [00:59:47] right? It's because America did this and [00:59:49] got involved here. That's why this [00:59:50] happened." Or maybe there are other [00:59:52] people on Earth who have different [00:59:53] interests than ours, and those are in [00:59:54] constant conflict. And sometimes you [00:59:56] need to check those other interests. [00:59:58] Thank you. Also, uh, Marv 8:30. [01:00:01] Oh, thank you. I appreciate that [01:00:05] as a Jewish prayer reference. Yeah. [01:00:10] Hi, thank you so much Ben for coming to [01:00:12] Cornell. My question revolves around [01:00:15] wealth redistribution. You often argue [01:00:17] against wealth redistribution and higher [01:00:19] taxes on the wealthy. However, in the [01:00:22] past 50 years, the wealth gap between [01:00:24] the working class and the upper class [01:00:27] has been growing by almost 10%. with [01:00:29] single women, Africans and Latinos being [01:00:32] lower on the economic ladder, oftent [01:00:33] times what you have said are the people [01:00:35] uh playing the victimization card. With [01:00:38] these inequalities continue to grow, how [01:00:40] can you not argue for some sort of [01:00:41] wealth redistribution or taxes on the [01:00:44] wealthy? Okay, so there's a a few points [01:00:46] you made here. One is that when you talk [01:00:48] about the gap between the rich and the [01:00:50] poor, these are not stable groups of [01:00:51] people. Okay, people go from the bottom [01:00:53] quintile to the top quintile and back [01:00:55] down to the second quintile and back up [01:00:56] and back down. Okay, I in my life have [01:00:58] been in probably the second to bottom [01:01:00] quentile when I was growing up and now [01:01:01] I'm in the top quintile, right? That's [01:01:03] fairly common. This happens actually [01:01:04] over the course of life for many people [01:01:06] just age in the United States. As you [01:01:07] get older, you start to build wealth. [01:01:09] Hopefully, you get a job and then you [01:01:10] grow out of that. And the reality is [01:01:12] that if you want to escape permanent [01:01:13] poverty in the United States, you really [01:01:14] only need to do three things. I've [01:01:16] discussed before, this is not my [01:01:17] research. This is research from writers [01:01:18] for the Atlantic, the thornstrom's back [01:01:20] in the 1980s, but it's been very well [01:01:21] verified. You don't want to be in [01:01:22] permanent poverty in the United States. [01:01:23] Finish high school, get a job, don't [01:01:25] have babies until you're married. those [01:01:26] three things you won't be in permanent [01:01:28] poverty in the United States. There is [01:01:29] income mobility in the United States. [01:01:31] That's number one. Number so when we say [01:01:33] gap between the rich and the poor, you [01:01:34] have to understand these are not stable [01:01:35] groups of people. People are moving up [01:01:36] and down between various wealth [01:01:38] brackets. Point number two, the only way [01:01:41] to solve the disparity in wealth, which [01:01:43] sometimes is historic, meaning like your [01:01:45] grandma had a house and now she passed [01:01:46] it on to you. I will point out here the [01:01:48] vast majority of people who are very [01:01:50] wealthy in the United States are not [01:01:51] wealthy because grandma had wealth, [01:01:52] right? Elon Musk actually, contrary to [01:01:54] popular opinion, did not grow up [01:01:55] wealthy. Right? I did not grow up [01:01:57] wealthy. In fact, most of the people [01:01:58] that I know who are very very wealthy [01:02:00] did not grow up wealthy. They there [01:02:01] there's tremendous income mobility. The [01:02:03] way that you solve for wealth re for [01:02:05] wealth gaps in the United States is with [01:02:07] better income mobility. And that only [01:02:08] comes with an opportunity economy that [01:02:11] allows people to move forward based on [01:02:13] their efforts, right? Based on [01:02:14] innovation, based on keeping the the [01:02:16] wealth that they generate in and of [01:02:18] themselves. If you take that away from [01:02:20] them, then it removes the incentive and [01:02:21] it also perverts the incentive [01:02:22] structure. So there's that as well. And [01:02:24] then finally, the biggest question of [01:02:25] all is everyone uh you know who talks [01:02:27] about wealth redistribution, they like [01:02:29] to talk about the wealth gap. Hey, I [01:02:31] don't care about the wealth gap. I [01:02:33] honestly don't. All I care about is the [01:02:34] people at the bottom and are they [01:02:35] getting better. [01:02:37] I don't care if the person at the top is [01:02:38] earning 100 times more than the person [01:02:40] at the bottom. I just care whether the [01:02:41] person at the bottom has a better life [01:02:43] than they did 20 years ago. And it is [01:02:44] bewildering to me that people are so [01:02:46] concerned about what the guy next door [01:02:47] is doing. Right? That just seems to be [01:02:49] Kane enabled jealousy. I have never [01:02:51] thought to myself, man, you know, I my [01:02:53] life is way better than it was when I [01:02:55] was a kid, which it is economically [01:02:56] speaking, but you know who's way richer [01:02:58] than I am? Elon Musk. And that's not [01:03:00] fair, right? That that that's a silly [01:03:02] way to think about life. The question is [01:03:03] whether all ships are rising. And for [01:03:05] all of the talk about the middle class [01:03:07] having stagnated in the United States, [01:03:08] that is manifestly untrue. It is simply [01:03:11] not true. And you can look in your [01:03:12] pocket right now and you know it's not [01:03:13] true. Okay? The device that you have in [01:03:15] your pocket is a magical device that no [01:03:16] one on earth had 50 years ago. It did [01:03:18] not exist and then only the rich people [01:03:20] had back in the 1980s when Gordon Gecko [01:03:22] was carrying around a shoe box on his [01:03:24] head in Wall Street. And now we all have [01:03:25] in our pocket more computing power than [01:03:27] all of NASA had when we sent a man to [01:03:29] the moon. Right? That is because [01:03:30] everybody has gotten wealthier through [01:03:32] innovation. Things be they start off as [01:03:34] a luxury item and then they become a [01:03:35] common everyday necessity. Right? Who [01:03:37] would have called a cell phone in 1981 a [01:03:39] necessity? But today you'd call a cell [01:03:40] phone a necessity. We would all call a [01:03:42] cell phone a necessity and everyone in [01:03:44] the United States who is deemed poor [01:03:45] basically has a cell phone. Okay, that [01:03:47] is because everybody has gotten a lot [01:03:48] better. Final point on this. When you [01:03:51] look at the wealth redistribution in the [01:03:52] United States, the truth is the United [01:03:53] States has an extraordinary amount of [01:03:55] wealth redistribution. Very often when [01:03:56] people talk about the income gap or the [01:03:58] wealth gap in the United States, they're [01:03:59] ignoring the benefits that are that are [01:04:01] actually paid out from the top quintile [01:04:03] on down. If you look at net benefits in [01:04:05] the United States, if you look at net [01:04:07] taxes in the United States, net taxes in [01:04:09] the United States are not paid partially [01:04:10] by the top quintile, they're paid [01:04:12] entirely by the top quintile. Everybody [01:04:14] who's below the top quintile is [01:04:15] receiving more back in taxpayer [01:04:17] subsidies and taxpayer dollars than they [01:04:18] are paying in. So the the United States [01:04:21] has one of the most progressive income [01:04:22] tax systems on the planet. In fact, if [01:04:23] you actually wanted to have a more [01:04:25] socialistic style welfare system in the [01:04:27] United States, what you'd have to do is [01:04:28] tax people at the bottom, right? And the [01:04:30] top tax bracket kicks in in places like [01:04:31] Denmark and Norway at 5060 $70,000 a [01:04:34] year, not at $3 $400,000 a year. [01:04:38] Thank you. [01:04:40] This next question will be our last [01:04:42] question. [01:04:44] Hi Ben, my name is Andrew. Thank you for [01:04:46] coming. Uh I just had a quick question. [01:04:47] You mentioned that Ukraine um seemed to [01:04:49] allude to the fact that under Trump [01:04:51] Putin would not have been invaded or [01:04:53] seem to suggest that at least. Can you [01:04:54] tell me then exactly why Putin and the [01:04:56] Kremlin are explicitly supporting Trump? [01:04:57] why Trump has spoken to Putin seven [01:04:58] times since after leaving office. Why he [01:05:00] chose a running mate that says that he [01:05:02] doesn't care about Ukraine, why he [01:05:03] refused to support Ukraine during the [01:05:04] debate, and why he keep praising Putin [01:05:06] over and over again. You're right that I [01:05:07] I agreed with the fact that you said [01:05:09] that he is less stable, but why is he so [01:05:11] stable on this specific issue and seems [01:05:13] to be stable in the wrong direction. [01:05:14] Right. Okay. So, [01:05:16] it's a good solid question. The So, I [01:05:19] will distinguish between the positions [01:05:20] of JD Vance and President Trump on this [01:05:21] particular issue. So Trump has been [01:05:23] asked multiple times whether he would [01:05:25] say withdraw full aid from Ukraine. You [01:05:27] notice he's always demired on that [01:05:29] question. He's never answered that [01:05:30] question straight because the answer is [01:05:31] I don't think he would. I think that [01:05:32] there's one thing that Donald Trump [01:05:33] really really doesn't like and that's [01:05:35] losing. It's like the number one thing [01:05:36] he hates as we can all attest, right? He [01:05:38] doesn't like losing and doesn't like to [01:05:39] admit it when he has. So he he's he's [01:05:41] not he's not big into this. What he [01:05:43] doesn't want Vladimir Putin walking into [01:05:44] Kev on his watch. I think the most [01:05:46] likely outcome of President Trump [01:05:48] becoming president is continued US aids [01:05:50] Ukraine sufficient to solidify the [01:05:51] borders around Donbass and the Crimea [01:05:53] because he doesn't believe that Ukraine [01:05:54] is capable of winning back Donbas or [01:05:56] Crimea which by the way I think is [01:05:58] probably likely given the state of play [01:06:00] in Ukraine right now and I totally [01:06:02] understand why Ukrainians wouldn't feel [01:06:04] that way. I understand why Vladimir [01:06:05] Zilinsky has an interest in trying to [01:06:06] liberate Donbass and Crimea. Obviously [01:06:08] that's Ukrainian territory. that doesn't [01:06:10] change the facts on the ground which [01:06:11] that it's very unlikely that's going to [01:06:13] happen uh in in in the near term or in [01:06:15] the far term. I mean the Biden [01:06:16] administration has basically [01:06:17] acknowledged as much you as as far as [01:06:19] you know the stuff that JD has said. [01:06:21] Obviously I disagree with JD and I again [01:06:23] you'll notice that JD has sort of [01:06:24] moderated his position on this [01:06:26] specifically because Trump does not [01:06:28] agree with him at least publicly facing [01:06:30] with regard to Ukraine funding. I don't [01:06:33] you know as far as Trump saying nice [01:06:34] things about dictators Trump says nice [01:06:35] things about anybody who says nice [01:06:36] things about him. You may have noticed [01:06:38] this is a pattern right? I mean, [01:06:39] literally anybody, right? But but that [01:06:41] doesn't change the sort of underlying [01:06:42] facts. So So one day I'll be like, I [01:06:44] have I have a love letter here from Kim [01:06:45] Jong-un, right? And we we're best [01:06:47] friends. And then the next day he's [01:06:48] like, I'm going to bomb the out of [01:06:49] that guy. I've got a big button, right? [01:06:52] And so so you know what I think one of [01:06:54] the one of the things that I've learned [01:06:56] about President Trump over the course of [01:06:57] my Trump journey. And we've all had our [01:06:59] Trump journey, right? You know, [01:07:00] President Trump has been the center of [01:07:01] American politics, the load star of [01:07:03] American politics for about a decade at [01:07:05] this point. In 2016, I didn't vote for [01:07:07] either candidate. In 2020, I I voted for [01:07:09] Donald Trump. In 2024, I fundraised for [01:07:11] Donald Trump. And the reason for that is [01:07:13] because in 2015, 2016, all I had to go [01:07:14] on was the stuff he was saying. And [01:07:16] since he was president, I can go on what [01:07:18] he actually did. And what he actually [01:07:20] did on foreign policy was, in fact, [01:07:22] after all of the manipulations and all [01:07:24] the twists and turns, fund our allies, [01:07:26] support them, and deter America's [01:07:28] enemies from from egregious action. I'm [01:07:30] sorry I'm gonna ask a super quick [01:07:31] followup, but you that you just [01:07:33] mentioned that um the most likely [01:07:34] outcome is that he cuts basically and or [01:07:36] tries to end the war where it is now. [01:07:38] That would in effect be giving Putin the [01:07:40] outcome that he wants, not stopping [01:07:42] Putin Putin's aggression or or cutting [01:07:45] back on it at all and rewarding that. [01:07:47] So I I sort of take the Henry Kissinger [01:07:49] position on this which he was taking [01:07:50] very early on which was that it is again [01:07:53] there their military realities on the [01:07:54] ground. The military reality on the [01:07:55] ground is that Ukraine is not in a [01:07:58] military position, nor would it be even [01:08:00] with significantly more American aid to [01:08:02] push Russia fully out of Donbass and [01:08:03] Crimea. Both of which, by the way, are [01:08:05] areas that are significantly more [01:08:06] sympathetic to Russia than much of the [01:08:08] rest of Ukraine. You know, the the the [01:08:09] the I mean, there were referenda in [01:08:12] those areas earlier than the invasion [01:08:14] that that seem to be, you know, in favor [01:08:15] of parties that seem to be more [01:08:16] pro-Russia than than pro-EU, for [01:08:18] example. Those areas are very difficult [01:08:21] to liberate. Everybody acknowledges at [01:08:22] this point, including the current White [01:08:24] House, which I think everyone [01:08:25] acknowledges is very pro Ukraine, that [01:08:27] those areas are likely not going to be [01:08:28] liberated in in the near future. And [01:08:30] with that said, quote unquote rewarding [01:08:32] Vladimir Putin. I don't really consider [01:08:34] it a reward for Vladimir Putin to [01:08:36] control the same territory that he [01:08:37] controlled before he started the [01:08:38] invasion except at the cost of half a [01:08:39] million Russian dead. [01:08:42] That's all we have time for tonight. [01:08:45] Thank you so much. I really appreciate [01:08:46] it. Great to see you. [01:08:49] [Music] [01:08:50] [Applause] [01:08:56] [Music] [01:08:57] [Applause] [01:08:59] [Music] [01:09:04] Heat. [01:09:05] Heat. [01:09:07] [Music]