¶ Intro
Either to go pull the principle or you don't pull the principle. If you don't unap hold the principle, I'm gonna call you out for not upholding the principle. On his epitaph, we'll read forty fifth and forty seven President of the United States, he said, a lot of shit.
Thank story, jurisdictions have lower crime rates. You moved to a state that has higher insurance, right, higher car insurance, not just home insurance, has higher property taxes many of these red states.
And I think that we should start from a position in the United States of gratitude and recognition that we live in a free country where the vast majority of decisions are your own. This is Gavin Newsom, and this has been Shapiro. All right, Ben Shapiro, welcome, Hey, thanks
¶ Ben Shapiro Is California Raised
for having me.
I love it all the way from Florida. We'll get to that, you know, moment.
Seem a little bit spicy about it, Yeah, a little sot well, you know.
Texas, that would have been more spicy. But you know, especially come on, you're a Hollywood kid, at least Hollywood adjacent.
You'reeah Burbank, born and bred and born in Saint Joe's in Burbank.
I love that. And well, year nineteen eighty four and you went, you know you, And it's interesting because you were, you know, in sort of middle class family, grew up and I, you know, got a new book we're going to get to in a moment, Lions and Scavengers. But in that you talk about your your home where I think six members of your family living in a two bedroom home, one bathroom Burbank, California, and you describe it, at least briefly as pretty Bucolic.
Yeah, it was great. It was great. I mean, Burbank was a great place to grow up. It was like kids playing in the street. And I had the greatest privilege of all. Right, I'm an American growing up in the greatest country and the history of the world. And I've got a two parent household. My parents love each other and they take care of us, and they're able to make a middle class income. My mom started off as a secretary and worked her way up to become
vice president of a small film and TV company. My dad came out here to be a composer, and he ended up playing piano at a restaurant on venturable of var I believe it was in or actually it was it was in across from Universal Studios. It was the Mitchell's over there.
Like a five night a week piano guy.
A couple of nights a week, you go in there and play jazz piano because since he was fourteen and so that's that's how I grew up. And you know again, I think that that's the American dreams. You start there and then you end up making a better life for your kids, and they end up making a better life for themselves, and that upper trajectory is is kind of what America is all about.
I love it. How many brothers and sisters?
So I have three younger sisters, three younger sisters, three younger sisters.
Were they music because you were? You were a violinist, right, Yeah.
I started playing violin when I was five, and then I was pretty good. I mean I was it.
You were. It was your dad just saying you're going, son, you will be. I mean they threw that at you and they made you and your crying.
No, it definitely wasn't there.
You loved No.
I I was pretty dedicated to it, for sure. I was practicing by the time I was sixteen. Maybe three hours a day or something. And then I looked at at sort of the life of musician, and I thought, well, again that upper trajectory is very difficult, particularly in classical music, and I thought, you know, maybe I better shift career strategies here. But when I went to UCLA, or I went to UCLA for undergrad When I went to UCLA extent at the time, my parents didn't want me going
out of state for school. So I was living at home sixteen, and I thought I was going to double major in biology and in music. Actually, and I got on campus and I found myself drawn to politics. And yeah, the rest is I want.
To get back to that a little bit more about How about your sisters? What where did they end up in terms of their professional pursuits and careers.
So all of us grew up obviously here, only one is still here. I still have one sister who lives in Orange County. I have a couple of sisters who live within a mile and a half of me in Florida. So basically the whole family ended up in Florida. My parents ended up near me in Florida. My in laws, who lived in Sacramento ended up near me in Florida. Yeah, there may be some reasons for that, Governor.
We'll get to that. We're going to get to all of that and a lot more. I just want to paint the picture a little bit of camptriciated. Not everybody knows your child, but also connected. I mean, as you said, UCLA undergrad and then your interests.
My wife went U SA LA Medical School. I mean we're very California ambedded.
I love that. But politics had its calling there. Would you remember sort of a moment or issues or was politics part of the even your child, it was a part of the conversation around the dinner table. Were your parents politically active.
And they weren't super politically active. I would say they were kind of Reagan Republicans, and you know, growing up we talk politics in the house. But the thing that sort of sent me in a political direction overtly is I got to college campus at UCLA and I picked up a copy of the UCLA Daily Bruin. And this
is back in the year two thousand. There was an editorial from the Bruin editorial board, I believe, comparing Ariol Scheron than the Prime Minister of Israel who in two thousand and one, I guess to Aolf Eichmann, the Nazi, and so I walked in and I said, I'd like to write a counter to that, and that turned into a point counterpoint column that I would write every week. That became pretty popular. It turned into kind of a
normal column. And then I went to my father one day and I said, do you think that my stuff is good enough to be published in like a normal paper? And he said, you know, it might be. Let me do some research. So he found this place called Creator Syndicate again out of California, and they syndicate a bunch of columns to for newspapers around the country. At the time, it was everybody from Molly Ivans on the left to David Limbaugh on the right. And so I applied cold
and they called me three weeks later. I was seventeen and they said, we'd love you to write a syndicated column. So pretty much all of my bad ideas since I was seventeen have been public, which is, you know, an interesting way to live for sure.
S seventeen, I mean, that's pretty remarkable that young age, you have a syndicated national column. And a few years later, twenty you have published what two books?
¶ Law vs. Politics
So you write? My first book came out when I was twenty from It was sort of an expose of leftism on college campuses. I think some might say it was a little ahead of its time. And then I went to Harvard Law School at twenty and I wrote a couple of more books while I was at Harvard Law. And when I came out, I came back to LA and I practiced at a real estate firm or real estate wing of a major law firm called Goodwin Proctor. I practiced there. I lasted for about ten months, decided
I hate it quit. I remember walking into the boss's office and saying, I hate it here and I want to leave. And I remember him turning to me and saying, you're never going to make as much mone needs you're making right now. And I've been wanting to send them some tax returns for now. But you know, it all worked out. Politics was something that I was always very invested in, and so my sort of political approach generally is that I'm much more invested in principles than personalities.
I care much more about the ideas than I do about sort of the the gossip aspect of politics. I think that that's unfortunately becoming less common. I think that you know, it's great that you're having me on. I really appreciate that. I like the exchange of ideas. I've always liked the exchange of ideas, and so that's that's still I hope when animates may when animates the.
Show love that. What I mean, you're you're obviously known as you know, I mean, people have described you in so many different ways, but debate brow I mean, is there a quick wits I mean, obviously next level intellect ability to quickly distill facts and figures. You talk about facts over emotion, et cetera. But were you that person in high school? Were you that person in middle score?
¶ How Bullying Shaped Ben
Did that?
That's pretty combative? In high school, I would say I'd skipped a couple of grades. So I skipped third and I skip ninth. Wow, And so I was much younger, and much shorter, and much skinnier, and much more of a wise the ass probably in some of the other kids in my high school class, and so high school
was not exactly a joy for that reason. But I've said before that obviously bullying is terrible, but being bullied can be sort of a make or break situation for you, meaning that a lot of the people that I know who are very successful went through a lot of adversity in that age range, and then you sort of develop an attitude, and the attitude is okay, I can either use this as fuel and grist for the mill and say, listen, I'm going to take all that negativity and channel it
toward you know, more strength and more positivity and building and maybe you get a little bit of a chip on your shoulder sometimes or you can kind of let it break it down.
Do you remember, I mean some of the specific instances where you sort of you had that kind of exchange. Where was it political? Was it? Because I mean the fact you're always younger, a little bit smarter, maybe you're quick witted. I mean, was do you remember political?
Interpersonal? But I remember, you know, being the kind of kid who when I was sixteen years old, there was a program at the UC system that was all about affirmative action at the UC system. I remember there were about a thousand people who were protesting down in the plaza or there, and I believe I was the only counter protester interesting and I would show up in and do that that sort of stuff.
Did you have you have the was it the confidence or was the gumption? What was it? I mean, was it something your parents distilled in you just stand up for ideals? Striking?
I think it was more stand up for ideals. But but also you know, from the time that I was young, I never had any problem with being in crowds or being in front of people or yeah, exactly, I played violin, and so if if you spend a lot of time playing you know, a rigorous sort of set of pieces in front of people, and you do that over and over and over, it kind of gets rid of whatever trepidation you might have in front of people and doing that sort when did you.
Was there a moment when you sort of developed a next level confidence you're like, wait, I'm pretty good at this or was it the writing.
That was doing you know, I'm not sure. I will say I don't think that it's ever good to develop next level confidence, meaning I think you got to prep for everything. One of the things that I try to do is really over prepare for my show. If I'm going to have a debate or a discussion with somebody, I really try to dig in and get into what's true what's not true. I would much rather be overprepared. I think there's a certain level of insecurity that's good.
Yeah.
I think when you're overconfident, that's when you made mistakes. I think in my career, whenever I've made a mistake, it's typically because I didn't take a challenge seriously enough or I sort of brushed it off. Yeah, and you see that happen. A lot of people sort of rely on their native intelligence as opposed to assuming that you're not going to be the smartest person in the room
all the time. Remember when I was in middle school, so some went to Walter Reed in North Hollywood, and they had a Magnet school, like a highly gifted program. And I remember there was an IQ test actually kind of a rudimentary IQ test that was the baseline to
get in. And I got in, but I didn't get in leaps and bounds, and we you know, I remember first day of class, everybody's kind of passing around their IQ scores and all this kind of stuff, and one girl had had above one eighty, really really really high IQ. And I remember going back home and talking to my father about it. He said, listen, you should assume that you're never the smartest person in the room, but you can always be the hardest working person in the room.
I love that, and that I think has been sort of the motto.
I love it. So you went, you know, UCLA undergrad. Here you are seventeen national syndicated columnists. A few years later he got two published books about issues around the universe. As you say, you may have been a step or two ahead of most in that respect, and then issues around I mean, it was interesting, is the porn industry broadly defined it?
Yeah. I was writing books about how the pornography industry was going to really carve out, particularly young men's souls in about two thousand and five, and at the time people were saying, oh, this is crazy. What is he talking about now? Of course, I think that there are a lot of young men who have fallen prey to that industry, who needs less family formation and less general happiness, less sex, Actually people who are kind of falling out
of the social fabric that's necessary to build societies. I was calling that out in about two thousand, so to.
Say, even in my state of the state last week, I referenced just one of many different statistics but roughly half of young men have never asked a woman out in person on a date. So your point emphasis and that and we I want to unpack that a little bit later as well in the conversation. But you started
¶ Breitbart, Bannon & The Birth of A Right Wing Media Empire
then to not only identify yourself in the context of your intellectual pursuits and expressing your point of view through writing also sort of gifted capacity to engage in debate and speech. But then you found Andrew Breitbart was out and about in southern California, and you took a job there working at Breitbart.
That went in twenty twelve. During the twenty twelve election, I joined Brightbart. I'd known Andrew actually since my UCLA days, so I'd known him already for quite a number of years.
What did you think of Andrew?
A lot of Andrews and so I think that there's sort of that. I mean, you're in public life, so you know, there's for a lot of people that are sort of like the private person, there's the public person. They're not quite the same. So Andrew, the private person in the public person were actually very much the same, I would say up until the end. Toward the end, I think that Andrew became very frustrated with a lot
of the political system media coverage. But the truth is that Andrew was, for the vast majority of the time I knew him, very garrulous, willing to have conversations with nearly anyone. I think that if you talk to people who knew Andrew really well, they're their best memories of him are things like him just rollerblading in Venice and then just having like political conversations, taking somebody to coffee
like a random person. What I used to say to people about Andrew is that I knew Andrew for over a decade before he passed away, and if you knew Andrew for five minutes, you knew him about ninety five percent as well as I did, because he was just very much there, Like he was just on the surface everything that what you saw is what you got with Andrew. So yeah, I joined Bright Barton in about two thousand and twelve, who was during the Romney the Romney Obama
election cycle. I was there for a few years. I believe I ended up leaving in two thousand and sixteen, like early twenty sixteen. There had been some sort of career transitions there in which I was taking other jobs at the same time. There's a point again going under that sort of working hard rubric. There's one which I was working effectively for jobs. I was doing a morning show in la where I interviewed you, actually, and then there was an afternoon show that I was doing in Seattle,
so has six hours of radio day. I was the editor at larger Brightbart, which meant writing a piece or two a day for Breitbart, and then I had also taken a job as the editor in chief of a website called truth Revolt for the David Horwitz Freedom Center.
So I was working for jobs simultaneously. And yeah, again, my advice to young people particularly want to be successful, say yes to doing everything, even if it's for free at the beginning, because eventually saying yes a lot gets you the power to say no later on in your career when you can sort of winnow down what will make you successful.
And people A lot of folks know this, but a lot of folks don't. Steve Bannon was down there working by Bard at the time you guys got along. Initially.
I know the beginning, and Steve is not the easiest person too. I will say that we'll talk a little bit more, just briefly.
I don't want to over index with Steve, but so you left in twy sixteen, but twenty fifteen you more formally established what more commonly is identified with the Day to call it, right.
I mean it was it was Daily Wires, right, So Daily Wire we established formally in twenty so it would have been in the middle of the primary, so it had been twenty sixteen. That's when we formally launched. Was a few months before the election of twenty sixteen. I'd been working at the David Horwitz Freedom Center. It was kind of a funny story there where we had Jeremy Boring and I who are business partners. He'd been working there and he basically hit upon what was a social
media arbitrage plan. He basically saw that you could market on social media in new ways and that would bring you traffic. And we proposed this to the board. They legitimately did not understand what we were talking about, because boards of nonprofits are famously, you know, sort of elderly and non tech involved, and so we made a presentation.
Jeremy was kind of fondly known as the as the Stupid Whisperer because we'd met with many congress people, and I speak quickly, and Jeremy spoke slowly with the Southern accent, and so he would very often get across better see those congress people who shall remain unnamed. Anyway, we met with the board, Jeremy sort of explained the marketing plan. They had no idea what he was talking about. They turned to me and they said, Ben, can you explain
the marketing plan? I said, sure, very easy. I was frustrated by this point, so I took out a napkin and I wrote on it dollar sign arrow, Facebook, arrow, website, arrow back to dollars in your book. Yeah, exactly. And that was the marketing plan, right. It was that you're going to spend money on social media in order to gain eyeballs. Those eyeballs would then provide advertising on your website, and then you would just direct that money back into Facebook.
And so it's kind of a flywheel. And they fired Jeremy the next day. I quit a couple of days later, and then we basically took that plan out to market. We found a little bit of seed funding, five million dollars in seed funding originally, and we launched daily Wire, which last year did two hundred million dollars plus in revenue.
How many how many employees now daily we.
Have about two hundred and twenty employees. Wow at daily ware.
And you guys are doing the I mean, well we can talk more specifically, but I mean it's documentaries, it's movies. Yes, it's all this show. I mean, it's a whole suite of Yeah.
We tried to turn it into a semi major media company. Right, it's probably the second biggest conservative media company in the country after Fox.
So at the time, who were your mentors who were looking up to at the time? Who did you want to become?
Was?
I mean Andrew obviously had a big impact, I assume in terms of your trajectory. Who else was out there you were watching? Was it the limbas of the world? Was it the savages of the world? Who? I mean on radio?
So I think it was sort of a different thing in every industry. So from a sort of ideological point of view, just being a great writer, be people like Charles Crowdhammer, Yeah, which, of course I love the writing. That's actually my favorite thing that I do because I can sit there, organize my thoughts and I happen to write incredibly quickly. So that's that's very nice. And then you know, from a from a you know, radio or podcast point of view, obviously Rush Russia is sort of
the granddaddy was all in this industry. And so Rush was the guy who I grew up listening to on talk radio, you know him, Larry Elderly, everybody who's sort of in the LA radio sphere when I was growing up. And then in sort of social media land, obviously Andrew was a major force in sort of showing what you could do in the in the new media. And so I would say that that triumph, it would be a pretty good way of defining.
What else and were you inspired? I mean at the time, just even beyond those examples where there are books you were reading at the time, periodicals that really inspired.
So I read incessantly. I've been reading three to five books a week since I was probably old enough to read wow. So you know, the books that I was reading on economics were things like hyek.
Right.
I spent actually less time engaging, I would say, with you know, the the non traditional media space that I do engaging with books and great ideas. I hope, I mean that that's where I'd like to spend my time. Also, you know, I'm lucky. From Friday night to Saturday night. I can't engage with media, right I'm Northodox Jews, so all of the electricity goes away, And so I read a lot of books. You know, if you are now then I used to because I have four kids now.
But that means that if I want to. What's great about that, for what I do is that if a topic comes up in the news, I have a pretty good memory bank to draw on in terms of a baseline of knowledge that I can then supplement with sort
of further research. But I have a very strongly defined kind of worldview about everything from economics to foreign policy to social policy that I hope is rooted in some fundamental values, which means that I would say my level of political consistency has been pretty high over the course the last couple of decades. And forty two, that's turn forty two years old this week, and I've been in
this industry for a quarter century. I started writing at seventeen, and if you read stuff from when I'm seventeen, if it wasn't highly dumb, which some of it is, but if you were to find a column I wrote when I was twenty three, and it wasn't one of the ones that was like trying to get attention and look at me. If it was one of my more serious columns, you'd probably look like lot like the stuff that I'm saying today.
¶ Are Podcasts' Influence Overrated?
What do you make of the current media landscape? I mean, it seems to be the sort of dialectic between the old and the new, sort of the digital first and these legacy media companies and obviously podcasts becoming at least part of the normal. It's a conversation. I don't know. We can get into the merits to merits of overstating or over indexing podcast influence, but so much of what you seeded and influenced in terms of the right wing media even now in some respects what folks are trying
to replicate with more progressive media voices. What do you make of the landscape today? How would you describe the current landscape.
I'm highly fragmented. I think in some ways that's good. I think in some ways that's bad. It's had tremendous benefits in the sense that you don't have three networks and you have to rely on just those three networks,
you can in real time fact check things. It's bad in the sense that, while gatekeeping is difficult and obviously can silo off information that you need to have, if you have people who are algorithmically driven or desperate for clicks and desperate for attention and don't seem to carry very much about the truth, and if there's kind of no pushback, then bad information can spin its way around very very quickly, and it doesn't take long for people
to draw extremely hard narratives about I would say, convoluted sets of facts. And I think that you know, frankly, politicians sometimes have a position in doing this because if you're catering to a base, and obviously an everybody has to be aware of audience capture. In my industry, in politics, you have to be very aware of audience capture because
you need to win votes. But I mean, just to take as a recent example what happened in Minneapolis, I think that the enormy response to what happened in Minneapolis is this is obviously a tragedy. From a sort of legal perspective, putting on my lawyer hat, the intent of renee Good is not relevant to the question of the
intent of the officer. Right if you're going to if you're going to prosecute the officer, then you'd have to determine whether an objective reasonable officer would have perceived that he was being threatened by her vehicle when when he shot her. And it seems to me that you could, you could voice a fairly strong defense in a court of law that an objectively reasonable offster, since he actually was nudged with the car at the very least, would
would have perceived it that way. Now, this immediately broke down into two separate narratives, both of which I think are untrue. One was a narrative that was immediately pushed by the Trump administration and Secretary of Homeland Security Christino and that she was a domestic terrorist who's attempting to run over officers with her car and was legitimately trying not not just this officer, but multiple officers. That was the original statement I said at the time. I thought
that was untrue. And then your press office tweeted out that it was state sponsored terrorism, which I mean, Governor, I have to ask you about that that that sort of thing makes our politics worse. I mean it does, and our ice officers obviously are not terrorists. A tragic situation is not state sponsored terrorism. When it comes to ICE, I mean, I'll ask you this just generally about policy with REGARDIS, because obviously it's become incredibly contentious given what
the federal government is doing. In states like California, it seems to me that there have been a number of deportations from red states where there are governors in localities
¶ ICE in California, The Importance of Immigrants & The Benefits of Sanctuary Policies
working with ICE. California is a sanctuary state, which makes it much more difficult for local law enforcement to hand over information to ICE about deportation status. What's the purpose of that? Wouldn't best policy? You're pragmatic, You talk about your pragmatism all the time. Wouldn't best policy be to cooperate with ICE in the vast majority of cases? So instead of ICE going to, as you say, hospitals and churches to f pike people up, they be going to jail houses.
That's exactly what they do in California, And we have over ten thousand that I've cooperated with since I've been governor of California. We worked very directly with ICE as it relates to CDCR state prison. Californias cooperated with more ICE transfers probably than any other state in the country, and I've vetoed multiple pieces of legislation that have come from my legislature to stop the ability for the state
of California to do that. So, when it comes to the issues of violent criminals, when it comes to Falon's people that are being released from the largest state system in the United States of America, California cooperates with ICE.
Okay, But why is it then? What makes it a sanctuary state.
Well, the broader sanctuary policies that are established, and we had a policy it was established under Governor Brown SB. Fifty four. You have city sanctuary policies that go back quite literally to the time Ronald Reagan was governor, and it relates to some of the issues in Central America sort of the origin stories. But at bottom line, it
relates to those policies. This notion that federal law should be enforced by federal law enforcement agencies, that we should not consign local law enforcement to federal responsibilities and prioritization.
Right, we shouldn't the states step in with localities and tell localities that they ought to cooperate better with ICE. Thus to facilitate well, you.
Know, I have sort of Rudy Giuliani's point of view, who made the point as an advocate for sanctuary policy when he was mayor of New York. He said, it
keeps people safer, healthier, and more educated. Safer in the context that it allows community members to be more likely to participate as witnesses of crime or victims of crime in going after the perpetrators, more likely to get an immunization shot if they're not worried about the nurse turning them over to ice, more likely to go to school and get educated if they're not worried about the school crossing guard crossing them and ultimately turning them over to ice.
So it's the tool of pragmatism because of the complete abject failure of the federal government. A sanctuary policy is unnecessary if we had comprehensive immigration reform and we had a federal response that was adequate to the task. But in the absen of that, it's grown from the seventies and eighties and nineties two thousands, and obviously I got here as governor, and we had an established framework before I got here.
It is true that sanctuary policy obviously has had a massive impact as a driver of tremendous number of illegal immigrants in the state of California.
I don't know about that. I mean, you see in a lot of states that don't have sanctuary policies, huge increase in immigration, illegal immigration, massive increases, even far greater than the state of California.
Just look as in terms of the cost structure. I mean you recently, for example, had to freeze the enrollment of undocumented immigrants in state health systems to save money.
Right, That's that's a separate issue. There twelve states that provide health care for undocs, and we believe in universal health care regardless. Break is a condition.
The colst structures extraordinarily burdensome.
But I don't think it's in unpacking it. I don't think it's a sanctuary policies that are driving that. And I give you a proof point. Florida don't have sanctuary policy, a huge increase in undocumented community, huge increase in Texas. It's not a driver. They're sanctuary policies. They don't have sanctuary policies in those states. The State of California's policies, I don't think in that respect have invited people into our state. And I use those as I think proof
points of that, and that's a difference. So the notion of how do you deal with people that are here ten fifteen years, how do you deal with mixed status families in this state, and how do you provide for health care as opposed to emergency care and stabilized populations and community health. It's a different approach. It's one that we've been very transparent about it. It's one that's hardly unique because in every state they provide compensated care for on
docks at the emergency room. Many states provide it for children, many for seniors. California provides it across the board. I mean.
The biggest problem though, is, as somebody who left the state, is that the cost structure in the state has become so birds, not just because of illegal immigration but generally, and so the idea that policy has no impact as a magnet for particular human behavior or alienating people from a state, that's clearly untrue. And when you look at the homeless population, for example, friendlier policies toward providing services in Santa Monica.
Point though, but now you're getting a homeless policy, non immigration policy.
Of immigration policy. I want to make it easier for illegal immigrants. Let's stick with immigration to what ICE than presumably no.
Look, I appreciate this, so we've established important I appreciate the question because I'm glad we've established that we do cooperate with ICE in California, in particular this governor, who, as I said, on multiple ocasions, vetoed efforts to stop me from that coordination for dangerous criminals. And we've done that over ten thousand folks.
So it'd been wrong for us. So when AOC said this week that I should be abolished, you disagree, Oh.
I disagree. When I think a candidate for president by the name Maharris said that in the last a cana I came out, it was I remember being on Chris Hayes hours later saying, I think that's a mistake. So absolutely Number two, as it relates to the issue of sanctuary policy, I think it's important to establish because it's not well established. Sanctuary jurisdictions have lower crime rates, lower
crime rates than non sanctuary jurisdictions. So this notion that it somehow increases crime is also I think contradicted on the basis of the facts. So this notion that population it becomes an attractive nature for population increases. I think is contradicted by the facts as it relates to crime. It's contradicted by the facts. But there's unquestionably, and you're right about this as it relates to an expansion of services,
but not just for sanctuary jurisdictions, for population diverse populations. Yes, there are states like California that have chosen a different approach.
And that approach I mean means that when you came into office, for example, the budget was two hundred billion dollars, and your proposed budget last year or this year is three hundred and fifty billion dollars.
The general funds two hundred and forty eight billion. We have forty two point three billion dollar additional revenue structure then we anticipated. By the way, another two point eight came in in December, and California is now replenishing its reserves twenty three billion dollars, paying down pension obligations eleven
point eight billion dollars. There's no question there cost pressures, its rates to medicate are medical and medical in California, and those pressures are going to be made worse because of the big beautiful bill.
Well, I mean I think that the main pressures in the state of California in terms of kind of future cost looks like some of the programs that you mentioned, mainly if we're going to look at it, CalPERS cost hours, the fact that you have perhaps five hundred billion dollars in unfunded liabilities going forward, well.
In which we've substantially improved in the last seven years. I just mentioned the eleven point eight billion dollar commitment. We've highlighted that in the state of the state to pay down long term pension obligations stirs and purrs. Their funded liability has been improving over the last five or six years, can make up for the last thirty years. You may recall a decade plus ago we did reforms for new employees moving in. We dealt with spiking and
other issues and abuses in that space. We're hardly unique in this country as it relates to unfunded liability.
But there are fraud issues obviously, and fraud issues.
Let's we can talk about fraud all day. I'd love to talk about that, and we could get back to that because I think it's incredibly important topic in California has been actually out front on a lot of these anti fraud efforts, and you know, I think there's a lot of you know, a lot of bs in this space as it relates to sort of targeted assaults and offense that obviously are big pentapolgects. But I want to go back because we're going to get all of this.
I know everyone came here for all this stuff.
Of course, before we do, they just want to ask.
¶ Solving The Housing Crisis & Fighting Crony Capitalism
There's sort of a general take that I have, and that is I heard the podcast Theater with Esra Client. I think Ezra is wonderful. You know, he and I disagree about nearly everything. And I think as was really really a fascinating person with a lot of really interesting
and heterodox ideas. And he talked with you a lot about sort of governance, and you talked with him a lot about how you were trying to remove regulatory barriers to for example, building units, right because when you came into office you wanted to build I believe it was three point five million units that was that was.
The stated need.
Right.
Then we created a legal framework a two and a half million.
And it will come as shorty to that, but it's like twenty thirty what is it about one hundred one hundred and fifty thousand units that are being.
Little little less thane hundred and fifty thousand. You're right about one hundred and eleven hundred and eight thousand.
And this isn't this isn't rip on you.
I mean, because it's going to have major national issues, you know in the Mauth economics of this with interistrate environment sort of post COVID environment made this housing crisis across.
Although to be fair that the housing crisis in California is particularly bad. I mean their places like Phoenix or Austin, or there's.
The original said yesterday and last week in the state of State. It's the original sin our inability to get out of our own way and all the regulatory thinks right, and we blew through those in the last couple of years. Sixty one housing reform bills we just passed, and Ezra was highlighting that interesting in New York just moved in direction.
I think finally we Democrats broadly are moving now finally in the right damage direction after decades and decades Democrats and Republicans in California neglect in this space, right.
I think that one of the problems that that people see and you know, there's been a big question You've asked you. You've talked about it a lot, actually about the frustration that people have with politics and the disenchantment that people have, and the feeling that no matter what they do, they can't get ahead, and that's manifesting into a lot of political polarization. And this gets too, I think,
a sort of broader issue. It's not just you, So I don't mean this to be a specific critique of you. I think it's a critique of a lot of politicians that I have left and right, and that is you look at the system. You realize as the governor, how complex the system is, how difficult it is to get things done, how much gridlocked there is in the system.
But politicians, in order to get elected, have to make a lot of promises about how much things are going to change in the future, and they usually are talking about using the power of government in order to facilitate and make that change happen, particularly on the democratic side of the aisle. And it seems to me that that is a recipe for disaster for the American body politic, because if you make promises that cannot be fulfilled because the system does not allow for it to be fulfilled.
People inherently end up frustrated. And you know, I have relatives who still live in the state of California. I visit it routinely, and they're making a very good living. I have a sister in law and brother in law live in LA. They make a combined excellent living, and they're barely making their mortgage. And the housing costs are too high. The cost of living is too high. I believe the poverty rates in California on a cost adjusted basis are some of the highest in the nation.
Right there with Florida. When you look at the supplemental poverty. Next, when you look at poverty broadly, to find it's slightly above average supplemental Florida and California a right.
If you're looking at real estate costs in particular, are extraordinary in the state of calif As you say, you know, you're trying to remove regulations. But the problem is that unless we are willing to recognize a fundamental reality, which is that the relationship of the American people with their government needs to change. And what that means is that we need to radically, radically remove the regulatory structures that
allow for more building. That we need to radically stop perverting markets when it comes to how we make housing policy. That we need to stop wasting money in taxpayer funding on things like, for example, a gigantic once called the boon Zago high speed rail that is going to cost an access of one hundred billion dollars in this state, you know, the guarantee. And again I see it rising on the populist right too, which is sort of a big government right, which is something I object to on
a sort of classically conservative level. The promises that are made that if you give government more power and more tax payer revenue, that suddenly these problems are going to be alleviated, and the actual result, which is less ability to move to do what my parents did, to move from a two bedroom small house in Burbank to a four bedroom, slightly larger house in North Hollywood, and then for me to go to a great state school like UCLA, and then for me to go to Harvard Law School,
and now to have a really really nice house. You know, I did have a nice house in California before before we left. Obviously, you know, those obstacles need to be.
Well, you sound like me. I couldn't agree the more I mean, we get high speed rail aside, you made my speech in my argument last three years in terms of the housing reforms we pursued, could not agree more. I highlighted the sixty one bills just last year. I didn't highlight the forty two secret reform bills. The origin you talk about process and regulatory thickets those environmental rules that were established, ironically by Ronald Reagan himself when he
was governor of California. So we've been in the process of doing precisely what you're suggesting we need to do, and we've been doing it very meaningfully and been nation leading reforms in this space. Now, of course, the private sector needs to catch up in the context of interest rate environment becoming more favorable. But now we are cities
and counties we put on notice. Maybe recall when I first became governor, I sued Huntington Beach, the first city, because they were out of compliance with their housing element. We established a legally legally binding goal of two and a half million units. We talked about the stretch goal, what needed to get some equilibrium in our prices, the supply demand imbalance, but we created a legally binding goal of two and a half million.
So what we've done to make that happen in not Hunting Beach, but La San Francisco.
Was Well, we've we created a housing of accountability unit. We pursued forty six actions we've unlocked.
I guess the question is from like the common man perspective, right from my perspective where I left, I took my business. Right from that perspective, how do we get to the material change? And if we cannot, then perhaps that requires a complete rethink. Come over to my classical libertarian economics. Here the owner is I guess I'm what I'm saying, and maybe recognize that the amount of tax revenue that's
taken in in the state perverts the market incentives. That what's been generated in the state is a middle class that is really struggling, vast social services for people who are at poverty line or below and slightly above. And then you know a group of people who are either so wealthy they don't care, or so wealthy now that now they're leaving right because of the perspective wealth tax,
which I know you oppose, right, you understand markets. So that's why I'm always a little bit bewildered when their measures taken by the state legislature that end up perverting markets in fairly serious way.
Well, we can get into the corony capitalism, state capitalism, and the tithings from Nvidia and AMD and what's going on with Intel and what's happening with the Trump administration in that respect. But I agree with you broadly in all this. I mean, the fact is we've been tackling all I can make up for fifty sixty years, and you're talking about literally a fifty year trend line as it relates to the issues of cost of housing and affordability.
But I can talk in terms of the substance of actions we've taken, tripling their income tax credits for working families, creating a child tax credit, foster tax credit, doing more as it relates to predistribution opportunity.
About radically lowering income tax.
Rates in the California has a tax. I mean, there's sixteen states right now, let's talk about those sixteen states.
Why don't we talk about California.
That's why we're going to the tax. They're low wager earners more than California taxes. It's highwag earners. Let's talk about those lowering those tax rates in those sixteen states. How about the middle class. Forty percent of the middle class in Texas pay higher taxes than they do in California. The tax we have the highest tax rate for the one percent, but the overall tax burden, and there's been independent analysis after independent analysis, is marginally higher than the
national average. Okay, so the tax rate for the one percent, you're in that bubble, but ninety nine percent empyeriodically.
And a person who who grew up in Californians but my entire career in California, I paid every single tax rate in the same California I started off making when I when I first got out of school and i'd quit the law firm, I was making maybe sixty grand a year.
So you started out paying less than you would in a dozen plus other.
States, and I didn't.
It's a progressive tax.
I understand it's a progressive tax. Date the problem is that when I left, I also took eighty employees, and there's somebody who's got to pay the bills for those employees, and that's typically not the state. The person who is paying the bills for the employees and the person.
That's the guy who, by the way, you're talking to a guy who started to right out of college pen to paper and started twenty three small businesses, literally twenty three created almost.
As so you know, as a person who round small business, you wanted to pay salaries to your people, aren't well, right? I mean, it's not about the greed of the one of the person.
I hated a lot of the regulations, and I've been fighting against a lot of.
Them, and having to fire people because of that stuff is awful, I agree, And losing your profit margin, which allows you to hire more people is a bad thing when you were seeing I mean, I've talked to major tech founders who say today that they would not if they had to do it over again, they would not found in California specifically because of the regulatory and text rules.
Well, let's talk about the largest startup in world history
¶ California vs. Red States
could have chosen any place to open its headquarters. Just recently Open AI and the folks there decided to open in San Francisco.
Story of the talent is I mean, there's no question there.
In lies the formula for success. Californ has more fortune five hundred companies than it's ever had in twenty plus years, to.
Be forty million people who live.
Oh, hold on. But four years ago that wasn't the case. Today it's the case. We have fifty eight fortune five hundred companies. When I started was forty nine. We're the sixth largest economy. Now we're the fourth largest economy. You look at the three point one million jobs that are being created since I've been governed. You can look across the spectrum. I'm not denying its challenges, but those persistent
exist in every other state. You moved to a state that has higher insurance rate, higher car insurance not just home insurance, has higher property taxes. Many of these red states they've hired a murder rates, lower wages, lower productivity, less innovation and entrepreneurialism. They're less contributory to the GDP.
Of this country. So I mean not not to defend my current state Florida. I mean obviously headed debate with Governor DeSantis where you guys had had this discussion, but will I will say that some of the statistics that you use with regard to California are aggregate statistics, not on a per capita basis. So I've heard you say, for example, that California is the top innovation state because it has the highest number of new businesses founded on a per capita basis, that isn't true.
You talk about on a per capita basis, more Floridians moving to California than Californians to Florida.
I mean that's per capita base. That's fine and on appy.
I just want to know it's established a per capit per cap at a murder rate. Let's look at infant mortality per capital.
You can look at look at violent assault rates. We can look at property crime rate.
I don't know, that's not I mean, I mean Jacksonville versus San Francisco.
California, outside of immigration has had a loss of population for the past several years. Immigration.
It's part of the secret sauce of California, going back to its its origin.
I understand. But if you lose people like me and the EDI employees I took with me, I'm.
Not happy about anyone leaving the state. But population has grown three years in a row. Last time it declined, it went down with eleven other states, and we lost one hundred and fifty one people.
If you're talking not about immigration. If you're just talking about people who lived in California horle leaving, that number is high. And again I'm not blaming that on you.
You give be the case in many many states, as you know, across this country, by the way, a lot of red states, which I'm surprised you guys don't talk more about. What about the last few years all these red states losing folks. California hasn't been the last few years. These red states are Louisiana, Mississippi. Let's talk about those states. But let's talk about the murder rate. Adding a top
ten murder rates in America are in red states. I think there's some real probably the most regressive taxes in the country are in these red states. Who are you for?
I mean the question really again, you're the governor of California and not the governor of Louisiana. If I'm speaking with the governor of Louisiana, I'd be very happy to talk about just never hear.
Anyone and talk about the governor Louisiana in the population day.
Yeah, because the last I'm aware of the governor of Louisiana, you know, probably wasn't running for president. And also everyone else to be running for president.
Were running for president. By the way, let's get back to that Bannon is running for president. He said, Oh.
Goodness, you don't buy that. No, I bet that Steve would run a vanity campaign in order to garner a few dollars and some more attention from self. Sure, why not.
I'm going to get back to all the California bashing here in a second, because I know everyone wants to
tune in on that, but I want to talk. I want to keep going a little bit, and just in the interest of you coming all the way off from that red short floor, because it is interesting just in terms of just as you laid out the framework of the media environment in this country, and how fragment it's become, etcetera, this notion of trust and truth, and how things are weaponized, and how everybody, you know, society becomes, how we behave and how you and diet a little bit my press office,
which I appreciated the direct point you made on that, and I'm not naive about that. I think about that all the time. When we put up a mirror to Trump, we've become more like him. And I'm complicit in that, not unique.
You obviously we've had things in our company that have been said. That's not unique. I will say that I think that for elected politicians who are hoping for a better future or we all come together, it is a problem. And you know, I don't like to catastrophism. I've criticized it on the right too, the sort of catastrophism that you see in a functioning democracy, which is what the United States is. It is a functioning republic. You know, when,
¶ Did Ben Actually Support Prop 50
for example, when the president decided to push for redistricting and then you push back with your proposition. I actually didn't have a problem with that. I thought, you know, that is a that is a normal use of the political mechanisms in order to fight back by one side against another. What I do have a problem with is if you go on Stephen Colbert and say you're word there won't be a legit election in twenty twenty eight.
I die. But I feel that. I mean, if I believe it, do you really believe that?
I really believe that, But then why are you running or why would you consider it?
I want to make sure those because we have agency, we can shape the future. It's not something to experience.
But I didn't believe when President Trump said it's a President Trump said in.
Twenty twenty, he wants I believe in it.
He tried to truly believe the preident Trump is going to try to run in twenty twenty eight.
No, I believe that I'll try to wire the outcome in twenty twenty eight.
I really see. This sort of stuff is very dangerous to me. It really because I heard it from the right in the aftermath of twenty twenty, and you'll recall I was one of the few on the right who said this is not true, right, that Joe Biden was legitimately, legitimately elected in twenty twenty, and that if someone could provide me evidence that he was not, that was sufficient to overcome the Burgin. What Trump tried to do well, I mean, what is the thing that you think many dialing up.
For twelve thousand votes in Georgia you end up partying. I mean, where you signed, I'm not justifying, I'm not justifying and trying to democracy, not justifying what he said to Brad Raffinsburg or over over in Georgia, Brad.
Raffis wat Mike Pens did the right thing. By the way, and sortifying the election. But my point is that when it comes to if you want the country to continue to work together, then if you set the predicate if I lose, it was rigged and I can't stand that, and then then we need some objective metric on that. Then then if you're going to say that we need some objective metrics by which we can adjudicate whether or
not the election will be fairly decided. And it seems to me that just in terms of how elections are conducted globally, and again I'm in favor of many of these sort of election reforms that have been proposed. For example, voter I d I think it's kind of silly to argue that you shouldn't have to show idea when you vote.
But do I think that we are at high risk in the United States a full scale national elections with one hundred and fifty million voters being stolen, and then that the the elective leadership is then fundamentally illegitimate, which leaves you with no choice, presumably but to go to the mattresses, which is what you don't want. That sort of language I think is really ray and I.
Don't see it. But back to the point you were making earlier about the aggregate. We're talking about a few thousand votes here and there that ultimately determine that election for the nation on the basis of the electoral map. So I think it's more prone to concern than you may.
Suggest specific problems that we can actually agree on the specifical I'm.
With you, and that's why I'm calling it out now and I've been I try to provide evidence to back up my point as it relates to the Department of Justice and how it gets weaponized. And I've seen it from my party as well, sure as hell's seen it
from Trump's part. Some perspective what they try to do with the bord tag teams the day of the election here under Prop fifty, where they send folks out and these guys are all dressed up to try to chill free expression and free speech on election day, where Trump tweets out that morning saying this is a rigged election. The fact that he's out there suggesting that all the vote by mail is illegal, and a bunch of immigrants, illegal immigrants are out there doing all of these things.
You start stacking them, including trying to MiG term elections as it relates to changing maps and what he tried to do on January sixth, Yeah, I start getting a little big one.
I don't want to look about those things in together because I don't. But I think they're saying.
They're not all the same, but they stacked together from my perspective, not one action to some total of all of those things, including sending out ice.
But it is very target targets. Here's the thing, it's very difficult to argue over intentions because now I'm in the business of mind reading, which I can't do. I can well, Joump's not.
He's telling you what he thinks.
I know, and but he when he says what he thinks, all criticize. So for example, when he said twenty twenty was a rigged election, he said, you'll recall in twenty twenty. On the night of the election, he said I won before all the results were in. I came out before anybody.
And I said, that's wrong. The election is not over yet, all the votes have not been counted, so so that so I tried to I try, and I think the responsible thing to do is and I don't always do this, but I think that the responsible thing to do is to try and hone in on the specific behavior. So you know, you mentioned that it would be election rigging. You know, if President Trump is pushing for jerrymandering and in Indiana, I don't think that's election rigging. I don't
think it's election rigging when you jerrymander in California. I think that is a long practice part of American politics. And I don't think that you did anything wrong actually in pushing fort in California, as much as it does not benefit the party that I tend to vote for and of whom i'm a member of which i'm a member.
So you know, when the general tenor and this is what I see in democraphic, in democratic crises that you see around the world, one of the things that I see is both sides saying if the other side wins, it was Ray.
Yeah, I'm with you on that, though I want to make a double down on being crystal clear. I can't stand that anymore than you can stand that. I couldn't
¶ Is Donald Trump Trying To Kill Free Elections?
agree with you more. I'm concerned about the inputs between now in twenty twenty eight, including concerned about folks that you know well, Steve Bannon and others saying there'll be a third Trump term. The fact that I was in.
The he's totally full of shit. And by the way, I think that people should stop giving Steve attention for saying things that are complete horseship, and.
I appreciate that. But should I give attention to Donald Trump? When I sat there in the Oval office for ninety minutes and he tells me to turn around and there's a picture on the wall or painting on the wall of FDR and I look at him and I smiled, and he goes, I said, oh, here's the third term. He goes, what about four terms? Should I take him seriously?
Okay? Soorry?
I take him literally? Will I? Will? I don't know.
I'm just a question, you know, and my my general the president and my general answer to this is if we've watched Donald Trump for ten years, ten years and we're still doing the thing where we all take him explicitly literally, I think that did so people has Okay, it turns out should But you know, one of the things that I remember I would get this critique about President Trump a lot, is President Trump, who, as I've said multiple times on his on his epitaph, it will
it will read forty fifth and forty seven presidents of the United States. He said, a lot of shit, you know, like the the thing that I.
I take my presidents a little more seriously.
I don't see I don't think you do. And this is this is the thing where I really, I really doubt it. I see a lot of people who will Trump will will fire off a random tweet and everybody
kind of laughs because it's President Trump. If I'm to pretend that that is coming from the same thought process as whatever comes from Joe Biden's press office, which went through seven layers and maybe not the president very different, then I'm not gonna I'm not gonna pretend that's the same thing, because I'm not an idiot, you know.
Side look, and by the way, I could not agree the more. And that's I think reflected in the humor I'm trying to put back in on my social idiot.
And actually, I think it's a problem for you because I think that, frankly, the stuff that you're doing is more thought out than the stuff that President Trump does. Meaning I think the President Trump is waking up at three in the morning if you want to sleep at all, and he's firing off stuff on truth social right, and so am I supposed to take that as seriously as you in a methodical fashion and saying, you know what,
I'm going to prank him back. And I think that people on you know, people who are your supporters, do take you in that way more literally then they would be apt to take president.
I think, I mean, a lot of my support has been offended by by what we're trying to do. But but no, look and and a lot I think appreciate the humor that we bring to it, and I do think it. I think it's reflected, and I think a sense of agreement that we have in that respect a really so what Trump puts out all the time.
But like, if you win the twenty twenty eight election, I will call you presidents of the United States, right because that election will be legitimate.
And if it's I was, you know, as an American called Donald Trump president ed States, mister president, I mean, of course, And so I'm with you on that, But that doesn't suggest that I believe for a second, and you haven't respectfully convinced me that I'm wrong or errant that he won't do everything in his power to manipulate the outcome. Do I expect. I think it's time of life. If he was twenty years younger, I absolutely believe he'd run for a third term. But at time of life
suggests that that's not going to be the case. But I do think he's going to try hard.
This also implicated that you see the reason I'm concerned about this because it also implicates the guardrails. So, as you've talked about in your state, there's a lot of gridlock, right There are a lot of various moving parts when you're trying to get something done at the state level. You've got local governments that can impede you. You've got a legislature that can say no to you. You've got a bunch of be judiciary that will that will tell
you no in in certain areas. You know, there's there's a ruling a couple of weeks ago that I that I strongly agree with from the judiciary with regard to, for example, school districts and what they can and should tell parents about about their kids.
That'll get but but you know what decision, Yeah, but when when it when it comes to you know what President Trump is or is not trying to do.
The problem is when we say that he will try to he will try to steal iss will the election be stolen? That relies now on a an opinion about, for example, the Supreme Court of the United States, or an opinion about the various state legislatures and courts, and and so now you're not just implicating what President Trump might try to do, You're now implicating pretty much every major institution that is electoral in nature.
Well, there's a lot of evidence, and I know both sides have argued a lot of evidence as relates the weaponization justice and the bias that's expressed in a lot of these federal judicial opinions. And and it's, uh, yeah, it's a little arming. I mean, as a father of a judge who revers thes and you know, as someone that I was very proud my father may have been accused of being an activist judge, but many occasions call in balls and strikes, and you know, I revere that
sense of justice. That's that's where justice is found with an objective analysis. But no, I do worry about the Supreme Court. You may not. I'm concerned about the Supreme Court of the United States. I'm concerned about what Donald Trump did after January sixth, the degree that he went to ultimately try to stay in office. Yes, I'm concerned about the actions he's taken, not any one of them from the midterm redistricting, but the sum total of many
of them. And yes, I'm concerned. If we don't take back the House of Representatives and we have no oversight and we continue to have the Supine Congress, we may not have a country that we recognize. I really believe that I do.
And it's fine to believe all of those things. I will say that to articulate them as though they are all of equal levels of alarm, or that the sum total of them is that if we don't win the next election, the country's over, which again is something that you hear very often from the right too. Yeah. I think that that sort of alarmism is quite bad for
American politics. And I don't think that anyone who's in electoral politics actually believes that, because I promise you that if a Republican wins in twenty twenty eight, a Democrat will then run in twenty thirty two, and if the reverse is true, the same thing will happen.
Yeah, I agree with that. Look, I do. I just the level, and I.
Think the American people should know that because it gives them a sense Okay, I didn't win this time, but I might win next time. And once American people start to believe they can never win or their side is always cut out.
Then that's what you're starting to get. I despaired of what you're saying. What you're saying, I completely concur with. I just I have a different level of anxiety based upon my own direct experience, not just indirect, direct experience with Donald Trump, my concern about the rule of law, this notion of co equal branch government. In your book, you talk about sort of the fundamental Judeo Christian values in this country with the best the Greek democracy. I worry about.
Those classes are fab checks and balances too. Yeah, and by the way, I think that the best way to do that actually, and this benefit is governor of the state is devolution of more authority back down to the state's evolution, more governmental authority back down to the local levels, and more robust checks and balances.
Your lips to God in the White House's ears. Yeah, I'm a little and I hope you remember that this notion of federalism and Tenth Amendment. Yeah, I remember, I remember, you know, the Red States. We're arguing for that during those obomba years. God bless you. No back to your being more consistent, and I respect that, and that's why we're here, and I respect you, and I appreciate this opportunity to engage even though obviously we have fundamental disagreements
on a lot of these issues. Maybe not fundamental, just disagreements on a lot of these issues. Let me go
¶ TPUSA's America Fest Speech, Candace Owens & The Right Wing Influencer Scene
back to some of the disagreements. And I don't want to paint too much and color this in because as a Democrat it's in my interest to do so. But you got a lot of attention for going recently to America Fest turning Point USA. You made a terrible decision of being the first speaker. That's just me saying editorially, what.
The he that is not? That is not my decision. Right. They invited me, they gave me a lot. That's just your luck because then every speaker can come on and that's you know, I got to say what I wanted to say, and the picture what did you say?
So people tuning in don't know what the hell we're talking about you went in and a pretty somber time. You know, Charlie's widow was there. He had a lot of you know, the sort of branded celebrities in the right, and Candace Owens was there and not there but became part of the conversation, part of the conversation, and Bannon and Megan Kelly, O, there's so many others, uh, certainly
Tucker Carlson. So give a sense what did you say and why did you say it, and why did you choose that moment to say it.
So the reason that I chose the moment to say it is that Candice Owens, who has some issues of her own, she has been saying since Charlie's death that there was effectively a conspiracy to kill him. She's implicated pretty much everybody ranging from believe it or not, French intelligence to the Israelis, to various friends and family members
possibly of Charlie in his work. And there have been an enormous number of people in the influencer space on the right who have gone along with this, who have massaged it, pretended not to notice it, tried to defend her, tried to pretend that it was an aspect of that questioning her was an aspect of free speech, which of course was a violation of free speech, rather which of course it isn't you know, criticism is not a violation
of free speech. It's a form of free speech. And so I got up on stage and I basically gave a speech saying our responsibility as people with influence in the public space, we have some responsibilities, and those responsibilities include truth above all. We ought to give you. We ought to be clear about what we believe. We should not hide the ball. We should not allow quote unquote
friendship to trump what is true. Just because you're friends with someone does not alleviate the responsibility for you to say when they're doing something that is wrong or immoral. We should not engage an audience capture. Just because our audience wants us to say a thing doesn't mean that we ought to say it. And we ought to ensure that we are held responsible for the things that we say and also the people that we have on and
how we question those people. So, of course, anybody has the right to have anybody on their show who they want, and then they should treat those people how they want to treat those people. I mean, if if I were to have on somebody who's, you know, in a deeply adversarial position. I think what's great about this conversations you can see how adversarial we are with regard to some of our positions, but at the same time still have
the discussion. You know, if you are if you are going to have on, for example, as Tucker Carlson did, Nick Flentes, who is a self stated Nazi apologist, and then you're going to treat him with kid gloves, then you ought to be held responsible for that in the court of public opinion. And if we as influencers do not do that job, if we if we lie to you, if we fibb to you, if we make predictions which we are then not held responsible for, if we hide
behind quote unquote just asking questions. This is one of my buggaboos. I hate it. You hear this a lot in the influencer space, mostly on the right of someone on the left as well, this sort of you know, I'm not putting out a theory, I'm just asking questions. Well, there's a difference between seeking answers and just asking questions. Seeking answers, that's what questions are for. It's to get
better information, more clarification. You know, I actould have a better idea after the question of the answer than I did before. Just asking questions is usually a guy's for willful ignorance and for positing a theory without having to
carry the responsibility for positing that theory. So if I said, you know, I'm just asking questions about whether you have peculiar sexual proclivities, and I'm having evidence, I'm just asking the question, and then you say, well that what you were said, even coming from listen, I'm just asking questions. I'm not asking questions. I'm obviously attempting to impute something to you. And so this is what this speech was about. I named names in it. I mentioned I mentioned Tucker Carlson.
I mentioned Megan Kelly, who had sort of gone out of her way to massage Candice Owens in her pursuit of bizarre conspiracy theories about about Erica and Charlie's murder. I mentioned Steve because I think Steve has been doing many of the same things. And so that was that was the speech at antheisy.
And that you felt it was necessary to name names as opposed to imply he just felt it was important.
Because because I think that I think that people should know exactly who they are listening to, particularly since they were going to hear from some of those people at the same event. And so I thought that people should, you know, be forewarned about the people they are going to hear about. Then they can make their own decisions and determined whether my assessment of those personalities is accurate or inaccurate.
Uh. And the reaction was exactly as you anticipated.
I think that the reaction in the in the in the room was I think overwhelming because a lot of a lot of people were very upset that people had been saying this about Charlie's murder, which again was carried out by all available evidence by a person motivated by hatred of Charlie's position on transgender issues in particular. And you know, all the evidence points to Tyler Robinson as
being the person who shot Charlie Kirk. And so I think that a lot of people in the audience were deeply offended and upset, correctly so, at the kind of specious conspiracy conspiracy theories that are promoted by this group, by the group of folks, The sort of blowback that came afterward was really interesting. You know, there are a lot of people who obviously we're very upset, and many of the people who had named I'm not surprised came
back and you know, fired back. I will say that I don't think any of them actually argued with the point that I was making. They seem to make collateral attacks, imputing intents to me, suggesting that my speech had something to do with Isral, which is funny since I didn't mention Israel one time in the entire speech, and I found that sort of bizarre. And then obviously you've seen, you know, sort of the influencer war is going on. But the whole point that I was making is here's
a principle. Either to go hold the principle or you don't up hould the principle. If you don't uphold the principle, I'm gonna call you out for not upholding the principle. And it really is quite simple. It's not about friendship,
it's not about whether we go fishing together. None of that has anything to do with the principle that's at stake, because if we want to have an honest discussion with one another, then we actually should be honest about the principles that we hold and if we disagree, we disagree, but clarity before agreement. As my friend Donis Prager says.
What were you close with Charlie?
¶ Shapiro's Relationships With Charlie Kirk & Tucker Carlson
I don't want to pretend that we were best friends or anything. One of the things I said in the speech is I think that it's pretty rare actually in politics for people say that they're friends in politics, these are usually not well, you're going and hanging out with on the weevenings. It's not real, okay, Like whenever you hear politicians, oh, we're best for them, it's such bullshit. I'm sorry, bullshit. There may be a couple of exceptions.
They're rare, okay. The reality is that they are business colleagues and associates in the same way that most people have business colleagues and associates that they see at the office. We see each other rare, more rarely than you probably see your business colleagues or associates at the office.
You respected how he organized on the campus level. Yeah, I mean, Charlie, all the echoes of things you were doing.
Charlie was incredibly gifted as an organizer. I won't say that we agreed on everything politically, because clearly we didn't. But I think that you know Charlie as a as a person who was willing to go into fraud spaces obviously, and he was killed doing this, and to and to speak his principles to people who disagreed and do so in what I think overwhelmingly was sort of an honest and decent fashion. I think that was a very good thing.
What Tucker Carlson in you history? Do you?
I mean, I'm not sure that we have a history so much as Tucker seems to object to my politics and I object to his.
Uh.
I think Tucker tries to personalize this. I think Megan has tried to personalize this. I don't believe in personalizing these things. I was asked by somebody, you know, would Tucker and I ever before I'd go fishing with Tucker. I don't care. I mean, that doesn't matter to me. The question is his principles and the things that that he says. I think that Tucker. I gave a speech right before TPUs a Heritage Foundation where I pointed out that the Tucker is not an advocate for conservatism in
any way that I can identify conservatism. He is he's not in favor of a more limited government of checks and balances. He's come out in favor of feudalism fairly recently. He's not in favor of traditional institutions. He seems to think that they have lost their way. He is, he's in favor of what appears to me a sort of horseshoe theory. No, I'm Chomsky foreign policy, where America is
always the bad actor in the world. And so I think I read surprised, and I think that you know when when the biggest thing that the Tucker engages in and the just asking questions, which which he's very fond of, is And this is something again that is a both
¶ Grievance Based Politics & False Nostalgia
sides problem, and that is a general conspiracism about the world. The worst thing happening in our politics is a grievance based politics that is being set up by actors on both sides, which basically says, the failures in your life are generally speaking, not your fault. You have no responsibility for them, and you need to and you need to shift the burden of your own responsibility over to systems.
And so those systems could be the free market is responsible for your failures, or the systems of history are responsible for your failures. And listen, there are real conspiracies out there. They exist and usually can provide evidence for them. That's the difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory.
But if they you're going theory is that the reason that you are lacking in life is because the most successful people in your society have rigged the system on their own behalf, and therefore they must be brought low in order for you to succeed. First, you need to show me that that's actually evidentiarily the case. You can't just make that claim and then abdicate all responsibility for
doing the right things in your own life. And the number one message that I would that I constantly am trying to give to what I would now call young people, since you know I'm of the older generation now and I exactly is get off your ass and do the thing. I hear people complaining I can't get married. It's just so hard to get married, and no one can get married these days. Bullshit. I'm sorry, that's not true. You absolutely can find someone in You absolutely can get married.
Your grandparents are way poorer than you, and they got married and they had more kids. Hey, this is just nonsense. You are the richest, most privileged people in the history of the world living in the United States today. Just relatively speaking, doesn't mean everything's perfect because I'm not comparing it to perfect. You can't compare anything in life to perfect.
What you can say is that if you are sitting around in a country that has a GDP per capital among the highest on planet Earth, and open jobs and the ability to move to those open jobs, and the ability to vote on your leaders, and I get shot in the streets like people are getting shot in the streets in Iran, you should consider yourself pretty damned fortune. And maybe you should start with what can I do to make my life better today before you figure that
it's the system. Now, that doesn't mean they're on problems with the system. And this is why I like these conversations. And we can get very specific about policy and how we fix a policy. So it's to make it easier. But I think that the biggest the American dream is you can make it. You can right, get government out of your way, get everybody out of your way, Let
let people succeed. And we do need, obviously a functional social fabric, right which is why you've seen a lot of the institutions, like I would say churches, synagogues break down. That social fabric breaking down is a massive problem because that's your safety net when family breaks down, that's your supportive safety net for when for when things go wrong. We need to, we need to, you know, on a
social level, help restore all of that. But the desire by politicians to say I alone can fix, which is something President Trump said but has also been said by you know a lot of that Zarmmdani talking about the warm embrace of collectivism, which is insane by.
The way nature of campaigns. The campaign promises you may on day one, right on day one and the crane Russian War.
Day one, or give me more power, and I will solve the affordability crisis. Or give me more power and I will ensure that you have a good paying job and you can buy a house on a single income the way that your grandfather could in nineteen fifty two. And I mean, first of all, let's just be real, the heusard grandpa was buying in nineteen fifty two, you wouldn't want to live in. They're kind of crappy, Okay, it was like a brick It was like a brick box in Detroit, and your grandpa was working on a
ford line riveting. Okay, now you're not how many people are riveting today? The answer is none. The machines are doing the riveting. Right. We should recognize the reality of our situation as opposed to creating either a false promise of utopia or a false utopian past that wasn't really
existing in nineteen fifty two. The reason the United States, the reason we in the United States were able to survive on one on a one parent's income, two tax versus one hundred and four, it's because it's because the entire rest of the world did not. It had been destroyed. Every place on Earth had been destroyed. As of nineteen fifty two. United States was basically left untouched in the homeland by World War two, and literally every place else had been destroyed. And so that was all in export
market for the United States. So much so we had to prop up our export markets by doing things like the Marshall Plan so people would actually have money to buy things. Right, And then it turns out that, you know, by the nineteen sixties, reality was setting in many of the union contracts that had been negotiated weren't sustainable, and
we were being out competed by foreign sources. You know, like let's just again, ignorance of sort of economic history and how people have actually lived throughout history leads to, I think, on the right of nostalgia for an economic time that didn't exist, and on the left to a sort of utopianism about what is possible that is also
not possible. And I think that we should start from a position in the United States of gratitude and duty and hard work and virtue and recognition that we live in a free country where the vast majority of decisions are your own. And then if you and then let's and then let's seal what the problems.
And you laid all this out on line. Since Scavengers in detailed with historic context and traveled the globe, I mean, each chapter begins in different places of place from you know, London, Oxford and Aaron, Poland. Which is interesting that that section with Elon Musk and others. But let me ask just a little bit. It's interesting the politics and nostalgia and I tried to paint this forgive me keep going back
to the state of the state I just gave. But we talked about the politics in nostalgia, try to put America in reverse, but try of selling this notion of this utopian notion. And it's interesting you cast some critique not just on the right, but also on the left in that respect. And I imagine you weren't a big fan of Elizabeth Warren's speech yesterday. No, on the basis of what you just said.
But Elizabeth Horne was much more interesting when she was a professor at Harvard Law. I was there at the time, and she's writing The Two Income Trap, which was a much more interesting book.
Interesting, let me just talk about it. And I appreciate the trap of promises being promoted in politics and the nature of politics both political parties and Trump sort of
¶ Trump's Economic Troubles, The Affordability Crisis and The Tariff Failure
trapped now on this affordability question. As we tape this, he's in Michigan. He's part of this affordability tour you've been in and again just to your credit, calling balls and strikes. You know, it goes back even your Brightbart days, as you had some issues with the early aspects of Trump in terms of this sort of just the character personality issues. But you've been a big supporter of him.
More broadly, Yeah, I did not vote for either candidate in twenty sixteen. I voted for a President Trump in twenty twenty and I actually campaigned on behalf of a bunch of centate candidates and and did some events for President Trump.
And you've been very forceful in your support of what he did in Venezuela. And I think more broadly, just in terms of looking at the picture across the across the globe, but back here in the United States, it relates to tariff policy you've very critical of. You've been critically tariff policy on other domestic issues. How do you score the first full year of Donald Trump?
So I think that when it came, I think the number one domestic issue for President Trump was closing the southern border A plus, right, I mean that I think put the law to the Democratic proposal that you needed comprehensive immigration.
You also acknowledged for about six months it was substantially eighty seven eighty ninety percent closed when Biden decided that he, ultimately, to your point, could do something about it, which they suggested they couldn't.
Right, And the fact that they basically lied about that for several years, saying there's nothing we can do. We need congressional action in order to shut the southern border.
We have more areas of agreement on this. That's put almost foreigner national guard down on the border going back to twenty nineteen. So I've been pretty consistent on that basis, And of course, California I do absorb a lot of that on our own with migrant facilities in three major counties, five migrants that working for Jewish family services, Catholic charities that did God's work. But at the same time try to put a lid on what was, you know, an unacceptable commission.
So that's that's that's a big win for presidents for sure, so much so that it's not even a top issue for voters anymore.
Well, he seems to forget about it.
Well, I mean I don't think he's forgotten about it. I think that he made again. I think a lot of promises with regards to mass deportations that in practicality are probably not fulfillable. And what you see is, you know, Tom Homan, his orders are, who's being a little bit more meticulous about his.
Life and word the temperance come from home and jeez, yeah, I know we're.
Going to go out, We're going to go after criminal illegal immigrants. Those are the people who are mostly going to deploy resource.
They said.
And I think that overwhelmingly by the numbers that that has been the case as far as I'm aware. But when it.
Comes to questionable but I appreciate but still.
Different data on that As a general rule, I think that's a win for President Trump. Obviously, I agree with the extension of the current tax rates and not allowing them to rise.
You don't agree with I mean, I hate to bring up Steve Banner. I mean this notion of a more progressive tax rate for corporations and the wealthiest among us, I mean no.
I think it's a bunch of I think it's a bunch of nonsense. And the reason I think that, yes, and the reason I think that it's a bunch of nonsense is because if because corporations are just legal entities, those legal entities are comprised by people. If you tax a corporation, that is still money that in the end is coming away from the people who comprise the corporation.
Sounding like Romney when you were covering them in with bridepart.
Well, I mean that this is just like basic black letter econ one O one. Corporation doesn't like a magical existence or whereby it hires people. It's not how there's there are people who make those decisions. People get paid by the corporation. Most people in the country are getting a paycheck.
You know, we have established you like the big beautiful bill is where they the tax structure. You don't give a damn about debt, But that's another conversation.
No, I definitely give a damn about debt, but I.
Do not think I don't appear too does he.
I don't think anyone seems to care very much about that.
Government.
Yeah, I mean to be fair.
Well, we balance our budgets just for the record, just for the right.
I mean kind of one.
Hundred percent legally statutorily required, talked about by reserves. We talk about pandemic that's totally.
Required that we are running. You know, the last several years the budget is run what a twenty billion dollars do No.
We just I just submitted a balanced budget, and I mean a dominumous two billion dollar, two point stuff billion dollar, which is a rounding error in the state balance budgets.
I mean, period and half a billion dollars unfunded liabilities, increased tax rates.
Well, we have increased taxes since twenty eleven. I haven't increased any taxes. That's just factually untrue.
I'm not saying I'm not saying that you increased axes.
You but your friends continue to believe Newsome's tax rates. Anyway, let's go back to Trumps. I appreciate when you go down the rabbit hole California, but I want to talk about in interesting so we established from your perspective, he fulfilled his promises on the border, mastery, importations of work in progress, and good people can disagree as it relates to whether or not he'll achieve that. I think it's apples when it.
Comes to when it comes to when it comes to dismantling structures inside the federal government. On DEEI, I think that's a very good thing. I think a meritocracy is what ought to be about the economy.
What about the quality of our lives in the context of what we deal with day in and day out, just your typical family, What his Trump done that has significantly benefited us and less.
So this is where I'll go back to my funds I'm not getting right.
That's a big text.
This is this where I'll go back to my sort of fundamental point, which is that I think that the government guaranteeing that your life is going to be enormously better based on what our at best marginal changes to the structure of the federal government. I think that's an over promise. So I think that how our lives better. Well, I mean, inflation is obviously down. It started to drop under the late Biden and then it started to.
I just saw the numbers today. I mean you saw the food was up eight percent. You saw grocery groceries up eight percent, and food was up seven percent.
I mean the overall CPI is running about two point six two point seven percent. That's the way down from where it was two years ago.
Still now that goes to that too, I agree, but stuck where it was a year ago.
This is why I'm not in favor of, for example, luring the interest rates. I think that the Federals the.
Worst job market in sixteen years, manufacturing factory jobs down.
Tariffs have not helped the manufacturing.
I average person's paying more for Halloween.
We paid a little more than they were last than they were last year on a margin, sort of sort of on on a low rate. I mean, the I think that.
Can get rid of those terriffs, that would be significant. Pause.
I've been a big advocate of getting rid of the tariff since literally day one. The biggest, you know, issue that I see with the Trump administration on the economy is that the promise that Trump thought he was making is not the promise. I think that it actually came out latorically so rhetorically he was saying, everything's going to become affordable again. And what people mean by affordable is I want twenty nineteen prices. Yeah, okay, no one is
getting twenty nineteen prices much. We can do it, so we get in exactly if we get into a recession stagflation, would know, you need actual stagnation, right, you need you need like an actual thing, depression or recession stand correct. And so the the sort that that promise is not a coherent one. It's why I actually had some sympathy for one. He said, you know, affordability is you know, nonsense. I think what he meant by that actually is that affordability.
When have you ever thought, hey, everything is affordable?
Right?
Pretty rare in anyone's life to say things are just affordable because a dollar store, right, it's a comparative.
To me, now it's a dollar twenty nine at the dollars.
And so specifically saying and specifically speaking, I think it's good that inflation is down. I think it's good that the stock market is up. Fifty percent of Americans hold stocks, and when the stock market is robust, that means there can be more investments in, for example, infrastructure projects and data centers and all the rest.
You know.
I'm a believer that there is in fact a bubble that's going on in the stock market because there's an enormous amount momentum at the top end, and most of the games in the stock market are happening in stocks. It doesn't mean that a I won't be an amazing thing. I think it is an amazing thing. But I do think that there will be a winning at the top end of the market. When that happens, then there will
probably be a depression of some sort. Not a great depression, but I mean, like the depressed prices in the markets. I think that a lot of these stocks are trading at unsustainable pe ratios. So you know, I'm concerned about
all those things. That the main critique I have for President Trump on the economic front is that investors what they are really looking for is number one, less regulation is an investment, but number two consistency and the lack of consistency at the federal level is incredibly difficult for
investors to navigate. And actually I think that if the Supreme Court steps in and says no to the tariffs, you'll actually see a rather large economic boost because of it, because the Supreme Court will place the limitation then on the executive branch records so.
That he can oppose with other means, though that's going to be the one the other and then that the.
Supreme Court will you know, will likely step in at that point.
Six months here. Yeah.
Probably Again, I'm very critical of the Terran.
Yeah, no, I appreciate the consistency, yes, just but on
¶ Shapiro's Justification of Trump's Foreign Policy & The Greenland Question
Trump generally, I'm curious just the.
On foreign policy, which you put it to the side. I think Trump has been the greatest foreign policy president in my lifetime. I don't think it's close. I think he's been spectacular and foreign policy and that's with and that's with many of my critiques with regards to, for example, Ukraine, where I'm significantly more hawkish than the administration has been.
And did you feel that way in his first term?
Yes, I thought yes, I was very much an advocate of his foreign policy. I thought that that in terms of his foreign policy, he is, as he said before, he has not got us into any major wars, which is a good thing.
Do you use the military sixty seven significant.
Time he has used the military, and I think targeted and pinpointed ways that do not reinforce the Iraq war syndrome that you know, we need to put hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground. I think the President has a very good feel for The thing about foreign policy is it kind of works like the New York real estate market. It actually is a sort of zero s winner lose game, and President Trump actually is quite
good at those. And I think that on domestic economics, the President tends to bring a zero some approach sometimes to his economic issues that I don't agree with because I think that you can expand the pie for everybody. But I don't think the same thing holds true generally in foreign policy, where when it comes to geopolitics, there's a winner and there's a loser, and it's all about relative power and power dynamics, and the President seems to get that on a very gut level, which is why
in the Middle East. I think he did the right thing with Gaza. I think he's done the right thing with the Iran strike on Photo nuclear facility. I think he did the right thing in extraditing Nicholas Maduro. I think those are all good things. I think that he has found ways to continue the funding of Ukraine via this sort of Jerry Rignato NATO buying weapons and funding.
I think that he has gotten a bunch of countries in Europe to increase their defense spending, which is something that even Mark Rudy over at NATO has said is generally a good thing. I think all of that.
I don't argue with that. I mean, we can, boy, and people are looking for us to unpack that. We can spend hours and hours on every single one of these specific examples. Let me ask you, and just before we get off the foreign policy, I am curious Greenland.
Come on, I don't I don't understand why we are we are attempting to make Greenland our fifty first date. It seems to me, we already have defense agreements.
In well established in nineteen fifty one, we were the ones that pulled back. We can re enter and inn theah of the week.
And I think that that Greenland. I think that that, you know, despite the desire to rename it trumplin, I think that I have ever heard that.
But it's not trying to deal with the Donni or whatever it.
Is, you know. I think that's I think that's only I think that the the you know, attempts to strengthen our bases in Greenland would be good thing. But I think that's an.
Interest thing to do tomorrow, which they've already agreed to agree. I agree the whole things seems folly, but it not seems.
It is invading Canada. That's it.
I want to just because you write about it in
¶ Trump's Interference With The Fed
lines in Scavengers, you talk about this notion of free enterprise, You talk about markets. What do you make of of Trump's interventionist attitudes, not just overseas, but as really to corporations and companies so many disproportionately based out here, including MP materials, which.
Is I don't think the federal government should be taking stakes in private companies. I don't believe in what has been called the crony capitalism or stake capitalism really is just corporatism. I'm not a fan of the idea that the government ought to, you know, be involved in command and control economics with with regard to private companies. So I've opposed that pretty much every step of the way.
I think it's a mistake. I think that the market has a magical ability to make things better and cheaper over time if left to its own devices, and that includes.
By the way, not interfering in the independence of the FED.
Yes, I'm an Austrian school of economics guy. I think that there's a good case to be made that the FED really should not have control over inflation rates in the first place. I think the target inflation rate should be zero, not too and I think that we should allow interest rates generally to free float because I think that, you know, sometimes one of the great problems with the American economy is artificial bubbles that are created by loose
monetary policy. I think that's what leads to the Great Recession. I think it's what also led to the inflationary spiral. Andro Joe Biden, what.
Do you make of Donald Trump, and forgive me, this
¶ Israel, Hamas, The Devastation In Gaza, & Criticisms of Bibi Netanyahu
is you know, zigging and zagging around a little bit. But I still can't get over the fact that he sat down and had dinner with Nick Flins.
So I think that that was a bad thing to do. Obviously, I think that Nick Flinn, says, is a scumbag. I think that the president has, you know, an unfortunate tendency to make nice with people who want to make nice with him. He did come out this week, by the way, and you know, in the New York Times said the Republican Party wants nothing to do with people like Nick Flints, doesn't want to do with anti Semites. I'll continue to be critical of Republicans who who flirt with this sort
of stuff. I whish that the Democratic Party were as critical of sitting Congress members who not only flirt with this sort of stuff, but overtly traffic in this sort of stuff.
You know.
I mean, I'll ask you about Zoramum Donnie Ormum Donnie literally in the campaign. In the campaign, he was asked on Fox News about from Austin. He refused to announce it as a terrorist group.
They are terrorist group and they should have been announced. I was there, as you know, a few weeks after October seventh, met with BB. Not a big fan of BB. This is where we have fundamental disagreements. Quite the contrary in.
Fact, but it stay in semester politics for a second. Yeah, it seems to be have become a sort of Debrigore requirement for Democrats who are running for office to now suggest, for example, Scott Wiener just did this, he's running for Congress, that Israel committed to genocide and Gaza. That is, forget about anti simitism and discussions of it, because I think that those have become really loose and people don't have a consistent definition of anti Simmitism. Let's just talk about what's true.
That's true. I think it's true about the definition. I mean, we, as you know, been struggling with that in California as it relates to a lot of laws.
And anti simitism is a fundamentally different cat than, for example, racism. It's basically a conspiracy theory about Jewish power in the world.
But and it makes me sick to my stomach. And I say that clearly, but not just of course. I mean, we've we've tried to lead in terms of our response, and we've called out and called balls and strikes terms of.
The outrageous without I would you know, in my own framework of anti semitism, I think that's saying overtly false things about the Jewish state is a form of anti Semitism. But I don't think that that is really important as much as it is is it true or not? So Democrats have now been dragged into this conversation, some drags, some run with you know, flags waving into the conversation of geneside.
Yes, I mean, look at.
Israel did not commit a genocide in Gaza. There is no standard by which is Reel committed to genocide in Gaza. Just then a factual level.
A legal and factual level.
Yes, yeah, what is your opinion of this?
My opinion is I understand the tendency for people to make that, to assert that why on the basis of the images and the proportionality genocide? No. No, And by the way, I agree with you, and.
Doesn't mean that if you kill my child and I then kill seven criminals, that I've been disproportionate.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I think the But I understand that tendency on the basis of trying to reconcile the proportionate nature of how the war was ultimately.
Conduct to question, why do you feel the need to create a permission structure for that sort of stuff? I mean, meaning it's not true? Why not you say it's not true?
Yeah, Look, I don't know the definition or I don't know the legal threshold. That's not my opinion, so I don't I don't share that opinion. This relates to genocide, not I do not agree with that notion that you.
Do understand that if you accuse Israel of committing a genocide, that now puts Israel in the position of it should be a pariah state, because states the commit genocide should be pariah states. So granting legitimacy to that position inherent.
I'm not granted legitimacy. I'm just saying the devastation in Gaza at the human level you've got four of course, it's terrible, No, but I think it's also important to absorb that a little bit more just as it was sick and we were clear in our condemnation of these people like me, as it relates to what Hamah did in that act of barbarism and terrorism.
That was christroism and wartime collateral damage of wars, and if we refused to acknowledge that reality, then we end.
Up collateral damage. I just I have stronger opinions. It wasn't just collateral, you know. I think some of the double tapping issues I have. I have a lot of issues without Babe ultimately conduct the war, I personally do, and I have a lot of issues that are also painted on the basis of the conversation I had UH a few weeks later after October seventh, the way he talked about the Palestinians. I kept talking about a moss. He kept talking about the Palestinians. I kept coming back
to a moss and then ultimately how the war was conducted. Uh. Not saying it was a genocide, I'm not, but I have issues. What is the thing that he said that that you particularly, there was a dehumanization. I didn't like the way he talked about the Palestinian people. I just didn't What is the specific they can't govern them? I didn't specific. I don't want to get into the details.
Because when it was that he is conflating Hamas and the Palestinians he wasn't does lead to the conclusion they were.
If it wasn't. No, no, no, it was. I'm just saying the way he ultimately conducted it. I look back at that conversation, I reflect on rather that conversation, it doesn't surprise me. And uh and I did not think it was proportionate, Okay, and I thought I was overwhelming. And the devastation instruction breaks my heart.
Okay, So your President of the United States, somebody invades from Mexico, they take several thousand American citizens, get it, and by the way, they hold them all the way until the end of the war, until the end of the war, their hostages being held.
Don't get me wrong on any of this. I'm with you in terms of the ultimate accountability and bringing the hostages home. I like the clarity and conviction as it relates to getting all the hostages dead and alive home and all of that. I'm not denying that.
And by the way, still has not been extra paid in the areas where we're.
Is and and there's and and clearly this truce, uh and detente is still a work in progress, has been a lot of destructions.
Was supposed to be armed look, there's no crystal clear. The point is that they're still clear about it. But the point is that I think clear my love.
For Israel and my condemnation of BB. And there's a distinction. I condemned Donald Trump. I love my country.
And listen, anyone is free to disagree with Prime Minister naithania Who any time that they want. I will point out.
That they're not anti Semitic when they say, of course not. And that's also important because some people like that there's don't you don't know, but others do.
I've critique b B myself, mainly for not being right wing enough in my opinion on many issues to master actually but when it comes to but when when it when it comes to the the I mean, we can get into perceptions of Ninia, Who's leadership and all this. I will say this, I know every major politician in Israel. Just I know many of major politicians in Ukraine and Hungary and in a wide variety of places in Israel.
I happen to know the last several prime ministers. If anyone outside of the State of Israel believes, then I tally Bennett or yeah, you're Lapede's on the left in response that is not that's not it's not true.
No fair point.
And look, hey, and the and the IDEAF, by the way, operates largely independently in some ways of the Prime Minister's office. It's kind of a strange duel system that they have over there. And I know too many soldiers who I mean, I talk about one in the book who had three limbs blown off going door to door in Gaza. Not not using trom not using overwhelming air power to eviscerate millions of people.
I was in the hospital meeting victims on October seventh in Israel. So I look, look, you know and been the memorials, and I.
Want to be clear in the terminology we use about all this stuff because right now, for example, but the gener the protests, where the protest Where are the members of the Democratic Party protesting and wearing pins for the protesters? And ron we're getting mowed down maybe by the tens of thousands this week.
I know where I am. I put out a pretty clear statement.
This week and see more Democrats.
Yeah, I don't disagree with you, By the way, I also thought it was I thought it was the right thing to do that strike and I thought it was unbelievably effective and efficient and had no problems saying that during the strike, not didn't wait for the outcomes. So yeah, in March to beat a little bit of a different drum, a little bit more nuance here. But there is Look, it's everything's so black and white. It's just there's nuance here.
I mean, for sure, But I think that that's point that I'm making back to sort of where he originally departed here, was that, you know, I'm trying to call out what I see as bad behavior, untrue and moral
behavior on my own side. I'd like to see that more from a Democratic party that seemed to be perfectly willing to wrap an arm around Armandani the minute he got a little bit of momentum, the same man who had said that whenever the NYPD boot is on the throat of Americans, the IDF is lacing the boot, that's sort of nonsense. Is terrible.
No, I don't associate with those comments at all. I mean, and look.
For me, be in the mayor of New York.
That's that's for people in New York to make that decision. That's not for me. Tom out here in California, and thousands of miles away. Well that that directly impacts me, I mean New York may indirectly, but I mean it's a little bit of different question. We'll see how he ultimately does. Thought he ran an incredibly effective campaign. I think there's a lot of interesting attributes that he has. Incredibly bright, it'll be capable.
I delivered a lot of terrible people who say brighton and capable.
No, I get it, but and I absolutely disagree with them on a lot of those comments. And I was also I also maintained that posture pretty consistently over a great period a long period of time. And no, I was not a Cuomo fan. Uh so just for the record, uh and sorry, yeah, And I say this with respect. I mean, I you know, the Cuomo family is a good democrat. You know his father, and there's some members of the family I like a lot. But look, these are these are tough issues, and they are tough issues,
¶ Gender Affirming Care Under Trump & The Right's Weaponization of LGBTQIA Rights
and I look, look, I appreciate your willingness to call balls and strikes and a lot of folks, you know, frankly, a lot of folks in your world as we sort of castigate the right wing media ecosystem, your willingness to call this stuff out and this.
Is the well, you know, I think that in general, this is the the way if we want to have a way forward in American politics, just to get a little generally, yeah, it has to be predicated on certain basic premises about truth. And that's why I keep saying, forget about you know, categoriesmic is it true or is it not true? I think one of the major failings of the Democratic Party in the last election cycle is the unwillingness to say whether it was true untrue that
a boy could become a girl. For example. I think a lot of people looked at that and they said, excuse me, how is this. Forget about the political ramifications or the policy ramifications for just a second, can you say a boy is not a girl?
And we can go down And I feel like a year ago, as with Charlie having this conversation, which is remarkable, I'm cured, did you And this is I'm just honestly curious when I'm asking this, I'm not even it's not not a loaded question. Did you or others in the right condemn the Trump policies as it relates to gender affirming care for including a reassignment surgeries in the federal prison system under the Trump administration's first term.
I mean, if I'd been aware of them, would have condemned them. My company was the only company in America I believe that on a media level refused to use preferred pronouns for anyone. We use only biological pronouns since twenty fifteen, since we launched the company.
And I say that because it's just not well known. But the Trump Administration's policies allowed for general assignment general uh firm and care. I've been a hormone treatment. Actually, I think that's change the operations. I mean, yeah, it was, it was in federal policies.
Listen, and I think that's wrong. And then I wish that frankly, you you would go further. You've talked about the unfairness in sports, But for me, the bigger the bigger question is not in fairness in sports. The bigger question is whether we should be allowing the administration of chemical or surgical mutilation of minors based on generativesphoria.
Well, we're gonna, I mean, Trump administration has long opinions. They've they've sued states like California, many ch other states twenty plus states. Yes, And my position is that's between the physician, it's between the family member and UH and and these these patients themselves.
Why are there and are there there are there any surgical or chemical interventions that you would oppose even if the patients.
Here, We go. I mean, I know exactly where this debate goes.
But I'm asking. I mean, it's it's it's a real, it's a real just because it does have public policy implications. Meaning in the state of California, there is a judicial ruling. We referenced it earlier.
Well, that's a different That judicial ruling was ridiculous on this basis. Any teacher, and what you're talking about is a law that I signed as it relates to this, this idea that school you can that you can fire teachers, that you can fire someone for not telling on a child and saying that they're talking about being gay, not just trans issues, any LGBTQ issues, that you can be fired. There's nothing in the law. The law that I signed does not preclude these teachers from telling.
The parents, school districts from.
Mandating and firing someone for not but but it allows the teacher to make that judgment. On the basis of seeing someone that's being bullied and the requirements they have under the law to keep people safe.
As a parent, don't you believe that a teacher should facilitate information to you?
Why would that on every basis? I mean, I mean that they should somehow.
Teacher is going to call you. I meant safety about safety.
The law is pretty clear and is it about, and the teachers have that ability, and the teachers maintain that ability. We didn't deny that. We didn't say to the teachers you cannot no, quite the contrary. This is critical because it's been a lot of misinformation. I mean, the school, you should fire someone and in many cases, look, anyone that's members of the LGBTQ community. How many stories, uh that you've heard of people that say, I went to my parents with my teacher that was a safe place
for me in school. There's a lot of grace in this space. There's a lot of testimony in this space that I think should just provide a little bit of grace and humility. It's not a black and white issue. Teachers can still quote unquote turn in a child. They just can't be fired.
I mean, but my question on that and again this is a subset of a broader issue is why does the parent not have an absolute moral ability to receive that information and require is there not a requirement there should be a requirement for teachers to turn over that information.
Health and safety.
Health and safety are if a teacher truly believes that a parent is a threat to a child, they can report it to child services.
Yeah, so health and safety is still the standard, so that you maintain that standard. That standard is the law.
It's a lot of wiggle room for a teacher to apply.
Well, it's also but it's a lot of law in terms of the way of that law and that responsibility to take care of it, make sure your kids are safe. But this idea that people are going to public schools and coming back having surgeries and coming back the next day is absurd.
But there are certainly cases in which in which kids are being quote unquote socially transitioned to school without parents knowing about it. I know some of the parents to whom this has happened. I mean, this is the fundamental question that lies at the root of all of this is the question that you're not wanting to answer, which is whether boys can become girls.
Yeah, I just don't. Well, I think for the grace of God, yeah.
I mean, I appreciate the sympathy. I always I also feel terrible for is it anybody who's suffering with any sort.
Of I mean, I think it's the case generations for the time and memorial you know, God bless I just I don't know.
That's hard one. I just don't understand because.
I don't know why. Why is it such a I'm curious. I understand the political potency of its politically, but it's just how it's so few. We're talking about so few people. It's not about that that are that are struggling with with with with with gender ident issues. A lot of remarkable people, a lot of wildly successful people, and they've gone in their life, have credible lives. I just I don't know. There's so much hate and bigotry, so much condemnation.
Much This is the part where I start to object. Okay, the idea that you.
May not be spealing it no like some others. Trust this is the business.
There there are lots of terrible people who say lots of terrible things. But yes, it is not an act of bigotry to say that a boy cannot become a girl, nor should my children be taught in K through twelve public schools that a boy can become a girl. That is not an act of bigotry. That's an act of rationality and biological simplicity.
I respect your point of view, and you know, but people, good people disagree on this, and a lot of states, not just California, well established rules, by the way, that predate me. Again, this is not where I started campaigning and advocating on these issues, as some suggest. And uh and look, I'm with the governor, Governor Spencer Cox, who said about many of these issues, never so much attention been placed on so few people.
And the problem is, I do think that on the electoral level, to go to the politics, it is a barrier to entry for a lot of people.
I agree with that.
I agree with, boy, you can become a girl. And then just I do agree and realistic and.
By the way, and I respect if that's your barrier to then listening to people on myriad of other issues, Uh, so be it.
It is what it is. I just find it. I find it strange that even if you wish to have a public policy that pursues something different. We cannot just admit that boys and girls are two different things and that a boy cannot become a girl. Why is this so difficult?
Yeah, I understand your point of view, and you know, and I also respect Caitlyn Jenner, you know I do and.
Not respect for individuals. No, I can tell you a story. This is there's the way I speaking at university.
This is a harder thing for me too, as you may know, I probably do. That's God's son, and it just it's, uh, there's a little more. I just I find the humanity. I find different aspects of this a different layers. This goes back to my sort of truth, trying to know your facts.
I mean, here's the story. So I was, I was speaking at the University of British Columbia. This must have been now five years ago or so, and a person who identified as Trands got up at the microphone. And obviously I do a lot of these things on campus. I used to do more of them and this this issue came up. But the person started talking about his
family's biological mail. Again, you can use whatever pronouns you shoes use a free country, but you can't force me to use pronouns that I believe are grammatically incorrect.
By the way, I'm not sitting here, you know, trying to.
Anyway. So this so this, this person gets up and starts talking about his family and how they how they treat him, and I said, you know, i'd really appreciate if we're going to have a conversation on sort of a general and philosophical level about this issue, if you didn't invoke your family, because I don't want to be in a position of having to talk to you about
what your family thinks or believes. And the person and continue to invoke their family said, well, you know, my family keeps saying that I am a woman, that I'm a woman. And finally, after about seven eight minutes of this, I said, listen, you've now forced me to the corner
where I have to give my opinion. My opinion is that your family is treating you with sympathy, but they don't actually believe that you're a woman because they care about you and they love you, but they will fib to you because they believe that it is better for you or or that you will not hurt yourself if you say this thing that is that is not true the person, I'm very upset, rushed out of the room. Now, normally that's the kind of thing that ends up online
as a you know, destroys video kind of thing. I went to the people who are in charge of the event. I had them cut it from the tape because I was worried about the person's mental health status. I appreciate. I called up a person who I knew, who knew the person because they'd mentioned it to me, and I actually had breakfast with the person the next morning to make sure that he was okay, good, free. So my only part way is not what a wonderful person I am.
It's that sympathy does not preclude truth telling. And when you're making public policy, it is very important that sympathy not preclude truth telling. And I think that again, it's not just the trans issue.
You know.
If the idea is that I have to protect my friends and I have to attack my enemies and politics, things get really squirrellly, really quickly, because again, public policy is for everyone. It is not just for subgroups.
Ah, I hear you. We just see the world with a different set of eyes on this. I appreciate you of intellectual argument and the sort of soundness and the firmness in that space. I can't help but unpack the relationship to families and people and lives lived and and and the grace and you know, people's lives that are lost and and people that are struggling and going through this.
I I just, uh, that's that's that's how and and to me, that does shape the way I make policy because it is it's it's it's it's not just science, it's art. It's it's lived experience. It's reality. And it goes back to sanctuary. Think there's certain lived realities and uh, and and one has to sort of deal with the cards that are dealt as imperfect as things are and life is.
And as you know, you know, but you're you're you're.
One of these. That's why you got one hundred and eighty IQ. What was it?
I do.
Jesus? And you can read your book to learn more. By the way, when I was listening to reading Lines
¶ Is Trump The Scavenger in Ben's Book?
and Scavengers, this notion of victimization and envy, the scavenger mindset, I thought you were writing about Donald Trump.
Well, I mean when I was on with azro As, I said, it feels like you're talking about a lot of people on both sides, And I said, that is true. I am talking about a lot of people on both sides. I think that, you know, one of the points I make in the book, you know, is that the model of lines and scavengers, it's really about kind of peopleho build versus people who wish to destroy. And the point that I make is that's actually an internal battle inside
of all of us. If you go back to the Book of Genesis and the story of Cain and Nabel, it's a fascinating story, obviously for a variety of reasons, which is why it's lasted for several thousand years. But what happens is that that Caine actually initiates the idea of let's let's give sacrifices to God. And then God takes able to sacrifice, but not Cain's and say in the Bible, why that is? That's just what happens. And
King gets angry and God actually goes to Candy. He says, listen, you have the ability to fix yourself right, send crouches at your door. But in the word in Hebrew is tim shall you can overcome that. You have the capacity to overcome that, And so in every human heart is the capacity to be the person who builds, makes things strong or makes makes you know, if you're a politician, better policy makes the country stronger in terms of its
social fabric. Or the person who's going to grift, or the person who's going to engage in conspiracy theories, or the person who's going to tear things down because they're unhappy with their life and therefore of decided false lee with no evidence that the system is to blame for all that. I see politicians who do both of those things. I think that that sometimes I look at what President Trump says and I think, you know, that's a real
lion thing to do. I think that that's sending the sending the b twos to Florid, Oh was a lion thing to do. I think that that grabbing Maduro is a lion thing. And then sometimes he says things and I'm like, that is a scavenger thing to do. So, you know, this week, for example, you know, he's he's doing some populous things on economics thatrobably some members of the left woul would agree with that credit card. I
think that that's silly. I think that that is that is again it's externalizing people's debt problem to a place that does not solve the problem, and in fact, is more likely to lead to people not being able to get credit cards. Because obviously, if you.
Sound like the head of JP Morgan, what about rolling up all the corporate purchases of private single family owns.
I think that that's I think that that is a ridiculous misdirect. Okay, that the fact is that in the state of California, for example, exorbitantly low percentage.
Relative to other states.
Yeah relative does this for sure?
Yeah?
Okay, And guess what real estate here really really expensive. And meanwhile, if you go over to Charlotte, North Carolina, where the real estate prices actually have been diving, you actually do have pretty significant corporate ownership. And you were talking about large corporations, not like small mom and pop operations where you own a second home to rent it out. Typically speaking, when a corporation invests in an area like say Phoenix, and then builds up an enormous number of
rental units, because that's what happens. They buy let's say a single family home, now they rent it out. Okay, so they just increased the stock of rent right, which means that the rental prices go down, and then corporations typically are investing in areas where it's easier to buy and easier to renovate and easier to build. Like renovating is very difficult in places like New York and in certain parts of California, it's a lot easier in say
Austin or Phoenix or Florida. And so what you've seen is actually there is not only zero correlation between corporate ownership of real estate assets and price of rent. For example, in many cases, there's a reverse correlation. And so trying to refocus on look at this terrible it is in black Rock. Blackrack does an own real estate assets in this fashion. But if you're doing at Blackstone and then it's Blackstone's fault that the real estate prices are going up, No,
it isn't. And again I think that that's.
Why is he pursuing two policies that you vehemently disagree with, because I think that it is failing on the issue of the economy.
With the Americ governor, I think that that it is politically beneficial for politicians to tell people that their problems are easily solvable with the stroke of a pen and by blaming somebody who's richer than they are. I think that is a very easy way to get away with really bad public policy.
All right, let's talk about it when we're a limited time here. Then, my gosh, we've covered.
So much and I know everyone's it's been fine.
Wait, haven't we gotten into politics and Nigeria? We can talk about Somali land and we can get into some more interesting, nuanced issues and you know, we didn't even get to Shi And there's there's a legitimately a lot of issues that I think are fascinating that we'll define more things in more ways on more days. But what
¶ Rapid Fire: Midterm Predictions, Healthcare Subsidies, Vance vs, Rubio, Bondi's Exit
do you make of I mean, uh, Republicans have no chance in this midterm right.
I think that they are in for a world of hurt right now in the midterms. I mean, they're the they're the incumbent party. They have a bare majority. Uh, that alone would put them behind the eight ball. There are not a lot of swing districts that are that are kind of left because of all the redistricting, But the swing districts that that are left seemed to be trending more blue. President Trump isn't on the ballots. He
doesn't really have coattails among the low propensity electorate. So yeah, I think that Republicans are gonna are gonna have a rough ride.
Scale one to ten. How big a mistake was not expanding the healthcare subsidies or extending them.
So I have made the case that on just a raw political level, and again I will say that what I do is different than what you do, right, I mean, like, you're in the podcast space now, so this is my ballgame, But the reality is that you're in the policy making space. And I've said this to Republican and Democratic politicans.
That's why I have to bring the human element into this, the human elements.
See, this is where I would say, you never removed the human element, governor, But you know the I would say that the one of the things that I hope that people appreciate about the difference is that in podcast space you can be a purist, and in the political space, you get you try to get seventy percent of the buy and so when you are looking at, for example, extending the Obamacare subsidies, it is a political loser obviously for Republicans, and not to extend the Obamacare subsidies and
to let it hit a cliff. Clearly, then the question becomes, what can you do that shortens the duration? If you're a conservative, if you're a Republican, what can you do that that creates a soft a softer landing for people who are reliant on those subsidies in a transition to policies that you believe will in general bend the cost curved down in the meantime, because if you have kind of a hard stop, then that's going to affect a
lot of people. There's a reason why Purple state Republicans, Purple district Republicans are trying to cut deals right now with Democrats in order to extend those healthcare subsidies. Hopefully in return they will get some provisions on fraud, maybe some release of certain regulations around Obamacare. I think the healthcare system is so complex, it's so mixed. You know.
Let's put this way. If you and I were sitting and designing a healthcare system there was none, then I think that we might have very differing ideas of where it goes. But trying to extricate ourselves from what is an incredibly difficult situation, I think that the easiest and dumbest way to do policy is to just keep tossing money at it. But I also think that on a political level, if you never have the power to do better things, then you never have the power to do
the better things. You got to get as much of the pie as you can. And that's the nature of pragmatism. As you are constantly talking about.
Well said, well, I agree, rather as sentiment, it's interesting. On the issue of subsidy, it's an important point. I mean, we'd have to lower the cost out care. It's why very proud of California we created our own insulin branded drug under cal r X. We're just lowering costs, not subsidizing costs, which means socializing that cost on the rest
of the rate payers more broadly, or premium payers. But on the issue of Vance and Rubio Vance or Rubio Ben, I mean in terms of whom twenty eight was, I mean, so I think that look, JD.
Vance has already you know, sort of been deemed by Marco Rubios as the presumptive nominee barring some sort of cataclysmic circumstance. In terms of who I tend to agree with more politically, obviously, I would think that the Secretary of State Rubio on foreign policy, I tend to be more aligned with. Yeah, I think that that the Vice President obviously a very high IQ guy. There are certain
areas of policy I agree with him on. There are certain areas of policy I strenuously disagree with the Vice president right now, if you have to lay odds, then then JD is the most likely nominee. Things can change. Obviously, it's very early.
Who leaves first, Hexit or Pam Bondi.
You know again, Yeah, in terms of this is where you get in this sort of the personality side of the business that I care less about. But I think that is significantly more likely the Pam Bondi is out before the Secretary of Defense.
Interesting. Thanks for coming all the way out.
Hey, thank you, Thanks for having me. I appreciate it's been fun.
Ben Shapiro, You're always welcome back home.