Kind: captions
Language: en
something has to happen with Iran there
has to be some diplomatic bilateral
communication there no what has to
happen is the containment of Iran
history Moves In One Direction right why
because of time communism Nazism all of
that was a regression from what was
happening at for example the beginning
of the 19th century in the 20th century
what in what way do you think that today
Donald Trump knows that he lost the
election absolutely so I I don't this is
one of the areas where we get into this
I don't understand um if there's like
brain breaking happening or what's going
on I don't know what world we can ever
live in where we say that Trump is less
divisive for the country than Biden Joe
Biden literally used the occupational
safety and Hazard Administration to try
to cram down vax mandates on 80 million
Americans that's insane what about super
cal fragile and then you what about new
multra microscopics or the science terms
exactly or what about the 7,000 letter
thing that's from part of uh biochem I
got my education the Soviet Union so we
just did math this that's why you're
useful person does body count
matter the following is a debate between
Ben Shapiro and Destiny each arguably
representing the right and the left of
American politics respectively they are
two of the most influential and skilled
political Debaters in the world this
debate has been a long time coming for
many years it's about 2.5 hours and we
could have easily gone for many more and
I'm sure we will it is only round one
this is the Lex Freon podcast to support
it please check out our sponsors in the
description and now dear friends here's
Ben Shapiro and
Destiny Ben you're conservative Destiny
you're a liberal can you each describe
what key values underpin your philosophy
on politics and maybe life in the
context of this left right political
Spectrum you want to go first yeah so I
think that we have a huge country full
of a lot of people a lot of individual
talents
capabilities um and I think that the
goal goal of government broadly speaking
should be to try to ensure that
everybody's able to achieve as much as
possible so on a liberal level that
usually means some people might need a
little bit of a boost when it comes to
things like education um they might need
a little bit of a boost when it comes to
providing certain Necessities like
housing or food or clothing but broadly
speaking I mean I'm still a liberal not
a communist or socialist I don't believe
in the you know total command economy
total communist takeover of all of the
uh you know economy but I think that
broadly speaking the government should
kind of like kick and help people when
they need it and that government can and
should be big not necessarily I notice
that when liberals talk about government
or especially taxes it seems like they
talk about it for taxes sake or big
bigness sake so people talk about taxes
sometimes as like a like a punishment
like tax the rich uh I think taxing the
rich is fine in so far as it funds the
programs that we want to fund but
Democrats have a really big problem
demonizing success or wealth and I don't
think that's a bad thing uh I I don't
think it's a bad thing to be wealthy to
be a billionaire or whatever as long as
we're funding what we need to fund Ben
what do you think it means to be a
conservative what's what's the
philosophy that underlies your political
view so first of all I'm glad that
Destiny you're already coming out as a
republican that's exciting um I mean I I
we hold a lot in common in terms of uh
you know the the basic idea
that people ought to have as much
opportunity as possible and also in so
far as the government should do the
minimum amount necessary to interfere in
people's lives in order to pursue
certain functions particularly at the
local level so a lot of governmental
discussions on a pragmatic level end up
being discussions about where government
ought to be involved but also at what
level government ought to be involved
and I have an incredibly subsidiary view
of government I I think that you know
local governments because you have
higher levels of homogenity and and
consent uh are capable of doing more
things and as you abstract up the chain
it becomes more and more impractical and
more and more divisive to to do more
things in in my view government is
basically there to preserve certain key
Liberties uh the those key Liberties
pre-exist the government uh in in so far
as they are more important than what
priorities the government has the the
job of government is to maintain for
example National Defense protection of
property rights protection of religious
freedom the these are these are the key
focus of government as generally
expressed in the Bill of Rights in the
Constitution and I agree with the
general philosophy of the bill rights
and the Constitution now that doesn't
mean by the way that you can't do more
on a governmental level again as you get
closer to the ground which by the way is
also embedded in the Constitution people
forget the Constitution was originally
applied to the federal government not to
local and state government um but you
know if I going to Define conservatism
it would actually be a little broader
than that because I think to understand
how people interact with government you
have to go to kind of core values and
and so for me there there are a couple
of premises one human beings have a
nature that nature is neither good nor
bad we have aspects of goodness and we
have aspects of Badness human beings are
sinful we have temptations and what that
means is that we have to be careful not
to incentivize the bad and that we
should incentivize the good human beings
do have agency and are capable of making
decisions in the vast majority of
circumstances um and it is better for a
society if we act as though they do uh
second the basic idea of human nature
there is an idea in my view that all
human beings have equal value before the
law I'm I'm a religious person so I'd
say equal value before God but I think
that's also sort of a key tend of
Western Civilization being non-religious
or religious that every individual has
equivalent value in sort of cosmic terms
um but that does not necessarily mean
that every person is equally equipped to
do everything equally well and so it is
not the job of government to rectify
every imbalance of Life The Quest for
Cosmic justice as Thomas Soul suggests
is something that government is
generally incapable of doing and more
often than not botches and makes things
worse so th those are a few key tenants
and that that tends to materialize in in
a variety of ways the the the easiest
way to sum that up would the traditional
kind of three legs of the the
conservative stool although now
obviously there's a very fragmented
conservative movement in the United
States would be a a socially
conservative view in which family is the
chief institution of society like the
little platoon of society as Edmund
Burke suggested uh in which free free
markets and property rights are
extraordinarily valuable and necessary
uh because every individual has the
ability to be creative with their
property and to
freely alienate that property uh and uh
and finally I tend toward a hawkish
foreign policy that suggests that the
world is not filled with wonderful
people who all agree with us and think
like us and those people will pursue
adversarial interests if we if we do not
protect our own interests can I ask a
question on that I'm so okay um I'm
excited for this conversation because I
consider you to be really intelligent um
but I feel like sometimes there are ways
that conservatives talk about certain
issues that seem to defy logic reason I
guess so here and I'm sure you feel the
same way about prog I feel the same way
about progressives um but even some uh
liberals for sure uh before I ask this
question is going to relate to education
we can agree broadly speaking that
statistics are real and that not
everybody could do everything so for a
grounded example uh my life was pretty
bad I got into streaming and I turned my
life around and that was really cool but
I can't expect everybody to do what I
did right like everybody being able to
join the NBA or to be like a streamer of
course everybody has different qualities
sure okay so I used to be a lot more
libertarian um when I was 2021 and one
of the things that dramatically changed
kind of my view on government uh
manipulation of things in the I guess in
society came uh when it came time to
deal with my son and the school that he
went to and one of the things that I
noticed was when it came time to send my
son to school I could either do private
education or I could do public uh
personally I did 12 Years of Catholic
private education um however the public
schools in Nebraska depending on where
you lived were very very very good and I
opted for a certain District I bought a
house there I moved there and then my
son was able to go to those schools um
and he's been going through those
schools and the difference of
availability of like technology like
these kids are taking home iPads and
like first grade uh they've got like
huge computer labs and everything do you
think that there is some type of I don't
want to say Injustice or unfairness
because I'm not even looking at it that
way just pragmatically that there might
be children that are in certain schools
that if they just had better funding or
more uh access to Technologies or things
available to them that those kids would
become more productive members of
society that with like a little bit of a
help they they could actually achieve
more and do better for all of society so
I think that on the list of priorities
when it comes to education the
availability of technology is actually
fairly low on the list of priorities
sure the two things I've heard are food
availability and I think air
conditioning I think are the two biggest
ones that I hear but sure well I mean
the biggest thing in terms of Education
itself not just the physical facilities
that we're talking about would actually
be two parent family house households
sure communities that that have fathers
in them is actually the number one
deiser according to Roland frier and
many studies done on this particular
topic and the idea that that money alone
that investment of resources is the top
priority in schooling is boted by the
fact that LUSD which is where I went to
school when I was younger they pour an
enormous amount of money into La USD
we're talking about tens of thousands of
dollars very often per student and it
does not result in better schooling
outcomes and so when you say if we could
give every kid an iPad would you give
every kid an iPad the question is not if
I had a replicator machine from Star
Trek would I give everybody an enormous
amount of stuff sure I I would every
every resource is f it every resource is
limited you have to prioritize what are
the what are the outcomes that you seek
in terms of the means with which you are
seeking them and so again I think that
the question is is I I quibble with the
with the premise of the question which
is that again the the chief Injustice
when it comes to education on the list
of of injustices is lack of availability
to technology or that it's a funding
problem I just don't think that's the
case sure and I can half agree with you
there but I don't think any amount of
changes in the schools will create two
parent households right we can't bring a
I totally agree with you that's why I
think that the the fundamental
educational problem is not in fact a
schooling problem I think that it
pre-exists that sure but then I feel
like we're now I feel like this is kind
of the conservative marry go around
where it's like what can we do to help
with schools so two of the things that
I've seen I think that are usually
brought up in research is one is air
conditioning that children in hotter
environments just don't learn as well um
and then the second one is access to
food so like kids that are given like a
breakfast or a lunch that's provided at
school like increases educational
outcomes now I agree that neither of
these things might be determinative in
like well 20% of kids were graduating
and now 80% of kids are graduating or
these kids are all going you know from
with their geds into the workforce and
now these kids are all suddenly becoming
Engineers but in terms of where we can
help do you think there should be like
some minimum threshold or minimum
Baseline of like at the very least every
school should have a non- leaky gym or
every school should have uh if children
can't afford lunch or breakfast like
some sort of food provided or every
school should have these like Baseline
things so again I'm going to quibble
with the premise of the question because
I think when it comes to for example
food
insecurity School food programs again
you can always pour money into any
program and at the margins create change
I mean there's no doubt that pouring
money onto anything will create change
in a Marginal Way the question is how
large is the margin and how big is the
movement right so the Delta is what I'm
looking at and so I think that the
you're you're starting at a second order
question which is what if we ignore what
I would think are the big primary
questions of Education namely family
structure value of education at home how
much you have parents who are capable or
willing to help with homework what are
the incentive structures we can set up
for a society that actually facilitate
that how local communities take
ownership of their schools is a big one
right all all of these issues we're
ignoring in favor of say air
conditioning or lunch programs and so in
a vacuum if you say air conditioning and
lunch programs sounds great in a vacuum
in in terms of prioritization of values
and cost structure are those the things
that I think are going to move the
needle in a major way in terms of public
policy I I I do not and and in fact I
think that many of them end up being
disproportionate wastes of money I mean
I've talked before pretty
controversially about the fact that an
enormous amount of school lunch programs
are thrown out like an enormous amount
of that food ends up in the garbage can
is there a better way to do that if
there is a better way to do it then I'm
perfectly willing to hear about that
better way to do it but it seems to me
that one of the big flaws in the way
that many people of the approach
government is what if we hit every knat
with a hammer and my question is what if
the Gat isn't even the problem what if
there is a much bigger substructure
problem that needs to be solved in order
to if you're shifting deck chairs on the
Titanic sure you can make the Titanic
slightly more balanced because the deck
chairs are slightly better oriented but
the real question is the the water
that's gaping into the Titanic right
yeah and I agree with you 100% but again
the I feel like we're on the
Conservative merrygoround then of never
wanting to address that's not a
conservative Mound I can you 10 ways
well sure but so like here would be the
marry around I would say that like
there's a minimum funding for schools
that I think would help children and
they would go well the thing that would
help them the most is two parent
households and I go okay well two parent
households actually aren't the problem
um the issue is access to things like
birth controls that people don't have
children early on and it's like but the
issue isn't actually birth control the
issue is actually you need a certain
amount of money to move out early and to
get married and then to have a two
parent household so it's actually like
Economic Opportunity well it's you no
just two parent households yeah but like
what is the what are the pre fuck people
before you're and have babies sure done
that's great can say that and try to
fight against you know however many
hundreds of thousands of years of human
evolution but people will have sex and
people will make babies and then they
used to get married the vast majority of
people in this country with kids used to
be married the vast majority of people
with kids in this country now are not
married increasingly that is obviously a
societal changed something changed it
wasn't human evolution but a lot of
those things in terms of resting on
whether or not people get married have
to do with financial decisions do you
have the money people are worse off now
than they were 50 60 years ago when the
marriage rates were higher people are
delaying the start of their careers
because education's going increasingly
important so in in other words people
are richer now and they have more
education now and yet they're having
more babies out of wedlock now because
they're richer and have more education
I'm saying that the one of the biggest
indicators for whether or not somebody's
willing to get married is how much money
both people are making if they can move
out of their household people don't tend
to want to get married at 22 when
they've just finished College when they
don't have the money to move out and
they can't afford a house because we
have changed the moral status of
marriage in the culture meaning that
everyone poor Rich and in between used
to get married that by the way a huge
percentage of marriages in the United
States used to be what they would call
shotgun marriages meaning that somebody
knocked somebody up and because they did
not want baby to be born outside of a
two parent household they would then get
married do we think that shotgun
marriages though are a way to bring back
equilibrium to education if we yes
absolutely yes 100% a child deserves a
mother and a father because that is the
basis for all of this including
education do we think that shotgun
marriages are well let's say this do we
think that that's a reasonable direction
that society would ever take or is this
like it was the reasonable direction for
nearly all of modern history was but
history Moves In One Direction right why
because of time mean people people don't
think that's a in in what in what way is
that is and I don't think we've ever
like regressed social standards back to
like oh well let's go 100 years back and
do things that you know used to exist
before I the entire left right now is
arguing that we regret social standards
by rejecting Row versus Wade so that's
obviously not true the row vers Wade is
not a social standard it's a Supreme
Court ruling number one number two what
if you read the actual majority of
opinion on roie Wade we can see that
socially we ever actually never made
huge progress on how Society viewed
abortion this has always been an
incredibly divisive thing right even
that was I think part of alito's uh
writing on it was that things like gay
marriage for instance we kind of moved
past and it's not really as debated
anymore but abortion was never a settled
topic despite the Arc of History
constantly Moves In One Direction is be
lied by nearly all of the 20th century
what do we mean by that I mean I
mean barbarism communism Nazism all of
that was a regression from what was
happening at for example the beginning
of the 19th century in the 20th century
what in what way Nazism and communism
weren a regression from what was going
on in 1905 these are well in terms of
like communism being a regression for
instance I'm not a communist but but
like the industrialization of the Soviet
Union happened under communist Society
the industrialization murder of T of
millions of people that regression moral
regression which is what we are talking
about now moral regression and you're
you're suggesting that moral regression
I wouldn't term a return to Traditional
Values in moral regression you would but
your suggestion is that history only
Moves In One Direction and I'm
suggesting that history does not only
move in in One Direction it tends to
move actually back and forth sure I
don't think that all of history moves in
one uh One Direction there going to be
Wars there are going to be times of
peace I think in general more peaceful
now than we have been in the past but I
think when we look at the way that
people live their lives I think that we
tend to move in a certain direction
socially so when it comes to things like
racism or when it comes to things like
slavery or women's rights I think that
there are two huge things that probably
aren't changing in the US and one is
access to contraception and one is women
working jobs I think that these two
things are probably huge things that are
moving us off of shotgun marriages or
getting married very early on and I
don't see though do you think that those
two things are going to change
fundamentally first of all what the data
tend to show is that actually more
Highly Educated people as you were
saying tend to get married more so the
idea is that women getting an education
somehow throws them off marriage it's
the opposite usually wom are not
educated those women aren't getting
shotgun marriages those women aren't
having children now now you're Shifting
the topic my my topic was how to get
more people married and what I'm s and
and then you suggested that higher
levels of Education are delaying
marriage and making it less probable and
what I'm telling you because this is
what the data suggests is that actually
as you raise up the the educational
ladder people tend to be married more
than they are lower down on the
educational ladder if you're a high
school graduate you're less likely to be
married than if you're a postdoc I agree
with you but that's because one of the
biggest precursors to getting married is
having like a level of economic
stability so as people get more educated
they obtain this economic stability and
then they're in a more comfortable
position to explore more serious
relation there's another confound there
I mean the confound is that people in
stable marriages tend to be the children
of stable marriages and there's only one
way to break that cycle which is to
create a stable marriage and that is
something that is in everyone's hands
again this notion that it is somehow an
unbreakable unshadow barrier to get
married and have kids I don't understand
where this is coming from why is that
such a why is that such a challenge
chall I it's unbreakable or unshatter I
was just the initial point was for
school if we can provide a minimum level
of educational stuff for children that'
probably be good but when we Retreat
back to well it has to be the families
that are fixed first fixing families is
a multivariant problem that so many I am
fine within my local community we all
vote again I I've suggested there's a
difference between local community and
federal I'm fine with my local community
voting for school lunches or air
conditioning or whatever it is that we
all agree to do because the more local
you get the more homogeneity you get in
terms of interest and the more interest
you have in your neighbors all of that's
fine I'm part of a very very solid
community in our community we give to
each other we have minimum standards of
helping one another all that's wonderful
when it comes to the actual problem of
Education what I object to in the
political sphere and this happens all
the time is everybody is arguing on top
of the iceberg about how we can move the
needle .5 percentage points as opposed
to the entire Iceberg melting beneath
them and we just ignore that we pretend
that that's just you know sort of the
natural consequence of thing the Arc of
History suggests that people are never
going to get married again well I mean
actually what the Arc of History
suggests realistically speaking is that
the people who are not getting married
are not going to be having kids and what
it also suggests the people who are
married are going to be having kids and
so the demographic profile actually over
time is rather going to shift toward
people who are having lots and lots of
kids I'm married I have four kids
everyone in my community is married
that's like minimum buying in my
community is four kids okay and so
what's happening actually in terms of
demographics is that the people who are
more religious and getting married are
having more kids and so if you're
talking about the Arc of History
shifting toward Mar I I would suggest
that actually demographically over time
long periods of time not over one
generation over long periods of time the
only cure for low birth rate is going to
be the people who get married and have
lots of kids yeah I don't necessarily
disagree with any of that but I'm just
saying that again on the on yoursite
when I bring up the term marry around um
I think that there are good
conversations to be had about people
getting married um because stable
families produce stable children that
are less likely to commit crime that are
more likely to go to school that are
more likely to produced members of
society ET I'm not going to disagree
with you on any of that all of that is
true um it's just frustrating that
sometimes when you bring up any problem
all of it will Circle back to other
things that makes it seem like we can't
make any progress in any area without
like fixing I literally just told you
that on the local level I'm fine for
people voting for so for instance on the
local level so for school funding school
funding is done I think generally per
District so what do you do when you have
poor districts that can't afford air
conditioner for their schools I mean the
idea there would be that presumably if
the society me the state and I generally
don't mean the federal state I mean like
the state of California for example
decides that everybody ought to have air
conditioning people will vote for air
conditioning and that's perfectly legal
and I don't think there's anything
morally objectionable about that per se
I also don't think that that's going to
heal anything remotely like the central
problem and I think that what what what
tends to happen in terms of government
is people love arguing about the
problems that can be solved by opening a
wallet and nobody likes to solve a
problem by you know
closing their sex life to one person for
example
or having kids within a stable religious
community like the things that build
Society I'm fine with arguing about each
of these policies and and whether we
apply them or not is a matter generally
of pragmatism not morality it's a matter
of incentive structures not per se
morality because incentive structures do
have you know moral underpinings there
there's such a thing as you know for
example if you're going use a welfare
program you have to decide how effective
it is to what crowd it applies where the
cut offs are does it disincentivize work
does it not all of these are pragmatic
concerns but on a level the generalized
objection that I have to people on the
left side of the aisle is that they like
to FOC in these conversations very often
it feels as though it's a conversation
with with people who are drunk searching
under the the lamp for their keys the
problems they want to look at are the
problems that are solvable by government
and then all the problems they don't
want to look at which are the actual
giant monsters luring in the dark and
not particularly solvable by government
are the ones they want to ignore and
assume are just the natural state of
things and I don't think that's correct
at all and I 1 billion per agree but
then obviously my criticism for the
conservative side is the the exact
opposite where where there are Parts
where government could remedy some
issues um for instance you know uh
children having sex with each other and
producing other children out of wedlock
like sometimes having after school
programs is nice to prevent that like I
didn't have time for these things when I
was in school I was doing football
practice I was doing Cross Country
Practice I went in early for a band you
know um I agree with you that sometimes
people only focus on one end of the
problem as a I hate to be that guy um
but as somebody that have you ever
watched The Wire sure I'm not going to
site the wire's real life example but
like obviously there's only so much you
can do in a school When the Children
coming in are so Beyond destroyed
because of the family life and
everything prior to them even getting to
school that day so I agree government is
not like the solution to Broken families
that would never be the case and it's
actually not the solution to education
depending on the kind of solutions that
you're talking about some solutions yes
some solutions no yeah the only thing
I'm looking at is as I said earlier just
like these minimum threshold things
where it's like where can government
make because you mentioned marginal
which I think is a really good way to
look at things there marginal cost and
margin utility to things where the first
$1,000 per student you spend might give
you a huge return but the extra 20,000
after I think these are all pragmatic
discussions actually this is what we
used to hash out in legislatures before
they turned into platforms for people
Grand standing but yes sure okay yeah as
we descend from the heavens of
philosophical discussion of conservatism
and liberalism let's go to the pragmatic
muck of
politics Trump versus Biden between the
two of them who was in their first term
uh the better president and thus who
should win if the two of them are in
fact our choices should win a second
term in 2024
Ben sure so in terms of actual job
performance you have to separate it into
a few categories uh in terms of actual
performance in foreign policy I think
Trump's foreign policy record is
significantly better than Biden's the
world being on fire right now being
fairly good example of that uh and we
can get into each aspect of the world
being on fire and where the incentive
structures came from and how all of that
happen in a moment when it comes to the
economy I think that Trump's economic
record was better than Biden's doesn't
mean he didn't overspend he did he
wildly overspent uh but he also had a
very solid record of job creation a huge
percentage of the gains in the economy
went to people on the lower end of the
economic spectrum actually uh the gross
income to the average American was about
$6,000 during his term the unemployment
rates were very very low before covid
you I think that you almost have to
separate the Trump Administration into
sort of before covid and during covid
because Co obviously is sort of a Black
Swan event the the most signal change in
in politics In Our Lifetime uh and so
you know governance during Co is almost
its own category which we can discuss um
but you know in terms of foreign policy
in terms of domestic policy I think that
Trump was significantly better uh than
than Biden has been and that's on the
upside for Trump on the downside for
Biden obviously you're talking 40e highs
in inflation you're talking about
savings being eaten away you're talking
about everything being 20 to 30 30% more
expensive you're talking about massive
increases to the deficit even at a rate
that was unknown under Trump uh the
deficit under Trump raised by about a
little under a trillion dollarss every
year up until 2020 against 2020 was Co
year so everybody decided that we were
going to fire hose money at things um
but uh then Joe Biden continued to fire
hose money at things in 21 22 and 23 uh
you know that obviously is in my opinion
bad Economic Policy uh and then you get
to the rhetoric and you get to the stuff
that Donald Trump says and as I've said
before my view is that on Donald Trump's
half on his gravestone it will say
Donald Trump he said a lot of shit uh I
I think that Donald Trump does say a lot
of things I think that that is basically
baked into the cake which is why
everyone who's bewildered by the polls
is ignoring human nature which is at the
beginning when you see something very
shocking it's very shocking and then if
you see it over and over and over and
over for years on end it is no longer
shocking it is just part of the
background noise like tontis it just
becomes you know something that your
brain adjusts for uh and so do I like a
lot of Donald Trump's rhetoric no and I
never have do I think that that is just
positive as to his presidency no I do
not when it comes to Biden again I think
he's underperforming economically I
think that his foreign policy has been
really a a problem even the things I
think he's done right are I think
bandaids for things that he created by
doing wrong uh and when it comes to his
his own
rhetoric you can argue that it's grading
on a curve because Trump was coming in
with such wild rhetoric that just the
maintenance of that wild rhetoric
doesn't really change again the Baseline
for Biden he came in in the same way
that Obama did on the sort of soaring
rhetoric of American Unity I'm the
president for all like Trump came in
he's like listen I'm the president for
for what I am and you know I'm going to
say the things I want to say I'm going
be on the toilet and I'm tweeting we're
like okay you know what it is with Biden
he came in with I'm a president for all
Americans I'm trying to unify everybody
and that pretty quickly broke down into
a lot of oppositional language about his
political opponents in particular and
attempt to lump in for example huge
swaths of the conservative movement with
the people who participated for example
in January 6th or who are fans of
January 6th um and um you know the the
the sort of lumping in of everybody into
Maga Republicans who wasn't personally
signed on to an infrastructure bill with
him that sort of stuff I think has been
been truly terrible I thought his
Philadelphia speech was truly terrible
and again I think that you do have the
problem of he is no longer capable of
certainly rhetorically unifying the
country when every speech from him feels
like watching Nick Wenda walk across a
volcano on a tight RPP and it it really
is like you're just sort of waiting for
him to follow I mean it's it's sad to
say I mean the other day he was speaking
for what was in effect his campaign kick
off and this is in Valley Forge uh and I
mean Jill rushed up there like off the
off the as soon as he was done Jill
rushed up there uh you know like she'd
been shot out of a cannon to to come and
try to guide him away so he didn't
become the Shane Gillis Roomba and you
know that that's not really you know I
let's put it this way it does not quiet
the soul to watch Joe Biden rhetorically
again it's a different problem than
Trump's problem but that that's my
analysis uh this is one of the areas
where we get into this I don't
understand um if there's like brain
breaking happening or what's going on I
don't know what world we can ever live
in where we say that Trump is less div
divisive for the country than Biden I
think it is so patently obvious Trump is
so divisive like not only does Trump
make an enemy out of every person in the
opposition party he makes an enemy out
of his own party and every single person
around him like we all watched him bully
uh you know Jeff sessions we all watched
him bully his own party on Twitter we
all watched like all of these people
walk away from him um even recently I
think um his uh the Secretary of Defense
esper and um John Kelly the chief of
staff where you know saying I think
Trump is a threat to democracy um you
know you've got all of his prior people
that were around him some of his closest
allies you've got Bill bar that won't
co-sign a single thing that he says um
you've got all these people that he used
to work with that all say Trump is a
horrible evil person he is ineffective
as a leader he doesn't accomplish
anything and he didn't you know to say
that Biden has failed at bipartisanship
when you know we've gotten the chips act
we've gotten the IRA we've gotten the
ARP we've gotten the bipartisan
infrastructure bill when we've got like
all this major legislation that is
working in this historically divided
Congress as opposed to Trump that got
tax cuts and deficit spending um I I I
don't understand where we ever are in
this world where Biden is somehow more
divisive than Trump even the speeches
that Ben is bringing up I they always
bring up I remember that one um I think
we might have even done it on our
episode though the one speech that Biden
gave where at one point that like the
background is red and spee reference
yeah they're like oh my God it's over
this is the end and then meanwhile you
got Donald Trump you know coming into
office saying things like if you burn
the flag you should have your
citizenship revoked or talking about Ms
DNC that I'm going to investigate every
single one of these uh media
organizations for corruptness I'm gonna
open the liel and defamation laws I'm G
to take all of these guys to court um
you've got this weird project 2025 stuff
where um is it John pasel I think uh is
talking about uh you know we're going to
we're going to investigate all of these
people and we're going to try to throw
crimes at all these people uh Trump is
like the most divisive president I think
we've ever had in in at least in my
lifetime of being um an American citizen
and the rhetoric from him is just it's
on a whole other level in terms of the
demonization of political opponents I
mean this is a guy that's known for
giving his political opponents bad
nicknames right like that's what Trump
does um you know like it's funny but
even as a resident of Florida if Florida
had another natural disaster do you
think Trump would withhold Aid because
you had uh I think that was one of the
few nice things that Des Sanz actually
said about Biden was like Hey listen you
know when the buildings collapsed in I
think that Miami Beach yeah that um you
know for the hurricane stuff that Biden
was there he was saying if you guys need
Aid however many billions you can have
it meanwhile Trump I think was
threatening to withhold Federal funding
from Blue states that wouldn't um I
think it had to do with the National
Guard stuff the deployment of the
National Guard that they weren't like
doing enough for the riots and and uh
Trump was threatening to withhold aid
from some of these blue States um yeah
Trump is literally the most divisive
person in the world I don't see how on
any metric he is ever succeeding in the
divisive category in terms of the
economy I do think it's funny that
Republicans are very keen to say that
like well we can't really grade Trump
you know postco because obviously messed
everything up which is fair but preo
what did Trump do he did he did deficit
spending tax cuts he presided over
historic low interest rates and an
economy that was already like like
blazing past the final years of Obama we
were posting all-time highs in all the
stock markets from 2013 onwards um you
know unemployment rates were falling now
under Biden unemployment rates are even
lower than they were under Trump but uh
it it sucks that for Trump we can say
well we can't really hold him
accountable for 2020 that was Co well
all we have for Biden is postco we don't
have any pre-co Biden uh you know
economy and it was the same thing for
Obama too coming in right after the
housing collapse as well and it sucks
that Republicans are able to walk out of
office you know having burned the entire
American society to the ground
economically and now we've got to try to
evaluate okay well what did Obama do
during his first two to three to four
years just trying to recover from where
the housing crash left it and then we
look at Biden now who's trying to
recover from Co and now we're grading
him on on a totally different scale than
what Trump is being graded on yeah that
that sucks I think comment on the
foreign policy on the foreign policy I'm
going to be honest I am a um I am very
liberal I'm very not Progressive uh I'll
probably come off as more hawkish than
others uh because I'm not a big fan of
this which also if I mean if Ben agrees
like I think uh people like people like
Trump are going to be the most dovish
isolationist people ever they don't want
to do anything uh internationally they
just want to you know Protect America be
at home protect our economy don't do
anything uh internationally which is why
he was constantly undermining NATO uh
and constantly you know attacking all
the the European Union and you know
cheering on the UK for brexiting away
from the EU I think that being said um I
think that Biden has done a phenomenal
job uh when it comes to foreign policy I
think that the Coalition building was so
important for Ukraine Russia and I'm so
happy that he decided to go to our
European allies and our NATO allies and
try to build a coalition of people to
help Ukraine so that that wasn't only
the United States um personally
especially after doing a whole bunch of
research I do tend to side with Israel
over um Palestine in a lot of the
Israeli Palestinian conflicts I'm glad
that Biden while remaining a staunch
defender of Israel is trying to reign in
some of the more aggressive posturing
towards uh the Palestinians in the Gaza
Strip I'm I'm proud that Biden said Hey
listen we're going to delay some of
these attacks Hey listen we are going to
allow humanitarian Aid here Hey listen
we are going to try to uh you know not
kill as many Palestinian people down
there while still you know signaling
that he would be a St supporter of um of
Israel in in the conflict assuming the
civilian cas don't go too high um for
foreign policy I mean blemishes I mean
like the biggest one you can give to
Biden is Afghanistan and the poll out
there but man are we going to talk about
you know the uh Inspector General report
that says one of the biggest reasons why
the Afghanistan PLL out was so
disastrous was because of the Doha
Accords where Donald Trump headed talks
that didn't even include the Afghanistan
army uh I mean like these were disasters
like when when Biden took office we had
2500 troops left in Afghanistan like
what was the options even uh afforded to
Biden at that point um obviously you've
got the abandonment of the Kurds in
Northern Syria you know for the Turkish
armies to lay waste to um you talk about
Iran and North Korea although I'm not
sure where uh Ben would land on those
but yeah that's a broadly that's that's
a lot from both you want to pick pick us
something we disagree with here well I
mean there's a lot so I mean so I want
to ask a few questions on each one of
these so let's let's talk about
divisiveness for a second so there's no
one who can make the case that Donald
Trump is not divisive of course he's
incredibly
divisive it's a given M do you treat
Biden's rhetoric with the same level of
seriousness that you treat Trump's
rhetoric or I should probably put that
the other way around should we treat
Trump's rhetoric with the same level of
seriousness as Joe Biden or say Barack
Obama's rhetoric um I'm going to try to
be concise St broadly speaking
especially in studing Israel Palestine
and Ukraine Russia I try not to take
politicians at their word because
sometimes they just say stuff to say
stuff I understand that but broadly
speaking I'm going to look at the
rhetoric and the actions and I am going
to them the same so yes I would hold
Biden and Trump to the same right so my
feeling is and this is one area where
for clarification we're going to have a
division is that I of course don't treat
Trump's rhetoric in the same way that I
treat Biden's or Obama's he's utterly
uncalibrated he says whatever he wants
to at any given time and it doesn't even
match up with his policy very often can
I ask you like for our head of state our
chief executive shouldn't rhetoric be
arguably one of the most important
things that he does I mean the answer
would be yes and now I've been given a
choice between a person who I think in
calibrated ways says things that are
divisive and a person who in
uncalibrated ways says things that are
divisive and so the evidence that Joe
Biden is divisive is every poll taken
since essentially August of of 2021 he
he is by all available metrics
incredibly divisive a huge percentage of
Americans are deeply unhappy not only
with his performance but don't believe
he's a uniter they're that that's just
the reality and that may just be a
reflection I mean honestly we may be
putting too much on Trump or Biden
personally it may just be that the
American people themselves are
rhetorically divided because of social
media and social media can in fact be
assessible one thing that I would ask
you about that though is I agree
especially when you look at the
favorability but sometimes when I look
at these polls when you start to
disaggregate them by party I wonder if
it's actually is Biden historically
divisive or um I'm trying to think of a
really polite way to say this the people
that like Trump worship Trump I don't
know I like one of the most precient
things that Trump could have probably
ever said was that I could kill someone
on Fifth Street and nobody would
is itally divisive or is it that every
single Trump supporter will always say
that Trump is great and the reason I
would say that that Biden is in fact
historically divisive is because
Republicans felt much more strongly
about Barack Obama than Joe Biden
actually but they didn't feel as
strongly about Trump as they did about
like Romney or McCain right in in what
way I mean and that the allegiance to
Trump oh no there's certainly more
allegiance to Trump than it is to Romney
or McCain largely because Trump won in
2016 but beyond that the the point that
I'm making is that if you're looking at
the stats in terms of divisiveness
Republicans always find the Democratic
president divisive the question is where
the rest of the country is and right now
there are a lot of Democrats who either
don't agree with Biden or you know find
him divisive there are a lot of
Independents who find him divisive so
when you're when we're comparing these
things I don't think they're leagues
apart in terms of the divisive effects
of what they say right and I'm
separating that off from like the
inherent content of what they say
because obviously what Trump says is is
more divisive just on like the raw level
I mean if he's insulting people as
opposed to Joe Biden doing Maga
Republicans like if I were to just if I
an alien come down from space look at
these two statements I'd say this one's
more divisive than this one but then
there's the reality of being a human
being in the world and that is everyone
has baked Donald Trump into the cake and
Joe Biden again started off with a
patina of being non- divisive and now
has emerged as divisive I if you don't
mind I actually want to get to the the
foreign policy questions because this
one is actually slightly less
interesting to
me just one quick thing I guess like
because we can say the reality of it and
we can look at opinion polls what if we
look at like legislative accomplishments
like Biden is working on a 5050 divided
Senate Donald Trump had both house of
Congress and the Supreme Court and got
like no major legislation passed well I
mean he he he did lose Congress in 2018
but sure but prior to that because we
got the we got the infrastructure bill I
think in one year which Trump promised
for his entire presidency didn't get
anywhere on it I mean yes his his
Republican base was not in favor of mass
spending on infrastructure and neither
am I so that there's that I think that's
mostly a state and local they were in
favor of mass spending for tax guns
that's not a spending I mean we I mean
effectively it is right like effectively
it's not well if you're cutting receipts
but you're not changing the level of
spending like Biden did with the uh Ira
again we we have a fundamental
philosophical difference here I think
that when when the government takes my
money that is not that is not the
government somehow being more fiscally
responsible and when the government
allows me to keep my money I don't see
that as the government spending I see
that as my money and the government is
taking less of it that's great but at
the end of the day the government is
still going to be in a deficit spending
and they're going to have to borrow
money from the treasur right we have a
spending problem it's not a reeds
problem is the case that I'm making the
problem with with Donald Trump is not
that he lowered taxes the United States
has one of the most progressive tax
systems on the planet and in fact if you
wish to have a European style social
welfare state what you actually need is
to tax the middle class to death I mean
the reality is the top 20% of the
American population pays literally all
net taxes in the United States after
after state benefits and all of this so
if if you actually wanted to have the
kind of social welfare state that many
liberals seem to want to have like
northern Europe for example you'd
actually have to tax people who make
4050 $60,000 I I agree with that how do
you explain the lack of legislation I
mean if he's like such a uniter because
I think the Republican Party itself is
is quite divided and think that Trump
but isn't that his job he's the head of
the Republican Party he's the president
Republican president of the United
States I mean again I don't think that
Joe Biden has passed wildly historic
legislation was the largest like so here
here's the problem if you're a
republican the only bills that you can
get consensus on tend to be bills that
either that that let's be real about
this that are tax cuts because as you
would I think agree with when it comes
to polling data Americans constantly say
they want to cut the government and then
the minute you ask them which program
they have no idea what right exactly and
so trying to it's much harder to come up
with a bill to cut things than it is to
come up with a bill to add things coming
which is why spending was out of control
under under Trump as well but there are
some Republicans who still don't want to
spend on those things right so
inherently the the task that this goes
back to the first question the task that
Republicans think government is there to
do is different than the task that
Democrats think that government is there
to do so the way that the very metric of
success for a Democratic president
versus a Republican president namely for
example pieces of legislation passed as
a Republican one of my goals is to pass
nearly no legislation because I don't
actually want the government involved in
more areas of of our life I want to ask
a couple questions on the foreign policy
yeah okay wait real quick just so for
instance like Donald Trump wanted to
punish China and he wanted to bring uh
microprocessor manufacturer the United
States uh Biden did that with
legislation with a chips act uh you talk
about like spending being out of control
and I I mean I can agree with that I
think anybody looks at the numbers has
to agree with that but why not pass
legislation like the inflation reduction
act um which is at least like spending
neutral right like why are there not
bills where Donald Trump could take I
mean first of all I think that whenever
the government says something is
spending neutral it rarely materializes
that way that is not going to be a
spending neutral bill but there's a
difference between like at least they
say it's spending neutral versus this is
a $500 billion do Bill over like 10
years I well but again I don't see a tax
cut as a matter of cor on spending
neutrality the big problem is they keep
spending not that they are allowing me
to keep the money that I earned and they
did not earn but okay so then just to
understand so if somebody just did
massive like reductions in tax receipts
so tax cut after tax cut after tax cut
but they didn't change spending at all
you wouldn't consider that like an
increase in deficit spending or out of
control spending you would just say
they're just tax cuts no the opposite I
I would consider it a wild I I would
consider it a wild overspending okay
meaning so then was it under Trump then
when he did the tax I mean theend by the
way under under Biden is way worse than
it was under of course but we're in
postco right Co ended effectively I mean
you live in Florida Co effectively ended
in the State of Florida by the middle of
2021 I if you're a vacc fan by like
April May of 2021 there was wide
availability of vaccines whether or not
you like the vaccines and at that point
we were done I agree but like we're in a
post like how many trillions of dollars
have been dumped in worldwide that are
like leading to inflation right the
inflation is like a worldwide issue
right now because of the economy
shutting down for a year or two it's not
like those effects are gone in one year
right Co might be gone but the after
effects of all the stimulus spending and
the unemployment everything definition
of inflation is too much money chasing
too few goods so pouring more money on
top of that makes for more inflation
that's what it does sure I agree um but
like there's also the definition of when
do you deficit spend is when economies
are headed for recessions right rather
than when economies are doing really
well like they were under Trump and he
was deficit spend whereas Biden can at
least make the argument that I should I
ought to be deficit spending because the
economy is heading for potential
recession so here's the thing I don't
think that the economy was actually
headed for recession in in fact if you
look at the economics Economist said
they it was Economist they're still
saying that there's like a recession
coming right right but that that was
largely because the after effects of
inflation meaning if you inflate the
economy what you are going to end up
doing is bursting a bubble and then when
that bubble bursts you'll get a
recession I mean that was the basic idea
right the idea the question was whether
you're going to get the soft Landing but
if you actually look at for example the
employment statistics or the economic
growth statistics in the unit States
what they look like under the last
year's Obama and then Trump I mean this
is what the chart looks like is it looks
like this and then it hits March of 2020
it goes like that right and then by like
September it bounces back up right it's
a v-shaped recovery and then it starts
to Peter out sure a lot because of the
American Recovery plan right that Biden
did as well I mean four million jobs
yeah no I don't I'm not going to
attribute it to that because this the
rates of growth in in job growth from
September October November were actually
very similar to the rates of job growth
after Joe Biden took office what you see
is actually kind of a straight line I me
looks like in any case Okay so on the
foreign policy stuff this is getting
obrus but on the foreign policy stuff um
so the the questions that I have with
regard to to Biden on foreign policy uh
very very simple question do you think
that the situation in the Middle East is
better now than it was under Donald
Trump
probably um that's a hard one the factor
that right now are like obviously you've
got the Israel Palestinian War that's
going on right now which is kind of bad
but like broadly speaking I'm not sure
how much that affects the Middle East as
much as like the collapse of Syria 2013
Syrian Civil War sent millions of
immigrants throughout all of Europe
which was under um which was under Obama
and continued under Trump trump didn't
do anything to alleviate any of the
Syrian Civil War um in ter why did Syria
end up as a Preserve of Russia again how
did Syria end up as a Preserve of Russia
yes why did it end up being essentially
cin state of Russia um I know that Putin
enjoys access to the ports down there um
I don't know you I mean the reason is
because Barack Obama suggested that
there was a red line that would be drawn
in the face of chemical weapons used
Bashar Assad then used chemical weapons
in Syria and Barack Obama was UN
unwilling to then essentially create
consequences for Syria in the form of
any sort of Western strike and so
instead he outsourced it to Russia this
is 2013 2014 sure think there might have
been some hesitancy after like seeing
how Libya ended up that maybe us like
intervening pres during Libya
yeah I mean sure but what does that have
to do anything though I'm just saying
there might have been like a mistake
learn Point making is that actually the
Middle East I mean just historically
speaking was historically good under
Donald Trump I mean it's very difficult
to make the case that either before or
after Trump were better than during
Donald Trump the Syrian I don't think
that that Trump contributed to the
Syrian situation improving much um I
think he Isis which was in the I mean
Isis had been getting wrecked by the
Kurds in Iraq by every single person by
Assad's Army by Putin by tur literally
everybody was fighting against Isis at
that point there was a spike in violence
and then the the Trump I mean you get
credit for when you're president
presumably I mean things got better with
Isis under Trump I mean yeah they did I
mean things got worse with Isis under
Obama for sure he called them the JB
Squad sure and then they became not the
JV Squad yeah but I don't know if Isis
is originating in Syria um and uh
baghdaddy and all of the growth of that
is necessarily Obama's fault I know that
we like to say that Obama created Isis I
don't know if you say that but I've
heard that saying a lot I think that's a
little a little bit simplistic um I I
don't think that when I'm looking at
like actions that presidents have taken
the the big the biggest criticism I have
for like Middle Eastern policy is I
think the Doha Accords were a disaster
and I think that's like one of the
biggest blemishes that we have right now
I would also argue that moving the um
Embassy to Jerusalem was also kind of
silly um and arguably contributed to
some of the conflict we see right now is
I'll argue precisely the opposite
especially given the fact that after the
movement of the embassy to Jerusalem the
Abraham Accords continued to sign and
actually expand and that if Donald Trump
had been elected I have no doubt in my
mind that Saudi Arabia would now be a
part of the Abraham Accords in fact that
was basically pre-negotiated and then
when Joe Biden took office Joe Biden
took a very anti-saudi stand on a wide
variety of issues the the biggest single
effect in the Middle East of Joe Biden's
presidency and again I agree with you
that not every foreign policy issue can
be laid at the hands of a President Joe
Biden's main approach to the Middle East
was very similar to the Obama approach
which is why the Middle East was chaotic
under Obama and chaotic under Biden and
that was to alienate allies like Saudi
Arabia and Israel and and instead to try
to make common cause or cut deals with
Iran what that did is incentivize
terrorism from Iran what we're watching
in the Middle East is Iran attempting to
use every one of its Terror proxies in
the Middle East and it was specifically
launched in an attempt to avoid what
Biden actually was trying to do which
was good which was after two years of
failure with Saudi Arabia triy to bring
them into the Abraham Accords right that
was what was burgeoning at the end of La
at the end of last year and Iran saw
that and Iran decided that they were
going to throw a grenade into the middle
of those negotiations by essentially
activating Hamas Hamas activates Hamas
commits October 7th Israel as a
sovereign nation state has to respond to
the murder of 1200 of its citizens and
the taken kidnapping of of 240 Israel
has to do that not only to go after its
own hostages and try to restore them but
also to reestablish military deterrence
in the most violent region of the world
kah gets active on Israel's northern
border kah's and Iranian proxy they get
active on the northern border the the
hudis in Yemen get active these are all
the only reason all this is happening at
the same time is because Iran is doing
this right not just that they're they
are threatening global shpp if you're
talking about the effects of global
supply lines which I totally agree had a
major inflationary effect on the economy
thanks to right now the cost of shipping
is nearly double what it was just a few
weeks ago and that is because a rag tag
group of hthi Barbarians are attacking
international shipping and forcing
everybody to stop using the Babel M
Freight instead going around the Cape of
Good Hope in in Africa all of that is
the result of the fact that Joe Biden
reoriented the United States in the very
early days in favor of a more
pro-iranian stance he appointed Robert
Maly to negotiate the Iran deal who as
it turns out was using proxies many of
his AIDS were actually taking money from
Iran the the the Biden Administration
literally one of their first acts was to
delist the hoodies as a terror
organization and end sanctions against
the hoodies these are all moves that
that Biden made very early on they were
disastrous moves but when it comes to
domestic policy I think he hasn't been
nearly as dam domestic policy on foreign
sure sure so just on a couple of Middle
Eastern things so one of the big things
that threw the Middle East into disaster
was we are all traumatized by it now was
the Iraq evasion CH or Republican
president sure agree that right the the
deposition of Saddam Hussein and
everything that followed after probably
contributed more to the growth of Isis
and the desil of that entire region
probably more than anything else I think
that under prior to Bush um for Clinton
and even at the beginning of Bush's
presidency we were on some kind of road
to normaly um with Iran which I think
has to happen whether we like them or
not um until Bush for whatever reason
decides to throw Iran into the aess of
evil and need that we on a road to
normaly with Iran in the 1990s do in the
wait what that we on a road to normaly
with Iran in the 1990s my understanding
is that yeah from the late 90s and prior
to the aess of evil uh labeling of Iran
that there was going to be some path
forward to where we could start to
normalize relationships with them I I I
find that very difficult to believe and
I don't see a lot of evidence I mean we
can just disagree on that sure we can
disagree on that but I know that the
after effect just quick note the after
effect of the Iraq war that was the most
devastating was the increase in power of
Iran I agree yeah because of the
destabilization of Iraq and Iraq not
having a uh a government there that was
functional for at least a decade and was
inni government right originally it was
Sunni government disbanding the the
Sunni Army was one of the worst things
that the bush administ all the
former yeah all horrible under
Republican president um Bute that the uh
yeah that that probably contributed more
to Isis uh to the growth of power in
Iran maybe even to the decivilization of
Syria probably more than anything that
Obama did um also the uh when we look at
Iran funding people in the region I
don't disagree with that as well I think
Iran is the number one instigator of bad
guy things right now in the Middle East
Iran um the irgc I reported When Donald
Trump killed simman I think that was a
great thing um I I think that Iran is a
major problem however I don't know if
the path forward is constantly being a
belligerent to Iran or trying to figure
out some road to normaly I don't know if
the collapse of Iran um or the
destruction of that country considering
how unpopular the a even is there like
the citizens of Iran I don't think are
big supporters of the government there
um I I feel like moving on a path where
you know let's do our nuclear
inspections we had that um Iranian
nuclear deal that Trump pulled out of
let's do the nuclear inspections make
sure you're not on a way to nuclear
weapons let's unfree some funds let's
move in some Direction Where We Get on a
good term with you I feel like that's
the most important thing that needs to
happen in the Middle East as much as
people like to look at the Abraham
Accords who cares if what what was it uh
Bahrain I think Oman um I think the UAE
and Morocco yeah AR like all of these
people even Saudi Arabia already have
like de facto normalization with Israel
anyway they're all trading this I mean
to to pretend that that anybody even 15
years ago would have been talking about
normalization between Saudi Arabia and
Israel is insane they already they were
already on that path they had already
been tra they were already de facto
trading partners with each other that
that they had already been collaborating
and do that's a wild claim that that
Israel and Saudi Arabia were going to
normalize 15 years ago 15 years ago
might have been a wild claim but after
Turkey um after Jordan and then in the
past like 20 years of like economic
relations and ties with each other all
of the leadership in the Middle East and
you'll agree with this look at Israel
and they go okay well we got
Palestinians who you know God bless them
do nothing and then you've got Israel
which is on a on a region with no
natural resources to somehow become like
an economic giant they're good to trade
with their population is educated they
you know have military power um all of
the leadership in these Middle Eastern
countries are wanting to be friendly
with Israel and are engaging in trade de
facto with Israel and the idea that like
the UAE and Bain were brought in to say
like oh well now we're going to
officially say this I I I just those are
the first steps toward obviously the
formation of a new Middle East in which
economics would predominate over
sectarian conflict the chief obstacle to
that is Iran
that that negotiations with the
Ayatollah were going to be a solution to
any of this is absolutely are the is it
the Abraham Accords that's convincing
Saudi Arabia to take a stance against
Iran no I mean sa they're already figh
yeah they're already fighting with each
other right like I don't think the ab
Accords moved us any closer towards any
type of real peace in the has to happen
is something has to happen with Iran
there has to be some diplomatic
bilateral communication there no what
has to happen is the containment of Iran
which was what was in which was what was
taking place with the increased
normalization
with the Sunni Arab world and Israel
combined with significant economic
sanctions the notion that that there's
this far-fetched notion in in foreign
policy circles that diplomacy can sort
of be wish cast out of thin air that if
you sit around a table that you can
always come to an agreement with
somebody the IAS do not have common
interests with the United States they do
not and this idea that they are willing
to take money in exchange for for
example some sort of PE peaceful
acquiescence to Israel's existence is
obviously
untrue hasn't that been the case though
that you've had a region with tons of
sectarian violence for a long time and
then finally turkey was like you know
what this isn't worth it the United
States paid him a lot of money they had
conversations with Israel you know what
the the economy the economic gains same
with Jordan same thing with Turkish
politics but the but but the the
situation with turkey was actually quite
warm between Israel and Turkey in the
90s when you had the the you know sort
of secular Muslim
regime Turk in place and and now erdogan
is has joined in the frey and erdogan is
significantly more radical than I'm so
sorry um if I said turkey I'm in Egypt
my bad yeahp right yeah so like in terms
of like Egypt and Jordan right were the
first two you need so you here's the
thing you need is it possible that you
could theoretically come to a deal with
Iran only with a new leadership crew
okay this is true for every peace
agreement in the region you you could
not Israel could not have made peace
with well they made peace with Egypt and
and Sadat was the leader for Yom kapor
right he did not make peace with Naser
right the point is that this is a
different regime you need a different
regime this I'm the same regime that did
the part of the Yum kapor war was the
same regime that negotiated peace with
Israel I mean that's true it is also
true that that is a relationship that
could be cultivated specifically because
it was sadad who made clear he was going
to come to the table have the Iranians
ever made clear that they would come to
the table over for example the existence
of the state of Israel uh no that is not
a thing that's going to happen but I
think people every every single one of
their proxy every one of them not only
calls for the destruction of the state
of Israel they also call for the
destruction of America I mean this is
literally the houie slogan they're busy
hitting ships and their slogan is
literally ALU Akbar death to America
death to the Jews death to Israel it
doesn't fit on a bumper sticker but that
and it's not all that catchy but that is
in fact their slogan the notion that the
regime that propagates that is going to
be approached with diplomacy is not only
wrong the problem is that we it's easy
to say the stakes of diplomacy are are
okay so we try to talk right jaw jaw is
better than war war
sure the only problem is that in the
Middle East weakness is taken as a sign
that aggression might be an appropriate
response that is how things work in the
Middle East and the fact that Barack
that that Joe Biden rather came into
office with an orientation toward
continuing the Biden the Obama policies
in Iran has led to conflagrations these
sort of brush fires breaking out
everywhere that Iran has borders with
either the west or Israel or both right
any place that's happening it's leading
to brushfires because again the logic of
violence in the Middle East is not quite
the logic of violence in other places in
the world by the way I think the logic
of violence in the midle East is
actually closer to what most
International politics looks like than
we than we wish that it were I mean I
think that's part of what's happening in
Ukraine as well which brings me by the
way here's my question about Ukraine
just real quick you so you think that
for Iran right a country that has been
sanctioned for God knows how many years
now you think that for Iran just
continuing to sanction them and contain
them is an effective way is more
effective than trying to engage them in
bilateral multilateral peace talks yes
100% And the proof is in the pudding
before we go to Ukraine can I ask about
Israel so you're both mostly in
agreement but what is I don't know i'
say that okay but as I'm learning uh
what is Israel doing right what is
Israel doing wrong in this very specific
current war in
Gaza um I mean frankly I think that what
Israel is doing wrong is if I were
Israel okay like again America's
interests are not coincident with
Israel's interests if if if I were an
Israeli leader I would have swiveled up
and I would have knocked the leap out of
hisbah early what does that what does
that mean so I I would have I would yov
Galant who's the defense minister of
Israel was encouraging netanyahu's the
Prime Minister and the war cabinet
including Benny Gan so whenever people
talk about the Netanyahu government
that's not what's in place right now
there's a Unity War government in place
that includes the political opposition
the reason I point that out is because
there are a lot of people politically
who will suggest that the actions Israel
is currently taking are somehow the
manifestation of a right-wing government
Israel currently does not have a
quotequote rightwing government they
have Unity government that includes the
opposition in any case y Galant was
urging in the very early days of the war
that Israel should turn north and
instead of hitting Hamas they should
actually take the opportunity to knock
hisbah out because hisbah is
significantly more dangerous to the
existence of the state of Israel than
Kamas I actually agree with that uh as
far as what Israel has been doing wrong
in the actual War I mean I think
that again from an American perspective
I think that Israel is is doing pretty
well from an Israeli perspective V
Israeli I would actually want Israel to
be
less loose about sending its soldiers in
on the ground level so Israel's
attempting to minimize civilian
casualties and the cost of that has been
the highest military death toll that
Israel has had since the 1973 yum kipur
War I mean I personally know through one
degree of separation three separate
people have been killed in Gaza and
that's because they're going in door
Todo it's because they're they're
attempting to minimize civilian
casualties and they're losing a lot of
guys in in this particular in this
particular War um you know the the the
problem that Israel has had historically
speaking is that Israel got very
complacent about its own security
situation they believed the technology
was going to somehow correct for the
hatred on the other side of the wall
that very okay so our people have to
live underground for two weeks at a time
while some Rockets fall but at least
it's not a war and that complacence you
know bred what happened on October 7th
so to to me what Israel did wrong was
years and years and years of complacence
and belief in an Osa system that is at
root a failure because you cannot make a
peace agreement with people who do not
want make peace with you so that that
that's what I think Israel is doing
wrong I I have a feeling there's going
to be wide Divergence on this point um
maybe uh so uh in terms of broadly
speaking um I generally oppose
settlement expansion is a thing that
Israel does incorrectly that I think is
kind of like provocative to at least all
the Palestinians uh in the West Bank and
I probably energizes hatred in the Gaza
STP for them as well in terms of
conducting uh in terms of conducting
Warfare uh the one thing that I always
say to everybody uh especially Americans
is you can't evaluate things from an
American perspective it's very stupid
happened a lot with Ukraine where people
like oh well didn't they work with the
Nazis and like weren the Soviets the
good guys and it's like well in in other
parts of the world it's not quite as
simple um and I think the same is true
for Israel Palestine that a lot of
Americans will analyze the conflict is
just being one between only Israel and
Palestine which is not it's a conf
between Israel and then Palestine
Hezbollah the houthis and Iran right now
it is um I think that the however one
area where I'll break with Ben is is I
think that minimizing civilian
casualties and everything is very very
very important I think on the Israeli
side I don't think it's important so
that the US will stay with them because
I think the US is probably going to
stick with Israel as long as they don't
do anything crazy and I don't even think
it matters for the International
Community it doesn't definitely doesn't
matter for the UN because Jesus Christ
um however I think it's really really
really important that I think that in
the Middle East broadly speaking I think
that leadership especially in the Gulf
has gotten over the Palestinian uh issue
I think that leadership is kind of like
they don't care as much anymore but the
populations still care quite a bit and I
think that the main issue that Israel
could run into is if the civilian death
to does climb too high and if they start
to hit this you know 40 50 60,000 number
of Civilian casualties they run the risk
of the civilian populations and the
surrounding middle eastern states
becoming so antagonistic towards Israel
that they start to take steps back
towards normalization in the region so
for instance I know that um Bahrain I
think already pulled out their
Ambassador um to Israel my guess is
going to be it's temporary um I know
that on the um on the public speaking
side you've got a lot of people
condemning Israel for the attacks and on
the private side you've got people
telling Israel please kill all of Hamas
because this is untenable and nobody
wants to work in the situation um I
don't know if this ended up being true
or not I'm guessing it didn't but I saw
on a couple of Twitter accounts it was
leaked that potentially Saudi Arabia was
considering installing a government in
the West Bank that they would run um no
I mean I I think Israel would love
nothing better than that but that is not
one of the big problems in the Middle
East is literally no wants to preside
over the Palestinians no one Arab states
Israel no one so I think the issue is
and I think and I'm largely actually I'm
very sympathetic towards the
Palestinians because I think that for um
since 48 and onwards I think that all of
the Arab states super gassed them up on
that they wanted the Palestinians to
fight because they wanted to fight with
Israel um however as time has gone on
and they realized that the it's kind of
a lost cause states have started to drop
out so you're getting these bilateral uh
peace treaties with um Egypt and with
Jordan you're getting multilateral
agreements like the Abraham Accords and
now the Palestinians are looking around
and like okay well you guys told us to
fight all this time and now the only
people that we have supporting us are
Iranian proxies um so the Palestinians
are in a very weird spot where they've
like lost all their support um yeah I
think that I think that Israel what I
would say to be quote unquote critical
of Israel is Israel needs to take strong
steps towards peace that probably
involves them enduring some undue
hardship so not the October 7th attacks
because Jesus that's way too much but
you know other types of you know attacks
that they might have to deal with that
might cause some civilians to die that
they don't come out over the top with
and and retaliate with if there's ever
going to be peace in that region however
another thing that I've always said is a
huge problem between Israel and
Palestine is I think that both sides
think that if they continue to fight it
will be good for them but the problem is
one side is delusional uh Israel I think
Israel wants to continue to fight
because they get justifications for uh
the annexation of the Goan Heights they
get justifications for expansions
especially in area sea that I that think
they're probably going to try to Annex
soon uh they get justifications for the
increased military posturing uh towards
the Gaza Strip and the embargos and
Israel is right that if the conflict
continues really the situation only
improves for Israel Over time but the
Palestinians also all believe that if
they keep fighting they thought this
since 2000 under Arafat that if they
just keep fighting they'll get better
gains too but that's not the case is
there a difference between Palestinian
citizens and the leadership when you say
that I love all people I love all people
around the world and I think that when
we analyze issues I think that we have
to be very honest with what the people
on the ground think and the idea that
Hamas is just this one-off thing in the
Gaza Strip is not only incorrect with
the situation on the ground it's also
incredibly ahistorical um and the idea
that like the Palestinians and the West
Bank of which I believe the most recent
polling shows I want to say 75 to 80%
support the October 7th attacks um
Palestinians in general want to fight in
violent conflict with Israel that's not
just the position of the government
that's not just people there's a reason
why a boss doesn't want to do uh
elections in the West Bank
uh and it's because the Palestinian
people really do want to fight with
Israel but to combat that problem is
like you have to get the UN on board
we've got to do an actual addressing of
the Palestinian refugee problem which is
handled like a joke right now um Iran
has to be brought to the table in terms
of negotiations uh there has to be huge
efforts made to economically Revitalize
these like Palestinian areas even though
they're one of the highest recipients of
Aid in the world um you you have to do
something about the Embargo and the
blockade and the Gaza Strip which isn't
just maintained by Israel it's also
maintained by Egypt you should ask why
um yeah there's a lot of things that
have to happen to fix that problem but
the reality is is I don't think Israel
really wants to because they get to
continue their expansion into the West
Bank and I don't think anybody around
the world really cares that much a month
we won't be talking I will argue with
that the idea that Israel does not want
to end the conflict is be lied by the
history of what just happened with the
Gaza Strip so when we talk about
settlements for example Israel did have
settlements inside the Gaza Strip there
were 8,000 Jews who were living inside
the Gaza Strip in gush kaiv uh up until
2005 they they they withdrew all of
those people I mean took them literally
out of their homes uh and the result was
not the burgeoning of a of a better
attitude toward the state of Israel with
regard to for example you know the the
Palestinian population in Gaza in fact
it was more radical in Gaza than it was
in the West Bank uh the the the result
was obviously the election of Kamas the
the October 7th attacks in which
unfortunately many civilians took place
took part in the October 7th attacks
there's video of people rushing who are
civilians and dressed in civilian
clothing into Israeli Villages always
the same thing well no no that that is
100% true obviously uh and when it comes
to you know area C and Israel's you know
supposed deep and abiding desire for
territorial expansion in area C area C
so for for those who are not familiar
with the oso cords and again this is
getting very abstruse but the oso cords
are broken down into three areas of the
West Bank area a is under full
Palestinian control that' be like Janine
and Nablus the the major cities for
example there's area B which is mixed
Israeli Palestinian control where Israel
provides some level of military security
and control uh and then there's area C
and area was like to be decided later it
was left up for possible concessions to
the Palestinian Authority if the oo
cords had moved forward those are
disputed territories there is building
taking place in areas by both actually
no one talks about this but by by
Palestinians as well as Israelis uh and
the the you know question as to whether
if Israel stopped building there have
been many settlement freees in the past
including some undertaken by Netanyahu
and and it actually has not done one
iota of good in moving the ball forward
in terms of actual negot NE iations
again the the biggest problem is that
the leadership for Palestinians has
spent every day since really 67 it's not
even 48 because after 40 between 48 and
67 Jordan was in charge of the West Bank
and Egypt was in charge of the Gaza
Strip and at no point did either of
those Powers say hey maybe we ought to
hand this over to an independent
Palestinian state which was originally
the division that was that was promoted
by the UN partition plan in
47 because of that uh the the leadership
post 67 and really starting in ' 64 the
Palestine Liberation Organization was
founded in 64 and it called for the
liberation of the land in ' 64 they had
the West Bank and they had the Gaza
Strip so they're talking about t uh when
it was founded in in ' 64 the basic idea
as you know kind of indicated by that
was Israel will not exist and that was a
promise that's been made by pretty much
every Palestinian leader in Arabic to
the people that they are talking to
yasat famously would do this sort of
thing he'd speak in English and talk
about how he wanted a two-state solution
and then he'd go back to his own people
and say this is a trojan horse and we're
if Israel could if you think that
Israeli parents want to send their kids
at the age of 18 to go and monitor
Janine and Nablus and be in inun you're
out of your mind you're out of your mind
Israelis do not want that in fact
Israelis didn't want that so much that
they allowed Rockets to fall in their
cities for full on 18 years in order to
avoid sending soldiers on mass back into
the Gaza Strip true but I think Israel
does want to continue to expand
settlements into the West Bank right
they want to continue to build they want
to have all Jerusalem East Jerusalem as
well well I mean East Jerusalem has
already been annexed so East Jerusalem
is according to Israel a part of Israel
that's not a settlement okay so there
there's that with regard to you know
does Israel have an interest in
expanding settlements in the w why would
they not until there's a peace partner
sure that's what I mean but I'm saying
as long as the conflict continues like
because even when you talk about no but
your suggestion is that they're
incentivizing the conflict to continue
so they can grab more land well no let
me be very clear I don't think there's
like a PL like so some people say for
instance uh they'll take that one quote
from Netanyahu and they'll try to say
that like he was funding the people in
the Gaza STP by allowing Qatari money to
come in even though he was actually
speaking in opposition to aboss allowing
the Gus strip to fall for Netanyahu to
clear it out for him and they give it
back etc etc I'm not saying I'm not
claiming those theories I'm just saying
that I think that Israel will take a
relatively neutral stance towards
conflict in enduring because as long as
the conflict endures and as long as the
uh settlements can expand I think that
benefits I think that ultimately
benefits Israel they I think there would
be very let's put this way if suddenly
there arose among the Palestinians a
deep and abiding desire for peace
approved by a vast majority of the
population with serious security
guarantees I think you'd be very
hardpressed to find Israelis who would
not be willing to at least consider that
in for not expanding bathrooms in a I
kind of I would have agreed with you on
October 6 I think we're probably a year
or two away from that right now no no
but no the point I'm making is that
Israelis now realized that the entire
peace process was a sham meaning the
people who are on the other side of the
table were using it as a trojan horse in
the first place the the death of Oslo is
not the death of Israeli hopefulness
it's the death of the illusion that on
the other side of the table was anyone
worth bargaining with that's what's
happening and that's why you have this
sort of insane disconnect right now
between the United States and the
Israeli government again it's a Unity
government no one in Israel is talking
about making concessions to the
Palestinian Authority for a wide variety
of reasons including the fact that
Mahmud abas fatak continues to pay
actual families of terrorists who kill
Jews the fund yeah right and and which
is from the the moderate West Bank right
exactly that's that so you again like
the taste in Israel for this is a even
the people who the kilon right those are
the most secular people in Israel which
was by the way the place that was
attacked on October 7th I mean what
people should understand is that October
7th was not an attack against
settlements in the West it was an attack
on peace Villages that were essentially
disarmed and many of these people who
were killed were peace activists who
were literally trying to work with
people in Gaza to get them J I mean it's
just it's it's mindboggling that's why
you've had this ground shift in Israel
the next 20 years in Israel is going to
be about security and economic
development period end of story
everything else goes second third place
and I will say I agree essentially with
everything you're saying um not to loop
back on another topic but this is one of
the reasons then why I was so critical I
don't want to say critical but like kind
of nonchalant about the Abraham Accords
because they didn't address anything
with the Palestinians whatsoever they
brought in countries that weren't super
relevant to the conflict they didn't
bring in Qatar which is where a lot of
the money and support for the god con
they didn't involve Iran at all they
involved bilateral no but totally
changed the mentality and this is why
what I'm seeing right now this is why
listen I think that that Biden has done
better than I certainly expected him to
do in terms of support for Israel like
Obama was way less supportive of Israel
than Biden by every metric with that
said the rhetoric that he's been using
recently and the blankin have been using
recently about Israel needs to make
painful concessions for peace Israel
reentering this issue at the center of
relations in the Middle East East is
doomed to failure the magic magic is a
strong word the the benefit of the
Abraham Accords was proof of what you're
saying which is true which is that all
the surrounding countries in reality
have abandoned the idea that there's a
centrality to the Palestinian Israeli
conflict that is not the central
conflict in the Middle East and by the
way one of the reasons it's not the
central conflict in the Middle East is
because actually ironically because of
the rise of Iran right it's it's Sunni
states that are largely signing up with
Israel because they're realizing they
need some sort of counterweight to a a
burgeoning nuclear power
run can we talk about Ukraine sure you
have a disagreement with you uh with
with what uh Destiny said my my main
problem with Biden's policy with regard
to Ukraine is that he outsourced the end
goal of the war to zinski early on now
that might make sense if that goal were
something that he was willing to fund to
the point of achievement uh or if zinsky
could have achieved it on his own but
right now and this has been true since
pretty early on the war Point Henry kiss
gerid uh this that that pretty early on
in the war it was very clear that for
example Crimea was going nowhere the
Russians had control of crimeia barring
the United States giving permission to
fly f-16s over Crimea nothing was going
to change over there the same thing was
true in most of the donbass right in
luhansk and DK that that was not going
to change zinsky stated goal and you
understand it he's the leader of Ukraine
right is is that there was a predation
on his territory in 2014 and that the
Russians sent their little green men
across the border and then they took all
of these areas and so he is leader of
Ukraine is saying okay I want all of
that back now the reality is that the
US's interest had largely been achieved
in the first few months of the war
meaning the revocation of the ability of
Russia to take Ukraine and just ingest
it and two the devastation of of
Russia's military capability I mean
Russia has just been wrecked I mean the
military is in serious Straits because
of the war in Ukraine from an American
perspective I'm very much Pro all of
that I think that we have an interest in
Ukraine maintaining a buffer status
against territorially aggressive Russia
I think that the United States does have
an interest in degrading the Russian
military to the extent that it can't
threaten the Baltic states or threaten
Kazakhstan or other countries in the
region the problem I have with Biden's
strategy is as always I think that it's
a muddle and I think muddles tend to end
with misperceptions war tends to break
out and maintain because of
misperception misperception of the other
side's strength the other side's
intentions and and all of the rest
people misperceive what's going to
happen they say I'll cross that line and
nothing will happen right this is what
Putin thought he thought I'll cross that
line they'll greet me as a Liberator and
because the United States just
surrendered in Afghanistan essentially
they won't do anything and the West is
fragmenting because NATO's fragmenting
and all the rest of this and obviously
he was wrong on on all of those scores
the problem for for Biden is that as
with virtually every war no end line was
set and so it became out recently it was
widely reported that actually there was
a peace deal that was on the table in
the first few months that Putin was on
board with uh that basically would have
seeded luhansk and denet and Crimea to
Russia in return for solidification of
those lines
American and Western Security guarantees
to Ukraine right Ukraine wouldn't
formally join NATO but there would be
security guarantees to Ukraine we're
ending up there anyway it's just taking
a lot more money and a lot more time to
get there and do you think Trump would
have helped push that piece yes and I
think and I think that Biden actually
did zeny a bit of a disservice because
zinsky knows where this war is going to
end and it's not going to end with
lanskin denes and Crimea in Ukrainian
hands it's just not going to and he
knows that what actually in my opinion
zilinski needed was for Joe Biden to be
the person who foed that deal upon him
so that he could then go back to his own
people and say listen guys I wanted all
those things but the Americans weren't
willing to allow me to have all those
things and so we did an amazing job we
did a heroic job in defending our own
land we devastated the Russian military
even though no one expected us to but we
can't get back those things because it's
unrealistic to get back those things
because America basically they're big
funer and they're the ones who want the
deal instead what Biden said and this
was reported in the Washington Post last
year the Biden Administration said we're
going to fight for as long as it takes
with as much as it takes takes and when
they were asked until when they said
whatever zinski says and that's not a
policy that's just a recipe for a frozen
conflict with endless funding now it may
be that Putin's walked away from the
table and that deal is no longer
available if that deal is is available
right now I certainly hope that's being
pursued behind closed doors my main
critique again of Biden is that when you
Outsource the end goal to another
country without stating what America's
interest is that's a problem I also
think that Biden did really quite poor
job of sort of explaining what America's
realistic interests are I I I don't like
it when American leaders um it's weird
for me to say this but I'm not a huge
fan of the we're in it to protect
democracy kind of rhetoric because
frankly we are allied with many many
countries that are not democracies and
that's not actually how foreign policy
Works uh we should as an overall you
know 30,000 foot goal Advance democracy
and and rights where we can but the
reason that we were
fighting in favor of Ukraine and when
when I say fighting I mean giving them
money and giving them Weaponry the
reason that we were doing that in favor
of Ukraine is not because of Ukraine's
long history of clean voting and non-c
Corruption the reason that we were doing
that is to counter Russian interests in
the region I mean that was it was a pure
real politic play and that real politic
play is hard to deny no matter what side
of the aisle you're on I think that what
many Americans are going to are
reverting to is we have no interest
there why are we spending money there
and not spending money here and that
that kind of stuff and that that
argument can always be applied unless
you actually articulate the reason why
it is good for Americans Beyond simply
the ideological for the United States to
be involved in a thing so for example I
think right now when when Biden is talk
I think that what Biden just did he's
the United States as we speak is
striking the houth I think that that's a
really really good thing I think that's
a necessary thing and I think American
people should understand why that is
happening it's not because of quote
unquote ideology it is I mean on a on a
very root level but really it's because
you're you're screwing up the Straits I
mean you can't you can't do that you
can't screw up free trade and Americans
have an interest in not seeing all of
our prices the groceries St double and
triple because a bunch of rag tag
Pirates you know akin to the the barber
pirates from 1800 are are bothering
everyone right so Ben said a lot there
do you disagree with any aspect on the
Ukraine side the um a little bit yeah um
I think on the macro I agree maybe we
get into we a little bit on some things
I on the final thing that he said though
I wish that Americans could have honest
conversations about foreign policy I
think that it would just be better for
everybody um I don't know if it's uh you
know Red Scare after the Cold War where
it was like literally you know the
behemoths you know we're fighting
against communism and we felt like after
91 every single foreign policy decision
needs to be able to be explained in like
seven words like he's the bad guy and
that's it um I wish we had more honest
conversations about uh what our foreign
policy interest is in a particular
region because I don't think most
Americans honestly could even articulate
why Israel would be an important Ally or
why it's important to defend Ukraine
against Russia or why should we care
about Taiwan at all I don't know if most
Americans could articulate anything
there um even though they might have
very strong opinions about why
we ought to be involved in certain
conflicts so I do agree with that I wish
we had more honest conversations about
uh foreign policy um in terms of how
Biden has handled Ukraine my the things
that I liked the most were one that he
was very clear in the beginning about
what we wouldn't do so Biden saying that
we're not going to do um uh not a red
line no fly zones over Ukraine we're not
going to be deploying troops on the
ground in Ukraine we're not going to be
doing anything that would have you know
US soldiers and Russian soldiers
crossing swords with each other that's
not going to happen I like that he made
that very clear at the beginning um and
I like that the Coalition built between
NATO and the EU to get people to send uh
funds training soldiers airplanes and
everything to Ukraine I thought those
two things were really good in terms of
basically writing zalinsky a blank check
I would like to hope that Biden and the
entire United States learned a lesson
from Iraq and Afghanistan that
open-ended missions with unlimited
budgets and no clear goal are like the
worst foreign policy decisions you can
ever do they've like defined US foreign
policy for the past two or three decades
which which is unfortunate but seems to
be the case um my my feeling would be
and this is just a feeling I don't know
if internal cables have leaked that say
otherwise is the uh the Biden
Administration has probably always had a
quiet position of at some point there's
going to be an off-ramp here and I think
even a month or two ago I think those
talks were being leaked that discussion
had begun with zilinsky looking for an
off-ramp but publicly of course the
United States is never going to come out
and say we're going to support you guys
to fight as much as you want for three
months and then after that it's no more
obviously that can't be the statement
it's always going to be that we're going
to support you in your fight against
Russia we tried that under Obama with
Afghanistan it was terrible sure you
can't we'll escalate The Troop levels to
X but only for six months and then we're
yeah you can't you just can't do that
it's always going to come off as we're
going to support you forever and as long
as it takes and as long as you need
whatever we have to do to defend freedom
and democracy in your country and any
any other statement would be absurd so I
can understand why it feels like on a
public level a blank check and an
indefinite time period was granted to
zalinsky but I don't think that's going
to be the case I think I again I hope
we've learned our lessons in the Middle
East about the forever Wars that this
isn't going to be a forever funding to
Ukraine to fight for as long as they
want um I do disagree I feel like we're
playing a little bit retrospectively
saying that like well it's obvious that
they're not going to capture the Don
boss it's obvious that they're not going
to capture Crimea I agree for Crimea
that was incredibly obvious but it was
also really obvious that in two weeks
Russia would own Kiev and Ukraine was
going to be Belarus 2.0 I think that
even for a lot of uh military people um
and analysts around the world uh that
that that was an expectation or at least
a significant prob nobody knew uh the
phrase that's thr right now is paper
tiger that Russia's military was as IL
equipped as they were so I can
understand why especially if you're
Ukraine and if you've repelled an
invasion from one of the world's largest
armies why you might feel like well fuck
it you know let's fight for a few months
let's fight for a year let's see what
happens and I can understand the United
States supporting them but I agree that
there has to be some reasonable offramp
where we're not going to fight forever I
think the US um state department has
already begun those conversations with
zinski to look at what that offramp
looks like um but yeah I'm not too sure
other than like explicitly stating
publicly like you can only fight until
this date I don't really know what else
I would change I don't think I don't
think the bid Administration should have
done that I I don't know what else do
you think Biden should cut this deal on
uh on the funding meaning there's like
six there's this $ 105 billion deal
that's been held up by debate between
Republicans and Democrats over border
right so basically it contains $60
billion for ukraine4 billion for Israel
another several billion for taiwan's
defense against China and then include
some border funding and some border
Provisions Republicans want the funding
in the Border Provisions because we can
get into the illegal immigration issue
but that's a pretty serious issue and
Biden Democrats have been unwilling to
hold that up and that that seems to me
like just from put aside Republican
Democrat seems like political
malpractice meaning there's a widespread
perception in the United States that the
border is a disaster area Joe Biden
wants these things many Republicans
don't want these things if he caves On
the Border stuff he gets all the things
that he wants and he's going to be able
to go back to the moderates in the
country and say I did something about
the Border it seems like such an obvious
win if he caves On the Border stuff you
mean on the Ukraine stuff yes because
then he gets the whole package he can he
can go back to his own base and he can
say listen guys I wanted to I wanted to
be easy on the border the Republicans
forced me to it but we needed the
Ukraine Aid we needed the Taiwan a right
that's you're honestly you're going to
be more educated than me on this I don't
like uh or maybe maybe I just don't know
enough I don't like the principle that
when we negotiate things in the United
States there's like 50 million hostages
at all points in time for every single
thing like oh boy here comes the debt
ceiling what do the Republicans want
what do the Democrats want oh boy like
here you know we can't fund our
government um but I mean obviously the
the argument is going be that if the
Ukraine funding doesn't come in this
bill and if Biden and his administration
feel like it's really important that
unil or not unilaterally but as a single
issue it's not going to pass so um I
would say that at this point and I don't
know what the conversations look like
between the bid Administration and
zinski I would say at this point that
it's probably fair to start making
contingencies on the money that we give
to Ukraine that listen like this uh
conflict has you know waged on now like
now we need to start looking for
potential peace we can't just write you
an unlimited check so I mean if those
strings are attached I'd be okay with it
but the broader question of like is it
okay to make this particular piece of
legislation with all this funding
contingent on uh the Ukrainian funding I
mean that just seems to be the way the
government works now unfortunately quick
pause bathroom break one of the big
issues in this presidential election is
going to be January 6th it's in the news
now and I think it's going to get become
bigger and bigger and bigger so question
for Destiny first did Donald Trump
inight an Insurrection on January 6th
2021 absolutely
uh this is probably ignoring every other
issue we've talked about of which I
think there are plenty that I would say
disqualify Trump from holding office um
I think that the conduct and the
behavior leading up to and including
January 6th I think is wildly
indefensible I am excited to see Ben try
to uh yeah the uh the the three to four
stages are the um the taking what I
think any reasonable person say
knowingly false information about
elections being rigged or ballot boxes
being stuffed or Ruby Freeman you know
running ballots three times in Georgia
taking that knowingly false information
and trying to call uh State secretaries
and stuff to to have them flip their
electoral vote that was horrible um the
plot that eastmen hatched in order to
have these like false slates of electors
where all seven states had citizens go
in and falsely say that they were the
duly elected uh electors that could
submit votes to Congress that was insane
uh happened um asking or begging Pence
to accept these false states of electors
initially and then just say you should
just throw it out completely and throw
it to the house delegation which was
majority Republican that was absolutely
unbelievable and then on the day of
January 6th trying to capitalize on the
Violence by him Giuliani and Eastman
making phone calls to senators and
congressmen saying well don't you think
maybe you guys should delay the vote a
little bit you know don't you think
they're just really mad about the
election I think you said to McCarthy
they're more upset than you you um and
and his utter dereliction of Duty and
not doing anything to uh stop the the
rioting that happened on January six
because he was too busy taking advantage
of it I think all of these things are
horrible uh I look forward to seeing the
uh Jack Smith indictments play out in
court uh maybe even the Georgia RICO
case but um yeah I think all of these
things are un unfathomable and I think
when you look at the plot from start to
finish clearly the goal the entire time
was to circumvent the peaceful transfer
of power that was the goal from start to
finish whether it was through false
claim
whether it was through illegal schemes
or whether it was through violence at
the capital to delay the certification
of the
vote so I'm glad you're excited it's
always fun so um there are two elements
to incitement of insurrection one is
incitement the other is Insurrection uh
so incitement has a legal standard so
does Insurrection neither of those
standards are met so if you're asking me
morally speaking did Donald Trump do the
right thing between November 4th and
January 6th I said I will continue to
say no he did not I think he was saying
things that are false uh with just
factually false about his theories with
regard to the election about the
election being stolen about fraud this
was all adjudicated in court he did not
even bring many of the claims that he
was brought publicly and all the rest of
that if we're talking about incitement
of insurrection is a legal standard
doesn't mean any of those standards when
it comes to incitement it has to be
immediate law incitement to immediate
Lawless action that's the standard for
incitement and I'm very meticulous in
how I use this because I happen to speak
publicly a lot and that means there are
lots of people who listen to me which
means some of those people are probably
crazy and some of them may go and do a
crazy thing did I incite them the media
tends to use the word incitement very
Loosely with regard to this sort of
stuff in the same way that Bernie
Sanders quotequote incited the
Congressional baseball shooting he did
not B Bernie Sanders has a lot of things
I disagree with I think Bernie's a
schmuck doesn't matter he did not incite
that so saying bad things is not the
same thing as inciting violence inciting
violence the legal standard in the
United States is I want you to go punch
that guy in the face that's that's
inciting uh with regard to Insurrection
typically in Insurrection and there are
some descriptions in case law though
none in statutory law as far as I'm more
the typical description in case law is
the replacement of one legitimate
government of the United States with
another by violent means the the notion
that Donald Trump coordinated any such
Insurrection is Bel lied by the FBI
itself the FBI put out a report in uh I
believe it's August of 2021 suggesting
that there was no well-coordinated
insurrectionist attempt coordinated by
the white house uh in fact what you had
was Donald Trump thrashing around like
that weird alien in the movie Life I if
ever saw with Jake jenal or is like kind
of thrashing up against this glass box
just an alien just thrashing up against
the glass box that that that I think is
is more what you were seeing from
November 4th to January 6th um and then
again the claim that January 6th itself
was an Insurrection so virtually I'm not
aware that anyone was charged with
actual Insurrection there were some
people who were charged with seditious
conspiracy there are Insurrection
statutes that do exist no one was
charged under those particular statutes
um you know the there were some people
who you could say informally had
insurrectionist ideas those would be the
people who wanted to hang Nancy Pelosi
or kill Mike Pence and those people are
in jail right now uh and the election
went forward the election was certified
Mike Pence presided over the
certification Mitch McConnell presided
over the certification Joe Biden has
been the president for the last three
years so the Donald Trump by the way was
still president at that point if he had
actively wanted to do what other people
who have actually launched coups have
done he would have theoretically called
the National Guard not to put down the
riot but to actually depose the the
sitting government of the United States
in the name of a specious legal theory
he did not do that he did not attempt
that nobody working for him did that the
the most you can say I think about what
everybody was doing is that you know and
I want to say everybody we can talk
about Trump because this is really about
Trump he used a phrase that that Trump
was disseminating knowingly false
information the word that's carrying a
lot of weight there is the word
knowingly um so knowingly implies a no
were do I think the information he was
disseminating was false yes do I think
that Donald Trump has a unique capacity
to convince himself of nearly anything
that is to his own benefit absolutely
and I think that that's actually what
Donald Trump was doing there and the
evidence of that is Donald Trump being a
human in all of us watching him for the
last several years uh so you know the
idea that that he knew it to be false
I'm not even sure those standards apply
in any like and just assessing him as a
human which is really what we're being
asked to do because there's an intent
element to to this crime does Donald do
you think that today Donald Trump knows
that he lost the election absolutely so
I I don't actually I think but when we
so I'm glad that you have the attorney
background when we are assessing men's
area when we're looking at certain
criminal statutes where intent is
required it's a reasonable person
standard right like would a reasonable
person have known that they were no it
depends on the ment right standard so
it's not the same in every case if you
have to establish individual intent then
it's not enough to say a reasonable
person should have known that would be
enough for a negligent statute usually
when you're talking about reasonable
people person statutes just legally
speaking a reasonable person statute is
should a reasonable person have known
that's when you get to like manslaughter
you can't do a reasonable person
standard on like first-degree murder so
have to establish actual motive in first
deegree murder but for first-degree
murder you don't need the statement of I
plan to kill this person or I intend to
kill this person we can prove that State
of Mind circumstantial evidence correct
yes sure you can prove it so I feel like
my my feeling for Donald Trump was there
were all these people around him that he
trusted to investigate election fraud he
trusted bar and the doj he asked Pence
his vice president to look into it he
ask his chief of staff he ask his legal
counsel so many people that ostensibly
he trusts them if he's asking them to
look into it and when all of them looked
into it and reported back to him no we
found nothing what unless we're going to
literally make the concession that Trump
might actually be a tion psychoan at
that point should he not have realized
like well okay maybe that's think he
should have realized the day of the
election that he lost the election but
that's not but that but I'm just ask I'm
saying that like at that point should he
not have known that for him to go and
propagate those claims that he'd asked
all of the people he trusted to research
and then for him to take those claims to
uh Michigan and to Georgia and then
publicly and to try to convince people
to throw out the election you don't
think that but you're doing the same
thing you're reverting to should a
reasonable person have known yes a
reasonable person should have known did
Donald Trump know that's that's that's a
different that's a different question
and so conflating those two questions is
going to get you into Syed ter by the
way this is why Jack Smith charged the
way Jack Smith charged yeah which was
Jack Smith did not charge conspiracy
Jack Smith did not charge Insurrection
he did not charge Sous conspiracy right
if he the reason is because Jack Smith
is a good lawyer what he's doing is he's
actually broadly I would say pretty
obviously expanding statutory coverage
in weird areas in order to cover a thing
that doesn't quite fit into any of these
legal categories but the point that I'm
making is that Jack Smith is on my side
of he doesn't think that he can actually
establish the intent necessary to
convict under a seditious conspiracy or
or an Insurrection I agree with that but
I think a lot of the underlying facts
though because he does bring up those
calls to uh raffensberger in Georgia he
does bring up in the indictments that
that they were knowingly false
information so it seems like that's
going to be part of the case maybe not
to convict on any of the four particular
charges that he mentioned but it seems
like that's probably going to be part of
um what he's going to have to establish
in court to convict Trump so I I want to
look at the actual text of the charges
so I I'm sorry that I don't have the
memorized I believe one's a fraud charge
that generally does not apply to cases
like this generally the fraud charge is
like you're trying to steal money from
the
government pretty broadly in the past
though it doesn't have to just be
because um Smith has done oral arguments
in response to a lot of the claims by
Trump's lawyers this was one of them the
infinite civil and criminal immunity was
another one of them where he cites past
cases where these types of things
because I think it was to defraud of
civil rights I think was the fourth
charger right so the defraud of civil
rights is usually somebody standing in
the actual like voting house door and
preventing you from voting not you have
a specious legal theory that you espouse
in court about whether those votes
should be thrown out sure um although I
don't like the when we say specious
legal Theory and novel application which
I do agree some of these in some ways is
novel I don't think we've ever also had
a president try to do this before it is
a novel situation where somebody has
resisted the peaceful transfer of power
this clearly ways well if you're talking
about the legal cases that I mean that's
not true but G gors suit in 2000 I mean
so that so like if comparable to gore if
this is comparable to gore I'm not
saying it's comparable to gore I'm
saying that if the idea is that
espousing a leg theory in court amounts
to de facto some form of election denial
or interference in some way that that
can't that that's not as a general
principle it's over inclusive sure Gore
wasn't trying to desertify the vote
though for States right they challenged
their thing to the Supreme Court they
lost their case in the Supreme Court and
then power transfer happened and and
Donald Trump had a bunch of legal
challenges and then he had a rally and
then there was a riot and then he left
power yeah but the but the Eastman
theory of what Pence could do in
Congress is a cry a truly shitty Theory
I mean make no mistake it's not just
shitty I think that if any Democrat had
done this I I think that I feel like
we'd be looking at it in a far different
lens as in we would be using terms like
attempted coup subversion to Peaceful
transfer of power if um if if a Democrat
vice president had tried to essentially
say that in uh Congress they could throw
away the vote so I think what I want to
get to here actually so we can be more
specific is why are these terms
important we agree on largely speaking
what happened I think the the the
characterization of the term are we are
we we kind of bouncing around between
two different different categories I
want make the legal stuff we're looking
at in because like you said Jack Jack
Smith nobody's charging with incitement
and I don't believe Insurrection is a
part of so we D legal just in terms of
like a president that is trying to
prevent the peaceful transfer of power
so whether you call that a bloodless
coup or a coup or whatever
contemporaneous term you want to use
right so prevent the peaceful transfer
of power with all means or or using
means that are inappropriate not quite
the same thing using means that are
inappropriate or illegal okay
inappropriate okay so illegal I don't
think so I I don't think that these
charges actually meet the the criteria
for the for the various charges and we
can discuss each case if you want sure
um as far as inappropriate sure I think
in tons of inappropriate stuff I mean I
I inappropriate seems the reason I don't
like the word inappropriate though is
because then conservatives are very
quick to say well sure he was
inappropriate but everybody who's
inappropriate I mean I'll can see that
he's more inappropriate than others I
just don't see the most inappropriate
sure okay that's important to me though
does it not bother you that like Donald
Trump sought through legal and extra
legal and and Trump magical ways of
trying to entrench his power as
president past when he should have been
able to is that not something that is
incredibly Troublesome I mean the
question to me is the bigger question
that I think the Democrats are trying to
promoe in this election cycle which is
this means he is a threat to democracy
sufficient that if he were to win the
election there would not be another is
that but he tried to do that last time
could he not try to next time and I mean
he could try to do whatever he wants
presumably and he would fail the same
way that he did last time why do we
think that because he failed because so
R three hours yes like let's say
hypothetically Lord save me uh let's say
hypothetically Giuliani was the next um
head of the Department of Justice
Giuliani was the next Attorney General
how would he be
confirmed um I well I I'm not entirely
sure if uh because so much of the
Republican Party despite feeling like
they don't support Trump when it comes
time to actually back him in Congress
also I would have to check whether he
would be barred by criminal conviction
from holding I I don't know the answer
to that sure yeah well yeah we that's
especially the 14th Amendment we're
figuring out a l this right now yeah um
but I mean like say if not Giuliani say
if there are any other number of insane
people that Trump could theoretically
put on his side of the government that
wouldn't tell him no last uh next time
because there were a lot of people that
rebuked him there were Republicans in in
a lot of the states right rensberger is
one of them um they were Republicans in
his own Administration uh you've got
Rosen uh you've got bar um there was his
own vice president but like
theoretically next time and I feel like
last time going in I'm going to do a
little bit of mind reading at macro
maybe agree maybe disagree I think that
Trump kind of thought one I don't think
Trump knows much at all about how the
government works I think we probably
agree with that um I think Trump
probably thought that if he had people
that were like at least in his party and
kind of camp that they'll basically do
whatever needs to be done to give him
what he wants um and with no respect for
process but now that he sees that well
that's it's not enough to just have
allies I need people that are fiercely
Allegiant to me would we not be worried
that a guy that tried to essentially
steal the election for real wouldn't try
to pick people that would be more amable
to his plans in the next Administration
I believe in the checks and balances of
American government I believe they
worked on January 6th so if you're
asking me do I think that Trump has bad
intent or could have bad intent with
that sort of stuff sure do I believe
that the guard rail is held and will
continue to hold also sure so you so if
somebody was right
and they blatantly said like I um I
don't want to use the fascist word but
if they said like I want to be an
authoritarian I'm going to abolish all
elections you would say sure he's saying
that but like I don't think he can
actually do it so it's okay if he runs
for president you don't care at all as
long as you feel like the guard rail Ian
I might prefer other candidates but I
think that also one of the things that
you do is that politicians again this
would be an exceptional circumstance but
politicians constantly make promises
about the things that they are going to
do and then don't fulfill and we tend to
take those out in the wash meaning that
you know the if I promise that day one
as Donald Trump has pledged to do that
he's going to deport literally every
illegal immigrant in the country do I
think he's actually going to do that I
mean I I really highly doubted he didn't
do it last time he was in office that's
just there are many examples of this do
I do I think here's my question do you
think the guardrails are going to fail
to hold I'm not sure um really yeah
because I think the issue is is one um
when it's election time Republicans are
spineless in office um and I don't know
how many Congressmen would support what
he wants just because they want to win
re-election or because they think it's
inevitable anyway well I mean one of the
one of the things that happened in 2022
is Democrats ran directly on this
platform and a bunch of Republicans lost
who running on this platform literally
every secretary of state ran on the
Donald Trump we should deny elections
platform lost in every state sure but
other Republicans office is this sure
but I mean like look at what happened
with like a kininger kininger and Cheney
right who had were very like stly
anti-trump after j6 uh for that select
committee right kininger didn't even run
again and Cheney lost her election but I
think the widest margin that anybody has
ever lost an election ever like all of
politics people who were not born voted
I guess it's just it's a surprising
position to me for if we're looking at
like principled stances of government
the idea that a man who has and I think
we both agree on this that Donald
Trump's Donald Trump's only Allegiance
is to Donald Trump right we agree on
that the only thing he cares about is
Donald Trump I don't it's the only thing
you care about I think it's certainly
the largest thing he care it's the
largest thing he cares about right so if
you've got a man who only cares about
himself welcome politics I mean it's it
may be more but it may be more with
Trump but it's certainly not unique to
Trump I think that the issue with Trump
too though is um
I think he's even a threat to the
Republican party in which I think I
think you would mostly agree with me
maybe not overall but on every
individual Point Trump picks bad
candidates he has no concern for the
future of the Republican party like for
instance I think there is a chance I
don't think it'll happen because of how
the polling looks now but if Trump
didn't get the nomination I think Trump
would say screw it and run as an
independent because he thinks he can win
or whatever right um I I doubt that he
would do that but theoretically again
Trump has he was really content to throw
Georgia um the two runoff elections
under the bus because ravensburg didn't
support him for the election so what
what is all this in service of what's
the what's the generalized argument that
you're making do you believe I'll go
back to my question you think if Trump
wins there will be no more elections is
that is that like what what put
percentage on it what what percentage do
you think that that's a reality that if
Donal Trum Trump wins I think there is a
100% chance that he will try to prevent
the peaceful transfer power in terms of
would he succeed I can guarantee you he
will not do that why is that because
he's in the second term and he's no
longer eligible and he will believe he
won and he will leave yeah but hasn't
Donald Trump himself joked about running
for a third term that's I think that
think that having a third turn what what
has Donald Trump not joked about I mean
for God I don't okay hold on if you want
to prevent if you want to prevent him
from creating a revolution you probably
should actually just appoint him
president and again here's another broad
argument that I don't like in favor of
trump and this was brought up earlier in
terms of like we talk about like not
grading presidents on a curve but then
earlier we said we take Biden I totally
gr I know I 100% grade presidents on a
curve are you kidding oh okay I grade
pretty much everybody on a curve I I
don't treat my seven-year-old the same
way that I treat my 9-year-old
sure it feels like we're treating Donald
Trump like a seven-year-old or a
9-year-old I think we should treat him
like the president of the United States
I don't think having a president that
has taken like concrete steps to prevent
the transfer of power which he did with
the electorate Shem which he did with
Pence and what you did with trying to
capitalize on the j6 violence a
president that's taken concrete steps
towards uh cing the government
essentially I don't know why that guy
we'd say well you know it's Trump he
does Trump things the guard rails held
I'll probably hold next time when we say
we shouldn't do you mean that he should
be actually barred from office I'm just
talking about support for I don't think
Republicans should should support Trump
you lose your incumbent Advantage the
guys obviously destructive he's
destructive the political party itself
like um you think he should be on the
ballot um you think there's a case to be
made to remove him from the ballot I
think there's a case to be made but man
the phrasing for as much as our uh
governmental founding fathers everybody
else you know wrote nice amendments and
wrote nice in the Constitution some of
the phrasing is very very very and the
uh section three um the the the not
requiring any type of actual conviction
um I don't have a strong feeling on it I
will say I'm very interested in reading
the majority opinion from the Supreme
Court I seriously doubt the Supreme
Court is going to uphold that states
should be able to decide if they leave
him off The Ballot or not um I think for
the political future of the United
States it's probably not healthy that
the leading opposition candidate is now
going to be barred from the ballot it's
probably not healthy for us um because
because then what you want talk about
threats to democracy that would be a
pretty serious one applied across the
board by it would be however like that
threat to democracy was earned by Donald
Trump and the conservatives that
supported him I think conservatives made
a dangerous gamble when they threw Trump
into office and now like all of the
Fallout from that is is something that
we all As Americans have to deal with I
mean I I I think that the the
unprecedented legal theory that a state
can simply Bor somebody from the ballot
on the basis of in an informal way
believing that he is quote unquote an
insurrectionist uh is is pretty wild I
mean that's that that say pretty well
but there is an amendment in the
Constitution the 14th amendment that
says that if they have engaged in this
they shall not be or you shall I don't
remember the phrasing because it doesn't
require conviction but it's a
self-executing arguably thing we're
getting into constitutional law I mean
there there there are a number of
Provisions that that suggest that this
is number one not self-executing the
minority opinions in the in the Colorado
Supreme Court case are are pretty
thorough uh the the number one
contention which is that this is not
self-executing uh because other elements
are not self-executing uh that ignores
subsequent actual law that that happened
I mean the Congress passed a law for
example in 1872 defining who was an
insurrectionist who is not an
insurrectionist for perses of elections
in 1994 Congress passed a law that
specifically defined insurrectionist
criminal activity so that somebody could
theoretically be convicted of
insurrection and therefore ineligible to
run for office it is unlike say the the
the analogues that are used by the
majority opinion like age obviously this
is not the same thing we can all tell
what somebody's age is by looking at the
birth certificate I can't tell whether
somebody's an insurrectionist without
any reference to a legal statute or
definition of the term I would also say
be careful with that because remember
one of Trump's first like big political
actions was challenging Obama's birth
certificate well and and I thought that
was dumb at the time but in any Cas I
like that you both said 100% chance that
Trump will try to go for third term and
0% chance which statis third term he's
done man are you kidding he would want
to Trump's going to walk around hands up
high and be like I'm a two-term
president I'm the only President since
Grover Cleveland he would know but but
since Grover Cleveland who served two
non-consecutive terms I kicked Joe Biden
out of office and I kicked Hillary
Clinton out of off dude would be like
he'd be living large are you kidding he
doesn't want the presidency anymore
after that I just think that the I think
it's scary that like Donald Trump it
feels like for all of the accusations
that are made sometimes against
Democrats like Biden is ordering uh
Garland to investigate Donald Trump and
blah blah blah uh it seems like Donald
Trump would actually do that with his
doj would give them order he didn't he
didn't he kind of did though right um so
for instance with um Jeffrey Clark
Jeffrey Clark went to Rosen and Donahue
and said Hey listen uh I need you guys
to sign off on a letter that we're going
to use essentially to bully States into
overturning their elections by saying we
found significant election fraud and
part of that threat was Jeffrey Clark
saying listen if you're not going to do
it Rosen uh you know Trump's going to
fire you and just make me the acting
attorney general that was a threat that
he carried and I think Trump repeated
that threat in a meeting later on that
was I only rebuked when I think like
half the White House staff said if you
do this were resid okay so that's a
slightly different topic because now
you're getting into all the election
Shenanigans and all this but I'm saying
he threatened to fire his acting
attorney general if he wouldn't carry
the same platform essentially like if
Trump could order his doj to do
something would he um it's not Beyond
The Pale for him right it's not Beyond
The Pale for him to order them to do it
and then it's not Beyond The Pale for
them to reject him doing that which is
the story of his entire Administration
whereas Joe Biden orders his doj to do
things and then they just do them well
I'm not we can get into specific there
um I I just I it one of the big problems
that I have with I mean for example all
the talk about Trump Tyrant Trump
executive power I mean Joe Biden has
used executive power in ways that far
outrip president has been stretching and
stretching and stretching executive
power Jo Joe Biden is going like Joe
Biden has gone well beyond anything
Trump even remotely attempted to
maintain via just pure executive power
and actually Trump's use of executive
power is nowhere near even what Obama's
was in ability to get border policy
passed literally had him using executive
power to to March the military down to
the border to do border policy I I mean
I mean Joe Biden literally used the
occupational safety and Hazard
Administration to try to cram down vax
mandates on 80 million Americans that's
insane he literally said I cannot
relieve student loan debt and then tried
to
relieve hundreds of billions of dollars
in stud what happened to that it got
struck down by the Supreme Court and
then they still did it they still did it
Biden brags about
it for what he for what he was able to
for what he was able to relieve which I
think were related to particular type
student loan debt but I'm just saying
that like well the guard rails are
holding with Biden as much as they're
holding with Trump the only difference
is is that once Biden you know exhausts
his executive power he's not running
around like lying to people or trying to
extort people or trying to and concoct
insane schemes well I mean so here
here's the way I would think of this
think of the guard rails holding as the
filter sure okay meaning like the the
coffee is in the filter some of it's you
know what what you want is going to get
through and all the stuff the guard
rails prevent the other stuff from
getting through now the question becomes
what liquid are you pouring into the
filter okay meaning so if I if I'm if if
the filter exists if the guard rails
hold and if Donald Trump can't steal
elections what's the policy that comes
through the other end of the filter the
policy I get from Donald Trump on the
other end of the filter is a bunch of
stuff that I like the policy that I get
from Joe Biden on the other end of the
filter is a bunch of bullshit I don't so
that's the basic calculation okay so so
then the idea is essentially that Donald
Trump's rhetoric is insane but we don't
care um Donald Trump would probably try
to steal an election if he could but he
probably won't be able to um he's not
goingon to do it again I told you he's
not you don't you don't think has any
why not because he won't be eligible to
be on the ballot in I mean by the way
you want to talk about 14th Amendment M
that's where the 14th amendment applies
okay that that's where it actually
applies meaning you cannot he is not
qualified to be on the ballot in 2028 if
he is the president of the United States
states can literally in self-executing
fashion take him off the ballot just
like he's past the age of 35 once you
have been president two times you're no
longer eligible to be president of the
United States why then you to have a
strong keep off the B why the why would
the 14th Amendment stop if he thought
vice president Pence could unilaterally
decide the outcome of the election that
when he's not on the ballot so so now
now your theory is that he's going to
get he's going to get reelected and then
in 2028 he's not even going to be on the
ballot and he's going to direct his new
vice president K Lake to Simply declare
him president of the United States when
he has not been on a ballot I don't know
what the I don't know what the scheme
would be I think we can kind of like
laugh and say there's no scheme we could
even concoct but I think like with the
machine gun he's going to walk I think I
think the issue though is that like the
idea of electing another president that
has tried to circumvent the peaceful
transfer of power using extra legal
means and then pretending like we can't
concoct a single scheme he could try to
circumvent um other legal processes to
have a third term or to have a longer
term or to uh install who he wants as
the next president I just when a when a
person has already shown you who they
are and with every single person around
him agrees with that when every single
person that's worked with him save for
the what Sydney pal uh Eastman and
Giuliani which I don't think even I
don't think anybody would want to throw
their lot in with those three um it just
seems wild to me that we would say like
yeah we're just going to go ahead and
trust this guy with another ter of
president but like he can't run for a
third term so it's fine when there's
like 50 million other things make you
the case that if you want him not to
make election trouble you should elect
him president in the next election cycle
and then he will be ineligible that okay
well I that be a wholly unconvincing
argument but okay well recently in the
news the presidents of Harvard pen and
MIT fail to fully denounce calls for
genocide and that Rose questions about
the influence of Dei programs at
universities and so maybe either looking
at this or zooming out more broadly at
identity politics at universities or
identity politics wokeism at in our
culture how big of a threat is it to our
culture to Western civilization so
obviously st's a huge threat um the
reason that I think this a huge threat I
want to give a definition of wokeism
because people are very often accused of
not using wokeism properly or believing
that it's sort of a catch-all phrase I
don't think it's a catch-all term uh I
think that wokeism has its root in
postmodernism which essentially suggests
that every principle is a reflection of
underlying structures of power and that
therefore any inequality that emerges
under such a system is a reflection
again of that structure of power that
used to be applied in sort of marxist
ways the suggestion being that economic
inequality was the result of
misallocation of power in the structure
preserved by a an upper crust of people
who wanted to cram down exploitation on
people that was sort of the Marxist
version of postmodernism and then got
transmuted into sort of a racial version
of postmodernism in which the systems of
the United States are white supremacist
in orientation uh and are perpetuated by
a group of people who are in fact in
favor of the preservation of white power
and white supremacy that is the
generalized theory of critical race
Theory uh as proposed by for example
jeene stanic and Richard Delgado in
their book on critical race theory that
has taken a softer form that we referred
to as Dei the key in Dei is the e
meaning Equity so Equity is a term that
does not mean equality people mix it up
equality is the idea that we all ought
to have equal rights that we all ought
to be treated equally by the law Equity
is the idea that if there is an
inequality that emerges from any system
it is therefore due to discrimination
and the best way to tell whether
somebody has been victimized is by Dent
of their race and we can tell whether
you're a member of an oppressed group or
an oppressor Group by the intersectional
identity that you carry and by the
nature of your group success or failure
predominantly along economic and power
lines in American life this means that
if one group is predominantly successful
economically they must be a member of
the victimizing class and the only
corrective for that would be as I X
Kennedy likes to suggest uh effectively
anti-racist policy is racism in the
service of destroying racism uh that
you're going to have to that you're
going to have to you know discriminate
on the basis of race in order to correct
for discrimination that's baked into the
system that's incredibly dangerous it
leads to a victim victimizer narrative
that is unhealthy for individuals and
terrible for societies it relieves
people of individual responsibility and
it destroys the very notion of an
objective metric by which we can decide
meritocracy and meritocracy is the only
system human beings have ever devised
that has positive externalities in
literally any area of life every other
distribution of wealth power done along
other lines that is not having to do
with Merit has negative externalities
every system having to do with Merit has
positive externalities because
presumably the most effective and useful
people are going to succeed under those
systems that's the very basis of a
meritocracy and the externalities of
that mean that other people benefit from
the meritorious and excellent
performance of those people maybe it
would be good to get your comments your
old stomping gr Harvard do you think the
president of Harvard should have been
fired I mean I think she should have
been fired not over the plagiarism
allegations I think she should have been
fired based on her performance just at
that Congressional hearing uh if if the
word black had been substituted for Jew
in in in that statement by Elise stanic
that she was asking about or trans or or
literally any other any other minority
in America maybe with the exception of
Asian uh then the answer would have been
very different coming from Cloudy and
gay you know with that said I don't
think the firing of cloud and gay really
accomplishes very much meaning I'm I'm
did she get what she deserved sure does
that mean that the underlying Dei Equity
based system has been in any way
severely damaged no I think that this is
a way for universities this Truth for
mcil pen also to
basically throw somebody overboard as
the as the sacrifice to to maintain the
underlying system that that continues to
predominate at American universities
where they spend literally billions of
dollars every year on Dei initiatives
and diversity hires and diversity
administrators and and all of this I
mean one of the cost of Education
escalating is in the massive
administrative function that that is now
undertaken by universities as opposed to
tjing and and you know cost of dorms and
such you guys probably agree on a lot of
this right kind of maybe yeah
um I I don't know I don't know what
makes things do this but it feels like
we can never like have a good thing and
then have it end as a good thing uh
things always get taken to their uh
extreme and then we have to fight on
those extremes like I would argue that
back in my day we called it sjw social
justice Warriors before it became woke
um like 2013 onwards whatever like there
are aspects to wokeism that I think are
good like I like the additional
representation that we have in media now
I like how as much as people complain
about the internet and how it's
regulated that there are way more groups
that are represented on the internet
whether we're talking uh X the platform
for formerly known as Twitter or
Facebook or whatever um I think in some
ways or whether we're pushing uh you
know like women's achievements in school
and in in um in the wider Workforce I
think that these are all good things the
issue that you run into is people don't
ever have a stopping point and I think
people kind of get lost in this woke for
woke sake thing where we start to see
these very weird warpings of these like
academic I guess arguments that are used
for really horrible things uh so for
instance I think that you can talk talk
about in the United States things like
white supremacy or uh things like um
oppression of certain demographics
especially with like Jim Crow laws and
pre- Jim Crow and you can even talk
about effects from that but then when
you run into this weird world where
we've kind of warped these things so
that like not only is white supremacy
still as present today as it ever has
been well actually uh black people in
other minorities can't even be racist
they don't have the power to because
we're going to use a different
definition of racism and we can only
talk about punching up as opposed to
punching down uh and and we're actually
going to say it's totally okay for these
people to say or do whatever they want
and it's never bad but like white people
who have always been oppressors even if
you're like a trailer park guy whose
family is addicted to meth you know you
have all this privilege etc etc I think
that you run into these issues where
wokeism it starts off as like a really
good idea and I would argue has achieved
really good things especially in regards
to like women's education everything and
then it just gets so academ so there's a
word there academic whatever where you
take something and you put it into
school too much and then it comes out as
some Frankenstein you know cancer baby
of like horrible things such that today
when I'm reading stuff and I know Ben is
the same way like if I even hear
somebody say the word like anti-racism
I'm probably ignoring every other thing
you have to say uh if you utter the word
like Colonial anything I'm probably
going to say you probably don't have
anything uh good to say um yeah a lot of
it has just taken way too far but you
know what I will blame on some of this
is I will blame conservatives for some
of this because I think one issue that
happens and I think Ben might even agree
with me here too is I think there
there's two huge problems that have
happened in the United States I think
broadly speaking is that one we've
become more different than we ever have
been and two we become more similar than
we ever have been and when I say this
what I is it like we're splitting off
into these groups and then these groups
are enforcing this insane homogeneity
between these two separate groups and I
think one of these schisms has been
conservatives reluctancy to participate
in things related to higher uh education
uh so for a long time conservatives are
saying like oh you know the educational
institutions are against us you know
Russ lb talks about how evil the
colleges are and blah blah blah and then
what happens is is conservatives are
less and less willing to engage in them
so then you get this scenario or this
environment where everybody that's
engaged in uh Academia on the
administrative side are are fucking
insane they're like even more so to and
I also want to draw a distinction
between like the the administrators and
the faculty because often times when
you're reading story after story after
Story of like all of these insane admins
that are pushing further and further
left usually The Faculty is fighting
against it a lot of the 10e professors a
lot of people in their departments are
saying like hold on well we actually
don't agree with this but I feel like
because conservatives for so long have
demonized these institutions rather than
like critically evaluated them uh and
and tried to like have like honest
critique and engag that they've just
like completely broken off and when you
only have a bunch of lefties or righties
together all they'll do is they ve off
like even more into their insane
directions uh I feel like that's a big
problem that we run into in the country
to where conservatives have totally
broken off some conversations broken
away from where they won't participate
in them anymore and then the people that
you have left just run as as far to the
left as possible certainly when you look
at certain institutions I think that one
of the things that people on both sides
of the aisle are constantly looking at
is has the institution suffered such
capture that there is just no capacity
to fix it and when you talk about the
universities I'm not going to blame
conservatives for the failure of the
universities because they haven't been
present in major positions at
universities since effectively the late
1960s you can go read Shelby Steel's
work on this where he talks about how
you know he used to be he's now a
conservative black person he was a
liberal black person at the time he was
actually quite a radical black activist
at the time in the 60s and he he talks
about walking into the office of liberal
administrators who are largely on his
side with regard to civil rights and
being radical him claiming that the
systems of the University were
inherently broken were inherently wrong
unfixable and he talks about this very
it's a very evocative episode where he's
talking about how he's smoking and as
he's smoking the ash is growing more and
more and the ash falls down on this very
expensive carpet and the president of
the University who's listening to him
rant and Rave he he said Shelby steel
says I thought he was going to say
something about this I mean I was
wrecking like a thousand carpet in his
office being a jackass and instead I
could see him Wilt inside I could see
him collapse he didn't have the
institutional credibility or the intelle
or or sort of the spiritual strength to
just say listen I agree with you on some
of these things but you're acting like a
jackass and what you see in the late
1960s and early 1970s is in fact the
collapse of these institutions to the
point where by the time I was going to
college there was this radical
disproportion between conservatives and
liberals and the problem is that when it
comes to a system like the universities
basically you have to separate the
universities off into two separate
categories one is stem where the
universities are still pretty damn good
American universities when it comes to
stem are still leading universities in
the world Harvard's main Creations these
days are coming from actual hard science
Fields then you have the liberal arts
field in which you basically have a
self-perpetuating elite because that's
actually how dissertations work if you
have somebody who's very far to the left
and you decide that you're going to
write a dissertation on the history of
American gun rights the chances that
that is going to be approved by your
dissertation adviser are much lower than
if you happen to write something that
tends to agree with the political
positions of your dissertation adviser
now listen I think there are open and
tolerant professors even in the liberal
arts at these universities I went to
these universities I went to UCLA went
to Harvard Law School when I was at
Harvard Law School one of my favorite
professors was lonni guier Lonnie guier
they tried to appoint her I believe
Secretary of Labor under Clinton and she
was too liberal and she got rejected so
she was like a full-on communist by the
time I went there she was great we had
debates every day it was wonderful she
used to write me recommendations for my
my legal jobs after we left Randle
Kennedy I don't agree with him very much
Randle Kennedy was terrific Professor
there are some professors who are like
this unfortunately there tends to be in
these Echo Chambers more and more
ideological Conformity that is
rigorously enforced and it is by left on
left so for example when I was at
Harvard Law School the president of the
University was another president who
ended up being AED Larry Summers Larry
Summers had been the Secretary of
Treasury under Bill Clinton and he made
the critical error of suggesting that
perhaps the dir of women in hard
Sciences in prestigious positions was
due to possibly two factors that people
were refusing to talk about one was the
possibility that women actually didn't
want to be in hard Sciences it nearly
the rates that men do which happens to
be true and two was the distribution of
stem IQ right which is something that
you certainly were not allowed to talk
about the idea that that the men's bell
curve when it comes to IQ particularly
on stem subjects tends to be shallower
than the women's bell curves when you
get to the very end of the bell curve
what you tend to see is a lot of really
dumb guys and a lot of really smart guys
and so when you're talking about the top
universities maybe that has something to
do with the disproportion and he's
trying to explain that to say that our
systems are not discriminating if we end
up with more men than women maybe more
men are applying and more men are
qualified that's that's quite he was
ousted for that by a left-wing faculty
and and you know General Alum Network at
at Harvard University so there's a lot
to blame conservatives for for
surrendering the playing field I totally
agree that conservatives should not have
surrendered the playing field in some
institutions colleges were surrendered a
lot earlier than 20 years ago they were
surrendered in the late 1960s early
1970s yeah so I think that um a couple
things so uh one of the big issues that
I have with kind of like this uh I don't
know if we call it error of trumpism or
populism is this total disregard for
institutions and this disconnect from
participation in the system so it's one
of the big things that I F with
progressives about who who cares cuz
they're all 20 years old they don't vote
anyway um but it's another thing that I
Noti with a lot of people that are uh
Trump voters Trump fans or whatever is
this idea where we say this institution
is uh irrevocably destroyed it it's
irredeemable it can't be saved it can't
nothing that we do can can fix it um and
I think that what that leads people to
doing is one they disconnect further and
then two there's a general hopelessness
when it comes to how Society is like ran
or structured such that you fall into
that populous brain rot of the only
person that can save me is Donald Trump
I can't trust literally anything and I
think that when you start driving people
into that direction all it does is it
further amplifies all the problems that
you're complaining about so that's one
of the reasons why when we talk about
like conservative participation I want
there to be more conservatives that are
trying to participate in Academia but I
feel like the leading thought or the
leading speaking out against it is
basically saying it's a waste of time
it's completely lost so I I think that
the alternative to that is that the you
are seeing on the right a growth of for
example alternative universities saying
the worst thing no I I I don't think so
at all I think competition is a great
way of incentivizing some change on
behalf of universities that may have
forgotten that there's an entire another
side of the aisle in the United States
no no shot I don't believe even I don't
think even you think that so first of
all first of all let me make clear I
think the entire educational system at
the upper levels if you're not in stem
is a complete scam I think it's a
complete waste of money I think it's a
complete waste of time and I think that
it's all all it is is a formalized very
expensive sorting mechanism for people
of IQ that's all it is people take an
SAT you go to a good school you take
four years of bullshit I know I did it
UCLA and then we analyze based on your
degree where you should go to law school
I could have gone directly from high
school to law school with maybe one year
of training and then done one year of
law school and been done okay the
reality is that this is a giant scam and
this again is a bipartisan problem but
it's just a generalized problem the we
we have and you want to talk about
things that hurt the lower classes in
the United States the bleeding of
degrees up is so wild and crazy there's
so many jobs in the United States that
should not require a college degree that
we now require a college degree to do
because there was this weird idea that
came over Americans where they mistook
correlation for causation they would say
oh look people who go to college are
making more money than people who don't
go to college therefore everyone should
go to college well maybe the reason is
because people who are going to college
were better qualified for particular
jobs because on average not all the time
but on average a lot of those people
were smarter and making more money
because of that and so all you've done
is you've now created these additional
layers of stratification so a person who
used to be able to get a job with a
college degree now has to have a postdoc
degree in order to go get that degree a
person who used to be able to just
graduate high school now it's the facto
you got to go to Juco and then you got
to go to college or nobody's going to
look at your resume it's really really
terrible for people who can't afford all
of that it's led to this massive
increase in educational cost that is
inexplicable other than this particular
sort of bleed up and by the way Federal
subsidies for higher education again one
of my problems with Federal subsidies
for higher education I'd love for
everyone to be able to go to college if
qualified to do so and if it is
productive but one of the things I did
when I went to law school is I took
loans because a bank said I was going to
get my money back if I got a law degree
from Harvard but you know when you're
not going to get your money back if
you're a bank you're not going to lend
to some dude who wants to major in you
know art Theory because is that good bet
there's no collateral right if I give a
loan for a house I can go repossess the
house how do I repossess your garbage
college degree from UCLA there's no way
to do that so you know one one of my so
yeah this is the broader conversation
about education in general I think the
educational system is cruising for a
bruising and I think all that's
necessary for it to completely collapse
on the non- stem side where you actually
learn things is for people who employ to
Simply say give me your SAT score and I
will hire you for an apprenticeship
directly out of high school that it
would cut out so much of the middleman
but as far as the general point that
you're making about
institutions I I may disagree on the
education and how far it's gone in
general I agree with you so it's in in
general I agree and I get to use my my
favorite longest word in the English
language here I I would consider myself
in many cases an anti-is
establishmentarian right see I like to
drop that that's because if you're an
establishmentarian that means you like
establishmentarian I'm anti can you say
that word that's the one we all learned
growing up anti- dis establishment teris
long group say what about super Calif
fragile let and then you what about new
ultra microscopic or the science terms
or what about the 7,000 letter thing
that's from part of uh biocham I got my
education the Soviet Union so we just
did math didn't Lear any of this that's
why you're a useful person sovet Union
math was that 1 plus one how to make
that equal three we know long words and
he scams on the
internet and and I talk for a so anyway
the but the the point is that I don't
disagree that there is a general
populace tendency on all sides of the
aisle to look at the institutions and
then throw them overboard I think that
some of that is earned by people who are
in positions of power at institutions
who have completely undermined the faith
and credibility of those institutions I
think you have to examine institution by
institutions which ones are salvageable
and which ones are not so I'm not a a
full anti- disestablishmentarianism I'd
be partially in that camp there are
certain institutions like higher
education in the liberal arts that I
think we may be better off without and
then there are certain institutions like
say participation American government
where when people talk about we need a
revolution like no we don't that's not a
thing we need an evolution we need
change we we can use the system and you
know but I think you have to estab you
have to look at it industry by industry
you know just institution by institution
on that position on institutions do you
think Biden or Trump would side would
you more uh as far as the institutions
yeah I think the institutions in the
United States of the governmental level
are robust I think the social
institutions are fair yeah but I'm just
curious on your general view of
Institutions do you think Biden or Trump
would saage you more on how you view
them um I mean I think that in rhetoric
Biden would and then I think that he
would tear out the face of the
institution and wear it around like a
Mas like cannibal Lector I mean
he resisted some people's calls to like
pack the court and uh yes because I
think that his use of executive power
was greater than that of Donald Trump
the power that he had he used to Greater
effect than Donald Trump Donald Trump
again thrashed up against the sides of
the box but could not get out of it okay
um for just on real quick because on the
that that answer went a lot further than
the initial question but yeah just on
the real quick thing the reason why I
again my main problem that I feel like
we have today in society is people are
getting into their own bubbles the idea
of having like conservative schools and
liberal schools seems like the saddest
thing in the world to me like I would
want conservatives and liberals going to
school together because I think these
people need to interact with each other
more if for no other reason than to say
that the other person is not like an
actual monstrous horrible entity that
wants to destroy the country listen I
think a classically liberal idea for
many schools would not be a bad thing I
think it would be a good thing I just
wonder if that's salvageable and if it's
not salvageable then the answer to that
is to actually create alter in I feel
like I feel like the biggest issue that
we have is people are they sort into
these different like Phantom worlds to
where even if you live in the same city
there are totally different worlds that
exist between liberals and conservatives
and I feel like one of the barriers to
people understanding the other side
sometimes it's just a little bit of
information or a little bit of like
firsthand experience um when I so in
terms of information I'm sure you saw um
I don't I don't know if this is a
full-on study but they were talking
about how some huge percentage of
students would change their mind on from
The River To The Sea when you told them
what from the riv what the river was and
what the sea was yeah or when you said
like yeah what does a one state solution
mean a lot of them like such that the
numbers went from like 70% to like 30%
in terms of like support um would fall
and it wasn't because you were doing a
radical redefining of their whole
ideology you just giving them a little
bit more information um and then
something that I've seen on a firstand
level is when I go and speak or do
debates at University sometimes I'm in
very very very conservative areas some
of my fans are are trans having like a
trans person show up and talk to
conservatives for a little bit uh not
like in a speech but just like in a in
like a bar or a setting like a lot of
them walk away they like oh not every
trans person is like this insane lunatic
from Twitter that is fucking an actual
crazy person and then for some of my
fans when they hang out with
conservatives like oh these guys are
actually pretty friendly I thought they
would have all been homophobic racist
transphobic and evil but they're not
they're just like normal people I feel
like we need more of that I totally
agree with that certainly yeah and I
feel like on our social media platforms
on our algorithms and our schools I feel
like we're sorting harder and harder and
harder and any type of rhetoric that
encourages the Sorting is really bad and
damaging we need to like continue to mix
up and there's other things I want to
talk about is opening his mouth Destiny
the uniter wow all right bid as weo not
like Trump as we approach the end let us
descend into the meme further and
further uh Ben you're in a monogamous
marriage uh and Destiny you've been
mostly in an open marriage until
recently how foundational is marriage
monogamous marriage to to the United
States of America can open marriages
work are they harmful to society um Ben
marriages are the single most important
thing that people can do in the United
States because the things within your
control are easier to control than the
things outside your control people tend
to think about big political change
obviously about things they can do to
change the entire system but the reality
is the thing that you can do that best
to change your Society is to get married
and have kids and raise your kids
responsibly that is the single best
thing that you can do can an open
marriage work I mean I think that it
depends on your definition of work so in
my version of work the answer is no
because what you actually need in order
to facilitate the healthy growing of a
child it's a father and mother who are
committed to each other all idea all
ideas about there being no emotional
component to sexual activity are
completely specious uh that it is trer
for men than it is for women but it's
not true for either uh the the idea of a
full a full commitment to a human being
with whom you genetically create
children which is typically how we've
done it throughout human existence uh is
in fact the fundamental basis for any
functional civilization it allows for
the transmission of culture and values
it allows for the transmission of
beliefs and
responsibility and it is it gives the
great lie to both the communitarian lie
and the and the atomistic individualist
LIE the communitarian LIE is that you
belong to the giant community of man
which is not true because you have a
family uh and your Allegiance should be
and is naturally to the members of your
family first that how we learn and then
we expound that out uh and it also is a
lie to the notion that we all atomistic
individuals with no responsibilities we
are born into a world of
responsibilities everyone is born into a
world of responsibilities and rules and
roles and those are good and if we do
not actually socialize our children that
way there will be number one no children
number one there will be no healthy CH
number two there will be no healthy
children number three there will be not
the foundation for either social fabric
which is the real glue that holds
together Society or for a functional
government so you yes yes monogamous
marriage I'm a fan 15 years married four
kids yes Destiny what do you think um I
think that when we talk about like
relationships or marriage I think
something that's really important is we
have to talk about whether or not
children are being discussed or not um
because I think once you introduce the
child aspect I think the style or the
type of relationship that you do is
going to become way more important than
whatever exists prior to that um like I
would agree for instance for in terms of
what Ben is saying that um there's
probably going to be some structure that
is ideal for the care and the raising of
a child um I think that having a child
gives you a much bigger Buy in to
society because now all of a sudden you
care about a lot of things that you
might not have before because not only
do you exist in society you can't just
run uh now you've got a child that
exists there and you've got to ensure
that everything functions smoothly not
just for you but for that child as well
um and arguably although we're getting
into weird places I guess in the world
now like children are the primary
conduit through for like where you
transmit like cultural values and
everything um the one kind of weird
thing that we're coming up against that
we have been coming up up against um now
for for some number of decades and we'll
continue to is as societies progress
seems like people are having less
children and I actually don't know 100%
what the answer is to that question um
I'm sure you do yeah I mean an
implementable answer that works that we
know we can get everybody on board with
um it seems like for a large part of
human history um having children and it
still is having children is awesome and
children are cool and children are
magical and miraculous and all of this
but you didn't really have much
competing for your attention to have a
child right when you hit a certain age
and you started working um especially if
you a woman I mean child birth is kind
of the next step and then having a
family raising your children and then
doing that is kind of The Next Step
nowadays especially with women being
able to work especially with women
having access to birth control there's a
lot available in the world that's
competing for the interest of people
that could otherwise be having children
such that we've almost flipped it such
that has been brought up earlier like
wealthy people tend to have less
children than not wealthy people um or
unless you're part of particular
religious communities that push child
birth a lot I don't know if I would say
there exist a a moral imperative on an
individual to have children I think that
there's a lot of interesting arguments
down that path I don't know if we're
quite at the point yet where we need to
say like oh my God we're running out of
people we need to have more kids um I
don't think we're quite there yet but we
are seeing you know weird demographic
trends that are having big impacts on
how countries are playing out for
instance the fact that we have a
disproportionately huge aging population
that needs to be taken care of with
medical expenses and everything that
vote in different ways than our younger
population and that when they die off
like the way that Society is going to
look is going to be a lot different
um yeah I I don't I don't actually have
a I'm not entirely sure what the
future's going to look like in terms of
pushing people to have kids when every
single industrialized country as they
become more industrialized have fewer
and fewer and fewer children rapid fire
questions by the answer my my answer was
go to church religion yeah yeah well we
could talk about religion but that's not
rapid fire at all let me ask uh this is
from the internet does body comp matter
Jesus
Christ you're really bringing up the red
pill stuff are you avoiding answering I
mean it's totally it depends on who you
are if you're somebody that doesn't care
about it it doesn't if you're somebody
that does care about it yeah it does of
course depends on the the answer is yes
okay should porn be banned
no if you could do it yes there is no
there is no benefit to pornography a
waste of time and destructive to the
human soul I can't believe I'm asking
this question is only fans empowering or
destructive for
women I Jesus these are rapid fire yeah
just you I mean it's probably empowering
for the ones that are making a lot of
money off it it probably feels
disempowering for others that feel
affected by the cultural norms set by
women that do only fans there's my rapid
fire answer it's it's it's destructive
to even the ones who are making a lot of
money because when you degrade yourself
to being just a set of human body
characteristics that other people jack
off to it's bad for you and it's bad for
them yeah is uh rap music absolutely you
evolved on this or uh have I evolved on
this um so again I'm going to go to
what's the definition of music my
original argument about rap was that
music involves the following three
elements Rhythm Melody Harmony rap
typically involves maybe one of those uh
there there may maybe a Melody maybe
sometimes um so it depends on the kind
of rap uh with that said I I could be
convinced on this issue but listen I'm
I'm a classical violinist I mean that's
how I was raised I I listen to Beethoven
and brahs and& Mozart like in the car
with my kids so is it comparable is in
the same category as beov brahs and
moart I have a very hard time sticking
in the same category as that all right
you're uh both worldclass
Debaters um even public in intellectuals
if I can say that Jesus real hard here I
know uh you both care about the truth
what is your process of arriving at the
truth uh I think it's really important
to everybody will say that they're
objective and that they are nonpartisan
I think it's really important to have
mental safeguards for bad opinions um so
for instance like a couple things that
I'll ask myself is for a particular
debate that I'm having like can I argue
convincingly both sides of the debate if
I can't I won't bother having the debate
because I realize that I'm probably too
partisan dug in if I can't even
represent like an opposite argument here
um another question that you might ask
yourself is like well what would it take
to convince you out of a certain
position um if you know if you feel very
strongly that uh you know Medicare for
all is a good you know system by which
to run the United States Healthcare and
somebody says well what would it take
you to convince you otherwise if you
can't even fathom like what would it
take you to convince me otherwise you're
probably too dug into a position so I
think if you go through life saying like
well I try my best to be unbiased rather
than saying I try to best my best to be
aware of my biases because the latter is
more realistic in the former is
literally impossible unless you're a
computer uh yeah so I think having like
actual mental practices that you engage
in to try to counter some of the biases
that you have is more important than
trying to pretend that you're free of
all biases and then consuming all your
media from One Source yeah Ben uh so I
mean I agree with a lot of that I I
think that the easiest practical guide
is read a bunch of different things from
a bunch of different sources and where
they cross is probably the set of fact
and then everything else is extrapolated
opinion from different premises that
that's the that that's sort of the short
story so read read the New York Times
and Breitbart and they're going to
disagree on a lot but if the core of the
story and the daily wire certainly read
the daily wire if you read the daily
wire and you read The Washington Post
and there's a and there's a Nexus of the
same thing then you can pretty well
guarantee that at least you know if if
it's if we're all Blind Men feeling the
Elephant at least if we're all feeling
the trunk we know that there's a trunk
there right you may not know what the
elephant is and if you're feeling frisky
then watch Destiny as well um thanks
you've talked about you know having a
conversation debating Ben for a long
time what is your favorite thing about
Ben Shapiro my favorite thing about Ben
chapiro is at least when we're in
election season he's very critical of
his own party I appreciate that um um
that doesn't I feel like Ben generally
tries to adhere more to the fact-based
arguments than other conservatives that
I listen to which is something that I
appreciate because it's more fun to
fight on kind of like the factual
grounds of discussing things like
foreign policy or whatever rather than
people that only inhabit the idealistic
or philosophical grounds because they
don't want to learn about any of the
facts so I appreciate that Ben you've
gotten a chance to talk to Destiny now
what what do you like about the guy a
lot of the same sorts of things but it's
really fun to see how you do your
process that is a cool thing that is a
cool thing it's a gift to the AUD a
because honestly doing what we do so
much of what we do is sitting and
reading and being behind closed doors
and educating yourself and talking with
people but getting to watch you do it in
real time is is a really cool window
into how people think and how people
learn so that's a really neat thing well
gentlemen this was incredible it's an
honor thank you for doing this today he
thanks a lot thanks for having me thanks
for listening to this debate between Ben
Shapiro and Destiny to support this
podcast please check out our sponsors in
the description and now let me leave you
with some words from Aristotle the basis
of a democratic state is
Liberty thank you for listening and hope
to see you next
time