CODY: Here's some news you can use, or maybe can't use? It's up to "yous." Because... it... it's not really news. We're gonna talk about Ben Shapiro today... like, for the whole video. And it's gonna be a real slog, and I'm not sorry, because we have to. Ben Shapiro has been regularly legitimized by news folk like Jake Tapper, appears on Fox News with his own miniseries, has been called "the cool kid's philosopher" by the New York Times. His podcast tends to hang in the top 50 on iTunes. Gen Z likes him—thinks he's real smart! His own YouTube channel just had Newt Gingrich as a guest, as well as Ted "Theodore" Cruz. Ben destroys nervous college students with his powerful brain juices. He prides himself on being an arbiter of facts and devoid of feeling, but most importantly... SHAPIRO: ...I'm popular, and no one has ever heard of you. CODY: Thanks, Ben! That clip was, of course, from his recent— and, some might describe as "comically disastrous"— BBC interview with Andrew Neil in which Ben got quite peeved and walked off, the failure of which was even admitted by Shapiro himself, claiming he was not properly prepared for the interview, and that he has pointed out his own flaws in the past. And we're certainly gonna get to that tweet and that BBC interview throughout this video, not just because it's... it's really funny, but it also checks off a lot of boxes in the list of things that perfectly illustrate why Ben Shapiro isn't a serious person— despite being a "VERY SERIOUS PERSON"— and thus, should not be taken seriously. That's the point of this video. Also this, which we'll get to. And yes, before you say it, I'm aware of who I am. PROF. SCOTT BUG: Why did this tree just stop growing here when none of the other trees did? CODY: I am very much so... NOT A SERIOUS PERSON!! But I don't pretend to be, like Ben does. The point of this isn't to feel superior to Ben, but rather, to drag his ego back into the dark trenches where we all dwell. Join us in the abyss, Ben! It's definitely where you belong. But, hold the hell on, me! Because, for the sake of civility and facts and healthy discourse, this video isn't JUST going to be a series of low blows against him, or what he would call "receiving a series of eye-level blows." And that's the only short joke! I promise! I'm sorry, Ben! I usually don't participate in that unhelpful nonsense. Like, I... I'm not an extremely tall man, either! Who cares? But anyway, I'm not here to be mean... like your friends... SHAPIRO: Well, he referred to Carlos Maza as a... as a... as a queer, okay? So, the reason that I'm saying the word is because I'm not sure exactly what the context is for when this is appropriate. CODY: ...or just to give confirmation to the people who already agree with me. You know, like, um... like certain other people do. Because this video is meant for everybody. If you're a fan of Shapiro and agree with everything, or most, or even some of what he says, then why not watch this video to test your own convictions? If Ben is speaking the truth, then surely what I say isn't going to change your mind. This video is also for people like Jake Tapper. And if you're Ben Shapiro himself watching this... well, thanks, buddy! And please keep watching, and listen. And, uh, make sure to like and subscribe! Check out our Patreon! Thanks! But, for real, hi, Ben. You have a lot of followers and therefore have a great responsibility worthy of engaging in self-reflection, yet you never do, and you're pretty dishonest and/or wrong about a lot of dangerous stuff, but you keep going, and I just... I just really would love it if you would... consider that. And while I have no desire to publicly debate you in the marketplace of ideas, good sir, I would be overjoyed to imbibe spirits in the privacy of... you... no cameras and stuff. That way, we can have a real conversation, you know? Neither of us is performing... flexing. Like... like, if you present yourself as a reasonable, civil, good-faith debater while also claiming that... SHAPIRO: So, the only other reason that you should ever have a conversation or be friends with anyone on the left is... and, and not even be friends... is if you are in public in front of a large audience, and then your goal is to humiliate them as badly as possible. CODY: Uhh, thank you, Ben! And so, in lieu of honest debate, good sir, perhaps we can grabbeth a meal, or go see that new Lion King and at least agree on how magical it was... you know... for, like, a mediocre husk of more talented work... something to which you can probably relate! Point being, this video is also for you, Ben, the person who I just insulted to get it out of my system. Because finally, this video is also for me. Because maybe if I say all of these things aloud, I won't have to keep tweeting to Ben Shapiro like some kind of deranged stalker! But in order to stop doing that, Ben has to stop tweeting wrong sh*t and lies several times a day, every day! So... a video. Maybe after this, I can finally straighten my tie and stop living under my desk. But enough about me; let's dig into Ben, starting with the book Ben was originally on the BBC to plug. It's a #1 bestseller titled "The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great." According to the synopsis of the book, Ben... "bravely... "explains how we have lost sight of the moral purpose that drives each of us to be better, "the sacred duty to work together for the greater good"... then a comma, then a period. But, yeah, Ben Shapiro—who wants to abolish the Department of Education and who thinks universal healthcare is tyranny— truly embodying that famous Libertarian ideal: working together for the greater good! Get real, Ben. Anyway... civility, unity. Yes, true, these things are important. And that was the core of what Andrew Neil was getting to in his interview: That Ben Shapiro loves talking about civil and rational debate like it's something he vigorously practices himself. He presents himself as more of a reasonable fact-based guy that calls out the right AND the left. The editor-in-chief of a website that prides itself on "triggering the libs," that sells "Leftist Tears" tumblers. And we'll get into the rest, because there's nothing civil or rational about the things he says or what he does. Like... just because you don't raise your voice when talking doesn't make you civil. Just because you cite a lot of facts in your debate doesn't mean you're interpreting those facts correctly. And while it would be so easy to just label Ben Shapiro a liar and a grifter, that wouldn't be completely true. Ben has shown levels of integrity, like when he quit Breitbart over the assault of one of his colleagues. SHAPIRO: ...a Breitbart reporter, a female reporter, was grabbed on the arm by Corey Lewandowski— then the campaign manager for President Trump— uh, and was bruised on the arm, and then Corey Lewandowski proceeded to lie about it, and Breitbart proceeded to throw its own reporter under the bus, suggest that she was lying or making this up. And at that point, I determined that I could no longer work for a publication that wasn't even willing to stand up for its own reporters. CODY: This, and his general unpopularity with the alt-right and liberals, is probably why, during the 2016 presidential campaign, Ben Shapiro was the largest target of anti-Semitic tweets aimed at journalists. He is objectively the victim of too much hate. This is both sh*tty and undeniable, and I'm sincerely sorry it's happening to you, Ben. And I could keep combing through Shapiro videos to find all the times he is right about some piece of information, but I'd rather give the blanket statement that Ben Shapiro isn't dogsh*t about FINDING facts, which is probably why he's built his whole persona after the motto "facts don't care about your feelings." The problem isn't facts, however, but rather, which facts Ben chooses to support and which he chooses to completely ignore, like, um... like a liar would do. But again, I don't want to just handwave Ben as a liar, but rather, explore the possibility in a civil and rational way. So that brings me to our first segment I'm going to respectfully call... "Is Ben Shapiro a Liar or Just Lazy and Stupid?" Sorry for the name-calling, Ben, who I'm sure is watching and having a great time and he likes me. I like you too, Ben. Let's hang out! But, see, the problem is that since a lot of what you say is, um... wrong... like, in a way that's really easy to spot, it means you're either purposely lying or just... you know, like, kind of a dummy. Let's start with your core belief that "facts don't care about your feelings," as illustrated by this PragerU video you put out with that exact same title. SHAPIRO: Vanderbilt University, November, 2015. 200 students rise up to protest the white privilege and microaggressions of the racist, bigoted Vanderbilt administration. The protesters don't offer any specific examples of discrimination, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that they feel victimized. CODY: So, we're 19 seconds into the video, and Ben has established his first FACT: That in November of 2015, a group of students at Vanderbilt University held a protest against the RACIST school administration but failed to give ANY specific examples of such racism! Except that's literally not true, and just by Googling the school and date— a.k.a. the very first words he said— you'll find that the students were specifically calling for the renaming of a dormitory as well as the suspension of a professor who they believed wrote an Islamophobic op-ed, the latter, something that was being debated since the beginning of the year. Incidentally, the professor in question can now be seen in her own PragerU videos, lying about other stuff. Interesting how that works out. Now, you don't have to agree with the students' point of view here, but you cannot deny that they had a specific purpose for their protest, meaning that, objectively speaking, Ben's statement is factually incorrect, and it's literally the first thing he says in his "Facts Don't Care About Your Feelings" video. So, which is it, Ben? Did you lie to make your point, or are you that bad at researching this really-easy-to-research story? Then, the next few minutes of the video is just him generalizing. "The left is being overly PC and playing victimhood." He does this without giving any actual researched evidence or statistics at all, because this is... just what he feels is true? After three minutes, he does finally get to this: SHAPIRO: According to the liberal Brookings Institution, if you make just these three decisions, you'll do fine, and with drive and ambition, you'll probably do better than fine: First, finish high school. Second, don't have babies before you're married. Third, hold down a job. If you do these three things, you'll be on your way to the privilege of middle-class life, regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender. CODY: So now we have another FACT, the premise being that white privilege in America just flat-out isn't real, and racial inequality doesn't matter, so long as you do these three things, because FACTS say so. And he's... technically not wrong. The Brookings Institution determined that, statistically speaking, people who do those things remain or become way better off than those who do not, regardless of race. Now, if you didn't notice, one of those three things you gotta do is get a full-time job! In other words, the study is saying that you are going to be more financially successful, regardless of race, if you have a job, something that is so obvious that it hurts my bones to say. Ow. What the study doesn't determine is how difficult or easy it is to get a full-time job based on your gender or race or geographical location or class, which is what we're actually talking about when we discuss structural racism and inequality. This is also applied to the other two steps of graduating high school and not having a kid too early, two outcomes that are heavily dictated by poverty, which is something that determines the quality of your schools. So while he is TECHNICALLY using facts, his conclusion is super obtuse and completely misinterprets the data either because he chooses not to correctly interpret it, or he's blinded by his own bias. Also, independent of all that, the Brookings Institution took race into account later and found that these three rules are a lot more successful if you're white. But to be fair to Ben, this was published two years after the original fact that he cited. But to be balanced, it came out two years before Ben didn't mention it in his video about his FEELING that white privilege is completely made up in every way. And this is gonna be the challenge of the video you are currently watching, which is no doubt, like, three hours long. Ben says a lot of things, and he says them very fast, and if you were to look them up, they will be, on a surface level, possibly, maybe even probably, correct. But once you begin to look at the larger context or smaller details, you realize that most of what he's saying is hilariously misinterpreted. He's like a huckster auctioneer, speed peddling bad ideas like they were caffeinated vitamin supplements. Both figuratively and literally, that's what he's doing! Like, the two main ingredients to those "Dawn to Dusk" pills are just branded versions of caffeine. You're plugging caffeine pills, Ben! And this is what I mean: The bullsh*t just keeps unfolding like a metaphor I don't want to explore, and the crux that Ben constantly ignores or misses large chunks of evidence means that he is either not intellectually equipped enough, or too lazy to fully research the facts, or he's just plain lying. It's most obvious when you watch him talk about a subject he is 100% wrong about, which means we're on to our next... "Stupid or Lying?" Are you pumped?! Get out your voting app now (that doesn't exist)! Ben believes that abortion should be illegal no matter what. That's his view, which he claims is based on facts and science. But here's the thing... whether or not you are pro-life or pro-choice, the actual data shows that countries where abortion is illegal either have the same amount of abortions or even more, and what actually reduces abortion is access to contraceptives and better sex education. It's what has been factually determined through multiple studies using the best data we have. These studies have also found that the only big difference in making abortion illegal is that it makes it more dangerous for the people getting them. That's not an opinion. We're not discussing the ethics of abortion, but rather the hard numbers on how legalizing it affects a population. If you want fewer abortions, the answer isn't to make it illegal. Now, let's listen to what happens when someone points that out to Ben. SHAPIRO: ...and just logically speaking, anytime you make something illegal that occurs, there will be more illegal instances of that thing happening. I'm sure that, you know, when... when slavery was legal, uh, then... you know, it was legal. That didn't make it either moral, decent, or right. Once it was made illegal, then I'm sure that everyone who was holding a slave was in violation of the law. You know? So I guess there were more illegal holdings of slaves after we made slavery illegal, but there was less absolute slavery, which is the actual goal. Yeah, you can ask a follow-up, that's fine. That's fine. STUDENT: An illegal holding of the slave... uh... illegally holding a slave... ...doesn't kill the slave and doesn't possibly kill the mother. SHAPIRO: I don't think you want to go down the road where you're justifying slavery. CODY: Ah, yes! Nothing says "I'm a serious person who puts a value on facts" like... SHAPIRO: ...you're justifying slavery. CODY: Incidentally, Ben doesn't shy away from bringing up slavery to DESTROY (in big letters) arguments. For example, he'll use this fact-based logic trap of reasonableness when arguing against guaranteed health care for everybody. Like, doctors are "slaves"... and they're "slave doctors" being "forced" to be doctors to everybody, like th... like those other "slave" doctors we have in developed countries. Or, the "slave" teachers at our public schools! Or, like, how the 6th Amendment of the Constitution reads: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to "A SLAVE COUNSEL "for his MASTER'S defence." Anyway, this slave comparison of Ben's is a dumb thing that the crowd should have immediately rejected, but since he's debating college kids— a thing he likes to do for some reason that we'll totally get into— no one knows to call him out on it. And so, he forces the guy he's debating to veer off the rails into his TERRIBLE metaphor. But luckily, the college kid actually steers it back to the real issue. STUDENT: I'm not justifying slavery; I'm saying that... making some... that the fact that something increases when you make it illegal is... SHAPIRO: The illegal activity is... the activity de... the... a... th... the... the absolute level of the activity decreases, but what's left is going to be illegal just by logical necessity. STUDENT: When what's... when what's left is... When the illegal activity that's left is very, very dangerous, that's... ...is that a good argument? Wh... do you think that's a good argument or not a good argument? SHAPIRO: Yes. If I have to w.... ....let's... let's say that you make abortion illegal, and there are a million abortions a year in the United States, and let's say... at the high end... let's say, at the high end, there are still 50,000 illegal abortions in the United States, but all the rest go to term. Okay? Let's say that that's the case, because it's gonna be hard to actually get an abortion if it's made illegal. Let's say there's still 50,000. You just saved 950,000 lives. That is a... that is a massive net win. CODY: The key phrase there being "LET'S SAY," because, sure, he's absolutely right, if we agree to pretend what he said is a fact. But it's literally not a fact, as I already pointed out. And I... really hope you Bens and Ben fans are paying attention, because if you want to save lives, making abortions illegal doesn't reduce the number of abortions. The starting premise to Ben's argument is not correct. Right now, our country's abortion rate is actually less than what it was before Roe v. Wade. Teen pregnancy rates have also been steadily dropping since the 90s. The legality of abortion doesn't change the demand. So, is Ben purposefully ignoring the facts about abortion, or is he making an argument completely based on his feelings pretending it's based on fact? Or is he... is he lying? Like, is... is he lying or is he stupid? Put in your votes now! This is a fun game; let's do climate change next! SHAPIRO: So, let's say... let's say, for the sake of argument, that all of the water levels around the world rise by s... by... let's say five feet over the next 100 years... ...say ten feet by the next 100 years, and it puts all the low-lying areas on the coast underwater, alright? Which, le... let's say all of that happens. You think that people aren't going to just sell their homes and move? CODY: Okay, so... if you need the dumbness of that statement explained to you, then I'm not sure anything I say will matter. Oh, but hey, here's a lie: SHAPIRO: ...given the fact that, for the last 15 years, there has been no global warming. CODY: So that's... ...only wrong. Maybe not a lie, but false. Bad fact, Ben! A lot of bad facts in this speech of yours in general, especially when you claim... SHAPIRO: ...that there have been multiple problems with the measurement data as far as global warming. Uh, the... that's why they call it climate change now and not global warming, because t... the Earth basically has not been warming for the last 15 years or so.... CODY: Which kind of illustrates that you don't know what you're talking about, considering that "climate change" and "global warming" are two different things, and "climate change" isn't, like, a new term, and also, they didn't do that, and also, the people who DID switch it—not scientists— was the George W. Bush administration at the recommendation of Frank Luntz because the term "global warming" was too scary. What you're saying is literally the opposite of the truth and is, in fact, a lie manufactured by others to mislead the public. But hey, you know, th... this was a long... few years ago. Ben isn't denying climate change now, despite growing up and participating in a culture and business of misinformation and denial regarding the topic. Just because he used to say stuff like this in the past... SHAPIRO: I'm not saying that it's not happening. It may be happening. You know, I'm... I'm happy to say that it may be happening. I'll, uh... I may even be happy to say that it's... it's probably happening. CODY:...that doesn't mean that the managing editor of his website says almost literally exactly that, currently. KNOWLES: Is there a relationship between carbon dioxide and increased temperatures? Yeah, perhaps. I suppose so. I'm not an expert on it. I'm perfectly willing to grant that that's possibly the case, and it's even possibly from greenhouse gases emitted by humans. CODY: "I mean, I guess it COULD mean that!" But he's not a climate denier, alright? He gets flummoxed that people say he is. He just loves to mock people who talk about the dangers or try to propose solutions. He just wants to assure everyone that the dangers are WAY over-exaggerated, saying that, "Species loss and coral reef bleaching are certainly bad things. "But there's no actual prediction of mass death or hellfire." Boom! It's not... HELLFIRE... as proven by the, quote, "certainly bad" situation with the coral. This, from last year, is actually indistinguishable from that older talk of Ben. SHAPIRO: ...right? Like, the... a giant wave is gonna sweep in, and then the next morning it will freeze, and all of New York will be under ice, and Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal will be trying to fight their way through it. That's not how global warming is going to happen. CODY: Oh, it's not going to be exactly like... Ben? But he's not denying climate change, alright? His main argument, generally, is that we as a species can adapt to disaster and have gotten better at lowering the cost of disasters over the years. Because, if we're getting better at cleaning up the ruins of big weather events— sometimes— that means we clearly shouldn't worry about it. And again, humans are great at adapting, you know? That's why we don't need to rework our economy in favor of a Green New Deal and renewable energy, or transitioning the Department of Defense to disaster relief defense, or just generally all of the... the... the things we could do to... adapt... to climate change... Ben. It's such a... a childlike mobius strip view of a complex issue, that I sincerely hope he's purposely lying and not that dumb! Either way, we should never look to him on this subject, like, ever. Oh, hey! Speaking of subjects about which Ben should not be listened to... SHAPIRO: ...the only purpose for the government getting involved in marriage is the procreation of the next generation and the raising of that generation, and it's my belief that a man and a woman do a better job of raising a child— and producing children, obviously, biologically— than two men or two women. CODY: Alright, so, in this Dave Rubin interview, Ben says that he doesn't think the government should be involved in any marriage, but if it DID get involved, it shouldn't subsidize GAY marriage, because he doesn't believe that same-sex couples can raise children as well as opposite sex couples. That's his belief, otherwise known as, um... what he FEELS about gay marriage. Maybe? Because it certainly isn't the facts about gay marriage, which is that—as many studies have found using decades' worth of data— children of gay parents don't grow up to be any different than children of straight parents. It's just the facts, Ben. And... you know what they don't care about? Can you guess what the facts don't care about, Ben? That one interview is very telling because of a single line that spells out exactly how Ben's logic operates. Let's see if you can catch it. SHAPIRO: This is something I talk about at religious schools, and... and I've been asked by, you know, pastors and rabbis and priests to talk to students about, "okay, you have these religious principles. "Is there any justification outside of 'the Bible says so' for why this is correct?" And as a religious person who's actually thought through his positions, I tend to believe there is. -Like, I... I... uh... as a religious person, I believe that...
RUBIN: So, li... yeah. SHAPIRO: God didn't create stupid rules. So, if you believe that God didn't create stupid rules, then you have to come up with some sort of justification for the rules that are being expressed. CODY: Right there, Ben is saying that, since he believes in the Bible, and has faith that God didn't create stupid rules, then he has to create his own justification outside of the Bible for why he's right. In other words... he's starting from a conclusion based on his FEELINGS, and then finding "FACTS" that support it, which, if you didn't realize, is the opposite of logic. In the case of gay marriage, he's starting from the idea that it's a sin and then working backward to find a reason we shouldn't allow it. This is not, in any way, a fact-based opinion. Like, back in 2007, he wrote an opinion piece describing same-sex marriage as a spiritual assault on traditional marriage, an argument he's also said is bad. He considers the pride flag as "propaganda" and "hate-filled." But since he can't make that argument these days without simply sounding bigoted, he's trying to reframe it as a logical belief that the government shouldn't be involved in marriage at all. Coincidentally, this potentially results in the same outcome as banning gay marriage altogether. And so, perhaps we shouldn't ever look to Ben Shapiro to opinions on gay or trans rights, considering that he ADMITTEDLY uses personal religious bias when researching it. It's actually shocking how often he will just state bullsh*t about LGBTQ people like they are facts without ever bothering to actually check the science... or possibly bother to, but then lie about it. Like... he did a whole video where he got mad at Bill Nye for saying that by age 3 or 4, a kid will identify as a gender that doesn't necessarily match the sex they were at birth. SHAPIRO: It is also evil to suggest that a 3-year-old knows that... that they're going to choose a gender that is opposite of the one that they have. Okay? 3-year-olds don't know anything! I know because I have a 3-year-old. 3-year-olds do not know anything. It is your job as an adult to teach them about things that are complex and make the complex simple in ways that they can understand, and if, when they hit 15, they're still having problems, then we can have a conversation about this. But this idea that 3-year-olds are capable of choosing their gender is asinine— anyone who has a 3-year-old will tell you this—and it is cruel to a 3-year-old to say to the 3-year-old that you're going to be allowed to define your own essence of the world, and you're going to be allowed to override your own biology. A 3-year-old is not capable of doing that, and there is no science to support this. CODY: Ben has completely rejected that as anti-science, which is weird, because he doesn't actually cite any sources or studies as to why Nye is wrong. Because if you actually look up the science, it sure appears that Bill Nye was absolutely correct. He is, after all, a "science guy," or at least a "I-know-how-to-Google-science" guy. So, what we're watching, consistently, is literally the opposite of Ben's motto. We're watching a person reject facts because of his religious feelings on an issue, which is fine... I guess... so long as you don't delude yourself into thinking you're being anything close to intellectual about it. But since Ben can't do that— and perpetually swears he's being logical— his reasoning begins to devolve into the verbal equivalent of a short-circuiting robot. SHAPIRO: Let's say that... that there are 100 kids who are told that they can pick their gender, and 10 of those kids are now confused, right? Not even 100; 10 of those kids are now confused. And let's say that normally, according to those statistics, virtually all of them would grow out of this confusion. Alright? Virtually all of them would grow out of this confusion. But now you're reinforcing the confusion. So now, let's say those 10 all say "I'm the other sex." So now, you've taken a situation in which one kid had a transgender identity issue— and has a 40% lifetime suicide rate— and you're now extending that to 10 kids. And let's even say that this new process lowers that one kid's rate of suicide... attempt. Let's say that we... it... th... of suicidality. Let's say that it lowers it from 40% to 20%. Let's say it halves it. Okay? Now, if you've increased the number of people who are engaging in this particular... in this particular problem by 3... if you have confused 3 more kids, then you now have 4 kids... now, let's not even take the 10... let's say you... you now have 4 out of 100... have a 20% suicide rate, as opposed to 1 out of 100 who has a 40% suicide rate, you've not improved things; you've made things worse... in terms of people who are suicidal. CODY: Hey, Ben... what the f*ck are you saying?! Are you saying that confusion is what makes transgender kids commit suicide? Because, uh... that's not what's causing it! And why are you making it try to be like a math equation?! You're talking very fast, citing no sources, and using that real good phrase "let's say" again, because you're making up a scenario based on literally nothing but your feelings in order to justify them. You sound like a f*cking maniac! And that's coming from ME! The idea that anyone can hear that frantic jumble of words and think of you as an intelligent source of social commentary is f*cking wild! On Joe Rogan's show, Ben accidentally called a trans person by their preferred pronoun... and then corrected himself. After whining about pronouns, he naturally and instinctively did the thing he was arguing against, and then went out of his way to make sure he'd use the one that would upset a transgendered person— whose suicide rate he's very concerned about! SHAPIRO: ...transgender woman from, uh, "Orange Is the New Black." ROGAN: I never watched that show.
SHAPIRO: I've never watched that show either, -but she's on the cover of Time Magazine.
ROGAN: Oh. SHAPIRO: Or... HE'S on the cover of Time Magazine. CODY: He is not worth any serious debate about this subject. Like... it's a free country, but he should willingly stop talking about this and admit that no matter how calmly he says them, his opinions are completely emotional and religious-based. Anyway... I... I guess this has been... "That Game or Segment or Whatever I Said It Was." My point being that these examples really make you wonder what other "fact-based" opinions he carries based on his bias, you know? Doesn't it? Like, what else is he being either a disingenuous liar or just kind of a dangerously dumb guy about? A lot of stuff. Like... like, when he says something like this: SHAPIRO: I actually believe a lot of the damage that he has done to the country in terms of social fabric has already occurred. So, I... I said, I didn't vote for him in 2016. The reason I didn't vote for him in 2016 is because I feared the damage he WOULD do to the social fabric, and I also didn't think he was going to govern conservative because I didn't see a lot of indicators of that. He's governed a lot more conservative than I thought he was going to, and as far as the damage to the social fabric... if he's already done it, I'm not actually mitigating against the damage to the social fabric by not voting for him in 2020. CODY: Does he know how dumb that is? Or, is he just lying in order to justify voting for Trump in 2020 after being "against" him in the last election? It's something he loves to say about Trump—that the damage has already been done. Obama was bad. But then his re-election campaign? TEARING THE NATION APART... TO SHREDS!! But, like, this guy... that damage has been done. NEIL: Isn't the Republican Party now the party of Trump? SHAPIRO: No, I mean, I think that the Republican Party is always the party of whomever is the president, technically speaking.... Most Republicans see President Trump as a vehicle for their policy preferences, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they agree with all of his personal foibles, or the way that he behaves, or the things that he says. CODY: You know... because nothing bad has ever happened when conservatives enabled a damaging person because they agree with some of their policies, you know? That damage had already been done! Now, I'm not saying that the president or anything about the movement formed around him are fascist. Historians say it, so one could. But I'm not! Ben's not! The fascists are the gays and the college kids who don't like that he goes out of his way to misgender them. THOSE are the fascists! Also the president. No, no, no, not that one. There he is. When pressed on that article, and how "that's not very civil or reasonable, Ben," and how "well, that's not what 'fascist' means, Ben," Ben destroyed Andrew Neil's assh*le with his logical nuclear c*m! NEIL: Uh, again, it was your description of the State of the Union address in 2012 as fascist. -That's....
SHAPIRO: the wording of th... of president Trump's 2012 address was... -bad and wrong.
NEIL: That's all... the... plenty of things are bad and wrong, but it doesn't make them fascist. SHAPIRO: Well... I suppose that's true.... CODY: Facts! Thanks for still being here, Ben, because I legit really want you to watch and hear this. Because, Ben... you're kind of a part of an emerging "intellectual" couple of goons that claim that fascism is actually the left, and as we've seen, things that you feel are wrong and bad. But no historian who knows things would agree with you. And you have to know that, right? Like... you can't be that stupid. Surely, you're merely that dishonest. A historian might say this kind of thing is... "...a really scurrilous work of revisionism, "like David Irving, who uses revisionism to deny the Holocaust and rehabilitate Hitler. "It's used to attack anyone attempting to introduce a welfare state as fascist." Fascists hated the Weimar Republic's welfare state. It "made people lazy... leeches on society." But in order to get affirmation of these FEELINGS that the left are the real fascists, you'd have to approach some kind of, like... like a fake historian who's a... convicted fraud or something. D'SOUZA: Fascism at its core is the ideology of the centralized state. CODY: Oh, good! There you are, my dear! Anyone who takes this man seriously should not be taken seriously. It is embarrassing that Ben had this fake historian on to push his historically immoral lie that fascism is... when the government does something, instead of, like... a charismatic, male, right-wing demagogue in the form of an ideologically inconsistent and unprincipled opportunist who plays on emotions and fears and popular trends to further a hatred and dictatorship against the left amidst popular enthusiasm due to ineffective liberal governance and political gridlock, leading to an uneasy alliance with conservative elites for the purposes of their own agenda, while a collection of syncretistic intellectuals spend their time complaining about liberal academia and Communists, while the cult-like movement and leader create newspeak, new imagery and traditions stemming from resentments and fears, manifesting themselves in ultra-nationalism, anti-globalism, anti-homosexuality, anti-transgenderism, anti-Marxism, anti-cultural-Marxism, anti-intellectualism, anti-welfare, a war on the lying press because disagreement is treason, an obsession with heroism and machismo and weaponry, an obsession with conspiracy theories, a fear of others and "dirty, criminal, animal" immigrants who are invading the nation and who must be expelled! They're an invasion! PUT 'EM IN CAMPS!! Or... I guess if I had to use facts and logic, I'd say... SHAPIRO: ...bad and wrong. CODY: Anyway.... I'm glad we got to the subject of fascism—which Ben is an expert on— and Ben's relationship to it, and Trump, and Nazis. Because it's time for our next segment... "Things That Ben Doesn't Support and Has No Responsibility for Causing "Except for All the Times He Perpetuates Them With Words Coming From His Mouth." You may or may not remember the guy who—back in 2017— shot up a mosque, resulting in the death of six people. While going to trial, it was revealed that his Twitter history showed that he had frequented the accounts of many alt-right and white nationalist personalities, and at the top of that list was Ben Shapiro. Now, I'm not saying that Ben made this person shoot up a mosque. But if you or I were the VIP on a hate-murderer's top 10 all-time fave list, we would at least use that moment for some self-reflection. Perhaps I would realize that I have, in the past, perhaps, said things that align with this person's views in contextually significant ways and wonder why I was being ideologically lumped in with so many alt-right and white nationalists— people I have publicly expressed dislike for. Like... that would be what a reasonable person would do... right? Right, Ben? You wouldn't feign absolute confusion over the connection people were making like you were some kind of dense party clown. INGRAHAM: This is a campaign now to blame Ben Shapiro... for inciting a deadly terror attack... on a Canadian mosque last year...? CODY: "Oh my God, a Canadian mosque?! WTF?! OMG, you guys! "What in the world do these words even mean?!" You see, Ben? See how dumb it sounds when someone pretends to be THAT confounded by what is clearly a serious connection between views and arguments and existential fears posted on your Twitter account and a mass-murderer? You certainly wouldn't want to associate yourself with someone like this seltzer-farting clown, right? INGRAHAM: ...we welcome back to "The Angle" Ben Shapiro, the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Wa...Wire.... CODY: Ah, I guess I should have kept watching... something I will now do! SHAPIRO: So, th... there's this evil piece of human crap who shot up a mosque last year, and this evil piece of human crap happened to be somebody who had... seen some of my tweets on Twitter, as prosecutors found out. He'd also seen tweets from people like Bret Baier, he'd seen tweets from you... he'd seen tweets from a bunch of different people. But it was... he... I guess my account was the one that he had viewed the most. Now, I have 1.4 million Twitter followers, so I guess the idea from the left is that if somebody views enough of my tweets, they're inevitably going to become a terrorist. CODY: Oof! So close to being self-aware, Ben! Let's break that down: An "evil piece of human crap" shot up a mosque, and it turns out that they read a lot of your tweets... the most! And yeah, they also saw tweets from Bret Baier... you know, right between you—at the top, as in the person they read the most tweets from— and then also... Tucker Carlson, Richard Spencer, Paul Joseph Watson, Ann Coulter, Mike Cernovich, Alex Jones, David Duke of the KKK, and, yes, also ex of that fake historian from earlier, Laura Ingraham herself. So... you know... clear proof that this is just a... a random assortment of people that in no way have expressed similar views about the religious people victimized in the shooting, or the existential threat facing them by immigration and multiculturalism. They certainly haven't propped up anti-Muslim racists, or defended white supremacists, or accused Muslims of hating white people for no good reason. I mean, it's not like this is a list of a bunch of racists, right? Right, Ben? That's certainly not what this list—that you are on the top of—is... right? Because it's not like you're a little racist or have ever said anything that could be easily seen as being racist. Also, people need to quit with the identity politics, and you're Jewish and therefore are completely immune from ever having certain opinions extremely attractive to fascists or Nazis... like this Nazi who recently painted Nazi stuff on a synagogue in Indiana. In the court documents for this Nazi sentencing, he specifically mentioned that his wife—who also painted the Nazi stuff— was radicalized by reading Ben Shapiro articles on Breitbart News, a website formerly run by Steve Bannon, who Ben Shapiro says "there's no evidence of him being racist," despite court documents of his wife describing how he didn't want their kids to go to a school with Jewish girls. But anyway.... Shapiro on Breitbart led her over to the white supremacist site Stormfront. So, considering that Stormfront—and Nazis—hate Jews, this SHOULD disturb Shapiro, right? Like... like, again, if he's being linked to the radicalization of violent racists and Nazis— MORE THAN ONCE— he would probably want to take a step back and reflect on his work and his views...? But here's where we absolutely have to wonder if Ben is either dumb, or purposefully disingenuous... or even "disin-Ben-uous." Because his reply to this was to sarcastically point out that, as a Jew, it's insane to imply that he's directing Nazis to attack synagogues, which is true. That would be insane to imply that Ben Shapiro is directly telling Nazis to do hate crimes against Jewish people. But, uh... No one is saying that, Ben. But rather, that it sure seems weird that your name comes up a lot with fascists and racists who turn to illegal and deadly acts of hate. Like, when those Nazis were arrested, the wife said she targeted that synagogue because it was "full of ethnic Jews"— not religious Jews— which is an oddly specific wording and distinction... unless you're into Ben Shapiro. SHAPIRO: So, why is it a surprise that most Jews vote leftist? Most Jews aren't Jewish in any real sense beyond ethnic identification. They have nothing to do with Torah, the five books of Moses. They have nothing to do with the ethical system posited by biblical Judaism. CODY: But for Ben and Ben supporters, there is NO connection to consider. Why? Because these court documents were written by the lawyer of the Nazi, and not a statement from the Nazi himself. Also, BuzzFeed News accidentally identified the wrong suspect when they reported on it. This slight inaccuracy, while not changing the association with Shapiro and a Nazi, was enough for sweeping headlines from conservative sites to declare it all as "fake news," and for supporters to take a weird victory lap before moving on without giving it a second thought. Because, as we all know, if a news story gets a single detail wrong, it's all wrong. That's just logic, but more importantly, facts. And, while we're talking about anti-Semitism, Ben seems to have some selective views on when to fully condemn it. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, for example, famously tweeted several controversial statements about Israel the nation, statements she later apologized for (that I made a whole other video talking about). And recently, as a response, Ben Shapiro said this about her: SHAPIRO: As I said before... if you are blind to anti-Semitism from one particular side of the aisle because it favors your political position, you are not in the fight against anti-Semitism. You are part of the problem. If anti-Semitism is just another political club to be wielded... if Ilhan Omar is given the credibility to speak out against anti-Semitism while routinely engaging in anti-Semitism...? She has a lot of the same opinions about Jews that the white supremacist had in that manifesto. CODY: Hey, fun! So, Ben thinks that, because of those two tweets, Omar's beliefs aren't that different than the San Diego synagogue shooter. And... I'm not sure I need to explain how thinking that a lobbying group has political influence is not the same as thinking that, like, "the ethnic Jews and the liberal globalists are controlling the world "and pushing multiculturalism and homosexuality," or whatever. I'm not sure I need to explain that the shooter actually thinks a lot of the same things you and your colleagues think, Ben. The fact that he added "and the Jews are doing it all" doesn't change that. But, what I'd much rather point out is the start of his statement about how, if people are blind to anti-Semitism from one particular side of the aisle because it favors their political position, then you are not in the fight against anti-Semitism. So, like... say, if... Ann Coulter also tweeted, and said a... SH*T-TON of anti-Semitic stuff, like how Christians want Jews to be "perfected," and also threw down a ton of criticism at Israel dictating politics. Ben wouldn't concern himself for partisan politics, and instead, he would condemn Coulter for equal amounts of anti-Semitism, right? I... Is there, like... is there, like, like a tweet I can refer to here? Ah, there it is! There's that hypocritical tweet from Ben, saying that, while Ann Coulter is totally saying terrible things about Jews— like, really odd and specifically terrible things about Jews specifically— he's not gonna lose sleep over it because she supports Israel, kind of. It's cool because she wants the people she doesn't like to all be in a country far away from her. At the end of the day, it's probably just that Coulter's on his team, that team being, um... people who heavily appear on the Twitter history of a guy who shot up a mosque. Because, Ben, you are a racist. Or, if you prefer, you've said a lot of racist things. And I know that probably bothers you to hear, but like... this tweet? It's racist. And instead of simply apologizing for that, you choose to defend it in an even worse way. The crux of your defense is that, two hours after your original tweet was bombarded with people calling you racist, you clarified that not all Arabs bomb crap and love to live in open sewage; just the ones you disagree with, the ones that oppose Israel. You went on to specify this even more, saying, "again, it's not... it's not all Arabs; just the Palestinians and the allies." See? It's... eh... it's totally not racist anymore. Like... like, if I said that all white Christians are flap-jowled hog f*ckers, that would be racist of me to say. But if I specified that I was only talking about SOUTHERN white Christians being flap-jowled hog f*ckers, well... that wouldn't make me a racist anymore, because I specified. That's how racism works: It doesn't exist if you specify it to a slightly small cluster of people. Also... it's just interesting, because Ben has presented Ilhan Omar's comments as being that she said "Jews hypnotized the world." She said "Israel," but she meant "Jews!" And Ben said "Arabs," but h... he meant "Palestinians!" It's just... it's interesting how his mind works. And these are the tweets that Ben himself shows off as proof he wasn't being racist. Like, this is what he wants us to see. It's also not the only time he's been very clearly racist against Muslims, spreading extremely dangerous misinformation in the process. SHAPIRO: Now, the question isn't whether Islam itself is violent; it's what its adherents believe, 'cause that's what they act upon. Terrorists draw their moral, financial, and religious support from those who are not terrorists themselves. CODY: That's a video with almost 4 million views and 118,000 likes, where Ben explains—using logic— how the majority of Muslims are radicalized. As he explains, this is based off of Pew Research surveys of Muslims' opinions on certain aspects of religion and politics. Ben decides, using his... very objective brain... what specific Muslim beliefs count as radicalized ones, and then uses the percentage of Muslims who answered positively to reflect the entire population of that country. This is immediately wrong, because Ben omits a lot of the details; specifically, and most importantly, how there's a spectrum of how firmly Muslims support sharia law. The Pew Research study goes out of its way to say this. Here it is on the screen right now, if you feel like pausing it. In short, the majority of them don't support the more extreme aspects, like whippings, and... cutting of hands, and all that nonsense, and often loosely interpret the text the way most of us do with religion. And no matter what the interpretation, most of them believe this should only apply to fellow Muslims. Pew Research specifically gives the much lower percentages of Muslims who believe in more extreme aspects of sharia law, but Ben ignored them for his video. So, when PolitiFact took the actual data and applied it to, say, Pakistan, Ben's bad estimate of 135 million Muslims being radicalized was off by 60%. Imagine if someone did this about Christianity, and called all Christians who believed in the Bible "radical" because of all the violent acts supported in the book. It would be an unfair and grotesque simplification of that religion. And the fact that Ben ignored so much of the data in that survey means he is either A: really stupid, or B: lying and fearmongering! It's like... it's like... I don't... it... it's like... like he FEELS that Muslims are bad, and ignores certain FACTS in order to reach that conclusion, for... some reason. SHAPIRO: You scared yet? CODY: But, hey, no harm in lying to drum up a little fear against an entire religion, right? SHAPIRO: In other words, the myth of the tiny radical Muslim minority is just that: It's a myth. And unfortunately, it's a myth that's going to get a lot of civilized people killed. CODY: But, hey, no harm in lying to drum up a lot of fear against an entire religion, right? *BISSONNETTE & HIS INTERROGATOR, IN FRENCH* CODY: Oh, look, Ben! It's that guy who loves your tweets! This keeps going. Ben is so goddamn racist against Muslims that he blatantly stomps over facts like they were bugs to his Indiana Jones. SHAPIRO: ...the truth is that the... the vision of modern science— the idea of hypothesis, and hypotheses being rejected by evidence— that sort of science, experimental science, is unique to the West. CODY: That is such an amazingly wrong statement in so many ways, that it should end his career as a pundit. Ben's response to being so wrong about this was equally incredible, as he later pointed out that... he tot... he totally put out a video earlier saying that, yes, Islamic science hugely contributed to the world, incidentally, specifically experimentation, the thing he specified came from the West. But this makes you wonder why he said differently in the other clip. Like... he said something dumb, everyone called him out for it, and he said, "Aha! I'm not dumb because I once admitted to this fact that I am now denying," finally answering the question "Is Ben Shapiro dumb or lying?" Nice work, everybody! Surely we can... we can stop the video now? Oh, sorry, no. Dear God, no. We are doomed to this forever! Because even though nobody should take this guy seriously... maybe we should... take him seriously? Because along with being extremely racist and apparently dangerous all the time, Ben is also painfully not self-aware about how racist and dangerous he is all the time. HARRIS: Does it ever strike you as somewhat off to be in a room, kind of making light of victim culture, and h... having this kind of hearty laughter, and looking around and seeing that the vast majority of the faces are white? SHAPIRO: No, because I've said the exact same thing in front of faces that were not white. -So I... I've been very consistent about this.
HARRIS: I know, but... HARRIS: I know it's not that you change your message. It's just that it seems to resonate mostly with white people. SHAPIRO: Um, I don't think that that's true. I mean, I think that... I wish I were invited to more crowds that were more racially diverse, that'd be great. CODY: My God, Ben! That is adorable! The guy just asked you why you think your message is only resonating with white people, and you denied that was true before literally saying that racially diverse crowds don't ever want to listen to you speak. And... Why do you suppose that is, Ben, man who claims that his message isn't just for white people but also wonders why only white people invite him to speak? Holy smokes! I think that brings me to another segment? Maybe? This is all pretty off the rails, but let's put text up that says, "Ben Shapiro Is Allergic to Thoughtful Self-Reflection and Humility" Hey, Ben, how are you enjoying the video so far? By now, you've no doubt gathered your family around the TV to join in on the merry times. Happy Honda Days, everybody! Now, at some point in his career, someone told Ben Shapiro that you need to act humble and admit when you're wrong in order to have credibility. So, to his credit, Ben claims to regularly update an article devoted to all the times in which he was wrong. NEIL: ...trying to point out....
SHAPIRO: I have an entire list on my website, sir. Sir? SHAPIRO: On my list, I have an entire website
NEIL: I... I... SHAPIRO: on dumb and bad things that I've said.
NEIL: I'm s... I'm simply trying to point out.... CODY: But here's the thing: For starters, the list isn't nearly long enough, and half of them are actually just, like, doubling down or trying to defend his terrible opinions and arguments. The other half—where he admits he WAS wrong—is horrifying. Why? Because the things he's renouncing are not only extreme, but displayed with zero honest self-reflection in his remarks. One of the articles he's renounced—written in 2002— was in support of ignoring civilian casualties in foreign countries. Ben very rightfully calls the piece something he wish he never wrote, but then chops it up to being 19 and dumb. You know, like, how we all used to support war crimes as young adults? A year after that, he wrote another article calling for the transfer of Palestinian Arabs from Judea and Samaria and Israel. Ethnic cleansing, one could probably call it? This is something Ben now points out as being inhumane and impractical. But again, who hasn't called for expelling an entire race of people in their late teens, huh? These two articles should be serious moments of reflection for someone actually considering their own bias and xenophobia, but Ben gives it a few paragraphs of, "alright, I was wrong! Ya got me!" His main explanation for the majority of his retractions is the fact that he's written a lot and tweeted a lot, so, statistically, he's bound to say some really dumb things. But what he's retracting is extremely dark sh*t. And, again, he doesn't seem to have grown as a person, because as the timeline of his retractions continue, they're almost always based around comments that were seen as racist, often toward Muslims or immigrants, but not exclusively. It's the same problem over and over, spanning years. Also, one of the things he retracted was this article where he defended Representative Steve King's racist comments, later updated when King put out even more direct support of white supremacy. Ben later even urged Congress to censure him, but the damage was done. He was re-elected in 2018. Between that original defense from Shapiro and the later correction... so, you have to wonder... does Ben feel the least bit bad about his albeit small support for him and unnecessary defense of him, and will he learn from this experience to perhaps listen to people when they identify other examples of racist dogwhistling from politicians or people like George Zimmerman, a definite racist? Like, generally, maybe he shouldn't write so many words justifying racists... perhaps. Like, when he says stuff defending Laura Ingraham's comparison of child detention centers to summer camps... SHAPIRO: What she is discussing is that people actually are being treated pretty humanely in detention centers, which is generally a true story. CODY: ...does he ever think, "Hey, what if I'm wrong about this like I was with those other racists who are wrong and bad?" Especially since, he did this on the same day it was reported that a fifth child had died in one of those detention centers. It's not surprising that the kid who, like all kids, didn't care about civilian casualties, is now an adult who defends this stuff and justifies it, because... SHAPIRO: ...people actually are being treated pretty humanely. CODY: "Yes. I'm a serious person, so I prefer that my child detention centers are... "pretty humane!" You gonna add this eventually, Ben? You gonna add "defended child killing detention centers on the day a kid died" to your constantly-growing list of abhorrent sh*t you've said that has consequences? Because to Ben, this is just the nature of debate and conversation, something he puts a LOT of importance on. Debate is his f*cking jam, and apparently, the entire crux of Republican ideas. SHAPIRO: But the idea that new ideas are absent in the Republican Party is obviously untrue. We have a... uh... a very strong debate that goes on inside sort of... the... the conservative halls of intelligentsia, uh, about "What is the appropriate action to take with regard to the medical system?" "Should global warming be considered, uh, a real threat "or should global warming be... be considered something that technology will solve? And if so, what are the best... best aspects of... of solving that?" No, there's a... there's a rich intellectual debate on the right about nationalism vs. patriotism, for example, or populism vs. free-marketeerism. CODY: You see? Republicans are coming up with all kinds of ideas, such as... "What should we do about the medical system?" and "Should we do something about global warming?" You know how all of the best ideas exist as open questions with zero answers? Ben seriously can't name, off the top of his head, a single solid idea coming from the right, and just talks about how much they debate things. Because I honestly think that he considers the peak of intelligence to be sitting around, smoking a fancy cigar, and obtusely playing devil's advocate. PRAGER: Well, alright! Hi, everybody. CODY: Discussing politics to him has all the consequences of arguing over Game of Thrones, where, if you're wrong about a prediction or theory, you can just give a jaunty "touché" and move on with little thought. But the sh*t he says—that a lot of people listen to— has serious consequences! And I'm just not sure he realizes that, because—and I can't stress this enough— he lives in a very tiny bubble, which sounds like a fun game I like to call... "Ben Shapiro Lives in the Exact Safe Space Bubble He Claims to Hate. "This Is Not a Game at All It's F*cking Serious, Ben" You know what might be fun, but probably not? Talking about Ben's upbringing. Like, specifically, how he was raised by Reagan Republicans who dressed him up as John Adams for every Halloween. Often praised as a child prodigy, Ben was a killer on the violin at a very early age and continues to be as an adult. There's no denying he's intelligent. However, being smart about specific things doesn't make you smart about all things, nor is knowing information the same as correctly interpreting information. SHAPIRO: Go to a liberal university. use it as an opportunity to educate yourself, instead of, when they... when they assign John Maynard Keynes, go out and read some Milton Friedman on the other side, and then write exactly what the teacher wants, get the credential, and use it to your advantage. The Harvard Law stamp of approval on my résumé is definitely a wonderful thing to have, even though I disagree with everything that pretty much all of my professors ever said at Harvard Law School. CODY: Okay, so... Ben went to Harvard Law School, proudly brags about it to give himself credibility... SHAPIRO: ...you know, I'm a lawyer; I went to Harvard Law School. CODY: and proudly ignored everything his teachers said there... according to Ben! You, who are still watching, Ben. Thank you. After all, at 23, you were clearly a real smart boy who totally knew everything already, and so there's no reason for you to learn any new ideas. Ben would then go on to spend his 30s visiting college campuses and totally destroying people way younger than him, a real... challenge of intellect. In other words, Ben was raised conservative... SHAPIRO: I found a paper from when I was, like, 10 or 11, talking about the Clinton impeachment.... CODY: ...learned that he was very smart about certain things at an early age, and completely stopped exploring other ideas beyond the conservative bias he inherited, purposefully keeping his mouth and ears shut at a place of learning! He calls Rush Limbaugh his hero and once referred to himself as a f*cking "Rush baby," like that's a real cool thing. Rush Limbaugh! He lives in a bubble, hitting softballs out of the park and thinking he's Babe Ruth. His f*cking "11 Rules for Debating a Leftist" article is based on Piers goddamn Morgan! Ben majored in political science! And so, the moment he went on that BBC show, it all fell apart, albeit for only a brief and very telling moment. As Ben later tweeted, "Andrew Neil DESTROYS Ben Shapiro! So that's what that feels like," and a smiley face. You couldn't even reflect on this moment without jerking yourself off like a smug maniac! There's... there's so much more to talk about. SHAPIRO: ...the liberal point of view.... ...a... a radical leftist point of view in the media. Are you an objective journalist? -I wish you would at least be honest in your own bias.
NEIL: I, I... Mr.... SHAPIRO: Are you... are you a member of the...
NEIL: ...know that broadcasting in Ameri... SHAPIRO: ...BBC purports to be an objective, down-the-middle network. It obviously is not. It never has been. Why don't you just say that you're on the left? NEIL: Uh...
SHAPIRO: Is this so hard for you? NEIL: *laughs*
SHAPIRO: Why can't you just be honest? NEIL: Mr. Shapiro...
SHAPIRO: Seriously, I... it... it's a serious question. NEIL: Mr. Shapiro, if you only knew how ridiculous that statement is, you wouldn't have said it. So let's move on. CODY: Ben also applies this "brainwashed liberal" idea to Hollywood in a book he wrote in 2011, called "Primetime Propaganda: "The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV." Snappy title, Ben. Now, Hollywood IS very liberal, predominantly so, but there are also a surprising amount of celebrities who are conservatives, like, some big and influential ones. Adam Sandler donated to Giuliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger went sledding with George H.W. Bush once. Also, he was the Republican governor of an entire state! His career has been just fine. And I need to point this out, because the thesis to Ben's book rests on a pretty hilarious anecdote right in his introduction, like some kind of dark origin story. Are you ready? Ben tried to become a writer in Hollywood. SHAPIRO: It was more of a dramedy. SHAPIRO: It... it was based on Harvard Law School.
MARTINSON: Yeah. SHAPIRO: It was a dramedy. I... I've written a couple comedies, uh... kind of hour-long dramedies for, uh... you know... spec script. MARTINSON: And have they been bought? SHAPIRO: Uh, no. CODY: Boy... I don't want to be mean about this... but if anyone can give me a copy of those dramedies, I will just... I will do whatever to you. His taste is terrible! Like, I know we're talking a lot about this, we're taking up a lot of time, this video's really long, and art is subjective. And I said I wouldn't take low blows, but... SHAPIRO: ...Ben Shapiro with "Reality Check." Couple of weeks ago, HBO's Bill Maher got into it with the "Islamic expert"—and horrifyingly mediocre actor who should never, ever, ever, ever, EVER play Batman—Ben Affleck, over whether Islam.... CODY: ...in that Muslim video about the existential threat of scary Muslims— that couldn't possibly have influenced someone to kill Muslims — in that video, he takes his weird jab at John Lennon's "Imagine." And then, this is unimportant, but there's another long clip of Ben from a different thing complaining about John Lennon's "Imagine" for more than a few minutes! And I'm not gonna play any of it, or the whole thing. It... it's long and it's weird. But he talks about how, like, the "living for today" line is EVIL, and you have to plan for your future! And just, the whole thing is super f*cking dorky. And then he says... SHAPIRO: ...it... it's put over this kind of pretentious... these long, pretentious piano chords.... CODY: ...and... SHAPIRO: Oh, pretentious piano chords, do it. CODY: ...the chords are C and F, Ben. It... Most songs are those chords, Ben! You play music! You know It's C and F! And... do... do we have a clip of something musical and pretentious? No, no, no, no no, no, no! Do we have a clip of the chords from "Imagine"? THOSE PRETENTIOUS, MARXIST CHORDS!! Writing a humble song with the most basic chord structure imaginable, and it becoming the biggest hit of your solo career and a cultural touchstone is literally the opposite of pretentious. I just... I... Did you get beat up in high school by someone in a John Lennon shirt or something? Anyway, okay. Ben's pilot never amounted to anything, but Ben's not bitter about it. He wrote an entire book about how liberals are keeping conservatives out of Hollywood with leftist propaganda, like how guns rule, and socialism is stupid, and the EPA is dickless. But he's not bitter about it. SHAPIRO: Uh, that wasn't the point of the book, but, you know.... CODY: That interview, by the way is amazing. It appears to be on some kind of, like, public access library show, and it's hosted by a sweet old lady who, much like that guy on the BBC, just has absolutely no time for Ben's horsesh*t and slowly allows him to dunk on himself several times. MARTINSON: Well, let me say... I've yet to know of too many conservatives—which is where you put yourself— who are funny. SHAPIRO: Um...
MARTINSON: I mean, it has to do with a humor that is transferable to hu... to everyday living. SHAPIRO: I mean, I, I, I... utterly disagree with that. I think there... there can be conservatives who are funny. SHAPIRO: Liberals may not find them funny.
MARTINSON: Who? MARTINSON: All right. Uh... give...
SHAPRIO: I mean, a... okay. SHAPIRO: Ann Coulter, for conservatives is funny. CODY: Yes, who can forget those early videos of Ann Coulter killing it at the Comedy Cellar, having drinks with Todd Barry and Patton Oswalt, joking about... well, as we've already discussed, probably Jews, Ben? Anyway, got any other comedians to list for us? MARTINSON: I'm talk....
SHAPIRO: Bill Cosby is relatively conservative. CODY: What a perfect moment in time! I want to paint it and hang it up in my dining room, which is... it's what I call the far end of the cubby space under the desk. Anyway, the reason I'm talking about this isn't... JUST to make fun of Ben, who I appreciate made it this far. It's to give you a clear view of his origin as a political pundit and point out that there's a very good chance that, had his pilot got picked up, or if he had gross nepotism on his side, Ben would be a totally different person. Because ultimately, Ben wanted to work in entertainment, not news. And hey... I hear you, brother! There's a great Vanity Fair profile about this, and how he got his start with producer Jeremy Boreing, now the COO of Shapiro's Daily Wire. Boreing is also the executive director of a conservative Hollywood group called Friends of Abe, which prides themselves as a safe haven for Republican actors. In 2013, Boreing actually helped completely make over Ben's appearance and form The Daily Wire, a company based in L.A. with an office more resembling a TV studio than a website. They literally have a show called "Daily Wire Backstage"— which... looks like it takes place on a stage— and it stars an aspiring TV writer, an aspiring actor, a novelist, and a Hollywood producer. The point is that The Daily Wire was pitched as a content creator; entertainment rather than news. It's just another Hollywood dot-com studio in that regard. Only, in this case, it was funded by millions of dollars by the Wilkes brothers, a couple of fracking billionaires who liken homosexuality to incest and bestiality, and who literally think that climate change is God's will, and, uhh... nothing more to say about that! SHAPIRO: There are 7 million unfilled jobs. Maybe we need to actually move. Maybe you need to go to North Dakota -and get a fracking job.
CARLSON: Right, yeah. CODY: What a weird thing to say, Ben. Much like "if your house is flooded, you should sell it and move," if you lose your trucking job to automation, you should move to North Dakota and get a... a fracking job! I g... I guess th... that could be a coincidence, and the spokesman for brain pills just happens to support the very specific interests of the guys who own his career. Just get a... mwh-ha-da-da-da... What's a job? What's a job? ...a fracking job! Or a job in Hollywood where you interview the stars like Gary Sinise, founder of Friends of Abe, and before you go to commercial for your caffeine pills or gold, you say the question you're going to ask him when you come back. SHAPIRO: ...in a second, I'm gonna ask you about the... differences between directing and acting, and how it is to... to be behind the camera as opposed to in front of the camera. But first, let's talk about making your business more efficient. CODY: Just awkward. Just a little... a l... a little production note for you. Okay... I swear we're almost done, you guys. If you're still with me, I thank you, especially if you are a fan of Ben Shapiro, and ESPECIALLY especially if you ARE Ben Shapiro. Like... like, seriously, Ben. If you're still watching this, then... wow, nice work, buddy. I am... I am... I am proud of you, and I hope we get that drink. But... Ben Shapiro is an extremely biased, emotional narcissist who pretends he's a student of logic and debate but is actually just a talking head for conservatives and has used his popularity and personal bigotry and religious beliefs to stoke the fires of racism and political hatred for way too long and he shouldn't be taken seriously. That's it. That's the... that's the thing. Despite this claim that "facts don't care about your feelings," and his logic-based persona, Ben is wrong about the facts A LOT, and he uses flawed logic almost all of the time, and he exists exclusively in a bubble. And... and so does literally everyone else! That... that's... That's the thing: No one is perfect, and people naturally make decisions based on their feelings. And... that's not always bad. A lot of times, it's called empathy, and it's a big part of what's behind a lot of advances in history and, uhh... human rights... Ben. But the key to what makes us actually intelligent is to be aware of our own ignorance, to be curious enough to listen to other people, and accept that our assumptions about the world might be flawed, because everyone grows up privileged or ignorant about certain things. But Ben is a narcissist at his core, and so, when he's confronted by anyone pointing out a fundamental flaw in his thinking, he'll do anything to ignore it. Anything! Like... watch this moment from that BBC interview: NEIL: Well, maybe it's also part of your problem, too, because we have, from your YouTube videos, "Ben Shapiro DESTROYS the Abortion Argument." "Ben Shapiro DESTROYS Trang... Transgenderism and Abortion." Is that not a kind of coarse public discourse? SHAPIRO: Well, are those videos labeled by me? NEIL: I have no idea, but there are 3 million views.
SHAPIRO: Why are you picking out... why are... SHAPIRO: Why are you... I have a question. Why are you picking out random YouTube videos put up by people who are not me? CODY: When asked if it's hypocritical to preach civility while also putting out videos where he, quote, "DESTROYS" those he disagrees with, Ben answers by flat-out saying he can't control what other people do, and he never put out those videos, which is kinda funny, considering that... here is that video... on YouTube... by Ben Shapiro. 3 million people watched it, Ben. So, when backed into a logical corner, when faced with the possibility of humility or self-reflection, Ben's brain created a blatant lie designed to protect his own ego. So, to hide behind this idea that he's some champion of logic and reasoning against the emotional libs is just... it's PAINFULLY disingenuous, and also encourages the opposite of intelligence or reason. But a lot of people don't seem to notice how often-wrong he is, because he talks fast, and changes subjects a lot, and says things that they feel are true and want to believe. But... if you were to go through his videos, pause after each line, and actually Google what he is saying, you'd probably be a lot less impressed by him, because he's often either LYING... or just, like, dumb about the issues. Maybe both. But that doesn't mean YOU have to lie to yourself because you happen to like that Ben Shapiro confirms your worldview. Because, if you ask this News Dude, Shapiro is the final throes of a lot of bad and dying ideas; the caboose on the train of history DESPERATELY gripping to the rails! And yet, because of a thinly veiled false commitment to logic, he's stupidly popular, and he really shouldn't be. It's... it... it... it's kind of alarming that he is. And I shouldn't have to spend SO much time on this! And if it means one less racist murderer out there, Ben, if you stop doing what you're doing, so will I. I'll stop this! Let's run away together! We'll... we'll... we'll write TV pilots, and we'll make music and shoot guns together! We'll leave this life behind as brothers, working together for the greater good! I'll see you when you call me about this. And now I need to take a goddamn nap, have a snack or something. Gonna go to my home. Alright? See you. I will call the cops if you stick around! *sleep noises* *snoring* *Shemp-like sleep noises* *SNORT* Aah! Thanks for watching, everybody, but specifically Ben. I'm glad you're here, and I love you, and make sure to like and subscribe, and... check out our patreon.com/somemorenews, and our podcast "Even More News," and, um... This was so long. I'm so tired.
Seventy whole minutes of why Shapiro isn't a reliable source of information!?
This is glorious.
I like this guy, first one I've liked since Jon Stewart left. Videos run a little long for me, but I really like his delivery.
I find it so confusing how Ben seems to want to use “logic” to explain things like basic economics but can’t bring himself to do the same exact thing when it comes to his religion. #identityCrisis
edit: spelling bring not being
Ooh, this is going to be fun!
Do they do the bit about how he thinks Transgender surgeries are 'mutilation' but is an avid supporter of circumcision? That part's my favourite!
Contrapoints has a great video showing all his fallacious thinking about trans people too. Guy’s a POS I hope he quietly fades into unhappy obscurity.
Wait, people take Ben Shapiro seriously??
I had to stop watching 1/2 way through. It was too depressing. But I appreciate the breaking down of how BS works.
Ben Shapiro :
So sick to ear this stupid line - it's been debunked and explained to death. What a tool.
Cody's Showdy is the best.