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The Ben Shapiro Show
A Look Back At 2024 | Ben’s Best Moments
00:21:46
As the year comes to a close, it would only be right to take a look back at some of Ben’s best moments of 2024. It was a year filled with triumphs, impactful moments, and plenty of laughs while also climbing the music charts to become America’s #1 ex-rapper. - - - Today's Sponsor: Byrna - Get 10% off your purchase at https://byrna.com/ben
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- [00:00]
Ben Shapiro
Alrighty, folks. 2024 was an insane year, I know for all of us. But I have to admit that for me particularly, it was a totally crazy year. We're going to go through the highlights of 2024. Best moments of 2024 this year start off with a bang. January was nuts. I mean, totally crazy. So there was one week in January where I visited Auschwitz with Elon Musk. I did a debate with the Internet streamer Destiny and I released a number one charting rap single that was all in one week. It was totally psychotic, bizarre, weird. I mean, ran the gamut from moving to strange, for sure. So about third week of January, I went to Auschwitz with Elon Musk. That was because the prior year in 2023, I had done an X forum with Elon where he talked about anti Semitism. And one of the people who came on the line was a representative of a Jewish organization in Europe who asked Elon about visiting Auschwitz. And Elon had expressed some interest in doing it. I got a call from some folks who are close to Elon and asking if I would come with him to visit Auschwitz. And so we went and we did it. It was an amazing experience. First of all, Elon is obviously a brilliant mind, but also a person who sees the world through a unique lens. I've said before that Elon, whenever you talk to him, it feels like sort of an alien who has descended on the planet in order to observe the humans and see how they act and how they tick and all the rest of it. Watching Elon experience the height of human evil in real time was an amazing, amazing thing. Walking the grounds of Auschwitz and then walking the grounds more specifically of Birkenau, which I think was in some ways even more moving than Auschwitz. And then I had the opportunity to sit with Elon and we did a couple of things together. The first thing that we did was an episode of the Search where we talked about everything from AI to the future of space flight to free speech. You innovate and you make new things. And there is a drive to hem in that innovation.
- [01:40]
Elon Musk
The window of opportunity to make life multi planetary and secure. The future of consciousness may be open for a long time or it may be open for a short time. I'd be surprised if we don't have humans on Mars within 10 years.
- [01:53]
Ben Shapiro
Wow.
- [01:54]
Elon Musk
Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and free speech is what allows atrocities to be called out and for people to be aware of them.
- [02:03]
Ben Shapiro
DEI effectively is a conspiracy theory in which there's a cadre of powerful people who are at the top and they control everything else that's happening. And because those powerful people are at the top, they are exploiting everybody else and they have to be taken down more than one peg. If we're going to get out of dei, what's the best way to get out of dei?
- [02:20]
Elon Musk
Well, I think DEI is starting to fade. First of all, DEI is actually illegal because it discriminates on the basis of race, sexual preference, and all sorts of other things. That is actually illegal. I think DEI is on its last legs. It's going to be a root because it's illegal, actually. Is it literally.
- [02:48]
Ben Shapiro
We did that kind of spur of the moment to take you behind the scenes. It was unclear whether Elon was gonna have time to do it. He made time to do it. We cleared out a very small conference room, made it look decent. This is all with about 20 minutes notice. And then we sat down with Elon, had this wonderful conversation, and then went straight from there to the stage to discuss Auschwitz and anti Semitism and the increase in anti Semitism since October 7th. How do you balance the necessity for free speech with all these critiques about, you know, what is hate speech?
- [03:15]
Elon Musk
It's difficult to get to perfect truth and sometimes people have different interpretations of truth. But one can, can always aspire to be as accurate as possible and to minimize the, the error between what is being said and reality.
- [03:29]
Ben Shapiro
That same exact week we released a debate that I did with the Internet streamer Destiny. Now, Destiny has become famous for some very strange reasons over the course of the rest of the year. But it was a three hour debate or so on Lex Friedman's show, talking about everything from Donald Trump on foreign policy to domestic policy on education. 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 would. Every, every resource is finite, every resource is limited. And 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. I don't think any amount of changes in the schools will create two parent households.
- [04:11]
Destiny
Right?
- [04:12]
Ben Shapiro
We can't bring a. I totally agree with you. So that's why I think that the fundamental educational problem is not in fact, a schooling problem. I think that it pre exists. That is, I think, pretty entertaining. I think the best debates are typically good conversations as opposed to sort of tactical attempts to stab a knife in somebody. Those are actually Very easy to do in a lot of ways. The more interesting debates are the ones where you have sort of a freewheeling conversation. Lex does a great job with that. And then that same week, we also decided to release the song facts with Tom McDonald.
- [04:43]
Tom McDonald
They can't cancel my message because I'm the biggest independent rapper in the whole freaking world. If every Caucasian's a bigot, I guess every Muslim's a terrorist. Every liberal is right. I don't want to talk to folks who don't get it. Go woke, go broke. No hope. It's pathetic. Pro choice pronouns, pro love. You're progressives, but you ain't pro gun. No one to protect it. Where the American flags at? Remember when people would hang those? They've been taken down. They all been replaced with BLM flags or a rainbow.
- [05:07]
Ben Shapiro
This is the funniest thing we did all year, and maybe the funniest thing in human history, as it turns out. So this came about because Tom McDonald, he and I had met a while ago, and we had had some backroom conversations. I had him on the show, and at the time, he suggested maybe we should do a song together. I was like, okay. And then he got kind of serious about it. He said, maybe we should do a song together. I said, okay. And he wrote Facts. And then he and I sort of combined on my verse. Look at the stats. I've got the facts. My money like lives in my pockets are fat. No, get out. You've got to be kidding me. Was this AI or is this real? You're blow money on strippers and cars. You go into prison. I'm on television dogs. No one knows who you are. Keep hating on me on the Internet. My comment sectional woke Karen and I make racks off compound interest. Y'all live with your parents? I just did this for fun. All my people download this. Let's get a billboard number one. He sent over a version. I sent over a different version. My version was too hardcore, by the way. Tom will admit as much, that my version went too hard. It was really, really harsh. It was vicious rap battle kind of stuff against Nicki Minaj and Cardi B and Sexyy Red and all the rest of the group. And then we recorded it. That. That took, you know, maybe a couple of days to. To record it. We did a couple of different versions of it. We did the filming. That famous sweatshirt that I'm wearing in the fact video that comes from just the back room. Like, literally. We didn't have a hoodie. And I said it would be really Funny if we had like an Eminem style hoodie, do we have anything over here? And our staff just went in the back and pulled up the sweatshirt and so that's what I'm wearing in the video. Tom and Noah do an amazing job. Noah particularly is an incredibly good director. She, she really is talented at cutting all this stuff together. So the final result is fact. And when that is released, that jumps to the top of the hip hop chart, the rap charts on Apple, and then stays there and ends up charting on the Billboard 100. Ends up being number one in a couple of sections of the Billboard 100. Which is just hysterically funny because obviously when my parents were paying for my violin lesson so I could become a quasi virtuosic violinist as a teenager, obviously what they were thinking is that one day I would talk into a microphone to a, to a meter and that somehow that would become my big musical hit. So facts end up charting. That's all in the course of the same week. That same month, we also went down to the southern border to film an episode of Divided States of Biden. This was an amazing experience. We went down to a Native American reservation that's right on the border of Mexico in Arizona, and rode along with Brandon Judd, who is the newly selected ambassador to Chile under President Trump, head of the National Border Patrol Officers Union. And he and I did a ride along, went all the way along maybe 20 miles of the border, saw very few border patrol agents. If you wanna see a full explanation of exactly how bad Joe Biden's border policy was on the southern border, take a look at that episode of Divided States, Biden. I think that it was a kind of shocking experience, frankly, to watch Mexican drug cartel drones flying above the American border was a reminder that we have lost sovereignty under Joe Biden. Okay, fast forward a few weeks and we actually flew over to New Jersey, to Camden, New Jersey, to take a look at the fentanyl crisis. Because we want to do an episode of Divided States of Biden on the fentanyl crisis. And it was a shocking experience, truly shocking. I mean, that place, a third world country, the cops don't have control over the situation. They've been deprived of control over the situation. You're talking open air drug markets, people shooting heroin into their feet just on the street. And then we decided that we wanted to see something even worse. So we drove across the bridge into Pennsylvania. We went over to the Kensington section of Philadelphia. And that area is, I think, the worst place I've seen in America. Truthfully. I'VE been to a lot of unpleasant places in America. Hell, I used to live in Los Angeles. Used to drive through places in east la. Really impoverished places. Kensington is something totally different. It was a zombie apocalypse. And then of course we spoke with people whose children had been killed by fentanyl, were poisoned by fentanyl. This tied into a lot of the border discussion, obviously, but that was deeply affecting. To see our fellow Americans under the influence of drugs that legitimately murder them, wreck their lives, in some cases rot their flesh. Truly egregious and horrifying stuff. We'll get to more on this in a moment. First, as social unrest escalates and crime rates climb, securing the safety of your family is more crucial than ever. Now listen, I love the second amendment, but the thought of using lethal force, not ideal for everybody. That's why you need to check out Burna. And the fact is that God forbid, you're in your home, hear some clattering in the kitchen, you come out ready to fire with a gun. You don't want to make a mistake. And this is where Burna can help you out. Introducing the Berna Ungun. The non lethal self defense platform. Lightweight, simple to use. It uses an easy to load five round magazine. It's powered by an 8 gram CO2 cartridge. Burna launchers fire a 68 caliber chemical filled projectile using patented pull pierce technology where the CO2 canister is only punctured on the first trigger pull, meaning your launcher is always at the ready. It's capable of incapacitating an attacker for over 30 minutes. It's accurate and effective at over 60ft. It requires no permits, no background checks. It's interstate travel friendly with Burna. You will be prepared to defend. The Burner is a safer, more sensible alternative that could potentially save lives on both sides, protecting both user and aggressor. Thanks to Burna for sponsoring this video. In March I actually held a fundraiser, co sponsored a fundraiser for President Trump. Over at the Trump Doral is a terrific event. President Trump is hilarious. I will admit that he's unbelievably charming in person. Truly. Like he's great as a retail politician. He's amazing. I've talked about it before, but he comes into the room, he's like Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro used to love Ron DeSantis, now you're gonna love us so much more. What can you say about the guy? I mean like Donald Trump is the same in every situation and he is in fact a hysterically funny human being. In April we had the opportunity to sit down with RFK Jr. A great conversation. You can check out the full conversation on the Sunday special. He's a fascinating person. Obviously he's now the nominee to lead Health and Human Services. I think my favorite part about the conversation, number one, RFK likes to talk about things that nobody else is talking about. That's sort of the appeal of rfk. The make America healthy again thing really is a thing. I mean, it's something that people don't spend a lot of time thinking about. But as soon as he says it, you realize that it's true that Americans are obese, that they are overweight, that they are out of shape, and that the government actually has something to do with that because of the standards set by places like the FDA and places like the Department of Agriculture. Also in April, we had a conversation with Javier Milei, the President of, of Argentina, an amazing person, a person who's leading an economic revolution that I think is going to sweep across the west as an amazing conversation. He is just a fascinating human being. Fast forward a few months and one of the big controversies brewing in the United States, a controversy that we helped to uncover, was the censorious coterie of advertisers working along with social media in order to prevent any advertising from appearing on conservative shows. One of the signal influences here was the so called organization Garm and the Global alliance for Responsible Media. And we had led the way on reporting on this over at the Daily Wire. There was a congressional investigation going on into the influence of malign actors like Garm putting together sort of false standards of advertisable material. And so I went and testified before Congress in July. And that had some, some particularly relevant effects. One of the effects was that my testimony on garm, I think helped provoke Elon Musk into suing Garm. We of course were also going to sue garm. And Garm, instead of taking the lawsuit, disbanded. So the entire censorious regime just fell apart with the flick of a finger, essentially because we helped expose what was going on with this again coterie of advertisers and advertising agencies that basically decided to deprive half the political aisle of all advertising revenue. The other thing that happened during that hearing was a pretty famous back and forth that I had with Eric Swalwell, the congressperson from California. For some reason, Eric thought that it would be an excellent idea to question me about my prior views on social policy and also to say some weird things about Project 2025.
- [12:25]
Destiny
How about banning the abortion pill? That's part of Project 2025. Do you support that part?
- [12:29]
Ben Shapiro
I think that that's a state by state issue. On a personal level, you know, I'm just sure I'm a fully pro life person, which means that I'm not in favor of the distribution of the abortion pill. And.
- [12:41]
Destiny
And just as we found some receipts, you did say, I think homosexual activity is a sin.
- [12:45]
Ben Shapiro
Yes, I'm a religious Jew. That's true.
- [12:46]
Destiny
There's a genetic component.
- [12:47]
Ben Shapiro
You found me out.
- [12:48]
Destiny
Orientation. But the view of all religious people I know has always been that sexual behavior is something that is up to you. And you said, I may have a desire to sleep with many women, but I do not.
- [12:58]
Ben Shapiro
I agree with me. Yes, that's true.
- [13:00]
Destiny
Congratulations on your. Yeah, I'm sure it's very hard to restrain yourself.
- [13:05]
Ben Shapiro
And didn't go amazing for Eric. The same week as the Garm hearing in Washington D.C. i then traveled from D.C. to Los Angeles. And in Los Angeles I sat down with Bill Maher and Bakari Sellers to talk about everything ranging from race in politics to the presidential election. It's pretty fascinating. There are a few viral moments I'm just looking for. Honestly, I'd like for the Democratic Party to pull its support from the pro Hamas wing of the Democratic Party. That would be the.
- [13:29]
Sam Harris
Well, I actually think.
- [13:30]
Ben Shapiro
I actually think this is. Even as that started to go viral. It was a Saturday when my security came up to me and told me that somebody had attempted to shoot Donald Trump in the head and that it hit him in the ear. Unbelievable thing. I mean, God literally put his hand on Donald Trump's head and turned his head slightly and by doing so saved the country. Because can you imagine what would have happened if Donald Trump had actually been assassinated live on television in the middle of a race that he was winning? Can you imagine that? Our post assassination attempt episode was our biggest episode of the year here at Daily Wire. In early July, there was the debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, an astonishing debate that we covered for Daily Wire over at Backstage. Also covered it on the show. I mean, just amazing stuff. Unprecedented in American history. It basically caused the sitting President of the United States and the nominee for his party to drop out of the race entirely. By August, Joe Biden was out of the race, Kamala Harris had been swapped into place and now we had a brand new race on our hands. In mid July, the Republican National Convention happens. Donald Trump picks J.D. vance. It is a blowout event, star studded, really well run. Then Trump gives a very, very long culminating speech. Like a 93 minute speech. The Democrats hold their own convention in late August and it's all Tim Walls. Big controversy over Kamala Harris's selection of Tim Walls or vice presidential candidate, as opposed to, for example, Josh Shapiro, the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania. The Democrats in the college campus wing in the Democratic Party weren't gonna have a Jew for that. That was not a thing. Fast forward to September. There's a second assassination attempt against Donald Trump at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. And it's an insane, insane election cycle, as we all know. And then October, October, I do a series of campaign events with a series of Republican Senate candidates all over the country. Sam Brown in Nevada, Bernie Moreno, who ended up winning his race in Ohio. Tim Sheehy who won his race in Montana. Eric Hovdi, who ended up very, very, very narrowly losing his race in Wisconsin under, I think, kind of shadowy circumstances. Ted Cruz over in Texas and Dave McCormick over in Pennsylvania. Both of those latter candidates ended up winning their senate seats. Dave McCormick, his race in Pennsylvania was incredibly close, incredibly hard fought. And McCormick winning in Pennsylvania was a major blow to Democratic hopes to retain a majority early on in October. October 7th, I went with President Trump to New York to commemorate October 7th. I was invited by the Trump campaign as well as by Chabad, to visit the Ohel, which is the grave of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson in New York. I brought along with me a family, the family of Idan Alexander, who is an American hostage being held by Hamas in captivity. I introduced the parents to President Trump. It was an amazing, moving experience. President Trump again is great with people and I think that he was moved by the experience. It is devastating. Obviously, October 7th was devastating. The anniversary was devastating. Being with the family was the parents and the brother of a person who is being held hostage by terrorists. Incredibly difficult. But I think a key moment, I think actually in the campaign because it demonstrated full scale that Donald Trump was going to change policy on the Middle East. When he came into power a couple of weeks later, I had the ability to have President Trump on the show for the very first time. Terrific interview again, President Trump's very winning personality.
- [16:36]
Donald Trump
I had no wars, think of it during, and I'm talking about in the world. The world was at peace. I did the Abraham Accords, which should have been filled in. I would have had every one of the slots filled in. Biden got none. We had the four countries and four very good ones and four tough ones, and the rest was just a fill in job. It would have taken place, we would have total peace. And I made the statement because, as you know, Iran was broke when I. We had no terrorism, we had no attacks, we had no Hamas problems, no Hezbollah problems. We had nothing because Iran didn't have the money to give to them because I put sanctions on and I dealt directly.
- [17:15]
Ben Shapiro
That interview went pretty viral as. As well it should have. I also did a debate on Jubilee. This one went viral. This was a strange sort of format, was me versus 25 Democrats. All of them would get up. It was a very weird circumstance. Not, not my first rodeo, obviously go all the way back to 2014 when I'm being yelled at by Zoe Turb, but, you know, always good to play the. Play the oldies. Oh, there are a bunch of crazy things that got said on Jubilee. First, there was the verbal abuse at the hands of the very angry trans man who for some reason thought that yelling me for six minutes would make her feel better. It appears that that was not, in fact the case. There was somebody who tried to make the case that abortion includes just having a baby, which is a very strange case to make. Would you not, like, assume like something like a. Like a C section would be considered an abortion? No, because the baby is born alive, that be an abortion. Why would. What does the definition of abortion have to include the death of a fetus? Because that's literally the definition of abortion. It literally isn't, though. There are people who tried to argue that diversity, equity and inclusion was actually something like the Electoral College, which is, again, a very weird thing to say. I think that Trump won 2016 because of a modality of DEI. Essentially, what I'd say is the Electoral College, right, strives for inclusion of smaller states with lower population relations by overrepresenting them in the overall vote. Also, that same week, sat down with the Free Press and did a debate with Sam Harris on the election. Sam took the anti Trump position. I took the pro Trump position. This debate also went viral. I think it was a good explication of the two positions. As I said at the time, that debate was really between a pro Trump, anti Harris position. That'd be me. And an anti Trump, no pro Harris position from Sam Harris.
- [18:47]
Sam Harris
There's a double standard here in the way partisans think about partisans for Trump, think about what he says, and bracket everything he says as just political theater. I think we lose sight of just how not normal Trump is as a candidate. I mean, I think, Ben, if I had told you 10 years ago that you would one day support a presidential candidate who bragged about owning a teen beauty pageant so that he could barge into the dressing room and ogle naked underage girls. Right. I don't think you would believe me.
- [19:24]
Ben Shapiro
No one can defend Kamala Harris, which ended up being a big problem for her. October was also the premiere of Am I Racist? From Matt Walsh.
- [19:30]
Destiny
Where are you guys on your anti racist journeys? So look around the room and point.
- [19:35]
Ben Shapiro
To who we believe is the most.
- [19:38]
Destiny
Racist person in the room.
- [19:39]
Ben Shapiro
So I went over to the premiere of Am I Racist? Up in Nashville and obviously watched in astonishment and joy as Miracist charted and just dominated the box office. The highest earning documentary of the last decade. A couple of weeks later, went back to Los Angeles and ended up going on Bill Maher's club random podcast, which was entertaining. Bill's a really entertaining person. Really interesting guy. I bet you you had your day when you were like a wild. No, not high school. There was. No. Not even a moment. No, really, not even a moment. Not even a moment. You've always been. I'm as straight laced as it is possible to be. Just a few days after that was election night, Trump's big victory. A blowout backstage in which jelly beans were eaten, drinks were served, and in which I may or may not have allowed myself to feel extraordinary measures of joy. The vibe shift throughout the evening for me, I think, was one of the viral elements of that particular broadcast. Did things cool down in December? Not on your life, they didn't. The Trump administration immediately started putting into place a wide variety of nominees, many of whom are just terrific. Went over to Washington, D.C. have sat with senators, congresspeople, talking about what the future of the Trump administration is going to look like. And then I traveled to Israel for a couple of weeks, met with some of the politicians over there, premiered a musical with my father, actually, over in Israel. He and I wrote a musical. He wrote the music and the lyrics. I wrote the libretto to a musical about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It had an October 7th tie in, then came back and immediately went to Argentina and spoke at CPAC in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, talking about the power of free markets versus socialism. Had the opportunity to meet with President Milei at that point as well. And again, President Milei is transforming the nature of how economics is seen in the West. It's an amazing, amazing thing and part of a broader movement toward conservatism across the world. So it's been a bit of a year. A lot of things happened this year and next year. I don't see a slowing down, like, at all. January is going to be nuts. And we'll inaugurate a new president. I'm going to have congressional hearings. I have some big plans I can't tell you about yet. There's all sorts of great stuff coming in the new year. So if you thought 2024 was busy, just wait until 2025.