Ep. 2391 - The Netflix Documentary EVERYONE Is Talking About

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Ben Shapiro Show, Ep. 2391

Title: The Netflix Documentary EVERYONE Is Talking About
Date: March 19, 2026
Host: Ben Shapiro (The Daily Wire)
Main Theme:
A critical, in-depth dissection of the trending Netflix documentary "Manosphere" by Louis Theroux. Ben Shapiro examines the toxic online culture targeting young men, exposes the grifters and the damaging messages of the "manosphere," explores its mainstream appeal, and discusses how both toxic masculinity and femininity are feeding each other in modern culture.

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Overview

Purpose:
The episode aims to break down the viral Netflix documentary "Manosphere," examining its depiction of controversial online figures preying on young men, the spread of misogyny and conspiracy, and the real-life consequences for individuals and culture. Ben critiques both the left and right’s response to the phenomenon, drawing broader lessons about virtue, institutions, and the dangers of cult-like online movements.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Breaking Down the “Manosphere” Documentary

[03:00] Ben Shapiro

• The documentary exposes a web of online influencers exploiting young men with promises of wealth, women, and power in exchange for loyalty (and money).
• Key personalities include HS Tiki Toki (Harrison Sullivan), Myron Gaines, Sneako, and Justin Waller.
• The "godfathers" of the movement, notably the Tate brothers, do not appear but their ideology permeates.

Tactic Breakdown:

• Manipulate young men by blaming their problems on external “Matrix” (often coded antisemitism).
• Flaunt transgressive behavior to appear above societal norms.
• Sell access to secret knowledge or fake “universities” and insist that critics are part of the Matrix.

“We’re living in the middle of a gigantic online opinion OP designed to suck young men dry and leave them broken and stupid. That op is called the Manosphere.” — Ben Shapiro [03:00]

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2. Cult Mentality & Grift

[04:40] Ben Shapiro

• Draws direct parallels to cult tactics: targeting vulnerable people in crisis, love-bombing with community, demonizing dissenters, and demanding recruits cut off outside information.
• The grift is highlighted—followers are fleeced with junk “apps,” trading groups, and get-rich-quick schemes.

"Cults typically target people who are suffering from life crisis. They target the vulnerable, and then they love bomb those people." — Ben Shapiro [04:55]

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3. Key Influencers & Memorable Moments from the Documentary

a. HS Tiki Toki / Harrison Sullivan

[07:24]

• Admits on camera to lying, marketing porn he claims to dislike, and being motivated only by money.

"Because I openly say I don’t give a F and I’m doing it for money. I don’t care about the morality of it. I know it’s not good." — HS Tiki Toki (quoted by Ben) [07:26]

• Louis Theroux loses most of £500 after investing per HS’s advice.

b. Myron Gaines (Amru Fudel)

[09:55]

• Spreads bizarre, debunked pseudoscience about “retained sperm” and women's children somehow resembling ex-partners.

“When they talk about misinformation on the Internet, this is what they're talking about.” — Ben Shapiro [10:22]

• His own relationship is revealed to be unhealthy; his girlfriend leaves him six months after filming.

“You actually want to know what women want? … Love, protect, cherish, defend, provide for your wife and for your family. That is the definition of manhood.” — Ben Shapiro [11:41]

c. Sneako

[12:37]

• Features conspiracy rants (“The Satanists are running the world”), antisemitic tropes, and eventually admits the manosphere is “just people online making a buck.”

“Everybody in the manosphere is just—there are people online trying to make a buck, you know, selling ideologies.” — Sneako [13:05]

d. Justin Waller

• Promotes promiscuity and non-monogamy, claims his partner is fine with it, but the documentary exposes the emotional harm and emptiness beneath the surface.

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4. Impact on Youth & Cultural Spread

[14:53]

• The influence is evident as young men and even boys recognize these figures and parrot their language.
• Shapiro points out these role models ultimately deliver only loneliness and emptiness—none of the influencers lead genuinely happy or stable lives.

“These dudes are losers. They're actual, real losers... Having a lot of money does not actually mean you are not a loser. There are a lot of losers with money.” — Ben Shapiro [15:03]

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5. The Right’s Complicity & Media Landscape

[17:38]

• Shapiro criticizes elements on the political right for boosting or excusing figures like Andrew Tate “because they’re anti-Left,” calling it a cynical and morally corrosive calculation.

“The real crime, by the way, is the people who won’t call it out because there are lots of people who know better, but who have fellow traveled with this stuff because it gets clicks.” — Ben Shapiro [16:58]

• Calls for a return to traditional virtues: hard work, monogamy, and commitment, not get-rich-quick or anti-woman grift.

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6. Interview with Rob Henderson (Manhattan Institute)

Rob offers sociological insights and analysis
[22:52] – [31:54]

• While “manosphere” figures are not the most admired in surveys, their language has permeated Zoomer culture.
• The documentary exposes not only the manosphere but the vacuum left by secular, progressive society—Theroux is critiqued for being unable to offer a robust alternative morality.
• Hypocrisy: Influencers “sell” a player lifestyle but often live far more conventional lives.

"It’s this very sort of bizarre thing where they're saying, you know, oh, break out of the matrix...But it's all sort of extracting money from their followers. It's very dishonest." — Rob Henderson [25:21]

• The alliance of some conservatives with manosphere figures for short-term clout erodes the movement’s moral legitimacy.
• Both toxic masculinity and toxic femininity (e.g., influencer women chasing clout, not stability) are enabling each other—"two halves of the same hole."

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7. Toxic Femininity & Modern Media

[33:57] – [42:28]

• Shapiro analyzes how women in this world also grift for attention and money, mentioning OnlyFans and reality TV.
• Taylor Frankie Paul (MomTok star and new Bachelorette) exemplifies how bad female behavior is being celebrated and promoted, even amidst scandal—further reinforcing manosphere talking points about women, even if they are unfairly broad.
• Debate with Daily Wire’s Lyndon Blake on why the public should care: mass media perpetuates these trends and fails to hold women accountable as it would men.

"[If the gender roles were reversed,] they would halt production. But no…ABC’s like, we’re going to continue to roll it out. It’s absurd.” — Lyndon Blake [40:27]

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8. Institutions, Cover-Ups, and Consequences

[43:20] – [50:18]

• Shapiro segues to the New York Times expose on Cesar Chavez’s sexual abuse, drawing a damning comparison to how both left and right enable monstrous behavior for the "sake of the institution."
• Similar patterns have destroyed trust in other cases: Catholic Church, Jeffrey Epstein, academic cover-ups.
• Lasting lesson: protect virtue over reputation or institution, otherwise both victims and institutions are ultimately destroyed.

"Tell the truth. Always. Because failure to do so results in disaster, both for the victims and for the institutions linked with coverups of sin." — Ben Shapiro [50:00]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Manosphere’s Pitch:
  “We're living in the middle of a gigantic online opinion OP designed to suck young men dry and leave them broken and stupid.” — Ben Shapiro [03:00]

• On Cult Dynamics:
  “Cults encourage recruits to cut out all contrary information. And cults tell these people that people who oppose the cult are actually members of some nefarious outside force.” — Ben Shapiro [05:20]

• On HS Tiki Toki's Confession:
  “I don’t give a F and I’m doing it for money. I don’t care about the morality of it.” — HS Tiki Toki (quoted by Ben) [07:26]

• On Real Manhood:
  “The definition of true manhood is love, protect, cherish, defend, provide for your wife and for your family.” — Ben Shapiro [11:41]

• On Influencer Hypocrisy:
  "They're playing this character on their podcast of this cartoonish alpha male. But then...the man suddenly becomes very timid." — Rob Henderson [27:24]

• On Virtuous Parenthood:
  “I model virtue for my sons ... by treating my wife like a queen and by protecting her and by taking her opinion seriously and by making decisions with her.” — Ben Shapiro [50:54]

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Important Timestamps

• Manosphere Introduction & Netflix Doc Review: [03:00] – [13:23]
• Clip Analysis of Influencers: [06:43] – [13:23]
• Impact on Fans and Youth: [14:53] – [17:38]
• Critique of Political Fellow-Travellers: [17:38] – [22:25]
• Interview with Rob Henderson: [22:52] – [31:54]
• Toxic Femininity & Reality TV Analysis: [33:57] – [42:28]
• Institutional Cover-Ups: Chavez & Broader Lessons: [43:20] – [50:18]
• Q&A on Parenting and Virtue: [50:18] – [50:54]

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Episode Language & Tone

• Direct, unfiltered conservative commentary
• Sarcastic and often sharp in critiques
• Mix of data, anecdote, and moral arguments
• Frequent interjections of humor and incredulity

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Takeaways for New Listeners

• The episode is a thorough, scathing critique of both the figures featured in the Netflix "Manosphere" documentary and the societal institutions enabling them.
• Ben Shapiro makes a strong case for the necessity of traditional virtues, parental modeling, and honest critique—across both sides of the political and cultural divide.
• The toxic cycle of attention and exploitation online is harming both men and women, and the stakes are nothing less than the health of families, youth, and civil society.

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For listeners seeking a deep-dive into the contemporary culture wars as played out both online and in mainstream media, this is a dense and provocative episode.

Transcript

[Ben Shapiro]

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[Lyndon Blake]

Meetings, workshops.

[Rob Henderson]

One more Celsius.

[Ben Shapiro]

No slowing down.

[Rob Henderson]

Working late but obviously still meeting the

[Ben Shapiro]

girls for a little dancing.

[Rob Henderson]

Celsius Live Fit.

[Ben Shapiro]

Go grab a cold refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate [e-mail] youm can be rich, you can be famous and you can have hot women hanging on your every word, lavishing their attention on you, demanding nothing from you in return. All you have to do to get all of this is to give the manosphere your money, your brain and your soul. We're living in the middle of a gigantic online opinion. It is an OP designed to suck young men dry and leave them broken and stupid. It makes their lives actively worse. That op is called the Manosphere and it's time to wake up to their matrix of evil. This is the Ben Shapiro show. And folks remember if you are watching on the daily Wire site or app, then you can actually join the live chat and ask me questions in real time during the show. That's only if you become a member. So if you're watching this elsewhere or listening elsewhere again, head on over and become a subscriber. Well, speaking of our friends over at the All Access chat, I was informed by some of you, and again, this is just another reason why you should subscribe. So you can tell me what to watch and cover that I ought to watch the Netflix documentary from Louis Theroux called Manosphere. So I did. And to be real, it didn't really tell me anything I didn't know. But I'm glad it's illuminating a far broader problem. The crisis of men without proper guideposts and durable moral institutions, and being ushered into a world of stupidity and immorality by grifters and liars who traffic in lies, spiritual emptiness and outright grift. So in this documentary, Louis Theroux talked with a series of Manosphere influencers. One young man who calls himself HS Tiki Toki, not his given name, Amru Fudel, AKA Myron Gaines, Nicholas Ken De Blenthese, that would be Sneako and Justin Waller Thoreau didn't actually get the Godfathers of the script, the Tate Brothers on film, but he didn't really have to, because all these folks are running the same scheme. Here's how the scheme works. First, they tell young men that they are failing at life. And then they tell young men the reason they are failing at life is not because of anything they're doing per se, but because of the Matrix, a system of power usually run by the Jews that's out to get them. That system is what is depriving them of women, of money, of social mobility. Third, these men act transgressively and provocatively. They violate all social stigmas and then seem magically to achieve all of the things the Matrix has placed off limits to young men. Fourth, they inform young men that they too can have all of these wonderful things, the hot women and the nice cars and the big houses, if only they join a fake university or some BS stock trading app, or donate money to the kickstream. And finally, they tell young men that anyone who says differently is part of the Matrix. Now, if any of this sounds familiar, this sort of program, that's because it's basically cult recruitment tactics just made viral online. I mean that pretty seriously. Cults typically target people who are suffering from life crisis. They target the vulnerable, and then they love bomb those people. They say, you're with us, we understand you. They offer their most obvious critiques of the world. The unfairness of life, the impossibility of Overcoming challenges. And then they say, you know, the way out of that is the cult. Cults encourage recruits to cut out all contrary information. And cults tell these people that people who oppose the cult are actually members of some nefarious outside force. And if you join the cult, then you are saved or enlightened or awake, and everyone else is a suppressive evildoer. Now, this stuff is seductive and it's dangerous because it also informs young men of things that are not true. That, for example, women are disgusting and perverse, but also simultaneously available and completely pliant. If you just crack the code that you can achieve wealth and fame, not over time by building a business or something instantaneously like this moment, simply by seeing through the Matrix and issuing the 9 to 5 hard job in favor of a get rich quick scam. And if you fail, it's because of the Matrix. You just need to give more money to them. That Matrix, by the way, is just code for the Jews tapping into the anti Semitism. What that does is it allows them to seem both transgressive and also illuminating, which is why, of course, we have tons of clips of these quote unquote, manosphere influencers. As we'll get to later, all of them are losers singing Ye Heil Hitler back just a couple of months ago. This may in fact be the definition of hell. Would be stuck in being stuck in a small vehicle with this few IQ points at one time. And of course, Myron Gaines, who is one of the key guests in the Louis Theroux documentary, is he does this routine all the time. I mean, just wild, anti Semitic rants. Hilla was right about y'. All. Because the reality is this. You. You guys come into a country, you

[Rob Henderson]

push your pornography, you push the central

[Ben Shapiro]

banking, you push your degeneracy, you push the LGBT community, you push all this into a society, you destroy it from within. And then you guys go ahead and then you band together, you practice nepotism,

[Rob Henderson]

you keep each other at the highest

[Ben Shapiro]

levels of echelons of government and everything else, you protect yourselves because you silence free speech. You silence anything that criticizes you, and then you get rid of them. And then you go and use stupid

[Rob Henderson]

terms, fake terms like anti Semitism.

[Ben Shapiro]

Hmm. Well, none of this is new, of course. We've covered a lot of this on the show before, but this documentary is now trending number one on Netflix. Where this documentary is useful is in uncovering, kind of underneath the hood, some of the sick reality here, the sick and tawdry reality. So take for Example, this person named HS Taki Taka. I'll admit I'd never heard of this person. I guess he is bigger in Europe. He's a 23 year old apparent moron named Harrison Sullivan who is raking in cash by scamming young people. He admits that he is fine with lying to his audience, to marketing pornography to them while maintaining that he actually doesn't like pornography, and to robbing people blind. Here he was being asked specifically why he can't just be a good person and he says he doesn't do it for morality. He does it for the cash.

[Rob Henderson]

Because I openly say I don't give

[Ben Shapiro]

a F and I'm doing it for money. I don't care about the morality of it. I know it's not good.

[Rob Henderson]

I say to people, don't watch porn.

[Ben Shapiro]

It's sad. It's loser shit. You can't say I promote it, but I discourage people from doing it.

[Rob Henderson]

But you can, because you can say

[Ben Shapiro]

it, but it doesn't mean anything. Okay, see, what he is doing here is pretending that he is authentic by authentically admitting that he's a piece of shit. He's not lying. He does do it for the money. And those who invest in him are, by the way, likely to lose money. So one of the things that this particular influencer does, this manosphere influencer, is he tells people that that they can also have beautiful loose women and they can be jet skiing upon the oceans and they can have wonderful apartments in Spain. All you have to do is sign up for his junk app. Well, Louis Thoreau actually invested £500 in the junk app. And here's how it turned out. I opened an account and put in £500. I'd once taken £500 and joined HS's investment group, making trades with its advice, hoping to join the ranks of those who'd leveled up with its help. After two months, my money was mostly gone. Well, there's the shock. Well, HS Tiki Talkie Sullivan is actually kind of pathetic. His own mom, who certainly bears some of the blame for raising this streaming trash bag, bosses him around like a toddler while simultaneously humoring his latest vile and pure Al takes. Here's some footage

[Lyndon Blake]

they love. Gin Chum.

[Ben Shapiro]

Want a juice bar? No, you don't have to work with juice. They love shums.

[Rob Henderson]

Mommy, I don't want a juice bar.

[Ben Shapiro]

All right? Don't embarrass me, all right? Don't be rude. That's not the way I've brought you up. Do not be rude, all right?

[Lyndon Blake]

Because it's a reflection on me.

[Rob Henderson]

All right, I won't be.

[Ben Shapiro]

They had an unlikely domestic flavor. Can you get.

[Rob Henderson]

Look at this.

[Ben Shapiro]

Not having them coming here.

[Rob Henderson]

Look at this.

[Lyndon Blake]

Get out of the.

[Ben Shapiro]

So manly. So much manliness. Or take Myron games. Amru Foodle Gaines happens to be an idiot who picks on people even dumber than he is. Largely similarly vile female influencers who are also desperate for attention. It's this sort of never ending cycle of loathsome garbage. Gaines obviously is not particularly bright. Here he was in the documentary pushing just complete myths about how women have children who look like not their husbands, but a prior partner because of retained sperm or some such nonsense.

[Rob Henderson]

Ever wonder why some kids resemble an

[Ben Shapiro]

ex more than their father?

[Rob Henderson]

This is usually why the more men a woman has been with, the higher the risk of negative mutations in her future children.

[Ben Shapiro]

Louis, what do you. That video, that was ridiculous. The thing about, oh, you have a kid and it resembles your previous partner. No one thinks that. Well, there has been some, but there

[Rob Henderson]

has been scientific data that reflects this. When it comes to females, this is what they're.

[Ben Shapiro]

When they talk about misinformation on the Internet, this is what they're talking about. Well, I mean, obviously he is saying stupid crap, but you know, that's not really what matters because more importantly, to his young male audience, Gaines poses as someone worth emulating. A tough guy who's raking it in and has even somehow found a woman so compliant that she is willing to let him have sex with random women. And then she's totally happy with this, that she's locked in, but he's having sex with random women. And also she does his cooking and his cleaning. And it gets kind of awkward because in the documentary, Louis Theroux asks her how happy she is with this arrangement. And she does not look super duper happy about it. But we were talking about in the future that maybe there's a world where you would have more than one wife. Right.

[Rob Henderson]

She understands that. She knows that that could potentially come down in the future.

[Ben Shapiro]

What do you say about that?

[Lyndon Blake]

I don't know.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, so. So he's lying. She is not okay with it because guess what? Women generally not okay with this. And if you want a good woman, she certainly will not be okay with this. The girlfriend, by the way, featured in the documentary broke up with this pile of garbage six months ago. Well, that's because the view that he is advocating of the world is idiotic and it is demeaning to women. You actually want to know what women Want I speak as a man who's been married for nearly 20 years and has four children with a fifth on the way. You know what women want? Men who actually love and protect and cherish and defend them. It's not all that difficult, by the way. That is the definition of manhood. The definition of true manhood is love, protect, cherish, defend, provide for your wife and for your family. That is the definition of manhood, by the way. Also a great definition of how to be a happy human being. You know what women don't want in reality, what they really don't want? Scumbags who tell them to clean up their rooms while maintaining a harem. That's intellectual pornography for morons. Well, speaking of morons, there's also Sneako, the newly minted Muslim who spends his days online ranting about, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, the Jews. Well, here's some of his genius level commentary. The kind of stuff that we need young men imbibing.

[Rob Henderson]

But why is it every single magazine

[Ben Shapiro]

cover you see a celebrity doing this pose? Exactly.

[Rob Henderson]

Covering one eye.

[Ben Shapiro]

Are you for real?

[Rob Henderson]

I am for real. You?

[Ben Shapiro]

Who do you think's behind it? The Satanists. They're pledging allegiance to Satan. Do you think Satanists are running the world?

[Rob Henderson]

Absolutely.

[Ben Shapiro]

And conspiratorial cult horse crap, obviously. Well, one of the hilarious things that happens in this documentary is at a certain point Sneako admits that the manosphere is basically a giant scam.

[Rob Henderson]

Everybody in the manosphere is just there are people online who are trying to make a buck, you know, selling ideologies. And people have heard all the talking points already.

[Ben Shapiro]

I think the world got really crazy

[Rob Henderson]

for a long time, but I think we're reaching a little more of a balance in terms of what's truthful and what's not.

[Ben Shapiro]

But here's the thing. It's amazing. So he'll admit it, but then he participates in it. This stuff works. It works because a lot of young men are looking for an easy solution to life. They're looking for a shortcut. All this garbage works for the same reason. The get six pack in two weeks ads have a high click through rate. The dream is more attractive than the reality. You don't actually want to watch the video that tells you you need to count your calories and exercise regularly. If you want the six pack, you want to watch the video that tells you that if you just have this powder, then in two weeks you will have a six pack. That if you just try this extreme fitness regimen, then you will look like a Greek God within two weeks. That's the stuff that gets the click through. Now, the result is young men who emulate this junk. Here was Sneako walking around and getting recognized by middle school boys on the streets in New York. And you have to wonder, where are their parents? Watch out, watch out. They succeed in their high school yearbooks. Well, how does this work out for the fans? Well, Thoreau interviewed a couple of Justin Waller's fans. Justin Waller is another one of these types, and he asked them what brought them to Justin Waller and what actually happened to them. Well, it turns out that they have yet to reach a specific level of success. How do you know Justin? I see his videos, and he's one

[Rob Henderson]

of my greatest role models. Tristan Tate, the brothers, they're all. They're all big inspiration to all of us.

[Ben Shapiro]

And later, what we learn is that these young men are not particularly successful. And that's not surprising. I mean, how many young men are likely to actually be successful in life because they follow people like this? How many of them are likely to become happier or more virtuous or even richer? How many are going to have successful careers and families by taking this junk advice? And the answer is zero. Let's be clear. These dudes are losers. They're actual, real losers. It turns out there are lots of losers who are capable of renting apartments and cars, pretending that they own them, inflating their wealth, scamming gullible young men out of their money. And you can get rich doing that, too. But having a lot of money does not actually mean you are not a loser. There are a lot of losers with money. There are a lot of pigs with money. Just ask Jeffrey Epstein. So what's the real story here? Well, HS Tikki Toki is unmarried. He lives a pretty lonely life, streaming seven hours a day with his fake buddies. He pays while trying to avoid being told what to do by his mommy. Sneako is a Single male, aged 27, no children. Myron Gaines is 36, no children, no wife. Justin Waller is unmarried to the mother of his children. And while both he and she claim they are happy with this arrangement whereby he has sex with lots of other women and she sometimes joins in, I gotta say, doesn't seem like a particularly healthy arrangement for the kids. In the documentary, Waller particularly comes off as kind of a sad person with a troubled childhood. Young men need better role models. You know, people who actually pursue true happiness and fulfillment. Because in the end, what these men are selling is not a dream. They're Selling a nightmare. The real crime, by the way, is the people who won't call it out because there are lots of people who know better, but who have fellow traveled with this stuff because it gets clicks and they need the clicks. That is the lifeblood of this industry. Remember, it's not just that these scam artists have made a cottage industry from streaming for hours and hours and then cutting up the clips and then re cutting up the clips and then ramming them onto social media by the thousands and then building fake businesses from them because they have this sort of gigantically inflated popularity. They've been glazed and praised by some of the most popular political commentators, particularly on the grievance party. Right here are just some of them. Glazing a man who's been credibly accused of sexual assault and sex trafficking. Andrew Tate, which you describe it as the matrix, I think that actually is the right term, is that the matrix works over time to make it seem as though the people who recognize the insanity, recognize the homosexuality, recognize the pedophilia, are in fact the people that are crazy. Like it's a complete inversion of what's actually happening. And the saddest thing is that it works.

[Rob Henderson]

You are naive enough to believe that

[Ben Shapiro]

there are good guys and bad guys in wars and it's as simple as good and bad, and that the bad

[Rob Henderson]

guys are crazy and the good guys want freedom. Then you need to do a little bit more investigation into what's really happening.

[Ben Shapiro]

And when you look at the vested

[Rob Henderson]

interest of any country or any person.

[Ben Shapiro]

Can I just ask you to pause and just comment? That's the truest thing, what you just said. That is that. And anyone who doesn't understand that should shut the up. And I mean it. Here's the thing, folks. You should not trust people who sell you toxic waste. And you also should not trust people who then give that toxic waste their own imprimatur. So is there some sort of matrix? Listen, there are always things that society can do better in terms of providing opportunity. And yes, obviously there's a grain of truth to the idea that men have been victimized by an increasingly feminist society, that men have been cut out of what their roles used to be. There's no question that a lot of that is true. But the solution is not what is being provided here. Get rich quick schemes, total grift, toxic views of women. The answer is, wait for it, traditional virtue and decency. The answer here would be to pursue the same things that have made men successful for hundreds of years. If people are Selling you some sort of newfangled out of the box solution that involves no effort other than you signing them a check. You are the mark. You are the sucker. And the people who participate in all of this are just as bad as the people who are perpetuating it. In a moment, we'll be joined by Rob Henderson of the Manhattan Institute, who will join us to discuss the manosphere. Plus, we can't leave the ladies out of it. We'll be breaking down some toxic femininity in just one moment. First, the data are in. If you're not sleeping well, everything else in your life gets markedly worse. Your productivity, your health, even your decision making, all of them take a hit. For years, like a lot of you, I dealt with a mediocre mattress. I'd wake up stiff. I'd wake up overheated, like sweating. It's gross. Not nearly as rested as I should have been. Then we switched on over to a Helix mattress and that changed. Helix has a sleep quiz that uses your preferred sleep position, firmness, other factors to match you with the right mattress for you. Which is a far more rational system than wandering around a showroom and laying on random beds. And it's really comfortable. It keeps me cool at night. I've noticed a deeper, more consistent sleep makes it a lot easier to tackle my gigantically busy schedule. You know, the Helix mattress that I got was personalized. To me it is firm but breathable because I took the quiz and it told me this is the mattress that you need. And it works. Helix is an award winning mattress brand reviewed by outlets like Forbes and Wired. They ship directly to your door in the United States with free shipping, 120 night sleep trial, limited lifetime warranty. You can test it risk free, send it back if it's not right for you. I know the founders of Helix. They're awesome people. They make great products. Right now head ON over to helixleep.com BEN for 20% off site wide. Again, that's helixsleep.com BEN for 20% off Site wide. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you. That's helixleep.com Ben Spring is a natural reset point. If you've been putting off cleaning up the messier parts of your business, now would be the time to make the change. Streamlining your communications is one of the quickest and easiest upgrades you can make. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo. It's spelled Q U O. The smarter way to run your business communications. Now, here is the reality. If your business is still bouncing between personal cell phones, clunky desk phones, random text threads, you're bleeding efficiency and you're looking less professional than you should. Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2. It's the difference between running your business like it's 2004 and actually acting like you live in a modern economy where customers expect instant, organized responses. You, your entire team can handle calls and texts from one shared number. Everyone sees the full thread. Quo's AI automatically logs calls, generates summaries, and highlights next steps so nothing gets lost. So if you're serious about not looking like an amateur operation, this is the moment to do something about it. Make this season where no opportunity and a customer slips away. Try quo for free. Plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.comBen that's Q-U-O.comBenquo no missed calls, no missed customers. Savvy? Have we member questions? Let's check in.

[Lyndon Blake]

We do.

[Ben Shapiro]

So, Daniel, is there a difference between the original meaning of Manosphere and this documentary? Because I thought it meant Rogan or podcasts about jujitsu. Yeah, so, I mean, there is a difference. And I think one of the things that the left has done that is really kind of ugly is lump all of this stuff together. It's not all the same. You have the super duper toxic, which is what this documentary is about. And then you have people who will say that Jordan Peterson is manosphere because he's telling young men to make their bed and. And buck up. And when the left combines all of that, what they end up doing is actually legitimizing the bad. They don't end up just slandering Jordan. They end up actually legitimizing the worst of these folks. These are two separate things. The people who say to young men, listen, you have a problem. You can solve that problem with effort and with virtue and with values.

[Rob Henderson]

Right.

[Ben Shapiro]

Those people are. You can say they're part of a manosphere or that they are male directed shows, but to lump, say Jordan Peterson in with Andrew Tate is a complete category error. It's one, I think, that some people on the left make on purpose, frankly. Well, joining us on the line to discuss all of this is Rob Henderson of the Manhattan Institute, bestselling author of Troubled A Memoir of Foster Care, Family and Social Class. And you can check out his substack as well. Rob, thanks so much for taking the time. Appreciate it.

[Rob Henderson]

Hey, thanks, Ben. Great to be here.

[Ben Shapiro]

So Rob, you've been writing a lot on the. The manosphere. You've seen the documentary, obviously. What do you make of the impact in the manosphere? There's been a lot of talk about it's not really that many people or it doesn't really make a big difference. I got to say that this plays into sort of a broader question about whether online is reality. And I think my answer is online is not reality. But for a lot of. A lot of young people, online can in fact become reality. And increasingly online is bleeding over into reality.

[Rob Henderson]

Yeah, I think that's right. I think a lot of the concerns are overblown, but the lexicon and some of the ideas are spilling over into real life. There was a very interesting survey recently which asked representative samples of young men. Who do you consider to be someone to look up to? And it listed, you know, famous figures like LeBron James and others, but then also Elon Musk, but also people like Andrew Tate and manosphere figures, figures. And, you know, this is good news that the manosphere figures were towards the bottom in terms of how likely young men were to. To look up to them or think of them as role models. But still, you know, if you interact with zoomers, you know, young men in everyday life, you will hear them use phrases like mogging, Chadopoly, Stacy's. You know, a lot of this sort of language that you hear from manosphere influencers. So even if they're not directly consuming the content, it is sort of spilling out through social media and then into the real world.

[Ben Shapiro]

You know, Rob, one of the things that's really interesting, you may you observe this about Louis Theroux's approach in this documentary, is that the normal answer to this sort of toxic masculinity would be traditional masculinity. Right? The things that I try to preach on the show than many of us try to preach about the actual virtue of hard work, making commitments to one woman, protecting her, creating a family, all the things that actually we know from the social science generate actual lifetimes of happiness. But one of the things that the left has done, and Thoreau falls into this trap, is on the one hand, he wants to condemn all of this immorality for being vulgar and terrible. And on the other hand, because he's socially liberal, he has no language with which to actually condemn this behavior. And so instead he suggests that it's more about the grift or that it is more about lack of consent in some cases. But there's one point in the documentary that's kind of fascinating where he is talking to Justin Waller's wife and at a certain point she's acquiescing in all of this. And the normal kind of traditional entropy, it doesn't matter if you acquiesce in this. What you're doing is bad for yourself and bad for your kids and bad for your family and not a way that you should be living. But he doesn't have the capacity to condemn it in that fashion. And so he seems almost at a loss. What do you make of that?

[Rob Henderson]

Right. Well, this is the sort of the consent based morality of modern secular, progressive kind of culture where as long as everyone agrees to it, if there's a tacit understanding, then anything goes. But of course, this is can erode relationships. A lot of the ideas that the manosphere pedals. One example of this, and when I wrote about this piece recently in the Wall Street Journal, there were sort of multiple layers of contradictions and hypocrisy. So one of them was that these guys, sort of the bedrock foundation of their framework is women are born with innate value and men are not. Which there's a grain of truth to that. But what they say, oh, women are born with innate importance and value. And then they immediately contradict this by telling their followers to mistreat women. So do women have value or not? Why are you telling your followers to mistreat women if they have value? And then they say, okay, well, men have no value. Well, how do you acquire value? How does a man signal value? Well, it's through money, it's through sex, it's through status. Okay. The young guy says, well, how do I get those things? And the influencer says, well, you sign up for my fake university, for my overpriced subscription service, you join my Telegram channel where I'm advertising OnlyFans content creators. I mean, it's this very sort of bizarre thing where they're saying, you know, oh, break out of the matrix, escape and learn how to, how to become this alpha male, this cartoonish vision of masculinity. But it's all sort of extracting money from their followers. It's very dishonest.

[Ben Shapiro]

You know, Rob, one of the other things that's happened here is that a lot of this has become because we live in such a polarized political time, there are a lot of people on the right who refuse to just condemn it. They will say, no, no, this is part of our coalition now. We need association with these sorts of figures. We can't. I mean, there were very strong rumors for example, that members of the Trump administration had attempted to call the Romanian authorities to allow the Tate brothers to travel, for example. And so there is this sort of attempt by some on the right to legitimize these figures, mainly because they are seen as joiners in the anti left coalition. It seems like that undermines a lot of the main points that the right has to make, generally.

[Rob Henderson]

Yeah, well, it's a moral compromise. You know, this is sort of, sort of put for political ends. These guys have some popularity, they have some cachet, some clout with these young boys. And so let's, you know, make this alliance with them in order to sort of bolster political support and maybe some, some sort of cultural support online. But, you know, in the long run, I do think this sort of minds sort of the moral legitimacy broadly of the conservative movement when you have guys like this who will openly preach to their followers on their podcasts, oh, you should have a rotation of women. You should mistreat women, hire cam girls and onlyfans girls and make money off of them. But then in that documentary, the Netflix documentary, Thoreau would ask these guys about their plan. Oh, I'm going to have lots of women. But then when he would ask them in front of their female partners, then suddenly they would walk it back and say, well, you know, maybe I only want to be with one woman after all. And so they're playing this character on their podcast of this cartoonish alpha male. But then when Thoreau interviews them in the context of the relationship with the man and the woman present, the man suddenly becomes very timid about this, when in other cases, he would be sort of very forceful and very confident. And so to me, this is sort of a version of the luxury beliefs that I've pointed out on the progressive left, where you often see progressive elites who will get married and live very conventional family lives, but then will openly voice hedonism, short term gratification, pleasure, have a lot of fun, don't worry about the future. Well, the manosphere guys are doing the same thing. A lot of them where they have a committed relationship. I know there's, you know, there's, at least in some of the lives of these manosphere influencers, they have an agreement with their partners or their wives or whatever, but still, you know, they live with them. They are committed to them as their primary partner. But then what are they telling their followers? Have no relationship, no commitment whatsoever, sleep around, be an alpha male. And this is a hypocrisy that they're selling their followers and Then when you point it out to them, Thoreau points this out to them, you're living one way, you're saying something else, what's going on here? And they'll openly say, I'm doing it for clout. I don't believe this stuff. When they peddle in anti Semitic conspiracy theories, Thoreau points this out to them and say, this is just for fun. It's just whatever increases my follower count. It's a very sort of naked open, just, you know, whatever boosts the follower count. And in some ways the fact that they're so honest about this leads me to think like, it's not going to last. You know, there's the whole thing about social media is people want authenticity. And if they're openly saying I'm inauthentic, I don't think that popularity can last.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, There is another side to this, and that is the question that I think the male lizard brain goes to. When you watch these videos and you see these guys who are surrounded by good looking women who are fawning all over them, they say, well, maybe it's working, maybe it's working. And they turn off the critical faculty of their brain. One of the things that happens here is that in the documentary it is very clear that these young women are also in it for the clout. That it is not as though these young women are suddenly attracted to these influencers or that they actually care about these influencers or even want to have sex with these influencers. They believe that they are going to make more money if they somehow do crossover shows with the manosphere influencers. So in other words, toxic masculinity and toxic femininity. Those are two halves of the same hole.

[Rob Henderson]

Yes. Yeah. And the whole game is how many people are watching this live stream, how many followers do I have, how many subscribers do I have? And you can only play that game for so long. And you see that for these guys in particular, that real life and social media are one in the same. Where they don't know how to behave without the camera on. When they're just living their going about their lives, they have to have the camera going, they have to be watched. And that's the only way that they can feel validated, legitimate. What are my followers saying? What are the comments saying? And that is a very sort of shallow, superficial, empty way to lead your life. Maybe when you're 21, 22, that can be exciting, but in the long run, this isn't going to work out for these guys. And you can see this When Winthrop presses them in this documentary about their beliefs, they will suddenly start to crack and they'll say, I don't give an F, I'm just doing it for money. But in some ways even that phrase feels a little bit inauthentic. They know that the way that they're living their lives is wrong. But if they can say, oh well, money's a justification for it and in these guys minds, anything for money is okay, then that is sort of the go to excuse here. Well, I get the followers, I get the money, then I get the girls and what more could you possibly want? But in many cases, I don't even think they believe it.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, that's Rob Henderson from Manhattanist U. Rob, really appreciate the time and the insight.

[Rob Henderson]

Thank you Ben.

[Ben Shapiro]

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[Rob Henderson]

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[Ben Shapiro]

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[Rob Henderson]

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[Ben Shapiro]

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[Ben Shapiro]

Problem solved. Stop the scroll, start the show. Find what you're looking for. With Fire tv, subscriptions may be required. Well, speaking of the flip side. Okay, well, we'll get to the flip side. I just want to explain why, by the way, we are taking time with this. One of the reasons that we are taking time with this is because, yes, we'll get to, I promise, all of the daily news, all the big things happening in the world, but more people in the United States are watching what's happening on Netflix than watching what's happening in the Middle East. So it is important to note what your kids or what your friends or people like you are probably doing with their spare time, because these are deep underlying trends that actually undermine the West. Okay, so I do want to talk about the other side of this. I just mentioned it to rob. It turns out the toxic masculinity and toxic femininity require one another. As Thoreau shows in his documentary, many of the female influencers who are posting streams with these grifters appearing there in their bathing suits, they're doing it for the cash. Here is an only fans, model and influencer named Ellie Nuts who. Who shows up in the documentary. Would it disappoint you if. If you found out that HS was very judgmental of OnlyFans and thought it was actually disgusting?

[Lyndon Blake]

Not really, no.

[Ben Shapiro]

I don't care for other people's opinion

[Rob Henderson]

on what I'm doing for myself.

[Ben Shapiro]

Uncomfortable in my decisions.

[Rob Henderson]

LD commented saying, Louis Theroux's getting slops off the blonde. No, Double tap the screen right now. The male audience.

[Ben Shapiro]

What can you expect? Well, all of this brings us to another cultural story that is making a big mark in the United States right now. Again, culture is upstream in politics. There's a person named Taylor Frankie Paul. Now, I've been made aware of this by my producers. To be fair, as you know, I live in the news. I die by the news. But apparently lots and lots of people are following this story. A person named Taylor Frankie Paul was the central figure of a TikTok group called Mom Talk. She got famous posting family and lifestyle content. She has 6 million followers on TikTok. In 2022, she went viral after showing that members of her friend group had participated in what she called soft swinging

[Lyndon Blake]

the agreement. I already told you guys that the agreement was just like, as long as we were both there and we saw it and we knew it was okay. And the second it goes behind without each other, then that's. You stepped out of the agreement and I did that.

[Ben Shapiro]

Hmm. Sounds like a delightful lifestyle. She divorced her first husband. I know. Shocking. She has two children with him. Then in 2023. Those are some crazy eyes right there. She was arrested after a domestic dispute with her boyfriend. She has a child with him, too. So this seems like a person who should be on TV with impact to the American public. She ended up on a reality show called the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Fame and fortune can find you too. All you have to do, all you really have to do is be horrible and maybe ruin your life and also that of your kids. Well, turns out Taylor Frankie Paul's wild ride wasn't done yet. She was actually announced as the Bachelorette. Why men would compete to be with this person is absolutely beyond me. Other than men have lizard brains, there was Taylor Frankie Paul announcing as the Bachelorette for those of you that don't

[Lyndon Blake]

know me, I'm Taylor. Frankie. Paul, you're a new Bachelorette.

[Rob Henderson]

I'm still nervous.

[Lyndon Blake]

I've been criticized, I've been judged, and I've been rejected. But anyone that takes the time to know me will see that I'm actually a genuine person. And I mean well in a person.

[Ben Shapiro]

She's so genuine that she has to be in reality TV all the time.

[Lyndon Blake]

Stepping into this role as a bachelorette will be new for me. I clearly don't fit into the mold. I'm the first one not from the franchise, but I really admire all the women that stood before me. You're opening up your heart to women. I do believe I was gifted this for another, by the way.

[Ben Shapiro]

I don't know how women watch this and think it's even remotely genuine. Seriously, Women are gullible. It's not just men. Women are so gullible. I feel like she said that while she was soft swinging. Anyway, it apparently all fell apart this week after allegations of. Wait for it. Domestic violence against that charmer. According to Axios, a spokesperson for the Draper Police Department confirmed to People earlier this week it is now conducting a domestic violence investigation involving Paul and her ex boyfriend, Dakota Mortensen. She has a 2 year old son with him. All these people have great family lives. So ABC has a problem. They're scrambling to figure out what to do. According to Axioso, their answer was put her on TV and let her explain. And it did not go amazing. What do you want to share with us about this?

[Lyndon Blake]

Honestly, it's been a heavy time to see the headlines, especially during this time

[Ben Shapiro]

of the Bachelorette being released.

[Lyndon Blake]

And it's supposed to be really exciting, exciting time. I'm a person that will always speak my truth and I'm, you know, that's what I'm known for. And so when the time is right, I will be. But right now, just trying to be in the present moment and focus on this. But the thing is, my kids do come first. My kids come first.

[Ben Shapiro]

And so they do not know. They don't.

[Lyndon Blake]

Just a back and forth process.

[Rob Henderson]

Trying to be here in the present

[Lyndon Blake]

moment worrying about, you know, home and headlines. It's been stressful, to be honest.

[Ben Shapiro]

You know how I can tell her kids don't come first because she's not lived in any way. Like her kids come first, like at all, at all. At all. At all. Wait until her kids are old enough to really watch what mommy's been doing. Let's be real bad female Behavior championed and upheld by major media outlets tends to underline toxic male complaints about women. If you treat terrible female behavior as an aspect of liberation, as core to female existence, well, males might complain more about that. And then those male complaints turn to toxic views and behavior. When it comes to the sexes, a battle requires two tango. All right, well, we'll get to more on this in just a moment. Savage, we have any questions from our viewers? Actually, our wonderful Lyndon Blake has just joined us. Oh, okay. Well, Lyndon Blake is an investigative reporter at the Daily Wire. She hosts our true crime podcast series, and she's our trustee consultant on everything pop culture. So, Lyndon, I'm gonna ask you the question that I'm being asked. Why should people pay attention to this? Is this like a big story? I gotta tell you, like, I don't follow this stuff closely. I have been told that this is an enormous national story.

[Lyndon Blake]

Yeah, Ben, this is an enormous national story because the Bachelorette, the Bachelor franchise has been around for over two decades. And what's the whole premise? To find love, to find your lifelong partner, and to live happily ever after? Well, as soon as they announced Taylor Frankie Paul as a Bachelorette, I was so mad because I'm like, you could watch this girl in her tiktoks on her reality show, on any interview she's done ever and can tell she is not mentally stable enough or in any type of form to go on a reality show to find love. And the fact that the Bachelorette premieres Sunday, as in three days from now with Taylor Frankie Paul, who is being investigated for allegedly choking her baby daddy with a necklace. And ABC's like, we're going to continue to roll it out. It's absurd because imagine if the gender roles were reversed. If this is a man that had these allegations about choking his wife or baby mama allegedly, they would halt production. They would find something. But no, like you said, they're putting her on Good Morning America live with Kelly and Mark. All this thing, she's on the Oscars red carpet, and it's like, what are you doing, abc? Like, why are you promoting someone that clearly needs to go spend some time away from all cameras, all social media, and maybe focus on her kids, maybe take her kids to the park, maybe just try to live a normal life for a second.

[Ben Shapiro]

Now, Lyndon, we were talking a little bit earlier on the show about the manosphere and their views of women, these views of women as promiscuous and terrible and attention seeking. And I have to say, I think that when the legacy media prop up Women who actually are many of those things. It tends to underline a lot of what the manosphere says, even if that is broadly untrue about women. And it kind of grants the premise to a lot of these guys who are saying horrible things about women.

[Lyndon Blake]

Yeah, I think you're seeing right now the pendulum kind of swing the other way around. Because on these social media posts that I've seen, you have people that are normally like, oh, like screw men, like I hate men, saying, can you imagine if Taylor, Frankie, Paul was a man? Can you imagine if the roles were reversed? And what is the most shocking thing to me and Ben, I'm sure you're not just glued to Secret Lives of Mormon wives like, you know, a lot of us. But what is shocking is that just wrapped like their season four finale has already aired. And in this finale, you have Taylor missing her flight to go to LA to be on the Bachelorette because why? Because she's sleeping with her baby daddy, Dakota, her toxic on again, off again person, the night before she leaves, she is FaceTiming this man when she gets to LA on the way to Bachelor Mansion and being like, I love you and I hate you. Ashley's about to go meet, you know, 30 men to date and try to find a husband. And now we know because of these domestic violence allegations, no arrests. You know, she's already was arrested in 2023 for this. No arrests have been made right now, but it's all under investigation. You have child services involved. And this was from a couple of weeks ago at the end of February, this alleged incident from both sides where there was choking allegedly involved. So now, you know, obviously her Bachelorette season was not a success because she's back with baby daddy and having baby daddy drama. And it's absurd. And it makes me so mad as a lifelong Bachelor fan that they would do this. What's the point?

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, you know, again, this just goes to my premise, which is that no one should be a lifelong Bachelor fan. That's Lyndon Blake. She's our investigative reporter who covers true crime, among other issues. Lyndon, appreciate the time. And I'm glad that I have someone here to guide me through the wilds of reality television.

[Lyndon Blake]

We cover crime of all kind here. Ok?

[Ben Shapiro]

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[Ben Shapiro]

Alrighty. Well, you know, in other gossip that's actually significantly more political Unbelievable story from the New York Times yesterday. They dropped a bombshell piece yesterday on famed labor leader Cesar Chavez. So Cesar Chavez co founded the United Farm Workers labor union. He achieved lasting fame by getting California to allow far broader unionization. As it turns out, people around Chavez knew for years, for decades, that Chavez was a serial abuser of women and underage girls. For years or decades? The New York Times expose alleges that a woman named Margolia and another woman named Deborah Rojas, both of whom are now 66, were sexually abused by Chavez from 1972 to 1977. Chavez died in 1993. The findings from the New York Times are based on interviews with more than 60 people, including Chavez's top aides, relatives, former members of the United Farm Workers, as well as union records, emails, photos, audio recordings from UFW board meetings. According to the New York Times report, quote, Anna Margoya remembers the day the man she had regarded as a hero called her house and summoned her to see him. She walked along a dirt trail, entered the rundown building, passed his secretary and stepped into his office. He locked the door as he always did when he called her and told her how lonely he had been. He brought her onto the yoga mat that he often used in his office for meditation, kissed her and pulled her pants down. Don't tell anyone, he told her afterward. They'd get jealous. The man, Cesar Chavez, one of the most revered figures in the Latino civil rights movement, was 45. She was 13. Mirgoya said she was summoned for sexual encounters with him dozens of times, dozens of times over the next four years. Apparently, adults knew and did nothing. Dolores Huerta, his partner in founding UFW and the person who created the phrase si se, was apparently repeatedly raped by him. She had two children by him. Now she's 96 and she put out a statement, quote, I'm nearly 96 years old and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believe that exposing the truth would hurt the farm worker movement. I've spent my entire life fighting for. I've encouraged people to always use their voice. Following the New York Times multi year investigation into sexual misconduct by Cesar Chavez, I can no longer stay silent and must share my own experiences. As a young mother in the 1960s, I experienced two separate sexual encounters with Cesar. The first Time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him. I didn't feel I could say no because he was someone I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to. The second time I was forced against my will and an environment where I felt trapped. She said that both sexual encounters with Cesar led to pregnancies. She kept the pregnancies secret. After the kids were born, she arranged for the kids to be raised by other families. She says, I carried the secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farm worker rights was my life's work. That's the thing, isn't it? That's the thing. Chavez was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994. His bust was actually put in the Oval Office by Joe Biden. So how did all of this go down for decades? Well, buried in the New York Times story is the key line quote. Many of the women stayed silent for decades, both out of shame and for fear of tarnishing the image of a man who has become the face of the Latino civil rights movement. His image on school murals and his birthday, a state holiday in California. Yep, that is always the story, folks. Here's the bottom line. There are lots of human foibles. One of them is supporting institutions over individuals. Herein lies the locus of an untold amount of human evil. Individuals are ruined, their lives destroyed, and people stay silent because they hope to uphold the institutions. And then it turns out that the story comes out. And when the stories come out, institutions lose their moral standing. You see this happen over and over and over again. The most obvious example, obviously, is the Catholic Church and the child sex abuse scandal. The shifting of parish priests around who are known abusers or suspected abusers. The damage that did to the Catholic Church was inestimable, truly horrifying. You see this happen with people who are complicit in covering up Jeffrey Epstein, pretend being friends with him, treating him as normal, even though he had already been convicted of sex trafficking of a minor. By the way, there's new information showing that a lot of those friends got him rich by basically funneling him information. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Epstein. For Epstein, the line between social networking and securities law was part of the way he conducted business. Again, the idea here is that if you want to discredit the institution of capitalism, all you have to do is find people who are willing to back a Jeffrey Epstein character, willing to back somebody like a Jeffrey Epstein. According to the Wall Street Journal, key advisors to people Like Bill Gates passed along information about biotech startups that Bill Gates was investing in. And you want to undermine institutions. This is the way that you actually do it. You want to undermine ideas, provide support for the ideas on the basis of loyalty to an important person. And then the minute that you do, when that's uncovered, it destroys the entire institution. Even in non sexual situations like the scientific community, unwillingness to admit screw ups by people like Anthony Fauci undermines the institution. So what should the rule be? Tell the truth. Always. Because failure to do so results in disaster, both for the victims and for the institutions linked with coverups of sin. It's true for the manosphere, it's true for bad female behavior, and it's true for historic figures like Cesar Chavez. In a second we'll get to the actual news of the day, because there's an awful lot of it. First, let's talk about life insurance. Yes, I know everyone's favorite topic, right after airline middle seats and the group text that refused to die. One thing that actually will die is you know everyone at some point. That's why we need policygenius. The reality is the responsibility of protecting your loved ones and planning for the future is really heavy. Trying to navigate life insurance on your own is a giant bureaucratic mess. Policygenius makes that process dramatically easier by acting as an online insurance marketplace, not an insurance company. So you can compare quotes from some of America's top insurers side by side for free, and actually understand what you're buying. Their license team works for you, not the insurance carriers, which means their guidance is about your needs, your budget, your family, not somebody else's commission structure. What really stands out here is how fast you can get from I really should do this to actually having coverage in place. They help you figure out coverage, amounts, prices, terms, all of it. So there's no guesswork, just clarity and peace of mind. I mean, let us say that you somehow find yourself in the middle of the ocean in freezing cold waters and your lover is on a door. Your potential wife is on a door and she won't move over. And as you freeze to death, you might be thinking to yourself, man, I should have gotten Policy Genius. Not for her, she should move over on the door, but for the rest of my family, Policy Genius will answer your questions, handle the paperwork, and advocate for you throughout the process. That is why they've racked up thousands of five star reviews on Google and trustpilot from people who found the right policy for their situation. Protect the life you've built with Policygenius, you can see if finding a 20 year life insurance policy is possible. Starting at just 276 bucks a year for a million dollars in coverage. Head on over to policygenius.com Shapiro again, that's PolicyGenius. Okay, quick, check in with our members and then I want to get to the actual news of the day.

[Lyndon Blake]

Yeah, I just have to say the

[Ben Shapiro]

chat is so excited that you said

[Rob Henderson]

bear down yesterday and they're very excited

[Ben Shapiro]

about the future of Pterodactyl. Ooh, spoiler alert. So, folks, if you're not a subscriber and you're watching this on YouTube or something, we play a game. The game is that our subscribers get to tell me a random word to somehow put into the show and then you have to see how I somehow manipulate that into the show. That's the thing. That's going to happen shortly. We're getting there. So James W. Is asking question. I have four sons who can. What can parents do and fathers do to battle all these toxic ideas? Toxic ideas. I mean, the basic idea is you have to model virtue. It's in the water, right? I model virtue for my sons. I have two sons. I model virtue for them by treating my wife like a queen and by protecting her and by taking her opinion seriously and by making decisions with her. And yes, of course, I am the man of the house. I'm the provider, the protector and the defender. But you want your kids to be virtuous? Model virtue. Okay. Now to the news of the day. There is breaking news on Joe Kent. Well, well, well. According to reporter Shelby Talcott of Semaphore now confirmed by Fox, Joe Kent, who you'll remember is the former head of the national center for Counterterrorism who resigned after making this very loud statement about how terrible the Iran war is. Well, he's currently under investigation. Oh, no. For allegedly leaking classified information. That investigation reportedly predates that resignation from the administration. And remember, he wrote this very loud letter saying that he was opposed to the action in Iran, and then he blamed that on the Israelis. Of course, he also blamed the Iraq war and ISIS in Syria on the Israelis for good measure. While Tucker Carlson swooped in like an alp addled pterodactyl to interview Kent. This is unsurprising, given that Carlson and Kent have been tied at the hip for a long time. Kent promptly explained to Tucker Carlson that Iran wasn't developing nukes, and he knows that Iran wasn't developing nukes because the Iranians told him so. Was Iran on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon? No, they weren't three weeks ago when this started.

[Rob Henderson]

And they weren't June either.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, the Iranians have had a religious ruling, a fatwa against actually developing a nuclear weapon since 2004. That's been in place since 2004. That's available in the public sphere. But then also we had no intelligence to indicate that that fatwa was being disobeyed or it was on the cusp of being lifted. Well, that's weird. I don't believe him. The reason I don't believe him is because I have the testimony of other people saying it's not true, who have the actual intelligence. By the way, that wasn't the only amazing moment of this interview. Kent actually suggested, as the former head of the national center for Counterterrorism, that Charlie Kirk might have been murdered by Israel. So basically he's Candace Owens, but with national security clearance. And the last time I saw Charlie Kirk on this earth was in, in June in, in the, in the West Wing, in the stairway. And I said hi to him and he looked me in the eye and he said very loudly, and it's a small, you've been in the West Wing. It's, it's small all, it's a tight space. And he said, joe, stop us from getting into a war with Iran. Very loudly. He was single minded and he walked off and he went, I believe, into the Oval. So when one of President Trump's closest advisors, who is vocally advocating for us to not go to war with Iran and for us to rethink at least our relationship with the Israelis, and then he's suddenly publicly assassinated and we're not allowed to ask any questions about that. The real question here is how this person, this conspiratorial person ended up as the head of the national center for Counterterrorism. Ridiculous. That's no wonder that clips of Tehran, Tucker and Joe Kent were playing on repeat on Iranian and Russian state TV yesterday. That is not a joke. That is a thing that actually happened. Iranian airspace, their Internet shut down. But they will definitely play you. Tucker Carlson and Joe Kentucky. Let's be clear. However, it now appears that Kent was not acting out of some sort of anti war principle, but on the cynical calculation that he could counter program news of his investigation by loudly quitting and blaming the Israelis. So it's fair to ask at this point just what Kent allegedly leaked. We're going to find out. We know that Tucker was his first stop. We also know that Carlson has repeatedly reported supposed inside information, including just this week when he accused the CIA of targeting him based on. Wait for it. To intelligence sources. Now, it's also possible that Kent's alleged leaks have nothing to do with Tucker Carlson. The isolationist wing of the Trump administration is the leakiest shop in town. And it's a little odd that Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, just hired one Dan Caldwell in some unspecified advisory capacity. You might remember Dan Caldwell from such things as, you know, being fired from the Defense Department amidst accusation of being a leaker. And this brings us to the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday. She gave a half hearted response to the question of whether Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States.

[Rob Henderson]

Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was an imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime?

[Ben Shapiro]

The intelligence community assessed that Iran maintained the intention to rebuild and to continue

[Rob Henderson]

to grow their nuclear enrichment capability.

[Ben Shapiro]

Was it the assessment of the intelligence

[Rob Henderson]

community that there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no, Senator?

[Ben Shapiro]

The only person who can determine what

[Rob Henderson]

is and is not an imminent threat is the President.

[Ben Shapiro]

False.

[Rob Henderson]

This is the worldwide. This is the worldwide threats hearing where you present to Congress national intelligence, timely, objective and independent of political considerations.

[Ben Shapiro]

Now, she won't actually just say the thing, which is that Iran was in fact a threat. She won't say that because, of course, Tulsi Gabbard has always been incredibly soft when it comes to Russia, Iran and other enemies of the United States in her generalized outlook. Contrast her language with that of the CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, who specifically asked about this. Is there anything to indicate that Iran had ceased in its nuclear ambitions or in its desire to continue to build ballistic missiles capable of threatening American troops

[Rob Henderson]

and allies in the Middle East,

[Ben Shapiro]

Senator?

[Rob Henderson]

No. In fact, the intelligence reflects the contrary. So you disagree with Mr. Kemp?

[Ben Shapiro]

I do. Now, listen, it's not just that Tulsi Gabbard has been less than overt in support of President Trump's actions. The Vice President, Vice President Vance, continues to signal what can best be described as kind of tepid support for the President's assessment, which again, is an odd position for the VP who seems to be stuck in many ways between the warmth that he has towards some in the grievance party and, you know, traditional Trump maga. Here was the Vice President yesterday. The President has said this, I've said this. Nobody likes war. Right?

[Rob Henderson]

And I guarantee the President, United States

[Ben Shapiro]

is Not interested in getting us, you know, in the kind of long term quagmires that we've seen in years past. I know the president. I know the way that he thinks about America's national security. That is not a risk with this president at all.

[Rob Henderson]

What he has also said consistently for 10, 15 years, maybe even longer, is

[Ben Shapiro]

Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And he's willing to take action, diplomatic ideally, but military action if he has to to make sure that that doesn't happen. That's all this is about.

[Rob Henderson]

We don't want the Iranians to have a nuclear weapon. The president's been clear about this.

[Ben Shapiro]

And that's what led to the president's

[Rob Henderson]

decision of what about three weeks ago.

[Ben Shapiro]

So where are Republicans on all this? Because we keep hearing that Republicans are super duper split. Well, here's the thing. They're not at all like at all at all. They are with President Trump. Here's CNN's Harry Anton explaining. Just take a look here. MAGA GOP view of Trump approve 100%. 100%.

[Rob Henderson]

If you are a member of MAGA

[Ben Shapiro]

and the GOP, you approve of Donald John Trump, 0% say that they disapprove. You don't have to be a mathematical genius to know you can't go higher than 100%. Well, yes. Actually, there is even a poll that came out on the specific question here. It's from a group called Jail Partners. And it asked explicitly whether Republican voters trust President Trump on Iran or Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, who is sort of the new addition to the grievance party. The answer, 83% Trump, 6% Carlson and Kelly. But we keep being told Carlson and Kelly are the real voice of maga. So what's really going on? The answer is this. At the elite level of the administration, there is in fact an attempt to pry MAGA away from President Trump. Some members of the administration don't want to say this openly because they would like to have it both ways. They want to simultaneously claim at Trump's mantle and also disown his policy. Members of the grievance party outside the government are sometimes clearer. The less cowardly ones, like say a Candace Owens or a Marjorie Taylor Greene are clearly breaking with President Trump openly. And then you have the more cowardly ones like Tucker Carlson or Joe Kent or Megyn Kelly who are pretending that Trump has been bamboozled, hoodwinked and that they're really not arguing with President Trump at all. They're just arguing with the people who are manipulating Trump puppeteers behind the scenes. In the end, none of it matters, because what's really happening is that a splinter faction of the Trump coalition wishes to run a palace coup. It's not going to work unless that splinter faction is somehow able to convince President Trump to end the action in Iran before a clear victory is won. And that's precisely what they would like to do. They understand full well that if President Trump wins, if the Iranian regime is so weakened that they pose no further offensive threat, if the price of oil dives again, if the Iranian regime is irrevocably weakened and near failure, then their Noam Chomsky ITE foreign policy priorities will be shoved to the side and they themselves will probably be ostracized from the levers of policy. So they're banking on America losing. They're banking on President Trump losing. Undoubtedly, some of these figures are contemplating a 2028 presidential run themselves. And that, of course, totally depends on Trump failing. And so they are betting on that failure and pushing for that failure. Now, I think that's a terrible bet. What's worse, given the fact that America is currently facing down in battle an intractable terrorist enemy responsible for hundreds, if not thousands of American deaths, it is a deeply wicked bet. And this brings us to the latest in Iran. So yesterday, as we reported, Israel struck the South Pars gas fields in Iran. This was reportedly pre approved by the United States. The US didn't fly the sorties. I gotta say it is, it is obvious that Israel would not have hit the South Pars gas fields without coordinating that with the United States. Given the extraordinary level of coordination between Israel and the United States in this operation, and it was done as leverage against the Iranian government. Leave the strait alone or face the consequences. So the Iranian government immediately retaliated by firing on Qatari gas facilities. Yesterday, President Trump issued a statement making clear that Iran had better leave Qatar's facilities alone or the United States would directly hit the South Powers gas field. So he used some plausible deniability here. He said Israel, out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle east, has violently lashed out at a major facility known as South Pars gas field in Iran. A relatively small section of the hole has been hit. The United States knew nothing about this particular attack. The country of Qatar was in no way, shape or form involved with it, nor did it have any idea this was going to happen. Unfortunately, Iran did not know this or any of the pertinent facts pertaining to the south pair's attack and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked A portion of Qatar's LNG gas facility. No more attacks will be made by Israel pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case Qatar, in which instance the United States of America, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars gas field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before. I don't want to authorize this level of violence and destruction because of the long term implications it will have on the future of Iran. But if Qatar's LNG is again attacked, I will not hesitate to do so. So it appears that what happened here is that Israel, yes, with the coordination of the United States, hit the South Paris gas field as a warning to Iran to back off the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranians decided to go on offensive and hit Qatar instead. Qatar called up President Trump. They said, we don't like this. President Trump then said to the Iranians, listen, you better lay off Qatar or we will blow it up personally. We'll do it ourselves. And as far as the Straits of Hormuz, again, I do not think every lever has been pulled there even remotely yet. Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabian government which so far has not actually participated in offensive activity, it seems like they are moving closer and closer to doing that. Because here's the thing, the last thing the Saudis want, because the Iranians hate the Saudis, the last thing they want is to leave a rump Iranian Ayatollah regime in place dedicated to Saudi's destruction. Here was the Saudi Foreign Minister yesterday. I don't know how they claim to be fighting for Islamic causes while attacking Islamic countries. They are not attacking a single nation. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, uae, Oman, Lebanon, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, all these countries are Islamic countries, yet Iran attacks them. And even before this war, what was Iran's contribution in the issues related to the Islamic world? Well, the Arab League held an emergency meeting to condemn Iran. And notice what they didn't do. They didn't call for a joint U. S Israeli operation to stop because they are very much on board with what is happening right now. Regional opposition to Iran is actually growing stronger, not weaker. At this point, Iran's strategy, which was to literally go ballistic at all the other countries in the region. It hasn't just not broken the will of the U.S. israel and Arab alliance, it's actually making it stronger. At the same exact time, Israel continues to strike individual IRGC and Basij Members in pinpoint strikes. Here's a pretty astonishing video. You're gonna see a Basiji who is exiting an IRGC facility. It appears it's just an individual and he's about to no longer exist. Like in one second, he's about to be wiped from the earth. Yep, that's the end of him. Well, these sorts of strikes I would imagine are in preparation for clearing the ground for a popular uprising. Our Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessant seems pretty confident here. He was today.

[Rob Henderson]

We're starting to see defections at Treasury. We now know where the Iranian leadership bank accounts are and those are being frozen. And we will, we will hold them and see who comes forward in terms of defections. But we're starting to see defections throughout the regime and that's how this ends. So, you know, the idea of something tolling arrangement is ridiculous.

[Ben Shapiro]

Okay, so we'll see what happens next. Suffice it to say the United States, it is amazing. If you watch the legacy media, you would think the United States is being hammered. It's insane. It's insane. Brit Hume actually made a fantastic point on Fox earlier this week. He said, assume that the countries were reversed for a second and assume that the President of the United States was dead, the Secretary of Defense was dead, the Secretary of State was on the run, that the major heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force were dead. That we had no Air Force and we had no Navy, and that every single day members, top members of the brass and pretty much all internal security were being pummeled. Imagine that were happening to the United States. Would we be winning or would we be and we had inflicted basically zero casualties on the enemy would be winning or losing. The answer there is pretty obvious. Well, meanwhile on the Hill, Senator Marquis Mullen's nomination to head dhs, it's a hot topic. He passed through the Senate Intelligence Committee today. 8, 7. But yesterday it got pretty heated. So in his testimony, he explained that sanctuary cities are effectively in violation of federal law.

[Rob Henderson]

As I said going on, we don't get to choose which laws we enforce. As elected officials, you shouldn't choose which laws you enforce. We're not asking them to go out there and enforce immigration. We're just saying be good partners with us. If we've got to serve judicial warrants, let us go serve the judicial warrants. If you pull over somebody that's wanted, that's in the country illegally and it's a municipality, we're saying just hold them. At least let us do a background check on them and See who they are.

[Ben Shapiro]

His performance was generally fine. Obviously, John Fetterman is one Democrat who crossed the aisle to vote in favor of Mark. When Millen, with whom he is friends, Time I met, it was you and

[Rob Henderson]

your wife behind you when I was

[Ben Shapiro]

here at the orientation here in the

[Rob Henderson]

Senate and even before you got the

[Ben Shapiro]

call for the big job, you know, we were even discussing about getting together

[Rob Henderson]

and having dinner as family.

[Ben Shapiro]

So that's an ongoing relationship because that's also part of the fact here in this, in this town, you got to

[Rob Henderson]

get along and find a way to work together. And now we have to come at

[Ben Shapiro]

it and just let things go in the past for that. And again, it is just insane to me that John Fetterman appears to be one of the only people with common sense in the Senate. Senator Rand Paul, who obstructs President Trump's agenda on a regular basis, also decided it was time for some personal revenge against Mullen. A long time ago, you'll remember that Mullen made some bad comments about a physical attack by Paul's neighbor against Rand Paul. He was basically hit from behind Rand Paul by his neighbor. He broke some ribs. It was really bad. And Mullen at the time had said he understood the neighbor because that's how much he hates Rand Paul. And Rand Paul decided now was the moment, so he went for it.

[Rob Henderson]

Sheer lack of any kind of self awareness that you're going to be leading thousands of men and women who will be have the use of force.

[Ben Shapiro]

And there's been great questions in our

[Rob Henderson]

country about how that will be used. And you think a violent attack is just fine. So I guess my, my first question is, do you think that justifying that

[Ben Shapiro]

kind of violence sets a good example

[Rob Henderson]

for the men and women of ICE and Border Patrol? Mr. Chairman, first of all, I didn't know the extent of your damage when the phone call was made. I made it to you and I tried to talk to you. You didn't engage at all. In fact, you said, get your paperwork in. It's got to be a three work, three days in between. You offered no apology, sir. And you offer no apology today and no regrets.

[Ben Shapiro]

Haven't heard the word apologize. Haven't heard the word regret.

[Rob Henderson]

Haven't heard I misspoke. And it was heated and I made a mistake. Those words, sir, actually, it wasn't heated. And I'm not apologizing for pointing out your character. Good, good. So you're, you're jolly well fine. And you want the American public and the people up here to vote that may or may not vote for you to know that you support supported the felonious, violent attack on me from behind. I did not say I supported it.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, finally, Marquin Mullen had had enough and he went right back at Rand

[Rob Henderson]

Paul chairman maid, calling me a liar. Sir, I think there's. Everybody in this room knows that I'm very blunt and direct to the point. And if I have something to say, I'll say it directly to your face. If you recall, back in your back in my House days, we actually did have this conversation because remarks that I've made. You were in a room. I simply addressed that. I said I could understand because of the behavior you were having, that I could understand why the neighbor did what he did. As far as my terms as a snake in the grass, Sir, I work around this room to try to fix problems. I've worked with many people in this room. Seems like you fight Republicans more than you work with us. I did address those remarks. I did explain your gimmicks by the amendment you put forth. And as far as me saying that I invoke violence, I don't. I don't think anybody should be hit by surprise. I don't like that. But if I do have something to say, everybody in this room knows I'll come straight to you.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, you know, the interpersonal fighting here, not particularly useful. So Mullen is very much likely to be confirmed. If he is not somehow held up by some sort of filibuster, he's not gonna get Rand Paul's vote. Senator Fetterman likely will vote for him. Alrighty. So coming up, we'll take more of your questions. Behind the paywall. Again, so many reasons for you to join Daily Wire. So many reasons to subscribe. We have so much good stuff for you. Make sure that you stick around because your question, if I missed it during the show, and I probably did, will be answered all your most vital and burning questions. We have tons by the way, of good content coming up. I can't wait to show you, truly can't wait to show you all of that. Plus, we have all the stuff that's already there. You got all the Matt Walsh properties, you got all of the documentaries, all of the movies, all of our series. And of course, you get to hang out with us. Become a member. Use code Shapiro at checkout. Try two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.