Loading summary
Transcript55 lines
- [00:00]
Ben Shapiro
Folks, now I love steak. Steak is my jam. And there's a particular steak that's like around the corner from my house and every so often I order it. I'm so happy. Well, you now can get restaurant meals at home with our sponsor, Cook Unity. Cook Unity delivers award winning, locally sourced chef made meals directly to your door for far less than other delivery options. Right now you can head on over to cookunity.com ben or use code BEN for 50 off your first week. Every meal is handcrafted by talented chefs in local micro kitchens, not mass produced in some factory. It's a true chef collective bringing restaurant quality dining straight to your table. The food arrives in fresh, never frozen, in eco friendly packaging that's compostable, recyclable, reusable. Stays fresh in your fridge for up to seven days. With hundreds of dishes to choose from across dietary preferences. Plus other filters for soy, nut and dairy free options, there's always something that will fit your needs. Menus are posted two weeks in advance. You can order anywhere from four to 16 meals per week. Makes it super easy to plan ahead. Producer Justin, he loves it. He's been traveling recently and he's still using cookunity Experience chef quality meals every day delivered right to your door. Head ON over to cookunity.com BEN Enter code BEN before checkout for 50% off your first week. That is 50% off your first week by using code BEN or heading on over to cookunity.com BEN look folks, sheets don't just fail overnight. That's not how this works. There's no dramatic collapse. No single moment where you like pull on the sheet and then it just falls apart. It's incremental. The small signs you ignore until it's too late. The corners slip off, the fabric gets thinner and rougher. Suddenly you find yourself sweating through the night and wondering why you can't stay comfortable. Here's the bottom line. You don't realize how bad your sheets have gotten until you replace them with something good. That's why it is time to upgrade to our sponsor bowl and branch. If your sheets have been pilling, thinning, they won't stay put. They make you overheat. That's not normal aging. That is a problem and you can fix it today with bowl and branch. Again, I love Bull and Branch. I sleep with their waffle blanket every single night. I'm on the road right now. I literally bring the waffle blanket with me on the roads. When I'm in a hotel, I'm still comfortable. I Here is the deal. Bull and Branch's signature sheets are 100% organic cotton. No blends, no gimmicks. They're built to hold their shape, stay cool, feel unbelievably soft night after night. You will feel the difference the instant you hit the bed. I can personally attest to that. Upgrade your sleep with Bull and branch. Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping at bull and branch.com Ben with code Ben that's bull and Branch. B O L L a n d branch.com ben code ben to unlock 15% off. Exclusions apply On Saturday night, somebody tried to murder Donald Trump again for the third time in two years. We'll talk about the security shortcomings that led a gun wielding maniac once again within audio distance of the President of the United States. But today we're really going to talk about something more. The permission structures for violence that have been created by the left. This stuff is not going to stop. It's not going to stop because the left has decided to mainstream. It cannot hug Luigi Mangione and pretend you hate political violence. You cannot celebrate and hug Hassan Piker and claim to oppose political violence. You can't spread wild evidence free conspiracy theories about the President of the United States, calling him a pedophile, the antichrist, a child killer, Hitler, and then pretend that you're kind of shocked when someone picks up a gun and tries to kill him for the third time. We'll get to all of it. This is the Ben Shapiro Show. Foreign. So I'm going to start with the timeline. According to the Wall Street Journal, what exactly happened on Saturday night? I came off of Sabbath and already this news had begun to break, basically 8pm Eastern. The White House Correspondents association dinner had begun. It began a little bit after eight and a lot of the cabinet was there. The President of the United States was there. The Vice President was there. The Secretary of Defense was there. The White House Press Secretary, Catherine Caroline Levitt was there. First Lady Melania Trump was there. They were all on the dais about 8:30pm as guests were taking their first bites of their meals in the ballroom outside the ballroom in the lobby. It's kind of the lobby area. It's not really kind of the main lobby. A man runs right by a Secret Service checkpoint. He sprints across, shooting as he goes. Here is the security footage of the shooter. Seems kind of grainy. You can see the Secret Service agents are standing outside. And then you see from the far left of the screen, you'll see a man Charge through in just a moment. There he comes. He charges through and he appears to take a shot at somebody. And then the Secret Service agents draw their weapons and begin firing back. Well, moments after this happened, the. While this was happening, actually, guests inside the ballroom heard the shots. The event host, mentalist Oz Perlman has been a guest on the program, was entertaining Melania on stage. The President was quickly pulled off the stage by law enforcement. So was J.D. vance, so was Melania, obviously. Here is some footage of how it went down in the actual ballroom. You can see Oz Perlman, who is showing the President a card, some numbers on it. Same thing with Melania. Everybody's amazed by the trick. And then you see everybody react. You can see Melania immediately picks up on what's happening. And they. People start realizing that that isn't a drop trade, that that's. That's more than one shot. People start getting down under their tables, and the President and Melania are rushed from the room. Secret Service does a good job of getting them out of there. Here's a better angle of the Vice President and the President being evacuated. You can see Vance is pulled from by Secret Service. Now President Trump is similarly pulled off stage. They first covered him up to make sure that he wasn't a target, as opposed to getting him up and running him out. You can see from this particular angle, President Trump getting evacuated a little bit better. Here he is in the center of the. Of the dais. The shots go down. You see people immediately start ducking, getting under. Secret Service or stands in front of the President. They can see him pulled off the stage. Journalists in the attendance. They were hiding under the tables. Obviously, we had some journalists in attendance at this White House correspondence dinner, and people were immediately diving to the ground, getting under the tables. Here is some of that footage as well. Everybody getting down under the tables and. And all the rest. A very good piece, the Free Press by Barry Weiss, talking about the reaction of people in the room. She points out that the natural reaction of the men was to immediately defend and protect the women, which, of course, is. Is the right reaction. Well, security and law enforcement responded inside the lobby. Here is what that looked like. So you can see there's security, law enforcement with guns drawn approaching the suspect. Where's the common ground? Trying to clear the area right outside the ballroom. And then, of course, you see armed members of law enforcement and military are moving through the hallways to ensure that everything is clear.
- [07:41]
Hasan Piker
Stay down, everybody. Ladies and gentlemen, stay down.
- [07:43]
Ben Shapiro
Obviously, scary stuff. We had wired in live that was going on live at this time. And we were, we were able to cover this in real time. Our reporter, our editor in chief, Brent Shur over at Daily Wire News, he was able to report for us directly from the scene. That's one of the reasons we need your subscriptions, is to be able to report this kind of stuff and be there in real time. So shortly before 9:00pm, the White House Correspondents association president, a person named Weija Zhang, appeared on stage to tell the crowd that the event would actually resume. Trump wanted to resume the event. At 9:17, President Trump went on Truth Social, and he posted quite an evening in D.C. secret Service and law enforcement did a fantastic job. They acted quickly and bravely. The shooter has been apprehended. I have recommended that we let the show go on, but will be entirely guided by law enforcement. They will make a decision shortly. Regardless of that decision, the evening will be much different than planned, and we'll just plain have to do it again. President Trump. And a few minutes later, the president of the White House Correspondents association got on stage, announced the event was canceled. About 10:30pm the president posted a photo on social media of the alleged shooter face down on the hotel carpet. The shooter, as we'll discuss in a moment, shirtless, face to the ground. The president then put out another statement on Truth Social saying, law enforcement has requested we leave the premises consistent with protocol, which we'll do immediately. I'll be giving a press conference in 30 minutes from the White House press room. And then at about 10:33, the President came out, did a news conference at the White House where he said that a man charged a security checkpoint armed with multiple weapons. Here is the President. On Saturday night again, a lot of the members of the White House press pool were at the association. So everybody's dressed in their. In their Saturday night finest. I mean, the president said it's hux. Members of the press are in gowns and tuxes themselves. Here is the president saying that we need to put political violence aside, obviously.
- [09:37]
Donald Trump
But in light of this evening's events, I ask that all Americans recommit with their hearts and resolving our difference peacefully. We have to. We have to resolve our differences.
- [09:50]
Ben Shapiro
Okay. So the President also went on to joke that he was ready to rip into the press at the White House Correspondents Dinner, which is basically a comedy dinner, but he would have to save it. Again, the dinner itself has been rescheduled for about a month from now.
- [10:03]
Donald Trump
They didn't want to take a chance, and I understand there was protocol, but we're going to be doing one, hopefully within the next 30 days or sooner. And I am ready, willing and able. And I was all set to really rip it. And I said to my people, this would be the most inappropriate speech ever made if I said so I have to save it. I don't know if I could ever be as rough as I was going to be tonight. I think I'm going to be probably very nice. I'll be very boring the next time. But we're going to have a great event. And
- [10:34]
Ben Shapiro
so what exactly went down? Well, apparently, according to the New York Post, a White House Correspondent center volunteer said the suspected gunman appeared to assemble a long weapon in a lightly monitored area near the Terrace level entrance before opening fire and rushing toward the ballroom. The witness described there was a makeshift room apparently near the entrance where bar carts were being stored and where there was no security at the time. Apparently he was in the room. He grabbed it out of a bag or something. It turns out that the attacker was staying at the hotel, had basically known that the event was going to happen. Got a room at the hotel. That's how the weapons got into the hotel. And as we'll discuss in a moment, when it comes to security, very light security in terms of people staying at the hotel or people who are entering through the lobby. Security got a lot heavier around the actual ballroom, around the place where, where everybody was. That's where you had the magnetometers. That's where you had all of the security. The Washington Post apparently estimates they created an entire schematic that the shooter sprinted 60ft through security before officers fired on him from behind, at which point he fell face first at the top of the stairs. Eyewitnesses originally thought that he'd been shot because he didn't move after he fell, but apparently he was not shot. And this is a sort of rendering of the. Of the shooter's path through the hotel. You can see him, you know, in this, in this image moving again toward these stairs, running through security, and then he stopped at the top of the stairs. According to the interim D.C. police chief, Jeffrey Carroll, apparently the shooter was carrying a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives. Here is some video of the alleged shooter handcuffed on the ground with U.S. secret Service. Got it.
- [12:19]
Hasan Piker
Jesus Christ.
- [12:22]
Ben Shapiro
Sorry. So, again, pretty scary stuff. Thank God nobody was actually hurt in all this. Nobody was injured. Nobody was killed. An insane breach of security. Now, the president has said this is a good reason to have a White House ballroom. He is not wrong about that. So what was the Shooter thinking, what's his ideology? We now know all of these things and we'll get into it in a moment. First, getting a wide variety of whole food ingredients into my diet. It's a priority for me, especially with constant work and and travel. Our sponsor, Balance of Nature, their whole health system makes it super simple. Convenient blend of fruits and veggies and easy to take capsules. It's kosher. It ensures I'm getting essential nutrients every single day without the hassle of prep work or meal planning. It's an effortless way to support my wellness goals while managing a busy on the go lifestyle. Balance of Nature's Whole Health system supplements are incredibly versatile. They're easy to work into your daily routine. They have a fiber and spice supplement that blends smoothly into your favorite drinks. It adds a warm aromatic depth from its spice blend and if you prefer, you can even open up those fruits and veggies capsules and then mix the powder directly into a smoothie or sprinkle it over your meals. What makes these supplements special is that they are packed with 47 ingredients from 100% real whole fruits, veggies, spices, fibers, everything from psyllium husk and flaxseed to cinnamon, turmeric, mango, pineapple, wild blueberries, tons of great stuff. It's a simple way to give your body the nutrition it needs every single day in conjunction with healthy habits. I'm on the road right now. I been using Balance of Nature to help me stay healthy save over 30% when you subscribe to balanceofnature.com join hundreds of thousands of customers in one simple routine that's changing the world again. That's balanceofnature.com to subscribe. The big question of course whenever something like this occurs was what's the background of the shooter? What was the shooter trying to do? Because not that every movement is responsible for every shooter, not that every ideology is responsible for every nutrition, but we obviously have seen a wild uptick in violence. That violence, political violence, is largely oriented at the right by the left, or at the moderates by the left. Not entirely, but largely. And this appears to be yet another case of this. So the shooter's name is Cole Allen. Apparently he graduated Caltech in 2017 with a 3.0 GPA and a BS in mechanical engineering. And then he graduated from later with a Master's in Computer Science. Apparently he worked a few months for a 3D printing company, he did some engineering and then he did seven years of self employment as an indie game developer and he Was a teacher in California as well. Apparently he was labeled teacher of the month where he was teaching in California. But what were his actual political views? So again, it is very likely whenever you see somebody try to commit an act of assassination, that there's a screw loose. That is very, very common. Unless they're a member of an actual honest to God terror group. It is very, very common that these people are. Something has broken in them. Here is a video of the shooter. This is some years ago at an engineering conference talking about engineering, college student
- [15:27]
Interviewer / Reporter
Cole Allen developed a prototype for a wheelchair emergency brake.
- [15:31]
Ben Shapiro
The wheelchair brakes tend to lock the wheels, but don't actually lock the chair to the ground. The idea with this is to prevent it from moving at all.
- [15:43]
Interviewer / Reporter
Recent Aging into the Future conference held by St. Barnabas Senior Services and the Eisner foundation offered a test run on products that have the potential to enrich the lives of seniors.
- [15:55]
Ben Shapiro
Now, again, seems like a normal engineering student. Something probably went wrong. Okay? But what we do know are the politics of the shooter. So the shooter had a bunch of social media posts, and it is precisely what you would think. First of all, he had a manifesto, which we'll get to in a minute, but you probably could have predicted his manifesto if you had seen his social media. He was very active on a left wing version of X called Blue sky, which is filled with nut jobs, filled with radicals. So on Blue sky, for example, he had posted just a few days ago, he had reposted a person saying every single one of these effing charlatans would support the Antichrist himself if he spouted enough anti immigrant and anti trans bleep as he rode through town. And then he tweeted himself, he put out a statement, delete wood. Delete everything after himself and add an S directly after support. So again, the idea is that the President is the Antichrist, essentially, and that all these people support, all of his supporters support the Antichrist. He also suggested on Blue sky, quote from the Epstein files that have been released, it's public knowledge that he likely is basically a sociopathic mob boss. Like that's just literally who he is. People got to stop treating him like someone who honors agreements. He also called the President on Blue Sky, a known traitor. Quote, we put a known traitor in office who explicitly ran on revenge,
- [17:24]
Donald Trump
who
- [17:24]
Ben Shapiro
effed up the COVID response with known connections to murderous effort in the Kremlin. I'm mostly surprised by this administration's incompetence in fascism. I was expecting actual fighting to have started much earlier. Now, he did donate about 25 bucks to Kamala Harris back in October 2024. So, again, this is a very, very left wing person, a left wing radical who believes deeply, apparently, in conspiracy theories involving the President. Jeffrey Epstein is into the calling of the President the Antichrist. You may notice some language similarities to lots of members of the grievance party, most left, some right. Well, his manifesto, which was sent out 10 minutes before the attack, is worth perusing because again, it shows the. Well, the stew of trash from which people can imbibe and if they have a screw loose, may activate them to do violence. So he starts by apologizing to his family, friends, students and colleagues for lying to them about where he has been, as well as, quote, everyone who was abused and or murdered before this, to all those who suffered before I was able to attempt this, to all who may still suffer after, regardless of my success or failure. And he writes on to why I did any of this. I am a citizen of the United States of America. What my representatives do reflects on me. And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I've had to do something about it. Okay, so notice the language there. Pedophile, rapist, and traitor. There is no evidence that the President is a pedophile or a rapist or a traitor. The pedophile accusation comes from the extraordinary stupidity and venality of people claiming that the President is in fact, engaged in a pedophilic cover up with regard to Jeffrey Epstein. Again, that is a conspiracy theory promoted very widely on the left and fairly widely on the grievance party. Right. The suggestion that he is a rapist, again, unevidenced. The suggestion that he is a traitor. That, of course, is the kind of language that is frequently used by all sorts of people on the democratic right and in the grievance, on the Democratic party left and on the grievance party right. The shooter then went over his rules of engagement, which was basically to kill everyone except for Cash Patel. He says administration officials, not including Mr. Patel, they are targets prioritized from highest ranking to low. So again, ask yourself why he was trying to leave out Patel. And the answer is because if you are an Epstein conspiracy theorist, then you might think that Cash Patel is the person trying to uncover all the secrets about Epstein. So the Epstein conspiracy theorizing has very real world consequences. Just as Pizzagate had Very real world consequences when you spread baseless trash about people trafficking in children. Nut jobs might go and do something about it. He then suggested Secret Service. They are targets only if necessary and to be incapacitated non lethally if possible. AKA I hope they're wearing body armor because sensor masks with shotguns messes up people who aren't. And then he specified that hotel security, Capitol police, National Guard, hotel employees, guests are not targets if at all possible, unless they shoot at me. But that he would still go through almost everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary on the basis that most people chose to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist and traitor again that language and are thus complicit. But I really hope it doesn't come to that. He then goes through in this little manifesto, and you know, at least it's brief because it's incoherent, he goes through a series of objections. One, as a Christian, you should turn the other cheek. Quote, turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I'm not the person raped in a detention camp. I'm not sure what he's talking about there. I'm not the fisherman executed without trial. I assume he is referring here to the suggestion that the President was authorizing the blowing up of fishermen, not Venezuelan drug dealers in the Caribbean. I'm not a school kid blown up. I assume that is a reference to the lie that the President authorized knowingly an attack on an Iranian girls school or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration. Turning the other cheek when someone else is oppressed is not Christian behavior. It is complicity in the oppressor's crimes. Objection two. He writes this is not a convenient time for you to do this rebuttal. I need whoever thinks this way to take a couple minutes and realize the world isn't about them. Do you think that when I see someone raped or murdered or abused, I should walk on by because it would be inconvenient for people who aren't the victim? This was the best timing and chance of success I could come up with. Objection 3. Didn't get them all rebuttal. Gotta start somewhere. Objection 4. As a half black half white person, you shouldn't be the one doing this rebuttal. I don't see anyone else picking up the slack. Objection five. Yield unto Caesar. What is Caesar's rebuttal? The United States of America are ruled by law, not by any one or several people insofar as representatives and Judges do not follow the law. No one is required to yield them anything. So unlawfully ordered. And then he thanked his friends, family, students, and signed off. Cold force friendly federal assassin Allen. And then apparently he added a PS and this PS has to do with the security at the hotel, which again, this person has a screw loose, obviously. But having a screw loose doesn't explain why we are seeing increasing frequency of political violence in the United States and why that political violence seems largely relegated to the radical left. So he has an entire postscript here that is dedicated to the idea that the Secret Service is incompetent. Sorry, got a rant a bit here and dropped the formal tone like I expected. Security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10ft, metal detectors out the wazoo. What I got, who knows, maybe they're pranking me. Is nothing. No damn security. Not in transport, not in the hotel, not in the event. Like, the one thing I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance. I walk in with multiple weapons. Not a single person there considers the possibility I could be a threat. By the way, sort of amusing side note, amid a dark situation, for all the people who claim that law enforcement is racially profiling. I mean, clearly not said the security at the event is all outside focused on protesters and current arrivals because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before. Like, this level of incompetence is insane. I very sincerely hope it's corrected by the time this country actually gets competent leadership. Again, like, if I was an Iranian agent instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damned madus in here and no one would have noticed. Bleep. Actually insane. Oh, and if anyone is curious how doing something like this feels, it's awful. I want to throw up. I want to cry for all the things I wanted to do and ever will. For all the people whose trust this betrays. I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done. Can't really recommend it stay in school, kids. I mean, this person obviously is sad and pathetic, but we need to talk about something broader than this person. We need to talk about the things this person is saying. Because let us be very, very clear about this. The permission structures for violence have been set up and bolstered and put into place for years now. I've been talking about this for a long time. Permission structures for violence, ideologies and ideas are not all created equal. It would have been kind of shocking if this person had written a manifesto about how he was upset over The Trump tax cuts. People don't get shot in the United States over differential tax rates. So we need to discuss which ideas and ideologies are the most likely to lead to violence, because they're not all equivalent. They're not all right, in just a second, we're going to get to the ideological environment that is creating all of this, because it really is. If you think of American politics as sort of a bubbling pot, the temperature is being steadily raised and then it's boiling over a lot more often. We'll get into why first. Today's episode is sponsored by American Beverage. Think about all those iconic drinks you grew up with and you still love today. Whether it's a soda, sparkling water, my kid called it bubbly water, a tea or sports drink, the companies behind Those beverages, Coke, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, they've always made those products right here in the United States. So while there's a lot of talk about bringing jobs back, America's beverage companies never left. These are American companies making American products with American workers in America's hometowns, 275,000 men and women across all 50 states who show up every day, do the work, and help keep this country moving. We're talking great paying jobs, the kinds of jobs you can raise a family on. For more than 100 years, these companies have been part of the American story. And they're still here, they're still investing, they are still building. Learn more about how they're keeping America strong. And we deliver for America. Again, that's we deliver for America.org Also, imagine this stranger breaks into your house, sets up cameras, sells the footage of your private life. That would be outrageous and illegal, obviously. Online, however, totally legal. Your Internet provider can monitor everything you click, everything you read, everything you buy, then sell your data to whomever pays the most. It's digital spying, plain and simple. The only way to stop it is with our sponsor, ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN locks down your online activity. Think of it as a sort of deadbolt for your Internet connection. It reroutes all your traffic through secure, encrypted servers, meaning nobody sees what you do or uses your data against you. It also hides your IP address. That's the digital ID companies use to track you, build a profile on you, sell it to advertisers, scammers, even criminals. I'm constantly using ExpressVPN. I'm on the road right now. That means I'm using Hotel WI fi. Well, Hotel Wi fi is kind of a wonderful place in sort of a cornucopia for hackers and people who want your info. ExpressVPN keeps me protected ExpressVPN works on any device. One click, you're protected up to 14 devices at once. They've also launched Express Mail Guard, which works with any email provider, shielding your real email address wherever you sign up online. The result is a cleaner inbox and tougher defense against spam and phishing without changing how you use your email. Right now, you can get ExpressVPN at its lowest price ever, just3.49amonth. That's less than 12 cents a day, and you can get an extra four months when you go to expressvpn.comBen that's E X P R E S vpn.comBen for four extra months of ExpressVPN so let's talk about the factors, the common factors here. First, ideologies and ideas that lead to violence share typically an evidence free conspiratorial view of the universe in which shadowy forces of powerful people are responsible for all of your failures and shortcomings, and in which the things they say aren't arguments but actual facades for power. So there's a group of people, they're victimizing you. They are shadowy and they are nefarious, conspiratorial and able to get away with true horrific crimes. Second, ideologies and ideas that lead to violence share belief that you, your group, people that you care about, are being targeted for destruction by this shadowy cabal. And if that's true, then number three, violence is actually a form of self defense. So just to take a couple of examples, when Charlie Kirk was shot, it was pretty obvious right away, right away that the ideology that was driving the shooting was a left wing radical trans ideology. Why? Because there's an ideology that says that if I argue a man is not a woman, that is a form of trans genocide, of trans erasure. If you believe a shadowy group of people are trying to destroy you and kill you and your family, you're likely to justify violence in response. And that is why somebody went and shot Charlie Kirk, was because they believed in that bag of nonsense. There's another ideology that is quite prominent in the United States and it argues that President Trump is responsible for the collapse of America. Not because his policies are things you disagree with, but actually involved in crimes, pedophilia, starving children, blowing kids up and that if you don't stop him, no one will, that he tyrannically controls all aspects of media, that he tries to tyrannically controls all aspects of government and that the only answer is a form of violence. Now, that's the same sort of ideology that leads to the shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. The idea, as Hassan Piker put it in an interview with the New York Times five days ago, that this UnitedHealthcare CEO is engaged in social violence. He was part of a predatory group of people who are literally killing people for profit. And so you can understand why somebody might want to shoot it. Well, we don't, but you can understand, I mean, it's, it's totally understandable. That is a permission structure for violence. That is a permission structure for violence. So when it comes to President Trump, it is one thing to oppose his policies. I've opposed many of President Trump's policies, but ain't nobody shooting the president over his tariff policy. It's another thing to say that he is a pedophile, that he is the Antichrist, that he is a child murderer, that is, that he is Hitler. These are not the same sorts of things. These are not the same sorts of things. And again, the sort of language that has been routine on the left, truly routine, is a permission structure for violence. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, for example, he says that Republican policies do violence to the American people. Republican policies are doing violence to the American people. Again, violence to the American people. It's not just the Republican policies are wrong, they're maligned. They're designed to be maligned. And this sort of approach to politics has consequences. The permission structure for violence for the congressional baseball shooting about a decade ago was the Bernie Sanders line that people who disagreed with him about Obamacare or nationalized health care want 50,000 people to die. They are killing, literally killing grandma because of their policy, and they want Grandma to die. That sort of approach to politics is a dangerous approach to politics. What politics is about in the United States is ironing out our differences, not always agreeing, but understanding that the person on the other side of the aisle doesn't want you or people like you to die. They disagree with you. That is not the same thing. That is not the same thing. And now the most obvious iteration of the left's full scale embrace of violent structures, structures, permission structures for violence, is the left's full scale embrace of Hassan Piker. Again, just because the most obvious, because it's been happening so clearly and openly, and we've been talking about this for months at this point, but it came to its sort of apex last week when Hasan Piker was given the royal treatment by the New York Times to discuss why in fact UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is. Even if Hassan Piker didn't want him, because I maybe stored a little bit, had it coming. Here is Hasan Piker with Taylor Lorenz, who used to be a reporter for the Washington Post, talking about the somebody's got to do it meme about the assassination of President Trump a while back.
- [31:29]
Hasan Piker
And you actually wrote about this and it was a great video where you talked about, you know, someone has to do it. When I say that, everyone knows exactly what I mean, which is, I think that shows that there is a lot of anger, a lot of resentment and untapped potential, untapped revolutionary potential, as a matter of fact.
- [31:55]
Ben Shapiro
See, again, that's the permission structure for violence. When people are pushing the somebody gotta do it, somebody's gotta kill Trump meme. When somebody pushes that, that is a potential for revolutionary activity. That is not an immoral thing to do. It is a potential to build a movement to and fuel your movement with that sort of violent rhetoric and idea. And again, here is Hasan Piker over and over and over and over endorsing violence, endorsing terrorism, endorsing murder. Here he is, over and over and over doing this. And this guy is embraced by the Democratic mainstream. You have people who are supposed moderates like Ezra Klein pushing Hasan Piker as a legit voice inside the Democratic Party. You can't do this and then pretend you hate political violence. You cannot America deserve 9 11.
- [32:41]
Hasan Piker
Dude, I'm saying it. We totally brought it on ourselves, dude. Holy shit. If you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott. Well, my understanding is that the property
- [32:53]
Ben Shapiro
owners who have properties there choose just
- [32:55]
Hasan Piker
not to rent it at all.
- [32:56]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah, kill them.
- [32:57]
Hasan Piker
Kill those motherfuckers and murder those mothers in the street. Let the streets.
- [33:01]
Ben Shapiro
Let the streets soak in their red capitalist bloods.
- [33:05]
Hasan Piker
Left wingers, liberals. You need to be showing your opponent's guts on there, ok? You need to be gutting them. You need to be shanking these motherf ers and letting their. Letting their intestines just ride on stage. What the is this shit, man? Slice them up. Regardless of your background, any kind of Zionist tendency should be treated in the same way as being a f ing rabid neo Nazi. Doesn't matter if rapes happen on October 7th. Like that doesn't change the dynamic for me even this much. But there are baby settlers as well. There are babies in the settlements. I can't believe I'm calling Nasrallah Beis. I mean, listen, these motherfuckers are better read than you by a million. Like it's not. No, it's not a broken clock situation. He's read more books than you could ever imagine. And also ultimately he is regarded as a pretty brilliant person in terms of like everything that he's done.
- [34:06]
Ben Shapiro
Let's talk about our favorite flags.
- [34:07]
Hasan Piker
Oh, like overall.
- [34:12]
Ben Shapiro
Now again, over and over and over and over, over and over and over and over and this person is treated as a mainstream political figure. He's the bro whisperer to the left. They're fine with this. Again, I don't have to play more, more. It's every time he talks, every time he does an interview, I'm just using him as a, as a example 1a of the left's embrace of this sort of stuff. Now the left is trying to then claim that actually political violence is mainly springing from the right. So Matt Walsh pointed out, leftists have tried to kill the President three times now. They killed Charlie, shot up churches and Christian schools and riot in the streets. They're the party of terrorism. Political violence comes from one side. This led Mehdi Hassan, the Qatari mouthpiece, to then put out a statement, Melissa Hortman was killed by a Trump supporter. Melissa Hortman was a Minnesota state legislator who was shot by a person who, shall we say, had some, a strange melange of views. He had been apparently appointed, then unappointed by Tim Walls to a particular political position. He, he identified as a Trump supporter. So he says the first person to allegedly take a shot a shot at Trump was a registered Republican. Okay, first of all, the idea that the, that the Butler assassin was some sort of right wing Trump lover is unevidenced, shall we say. Every study, he says, shows more political violence from the right than the left. But sure, other than that, great tweet, totally factual and not cynical bs. Okay, so you want to talk about cynical bs? These studies that suggest that right wing political violence outnumbers left wing political violence. In order to achieve those false numbers, you have to say, as Wilford Riley points out, that all killings by white prison gangs are racially motivated and therefore right wing. But if minority gangs kill somebody who's white, that is not left wing, as Wilfred points out, this is how you get the data. The mere fact that probably 40% of all murders annually are committed by black members of organized gangs and organizations ought to call it into question. Guy Benson over at Fox News has a non complete list of of leftist political violence over the course of the last few years. He points out the attempt to kill GOP Congress members, ending nearly in the death of Steve Scalise, the leftist who's arrested in an assassination plot to kill Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court justice. The murder of Charlie Kirk, the leftist who was arrested in an assassination plot against the White House Budget Director Russ Vaught. Three separate assassination attempts against the President. A man who murdered the Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota. That's the one that Mehdi Hassan is talking about. As Guy points out, the suspect has some right wing beliefs, but was also a former Democratic appointee and said the Democratic governor told him to do it. The man who set the Pennsylvania governor mansion ablaze, that would be Josh Shapiro. That person was a globalized the Intifada terrorism, anti Semite fan. And of course you have the litany of trans shooters over the course of the last couple of years, including Tumblr Bridge in Canada, the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis last August, Covenant School in Nashville. And there are good studies on this. We don't have to, we don't have to speculate. Network Contagion Research Institute actually did a study on the kinds of public support justifying, for example, the murder of Elon Musk or Donald Trump, and what it found is that 38.5% of respondents overall said that murdering President Trump would be partially justified or more of that, 38.5%. 56% was left of center. Only 20% was right of center. How about justification for the murder of a political leader just overall not named? Democrats vs Republicans so on this chart, a score of 1 means political violence is never justified. 59% of Democrats and 71% of Republicans say political violence is never justified. A score of 2 to 7, some violence is justified. Okay, the the chart shows that again, Democrats outnumber Republicans all the way through. All the way through. So if you believe that violence is justified in political life, you are significantly more likely to be a Democrat than you are to be a Republican. And this is backed by other studies. So for example, YouGov poll shows that younger, more liberal Americans disagree that political violence is never justified. 72% of Americans say violence is never justified. But 11% of Americans say violence can be justified and 12% say they're not sure. If if you break that down by political ideology, what you find is that very liberal Americans, a quarter of them, say that violence can be justified. Only 55% say no. Like a bare majority say that violence in politics can't be justified among very liberal people. Among liberal people, 17% say violence can be justified, 68% say no. Among conservatives, only 6% say political violence can be justified, compared to 83% who. Who say no. Okay, those are shocking numbers or should be shocking numbers to you, because what they find again, is that if you are very liberal, you are four times as likely as if you are a conservative to say that violence can be justified in politics. And by age, the numbers are bad as well. People who are aged 18 to 29, almost 20% say that violence can be justified. Ages 45 to 64, 8% say violence can be justified. So again, the permission structures for violence that have been created here are skewing young. One of the reasons they're skewing young is because everyone in the younger age group is extraordinarily online. The online incentive structure to be passionate, to be crazy, the echo chamber that facilitates violent language. Again, charged language tends to draw higher numbers, period. This is always true. Not every word is created equal. When people curse, it goes directly to your limbic system. When like, it has a different effect on your brain than it does. If I'm using, if I use the word trash versus if I use the word that has a different impact on your brain. And the same thing is true if I use passionate language. If Hasan Piker says cut their guts out, let them ride on stage, that is a very different appeal than I disagree with that person. And I'll tell you why I think his policies are wrong. And when it comes to the sort of virality that can be achieved online, the former will generally do better than the latter, because invocations of passion tend to hit harder, particularly in short clips when they are fed to you over and over and over and over. So if you're 18 through 29 and you're just imbibing from that, well, over and over and over. And if mainstream political parties trying to channel that passion into votes start justifying that sort of stuff, you should not be surprised when political violence becomes more common. And this is not just true in the United States, it's true everywhere. Every violent radical revolution begins with young people. It always begins with young people who start acting violently and speaking violently. And then there is always a group of moderates who decide that they need to work with the young people, the young violent people, in order to use their rage and channel it toward political change. And that's how political violence becomes incredibly common. That's how street battles happen. And we are playing with fire here as a society. If we continue to pretend that, that all ideologies and permission structures are created the same, they are not conspiracism is bad. It is not just. It is not just bad in terms of utilitarian. It is wrong. It is evil. Conspiracism unbacked by evidence generates violence, it generates mental illness, it generates stupidity, and it wrecks our politics and our civilization as a whole. That is why there's a difference between saying, I disagree with President Trump on tariffs, or. Or I think what he did on January 6th is quite awful and wrong, and saying the President is a pedophile and a rapist and a traitor who should be destroyed because he's blowing up little girls. It's the latter that's being humored by the Democratic Party these days. I mean, right outside, literally right outside this event, there were code pink protesters who are holding up signs saying death to tyrants. I mean, here's a picture of that. It's unbelievable. So Van Jones, who is, again, a sane and rational Democrat. Van and I disagree a lot about politics. We are friends. And here is Van pointing out the obvious that everybody should be denouncing this. But there will be a lot of people who don't.
- [42:41]
Hasan Piker
The shooter survived, which means on Monday he's going to court, which means there is a danger that people try to make him some sort of hero. You watch what happened with Luigi, who shot a CEO to death and somehow became a hero. So they said, tonight you saw the worst of America, you saw the best of America. Tonight you definitely saw the best of America. I hope on Monday we don't see the worst again.
- [43:14]
Ben Shapiro
So, obviously, I agree with Van Jones, but Van is one of the only Democrats who is going to say that most of them will pretend that the sort of fandom doesn't exist. There's this game that gets played a lot on the left, which is nothing like that. No one would support anything like this, but. But there's a lot of that happening. So Representative Jamie Raskin, he's doing that. He says, what rhetoric? Us, we. Well, here he was.
- [43:41]
Interviewer / Reporter
Many of your fellow Democrats have used some heated rhetoric against the president. And do you think twice about that? When something like this happens, what rhetoric
- [43:49]
Ben Shapiro
do you have in mind?
- [43:50]
Interviewer / Reporter
Just talking about some of the fact that he is terrible for this country and so on and so forth. I understand that that's your Democratic right, but overall, do you have a responsibility?
- [44:03]
Ben Shapiro
I have no problem with Donald Trump at all.
- [44:05]
Hasan Piker
I mean, I talk about the policies of this administration, the authoritarianism like we saw on display in Minneapolis, where two of our citizens were gunned down in the streets simply for exercising their First Amendment. Rights.
- [44:19]
Ben Shapiro
Okay, now again, Barack Obama doing the same routine. He put out a tweet saying, quote, although we don't yet have the details about the motives behind last night's shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, it's incumbent upon all of us to reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy. Okay, well, again, Bernie Sanders did the same thing. Five seconds ago, he was hanging out with Hasan Piker. Barack Obama was hanging out with Zor Momdani one second ago, the same Zormadani who is justifying the Holy Land 5. You can't play this game. And by the way, you want to know what kind of rhetoric? I don't know. If a shooter claims that the President is a pedophile, a rapist and a traitor, maybe the rhetoric that is helping to spur that would be people falsely calling him a pedophile, a rapist and a traitor. I'm just going to put that out there. Like, say, for example, James Talarico. Remember, James Talarico is supposed to be your kind, friendly, good hearted, liberal, Christian neighbor. I mean, here he is saying that Trump is at the middle of a secret pedophile ring. This is a lie. He said this on national tv, on hbo.
- [45:16]
Hasan Piker
Iran was wrong about one big thing. They thought Donald Trump was the one to take down this secret pedophile ring when he is mentioned 38,000 times in the Epstein files. He flew repeatedly on Epstein's private jet and then lied about it. He sent Epstein a happy birthday card with a picture of a naked woman talking about their, quote, wonderful secret. So the fact that QAnon thought that guy was going to take down the secret pedophile ring when he's right in the middle of it, I think was clearly wrong.
- [45:50]
Ben Shapiro
Again, he was part of it. He was in the middle of a secret pedophile ring. Or how about Hakeem Jeffries saying that Trump was running a pedophile protection program? Again, a lie. Not true. Well, the Trump administration and Mike Johnson
- [46:02]
Hasan Piker
are running a pedophile protection program.
- [46:06]
Ben Shapiro
That's what they've been doing. How about Rosie o' Donnell claiming that the President is a serial pedophile racist? Wake up. Yeah, wake up.
- [46:19]
Interviewer / Reporter
Our president is a serial pedophile rapist, and that's what he is. And in America, you're allowed to have an opinion. You're allowed to say what you think. That's what our country was founded on.
- [46:33]
Ben Shapiro
She's certainly allowed to say that the president is a serial pedophile rapist. It also makes her a liar and kind of a terrible person. You should not actually put out lies about other people, like full scale lies about other people that lead toward a conspiratorial view of that person. As, you know, a person who rapes children, for example, J.B. pritzker, the governor of Illinois, going out there and saying that America is becoming Nazi Germany under Trump. That's not even remotely true. I'm over here being a little Jewish. I pretty sure that the. That the United States is not becoming Nazi Germany under Donald Trump. Meanwhile, this party is getting ready to elect to high office people who openly sympathize with Hamas and Hezbollah. The closest thing to Nazis on planet Earth these days.
- [47:13]
Donald Trump
How do you prove to somebody that you're a U.S. citizen? Your accent, the color of your skin. That's not the country we live in. You know, you shouldn't have to walk around with papers the way that they did in, in the early days of Nazi Germany to prove that you belong and that you're not one of them. And that is essentially the kind of country that we're becoming.
- [47:36]
Ben Shapiro
Okay? So, no, no, obviously, Jon Favreau, who is a speechwriter for Barack Obama, part of the Pod Save group, who five seconds ago was having Hasan Piker on his program and hugging him while he literally said that he supports Hamas like a thousand times over Israel, like an actual terrorist group. Now he is saying that Trump is the problem. Quote, are we really going to go through another cycle where MAGA folks point out incendiary rhetoric on the left without ever acknowledging that some of the most violent and incendiary rhetoric in America comes from the President and his supporters? Do you not think the rest of the country has eyes and ears? So, first of all, we should point out that were this an act of political violence by a right wing person against the left, obviously there would be conversations about the level of political rhetoric on the right. This has happened before and will happen again. He says it's truly awful that President Trump has been the target of political violence. It's also truly awful how he's frequently talked about political opponents, accusing them of treason, amplifying calls for their execution, publicly celebrating their death, calling them scum, garbage, vermin, animals. It was like three weeks ago he threatened the annihilation of an entire civilization. Okay, first of all, that tweet about Iran. No one thinks that he was threatening to nuke Iran. That's silly. Okay? But obviously I think that, you know, what the President said about Rob Reiner was terrible, which would be the publicly celebrating their death kind of stuff that was terrible, it was immoral and it was wrong. The question is to the kind of permission structures for violence on the right. There are some. They're not nearly as robust as the permission structures for violence on the left. And I'm not going to listen to that crap from Jon Favreau who a second ago was providing a sensual massage to Hasan Piker on his show as he waxed poetic about terrorist groups. Well, the President of the United States was asked about 60 Minutes on 60 Minutes about the accusations the pedophile, racist, traitor stuff in the, in the manifesto. And here was the President.
- [49:26]
Interviewer / Reporter
The so called manifesto is a stunning thing to read, Mr. President. He appears to reference a motive. In it he writes this, quote, administration officials, they are targets. And he also also wrote this. I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. What's your reaction?
- [49:47]
Donald Trump
Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you're, you're, you're horrible people. Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I'm, I'm not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody.
- [49:59]
Interviewer / Reporter
Oh, you said you think he was referring to you.
- [50:01]
Donald Trump
Excuse me, I'm not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person? I got associated with all stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated. Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let's say, Epstein or other things.
- [50:26]
Ben Shapiro
So again, he is right that these sorts of lies being told over and over and over are a problem, obviously. And people granting them legitimacy is also a problem. Now, one of the ways that you can tell that an entire conspiratorial worldview has been spun out here is the fact that the number one trend on X, the minute this happened, was staged. There is no evidence whatsoever this was staged. There's no evidence Butler was staged. There's no evidence Charlie Kirk's murder was staged or manipulated by the widow or any of that crap. Conspiratorial worldviews are disgusting. They are not just fun and games. They are disgusting because they are claiming things that are evidence free about other people that lead people to believe that they are part of some coterie of evil people manipulating behind the scenes. The President was asked about the claims that this was staged. He said a lot of these people are sick. He is not wrong.
- [51:21]
Interviewer / Reporter
I hesitate to ask you about this, but as you know, these conspiracy theories out there on the left and the right, that the event was Staged or that it didn't happen?
- [51:30]
Donald Trump
What, last night didn't happen.
- [51:32]
Interviewer / Reporter
That. Yeah. That it was because it was your first time there, or that Butler didn't happen. These conspiracy theories that are gaining traction
- [51:38]
Donald Trump
on October 7th didn't happen. And World War II didn't happen. And the Holocaust didn't happen. And many things didn't happen. Yeah, no, I hear it. I don't know. I think they're more sick than. Than they are con people. But there's a lot of con in it too. I haven't heard that last night didn't happen. What usually takes a little bit longer.
- [52:01]
Ben Shapiro
He is, again, not wrong about this either, obviously, but it doesn't matter because again, there are people out there who will give credence to this. Like Cenk Uyghur, who is Hasan's uncle and Hasan Piker is his Nepo nephew. He put out a statement, quote, it's a sign of the times that as soon as you heard there was a shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, you heard heard speculation it might be staged. Why? Because we've lost all faith in our government. We know they lie to cover up the crimes of the powerful. We don't trust anything anymore. Rightly so. Where's the. This is the permission structure for violence right there. We know they lied and cover up the crimes. We don't trust anything they say. So probably even though it's totally specious and bull, probably we should pretend that actually it's. It's fine what they're doing. Rightly so. We're right when we promote conspiracy theories about the people we hate, we're right to do it because it's not our obligation to speak on behalf of truth, it's our obligation to speak on, on behalf of the way people feel. That's the most important thing. People feel that there's something bad going on. Therefore, it's not our obligation to tell the truth about what's actually happening. See, and this is one of the reasons why, right, left or center, I've been saying for literally years, decades at this point, the most important obligation that we, my industry, have to you is to tell you the truth. That is our most important obligation. Not to justify your feelings. Not to pretend that your feelings of being victimized are somehow justified by a conspiracy that we can't quite manage. We have to follow the truth. We have to follow the evidence. Here Cenk is saying precisely the opposite. Nowhere in here does he say, by the way, it wasn't staged. Nowhere in there. Right. He says, you Heard speculation it might be staged. Well, why were people speculating? Well, because people lie to you all the time. And, and we don't trust anything rightly so. Yeah. At some point you might want to say, guys, it wasn't staged. There's no evidence it was staged. At some point you might want to do that. But again, we have moved beyond the realm of facts into the realm of narrative. Once you move from facts to narrative, it is very easy to move from narrative to conspiracism. And of course, Anna Navarro said exactly the same thing again, apparently conspiracy theories and nonsense are totally justified so long as you hate Trump enough. It's odd to me that in a place that is teeming with Secret Service, with Washington D.C. police, with all sorts
- [54:21]
Interviewer / Reporter
of law enforcement, this could happen.
- [54:24]
Ben Shapiro
But also, I think people jump to that conclusion that it is staged because Trump lies. He lies constantly daily and pathologic. Trump constantly alien. Pathologically, he lies true. Truly genius level stuff. And that means it's fine. That means it's all fine and it's all good. Because after all, Trump is a very bad man. And so conspiracy theories are justified. By the way, the crossover in the conspiracy community is very, very large between conspiracy theories, because if you believe one, you tend to believe a lot of them, which is why Erica Kirk, you know, as this happened, she was, she was taken out of the room, she was crushed, crying. Because, I mean, I can't imagine why, after your husband gets shot to death in front of the entire world and then you're at another event and gunfire breaks out in the background during an assassination attempt. Yeah, it might give you a little bit of a, of a problem. Might give you a little bit of ptsd. There, there were literally thousands of comments, thousands of comments from people suggesting that Erica was crying. Wrong. One person put out a Tweet now liked 42,000 times and viewed almost a million times on X. And X is just a cesspool. Giving Erica Kirk assassination CPTSD is so funny, actually. The torture of a widow. I mean, well done, guys, well done. Because the most important thing is the narrative forever. Thousands of comments saying she was crying, fake that the way she looks in a particular direction meant something sinister. We have brain rotted a large segment of an entire generation of the American public. And then we are surprised when political violence breaks out. There is a soul sickness in the country, but that soul sickness does not start with, with President Trump. Alrighty, folks. Coming up, we're going to jump into the mailbag and take some of your questions. Remember Your questions only get answered if you're a member, so join Us Become Member Use code Shapiro Checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us. We'll get to more on this in just one moment. First, starting something new can be scary. When we launched the Daily Wire, we had all the usual fears. What if no one listens? What if we fail? But obviously I'm glad we took the leap and you can too, with our sponsor, Shopify. Shopify is the e commerce platform powering millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all E commerce in the United States, including our very own Daily Wire Shop. Getting started is incredibly easy. With hundreds of ready to use templates, you can build a beautiful online store that matches your brand's style. Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, even enhance your product photography so you can accelerate your efficiency whether you're uploading new products or improving existing ones. Need to get the word out? Shopify helps you find your customers with easy to run email and social media campaigns, making it feel like you've got that marketing team behind you. Plus, that iconic Purple Shop pay button isn't just recognizable, it's the best converting checkout on the planet, which means fewer abandoned carts and more sales for you. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.comshapiro go to shopify.comshapiro again, that's shopify.comshapiro.