INTERVIEW: Ben Shapiro On 'Lions & Scavengers' In America, Analyzing Societal Conflicts, Banning Abortion +More

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Breakfast Club Episode: INTERVIEW: Ben Shapiro On 'Lions & Scavengers' In America, Analyzing Societal Conflicts, Banning Abortion +More Date: September 8, 2025 Hosts: DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha God, Lauren Guest: Ben Shapiro

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Episode Overview

In this engaging and at times heated episode, The Breakfast Club hosts welcome conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, author of the new book Lions & Scavengers: The True Story of America. Shapiro discusses the ideas behind his book, including his "lions vs. scavengers" dichotomy and how it applies to American social and political conflicts. Topics range from media bias and the Israel-Gaza war to abortion, affirmative action, the roots of social envy, and how to build resilient communities. The episode features probing questions, direct rebuttals, and moments of rare agreement across the ideological spectrum.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. Ben Shapiro’s Background and the ‘Lions vs. Scavengers’ Analogy

• [02:56–04:22] Ben introduces himself as the co-founder of Daily Wire and host of the Ben Shapiro Show, sharing his upbringing in modest circumstances and his early start in political commentary.

• [03:13] Shapiro explains the central thesis of his book: lions are those who uphold traditional values, personal responsibility, and innovate, while scavengers assign blame to systemic oppression and seek entitlement without agency.

  • "The contrast… is between people who decide they want to build, create social fabric, be innovative, be risk takers, and people who simply want to tear down." (Ben Shapiro, 04:11)

• Hosts challenge: Enya Umanzor asks whether such binaries oversimplify society; Ben responds that all binaries are simplifications but can be useful for framing moral approaches ([14:26]).

2. Media Mistrust in an Era of Partisanship

• [09:05–09:57] Discussion on the difficulty of discerning the truth in today’s media environment.

  • "Listen to my show. And then you should listen to a show coming from the other side, and where we are saying the same thing, that’s the core of facts." (Ben Shapiro, 09:21)

• Ben advocates for consuming diverse media sources and stresses the importance of distinguishing between fact and opinion.

3. Israel-Gaza War & Definitions of Genocide

• [07:44–12:48] The panel deeply debates the morality of military action, civilian casualties, and the semantics of genocide.

  • Shapiro asserts Israel has been meticulous in minimizing civilian casualties, rejecting genocide accusations:
  • "If Israel just didn’t care about civilian casualties, they would have leveled the place Oct. 8, and they did not." (Ben Shapiro, 08:22)

• Hosts press him on the International Association of Genocide Scholars' statement; Ben challenges their legitimacy and the definition used ([10:12–10:57]).

• Quote: "A genocide is the attempt to forcibly destroy an entire population, which is not what has happened." (Ben Shapiro, 10:59)

4. Political Tribalism & Engaging Across Beliefs

• [13:14–14:08] Ben expresses the importance of dialoguing with ideological opponents:
  • "If you can't have a conversation [with people you disagree with], I think it's insane." (Ben Shapiro, 13:25)
  • He notes productive conversations can happen despite differences in goals or solutions.

5. Systemic Change vs. Personal Responsibility

• [14:08–18:43] Extended debate on whether systemic barriers or personal agency matter more in achieving success.

  • Lauren asks about generational barriers ("the fence"); Ben says he supports removing proven barriers, but wants evidence, not just broad grievances ([16:23–16:38]).
  • "The most energizing aspect of being an American is... you actually do have the capacity to change your life." (Ben Shapiro, 18:20)

• Hosts raise actual victimhood and systemic oppression, with Ben agreeing these exist but emphasizing specificity in reforms and language.

6. Crime, Investment, and Community Solutions

• [24:41–29:16] Shapiro argues that crime reduction is a prerequisite for private investment in struggling areas, while hosts stress the need for broader investments in education, mentorship, and mental health.
  • He points to the decline in church attendance as detrimental to community fabric ([27:43–29:16]).
  • Emphasizes the unique role of faith communities in building strong social bonds and delivering charity with shared values.

7. Abortion & Definitions of Personhood

• [29:46–41:24] Vigorous discussion on abortion, with Shapiro defending a pro-life stance even in cases of rape and incest.
  • "If you believe life begins at conception, then regardless of the source of the life, it now has an independent interest in life." (Ben Shapiro, 29:51)
  • Lauren and others argue for women’s choice and question the objectivity of defining life.
  • Shapiro draws analogies to historical dehumanization to reject subjective definitions of "personhood."
  • Hosts challenge the consistency of pro-life positions in relation to war and civilian casualties.

8. DEI, Reparations, and Social Mobility

• [55:09–59:14] Examination of how envy and systemic barriers play into modern debates on diversity and economic justice.

  • Ben distinguishes between supporting meritocracy and opposing DEI measures that, he claims, lower standards and create zero-sum games.
  • He favors reparative policies for direct victims of recent injustices, but is skeptical of their long-term efficacy.

• Quote: "The reality is that cutting people checks rarely makes them more successful from the government. What usually makes people more successful is a determined attempt to become the things that the meritocracy demands of you." (Ben Shapiro, 58:44)

9. Capitalism, Taxes, and Economic Opportunity

• [46:21–53:32] Ben argues America’s economic system is not fundamentally broken, favoring lower regulation and more local governance.

  • DJ Envy objects to tax breaks for large corporations and “rigged” systems.
  • Shapiro rails against high regulation and supports giving people more autonomy via local control.

• On mobility: Ben says it’s easier to move now than ever before, but acknowledges his privilege in being able to relocate for ideological reasons ([48:47–49:59]).

10. Candace Owens & Free Speech at The Daily Wire

• [64:39–66:11] Lauren asks about Candace Owens’ departure. Ben gives a guarded reply for legal reasons, makes clear he wouldn’t hire her now, and addresses free speech criticisms.
  • "I am under no obligation to pay people from my pocketbook who are espousing beliefs that I find antithetical to my own." (Ben Shapiro, 65:44)
  • Candace is doing well post-Daily Wire; he hasn't called for her deplatforming.

11. Final Thoughts: What’s the Solution?

• [66:39–67:50] Shapiro’s recommendations:
  • Take personal responsibility: Go to church, marry before children, get a job, engage with community, advocate for local solutions.
  • Continue cross-ideological conversations: "We do have more in common than... with people who want to destroy the civilization." (Ben Shapiro, 67:11)
  • Avoid buzzwords, seek clarity in debate, and remember that agreement is built on mutual understanding, not word games.

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Notable & Memorable Quotes

• On definitions: "Using words imprecisely is the enemy of agreement and truth." (Ben Shapiro, 21:04)
• On privilege, mobility, and economic struggle: "You have the money to move... that's a level of privilege you have to acknowledge." (Enya Umanzor, 48:48)
• On the limitations of government aid: "There does need to be a cultural reshift toward the social value of getting together in places that are not online." (Ben Shapiro, 28:43)
• On free speech and company values: "You don’t have to hire Nick Fuentes or David Duke to come be a host at the Breakfast Club. That is not a violation of free speech." (Ben Shapiro, 66:00)
• On personal agency: "The most energizing aspect of being an American is... you do have the capacity to change your life." (Ben Shapiro, 18:20)

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Key Timestamps

• [02:56] Introduction of Ben Shapiro
• [03:13 - 04:22] Explanation of "lions vs. scavengers" analogy
• [07:44 - 12:48] Israel-Gaza war & the semantics of genocide debate
• [13:14 - 14:08] On political tribalism and dialogue
• [29:46 - 41:24] In-depth abortion discussion
• [43:29 - 46:08] Envy as a driver in social and economic issues
• [55:09 - 59:14] DEI, reparations, and their limitations
• [64:39 - 66:11] Candace Owens and The Daily Wire departure
• [66:39 - End] Final solutions and the value of civil discourse

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Tone and Overall Flow

The conversation was lively, candid, and at times contentious, but remained rooted in genuine curiosity and willingness to engage across ideological divides. Ben Shapiro maintained his trademark rapid, analytical delivery while the hosts vigorously challenged his frameworks, especially on issues of race, identity, systemic injustice, and abortion. The Breakfast Club’s blend of direct questioning, personal anecdotes, and cultural references kept the tone accessible, while substantive disagreements sparked meaningful debate.

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This episode is valuable listening for anyone seeking fresh perspectives on polarization, the future of American society, and the delicate balance between personal agency and systemic reform.

Transcript

[Lauren]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Hunter]

I'm Hunter, host of Hunting for Answers on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Join me every weekday as I share bite sized stories of missing and murdered black women and girls in America. Stories like Erica Hunt, a young mother vanished without a trace after a family gathering on 4th of July weekend 2016. No goodbyes, no clues, just gone. Listen to Hunting for Answers every weekday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben Shapiro]

Hi, my name is Enya Umanzor and I'm Drew Phillips and we run a podcast called Emergency Intercom. If you're a crime junkie and you love crimes, we're not the podcast for you. But if you have unmedicated adhd. Oh my God, perfect. And want to hear people with mental illness psychobabble? Yes, yes. Then Emergency Intercom's the podcast for you. Open your free iHeartradio app, search Emergency Intercom and listen. Now, when your car is making a strange noise, no matter what it is, you can't just pretend it's not happening. That's an interesting sound.

[Enya Umanzor]

It's like your mental health.

[Ben Shapiro]

If you're struggling and feeling overwhelmed, it's important to do something about it. It can be as simple as talking.

[Enya Umanzor]

To someone or just taking a deep.

[Ben Shapiro]

Calming breath to ground yourself. Because once you start to address the.

[Enya Umanzor]

Problem, you can go so much further.

[Ben Shapiro]

The Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the Ad Council have resources available for you.

[Enya Umanzor]

At loveyourmindtoday.org Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up. The Breakfast Club. Y' all finished or y' all done?

[Dej Envy]

Morning everybody. It's Dej Envy Just hilarious. Charlamagne the guy we are the Breakfast Club. Lola Rosa is here as well. And we got a special guest in the building.

[Enya Umanzor]

Yes, indeed we have.

[Dej Envy]

Ben Shapiro.

[Ben Shapiro]

Welcome. Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. How are you feeling? Yeah, doing okay.

[Dej Envy]

Doing all right.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah. Thank God.

[Enya Umanzor]

Ben's got a new book out, Lions and Scavenges. The True Story of America. Very interesting read. You define the lion as people who uphold biblical values, individual responsibility and moral duty.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes.

[Enya Umanzor]

And you contrast them with scavengers who you say demand entitlement, blame systemic oppression, and lack purpose. Expound on that.

[Ben Shapiro]

Sure. So I think the basic division is not a right left division. You know, in the book, I actually tried really hard not to turn it into a right left division because I don't think that it actually is. And I think it's also an internal battle inside our own heart that we get up in the morning and you have to decide when you face down the problems of the day, whether you're going to be somebody who takes responsibility, does your duty, gets out of bed, and actually decides to do something meaningful in the world. Or. Or they can be somebody who looks at the problems in your life, blames some sort of shadowy system, and then complains about that. Now, none of that is to claim that, you know, there aren't systems that exist that are bad and that need to be fixed, but you need evidence and you need actual correctives to those systems in order to actually practically fix those systems. So the contrast that I'm making here is between people who decide that they want to build, you know, create social fabric, be innovative, be risk takers, and people who simply want to tear down. And you see, for example, in some of these college protests, people who are marching together who have nothing in common except that they just don't like the system and they don't even have a replacement for the system. It's just that the system itself must be to blame for all of their problems. That's sort of the basic contrast.

[Dej Envy]

I'm sorry, I know we just jumped out the window, but for people that don't know who Ben Shapiro is, let's start from the beginning. Explain to people who Ben Shapiro is and where you start, where you came from and et cetera. So they know who you are.

[Ben Shapiro]

Sure. So I mean, my basic job is that I'm co founder of the Daily Wire, which is the second largest conservative media organization in the country, after Fox News, probably. I have a podcast called the Ben Shapiro show that's about 10 years old now. And maybe the biggest conservative podcast in the country. And, you know, my sort of early beginnings, where I grew up in Burbank, California, thank God I had the highest form of privilege, which was fantastic parents. And I grew up in a very small, like, 1100 square foot house with three sisters. One bedroom for us, one for my parents, one bathroom for six people. And, you know, I've been, again, privileged to live in the greatest country in the world. And so went to ucla, went to Harvard Law School. I've been doing commentary on politics since I was about 17 years old. I'm now 41.

[Dej Envy]

So what got you into politics so early at 17? What did you see that said, no, I want to do this, or what? Didn't you like that made you want to?

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, I mean, I was always fascinated just by history. And because I was a big reader, I skipped a couple of grades. I went to college when I was 16. And so because I loved reading, because I loved history and politics, I just got very, very into it. And we live in interesting times now. I thought they were interesting back when I was 17. It is way more interesting and insane now. I feel like an alternative timeline you somehow spun off into Elon's fever dream. But it's definitely. We're in a weird place now.

[Dej Envy]

Was your goal always to be a commentator or did you want to jump into, say, I wanted to do something at the White House, or.

[Ben Shapiro]

No, it was always to be a commentator. I mean, again, from the time I was 17. I had a syndicated column when I was 17 years old. So at the time, I was the youngest syndicated columnist in the country. I'd say most of the dumb crap that I said was between the ages of like 17 and 25, like most people. And I do have a running list on. Because so much of my political career has been public from the time I was a teenager. I actually have a running list on our website of all the dumb crap that I've said over the course of my career, trying to either explain or apologize for stupid things that I've said. I think we should be.

[Enya Umanzor]

Why would you ever keep a list of that? Just blame it on AI? Why would you ever do that?

[Ben Shapiro]

I think it's the honest way to go, right? I mean, better do that. Otherwise somebody uncovers it and uses it against you, so you better may as well.

[Enya Umanzor]

I agree with that. But you know what? I always had a saying, live your truth so nobody uses your truth against you. And I call it the Eminem and eight Mile theory, because, you know, at the end of the day. Eminem said everything, you know, about himself that his opponent could say about him, they're still going to use it against you regardless.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, that's definitely true, but there. And so there are certain statements where I'm like, yeah, no, I meant that when I. When I wrote that in 19. And then there are statements where I really think it was kind of dumb. And so I would like people to know that I think that it was dumb, that I've changed my mind on things. Yeah, there's never a scene.

[Enya Umanzor]

What's the biggest one you think?

[Ben Shapiro]

Let's see. There was a column that I wrote about civilian casualties when I was 19 years old that was poorly articulated at best, talking about how the US army should basically not take consideration of civilian casualties because I would rather protect American soldiers than worry too much about civilian casualties. It wasn't articulated in that way. I think the general principle of that is still true. When you're looking at American soldiers, obviously, you have to value their lives and you have to make sure that they can actually engage in wars in ways that protect them, because obviously we're American and our interest in America is protecting America. But it was very poorly articulated, so that'd be a big one.

[Enya Umanzor]

Do you feel that way about the Israel Gaza war?

[Ben Shapiro]

Sure.

[Enya Umanzor]

Okay.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, yes. I mean, Israel, again, I know a lot of people over in Israel, obviously, and, yeah, I know a lot of soldiers who have been gravely wounded going house to house in a conflict where clearly people in Israel. I know. Shaka. Right.

[Enya Umanzor]

Who'd believe it?

[Ben Shapiro]

What was the giveaway? Exactly.

[Enya Umanzor]

But you believe that, so you understand why people are upset about what Israel is doing.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, I certainly understand that conflict is incredibly ugly. And when you look at pictures, particularly drone pictures of wrecked areas, then it's very.

[Enya Umanzor]

Kids being killed.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, any conflict.

[Enya Umanzor]

Civilians, casual civilians, as you just said.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean. Yes, although I will say obviously that. That I believe that Israel has been as meticulous as any army in history in terms of its tactics in urban warfare. And the numbers bear this out. And again, I know people who've had their legs blown off going specifically house to house when Israel had complete air superiority. If Israel just didn't care about civilian casualties, they would have leveled the place Oct. 8, and they did not. They've been going house to house. They've been moving populations. All of this is ugly. There's no such thing as a pretty war, particularly in an urban environment. And could things be done differently or should they be done differently? In case by case, Situations, I'm sure, yes. I mean again, war is very ugly, but the sort of large scale accusations that have been made that Israel doesn't care about civilians or that Israel has been attempting a genocide, that's just factually untrue.

[Dej Envy]

I was gonna ask, you know, with you being in media, seems like these days you don't know who to trust in media, right? Cause it seems like media gets it wrong and we see it all the time with reputable sources. So what do you say to those people? Cuz we don't know what to believe anymore, especially if it's something that we don't necessarily know a thousand percent.

[Ben Shapiro]

So what I say on my show all the time is actually, you listen to my, I'm a conservative, you should listen to my show. And then you should listen to a show coming from the other side and where we are saying the same thing. That's usually the core of facts and everything else is opinion. And then you can sort of determine for yourself whether you think one opinion is more plausible than the other. I obviously agree with me. And so I tend to think that my opinions are well grounded in evidence, in fact. But obviously I have a lot of friends who are on the other side of the aisle who believe exactly the same thing. And so I think that the best way to actually achieve your own sense of, of understanding of the facts is to listen to a wide variety of sources and then try to come to a conclusion that is mostly based in the evidence.

[Dej Envy]

And you can't.

[Enya Umanzor]

Well, you know, that's interesting. I want to go back to your book in a second, but I'm glad you said that because you don't think what's happening in Gaza is a genocide.

[Ben Shapiro]

Correct.

[Enya Umanzor]

Okay. But the world's leading association of genocide scholars has declared that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza based off the pure definition of.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, it's not actually, if you read their actual study, it's not based on the quote, unquote, pure definition of genocide. They don't actually even define genocide in the document. And they basically went out to their membership, but they didn't go out to the entire membership. They went out to a generic membership. It is very easy to join the International association of Genocide Scholars. In fact, there were several people yesterday who just signed up and were immediately admitted even though they have no actual background in genocide. The question is not whether some sort of coterie of people who call themselves experts in an issue are quote, unquote experts on the issue. The question is whether the definition is met the definition of Genocide is not met in Gaza by any stretch of the imagination. And you can cite to me, you know, a group that I hadn't heard of until two seconds ago, and nobody had heard of until two seconds ago, that voted in a particular way. That doesn't make a difference definitionally.

[Enya Umanzor]

So what does a genocide do?

[Ben Shapiro]

A genocide is the attempt to forcibly destroy an entire population, which is not what has happened.

[Enya Umanzor]

So it's not the attacks on, like, the personal facilities needed for, like, survival, like health care and educational institutions.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, again, Israel has shipped in more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip than literally any army in a population that supports the enemy in literally all of human history. They've been shipping in about 4,400 calories per day per person into the Gaza Strip in the middle of a war in which the enemy is holding actual Israeli hostages underground, who, as we've seen from some of the pictures, are actually starving. Again, none of this is to claim that the war is pretty or meticulous or anodyne, because it isn't. It's really, really, really ugly. But over the course of this war, about 3% of the Gazan population has been killed or wounded. If you're going to look at an actual genocide, obviously the prototypical case being the Holocaust, you're looking at 50% of the entire Jewish population in Europe destroyed. If you're looking at other attempted genocides, say the genocides in Rwanda, you're talking about extraordinarily high percentages of the population that are wiped out. You certainly are not seeing procedures that require four layers of actual legal authority in order to do a drone strike. I've actually seen the tape of them doing this in Israel. They actually, if they spot from the air a terrorist who's going into a particular civilian area, you have to take, like, a full minute where the pilot on the drone calls up the legal authority, who then calls up the higher legal authority to get clearance for the actual drone strike. And they will call off the drone strike if they believe that the military target is too costly in terms of civilian casualties. Hamas knows this, which is why they're hiding among civilians. In fact, the best proof that this is not, in fact, a purposeful genocide is, is the fact that Hamas is hiding behind civilians. The reason you hide behind civilians is because you know your enemy doesn't want to kill civilians. If you believe that your enemy doesn't care about killing civilians, you wouldn't hide among civilians. That wouldn't be a defense mechanism.

[Enya Umanzor]

Do you think Israel needs a regime change?

[Ben Shapiro]

It's I mean, Israel is a democracy. They've had, I think, five elections in the last four years. There probably will be election again in March. I do not think that Israel would be conducting this war very differently if there were somebody else in power. And I actually know every Israeli prime minister for the last 10 years, including the ones who are on the opposite side, people like Yair Lapid, who is on the opposite side, or Naftali Bennett, who's on the opposite side. Now.

[Dej Envy]

You were just talking earlier, you said about people that don't necessarily have the same beliefs or thoughts that you have. And that was a big conversation. When Trump came into office, people were saying, I can't speak with you, you can't be my friend, you can't come to my house, because I don't believe what you believe. How do you feel about that?

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, I think it's insane. I mean, it's totally insane. I have a lot of friends who are on the other side of the aisle who voted for Kamala Harris, who voted for Joe Biden in 2020. I think the real question is whether we are going to. I think that there are people for whom you can't have a conversation because the motivations for the conversation are so different that it's not possible to actually have a productive conversation. And there are just so many breaths in your life that you have, and wasting your breath. When you're on your deathbed, you really wanna be thinking about those two hours that you spent talking to the person who is just arguing right past you or, you know, and then there are conversations where you disagree on the proper solutions, you may even disagree on the goals. But you can have, like, a good conversation without doubting the good heart of the person who's talking to you.

[Enya Umanzor]

You, you talked about. I like the lines and scavengers analogy. Right. But I want you to expound on it because you say it's not a political thing, it's not a race thing. Do you feel like that could be an overly simplistic way of analyzing these societal conflicts, though? Because all of those things play a role.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, so any binary is going to oversimplify. Anytime you say there's two types of people, X and Y, right. Then that's always going to be an oversimplification for in the most, in the most part, as far as, you know, the complex factors that factor into any conflict, of course, you have to analyze those to determine whether it's being driven by envy or whether it's being driven by a legitimate grievance. Right. And so I think that, you know, some people can. Can have a goal that is driven by a legitimate grievance, and some people can have a goal that's driven by envy. I think, frankly, politicians in particular are. They have a very great understanding that envy is an amazing way to get people out to the polls. Like really an amazing way. Or if you're a dictator, being envious of the neighboring country is an amazing way to get people really, really motivated. And so you can channel people's grievance into a belief that they should hand you power so that you can go and do things. And I don't think that's unique to one side of the political aisle at all. In fact, I think you see politicians do this legitimately all the time. They. And again, that doesn't mean that the people at sort of the bottom level of politics, the normal voter, doesn't have a grievance. The question that I think that we all ought to ask ourselves, and this is true everywhere from your personal life to politics, is whether that grievance is justified by the evidence and what is the change that you would seek to make specifically that would actually rectify that grievance. Because I think that one of the dangers is that people have a grievance. They say, this thing is unfair, therefore the entire system is corrupt, and we need to abolish the entire system. And one of the main differences between what GK Chesterton would call a conservative and somebody who's not conservative is that somebody who's not conservative. He famously uses this analogy, walks across a field, sees an old fence in a field, and says, I don't know why this fence is here, and immediately starts uprooting the fence. And a conservative, what I would say is somebody who's even commonsensical, forget the politics, looks at the fence, says, I probably should research why somebody put the fence here in the first place, and then maybe we remove the fence. And I think that as a society, we've gone directly to, let's just remove every fence, because I'm angry at what's happening in my life, and you're going to throw a lot of babies out with a very small amount of bath water.

[Lauren]

What about if that fence, though, has been blocking the person that decides that wants to remove it from whatever's on the other side for, like, years and generations and generations, and whatever's on the other side, they actually need it to live, survive, thrive, so then they want to remove it, regardless of why it was originally put there.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah. So as I Say, I think that there are definitely fences that need to be removed. And what I've said my entire career is, if you can show me a fence that is actually blocking people from success, then I'll join you in trying to uproot that fence. But I need, like, an exact and specific explanation for why there is this cause and effect and how removing the fence isn't going to do less damage than leaving the fence in place. Because there are unintended consequences to changing public policy. And obviously this doesn't mean public policy should remain unchanging. There are tons of public policies that I think should be changed all over the place. This is an argument against change. It's an argument in favor of caution and also in favor of us all kind of being reflective about why we are doing the things that we're doing. Meaning, are we doing this because I have a problem in my life that I just don't want to solve, and so it's easier to blame sort of a shadowy system where I can't name the specific problem, or do I have a problem that really I should try solving first before I start kind of wrecking the systems? By the way, this is a good rule, again, for life. There's a great book called Good to Great About Business, in which the author, his name's Jim Collins, talks about the difference between successful business leaders and unsuccessful business leaders. And he calls it the difference between mirror people and window people. And what he says is that successful business leaders, they have a problem, and they look in the mirror and say, what can I change? What can I do to make this better? And unsuccessful people, they have a problem and they look at the window and they say, what out there is making it so that it's impossible for me to succeed? Again, that's not an argument that sometimes there is something outside the window, but it's a combination of both, for sure. But I think that as human beings, our first move should be particularly in the freest, most prosperous country, literally, in the history of planet Earth. Our first move should be for most of our problems, not all, but most of our problems should be like, what can I do differently to fix my life? Because many of the. I think the most energizing aspect of being an American is the idea that you actually do have the capacity to change your life. And I think that any politics that is rooted in this feeling of enervation and kind of like marinating nothing I do can get me ahead. Nothing I do is gonna change where I am. I think in the vast majority of Cases that really is not true. I think in the vast majority of cases, we can all make better decisions that change our lives.

[Enya Umanzor]

Yeah, I think there is a. And you talk about this in the book a lot. I think there's a difference between practicing victimhood and actually being a victim. You know, you're a Jewish person, I'm a black man. We've actually been victims of a system.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes. I mean, well, and again, I think that those systems can be changed, but I think that it is very important that we. Again, I think it's a great distinction between actual victimhood, because you can name times when you've been a victim and you can name the systems that have made you a victim and how they've made you a victim. And the more specific we are, the more we can agree. I found that in politics, where the big disagreements tend to happen are at the very abstract level, when you get down to the material and you say, okay, you know, this guy is a bad guy and this person just did X to me, well, okay, that person should be arrested. Right. I mean, we all agree that person should be arrested, or what just happened is really bad and we should change this specific thing. But again, I think that the goal in a lot of politics is what's called semantic overload. You use terms that can be differentially interpreted by both sides to sort of signal to one side one thing and signal to one side the other thing. Black Lives Matter is a great example of this, where Black Lives matter. Obviously that's true. Obviously it's true that Black Lives Matter, but what do you mean by Black lives matter? And so one side will read from that. We're just saying that black people should be treated exactly the same as anybody else and should not be systemically discriminated against. And the other side will read from it. What you're saying is that black people deserve some special privileges. Or you're making the argument that America is deeply and systemically racist and every discrepancy between black people and white people in outcome is due to the system. Right. And it means both of those things, but it depends on who's using it and how. And so being very specific in how we use our words and asking clarifying questions like, what do you mean by that? Can you be more specific? Is a better way to do politics? It's the conversation we were just having about genocide. Yeah, let's define what genocide means. And then we can actually determine whether we think that is a thing that is happening, whether there's intent to do it. If we just say genocide and kind of throw that out there. And people were saying that word, for example, October 8, like before Israel had even responded. Then if you do that, then all you end up doing is making the conversation dumber and everybody more angry.

[Enya Umanzor]

And you know what's interesting about that? I can usually tend to see both sides meaning, like, I can understand why people say it's a genocide, but then, you know, I can understand why people in Israel say this is just us defending ourselves and it's an act of war. And as you said, you know, there's a lot of casualties, civilian casualties that happen in acts of war, but you don't really know that if you don't talk to people on both sides.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. And again, I think that genocide in that particular context, they're words that people use to express outrage that don't necessarily. The definition doesn't fit up with the word. I think when people say genocide, generally what they mean is I'm very angry at what's happening and I wish it would stop. And so they throw out genocide because it's the worst thing they can think of. Because if you say that, then maybe Israel should stop. And again, I think that you can empathize with that because I think everybody wants to stop, including, by the way, the Israelis who would love for Hamas to surrender their weapons, stop, walk away, and the war ends. I mean, I promise you that in Israel, where they're drafting every 18 year old kid, every 18 year old kid in Israel goes to the military. And they've been doing this for generations. That is not something that anyone wants to do. That's not something where it's like you wake up in the morning at 18. You know what I'd love to do? I'd love to go, I really, really want to go patrol in Jenin. Like, nobody is doing that over there. Like, everybody would love for this thing to come to an end. But again, I think that using words imprecisely is the enemy of agreement and truth.

[Enya Umanzor]

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I get. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. Because, you know, like, you could get caught up in just arguing that as opposed to arguing, hey, all of this is fucked up.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes. And how do we. What's the solution then? Right? What's the solution? How do we get to the end of it? Because once you actually start clarifying that stuff, you realize what a difficult situation this is. I think that very often, because politics is difficult and complex, in order to avoid the conversation of how should we solve this? Which is a hard conversation and sometimes a boring conversation. It's much more fun to discuss. Is it genocide? Is it not genocide? Do black lives matter? Do. Is it all lives matter? Right. It's more fun and interesting and spicy conversation than what are these specific things that police department should do in order to, for example, prevent police excesses? That's like a very specific conversation. And it usually ends up at a city council meeting. Right. But in the business that we're all in, where we're talking about these issues, it is much easier to do diagnostics of the problem in broad terms than to do actual prognosis. Like, what do we do next? What's the thing we should all pursue in order to fix the problem?

[Enya Umanzor]

I saw you getting caught up in that a little bit on Abby Phillips, though, and y' all were debating about.

[Lauren]

I think it was Chicago and D.C. yeah.

[Enya Umanzor]

It was the statistics of people saying, hey, we. We approve of what was it? The crime. The way that they're reducing the rate. The way that they're using. The way that they're reducing crime in D.C. yes. By having the troops on the ground. Yes, yes.

[Ben Shapiro]

So, I mean, I think that the question as to whether the crime has been reduced by National Guard troops on the ground in D.C. the crime was.

[Enya Umanzor]

Being reduced prior to that, though.

[Ben Shapiro]

It was, and then it was reduced more. And so the question is why? And the answer, typically, is that when people see law enforcement in places they don't do as many crimes, the question is whether that can be an indefinite solution in Washington, D.C. and that's also a very different question between Washington, D.C. and Chicago. One of the things that came up very briefly in that Abbey Phillips panel was what should be done in Chicago. And one of the things that I said is I don't think that the president has the authority to just send the National Guard into Chicago to actually just police crime. Right. That is illegal under the Posse Comitatus Act. There are things he can do legally that like, for example, protect ICE facilities, which is what they were allegedly doing in California. One of the things that I think the president is doing that's actually quite smart now is he's shifting to red states. So yesterday he announced that he might not do Chicago after all. He might instead do New Orleans and Shreveport, which is smart because he can do that with the permission of the governor. Right. The governor is a red state governor.

[Enya Umanzor]

Yeah. But the only problem with that, though, is he's going to go into these red states and probably go into these cities that have black mayors and large black populations and over police them. And that's not what those cities or towns need. Like those cities and towns need actual resources because as you just said, these are like temporary solutions for a long term systemic problem.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, so I think they need both. And I think that when it comes to crime, and New York City is a great example of this, you actually need to lower the crime rates to, to draw investment. Right. One of the big problems with investing in high crime areas is that people don't want to do it. They're afraid that if they take their money they put into a grocery store and there's a lot of shoplifting in that area, then the store goes out of business.

[Enya Umanzor]

But that's not the kind of investment I'm talking about. I'm talking about economic opportunity, job training programs. I'm talking about small business investment, early intervention programs. I'm talking about, you know, proper mental health services. Those are the type of investments I'm talking about.

[Ben Shapiro]

I'm not, I'm not anti any of those things. Right, no, I agree with that. But if you're talking about like how a community actually grows in the thrives and becomes self sustaining, it can't do it off public dollars indefinitely. And so you do need an enormous amount of private investment to make areas better. This is what actually Van Jones was talking about on the show when he was talking about opportunity zones. Right. Originally this was the idea that was put forth by the Trump administration in Trump administration, number one, that there would be particular areas where basically there would be tax incentives to invest in these areas. It's definitely an interesting idea. I think the reality is that you may not need that if the crime rates get low enough. And so the goal would be that you lower the crime rates enough so that people feel comfortable investing their own private dollars in building businesses in these areas, providing jobs in these areas. Because again, as somebody who invests, you know, a fair bit, I would rather invest in a low crime area than a high crime area. And that's not a racial thing. That is just a, that is just a basic investment procedure. Right. If you're, if you're going to set up a store, you're going to set up a store in a place where it's less likely to be robbed.

[Enya Umanzor]

What if the government investing in mentorship and after school programs and mental health and addiction services, like to me, like those are the type of things you have to change the people in a community as opposed to just putting a bunch of businesses there because if you put a bunch of businesses there and it's still a bunch of poor and disenfranchised people, not just financially, but emotionally and mentally, spiritually, that's not gonna change.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, I mean, I think that the government has spent an awful lot of money and taken an awful lot of time with things like mentorship and after school programs. I think the results are at best, mixed. From the social science data. The best studies that I've seen on this, there's a great study by Roland Fryer over at Harvard in which he talked about what you really Mentorship is definitely a thing. You definitely need more men in communities, and they don't necessarily have to be the fathers of the kids. You need more. What the study showed is that even kids of single moms who are growing up in communities with high levels of male involvement did fine. They did well. Where you really have a problem is where there are not enough male models, particularly for young males, because young males tend to be significantly more destructive to the community when they don't have dads than young females. There are real problems with not having a dad in the home for girls as well. But it's a different set of problems than it is for young men who tend to externalize that in the form of crime, for example. And so I think that one of the things that I've also talked about is that government, and this is where you get into the law of unintended consequences. When government intervenes in a lot of these ways, it tends to supplant some of the actual organic institutions that used to do this sort of thing. So I'm a big advocate.

[Enya Umanzor]

Those places still exist. I just think that sometimes they lack funding for every problem that we're talking about. I promise you there's an organization in every single community that caters to that, but they just lack funding in a lot of ways.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, I think that's true. I also think that the number one institution that used to help solve these problems was church. And as levels of church going go down, that is a major problem. Because the nice thing about a church is that when a church or a synagogue or any other religious institution gives charity, then there is also skin in the game for the person who's receiving the charity. Right. You actually have to buy into the system in order to receive the charity to a certain extent, because you're a member of the community. You also know the person who you're receiving the money from. That person is a person you sit next to in the pews. And so Government can't really be a substitute for that just in terms of, like, cutting a check. And so I do, like, this is something that Bush and Obama and other presidents have done, was trying to do a private public partnership with, for example, churches to ensure they have the funding to do this sort of stuff. But there does need to be a cultural reshift toward the social value of getting together in places that are not online. I think the Internet's done an awful lot of damage. I think that the atomization of our society, where everybody kind of sits in their own room and they never get together with other people, is really, really, really bad. I'm in a very involved synagogue community. And one of the beautiful things about a highly involved synagogue or church community is that a lot of the lines that we talk about go away. This is what Robert Putnam, again Harvard scholar and not on my side of the political aisle, has said. He says that if you actually want to build social fabric and community, what you need is a common goal. And you need people getting together, like in person, socially, and that's what churches tend to do. And that's really, really important. I don't think that any sort of government, you know, artificial alternative is going to be able to do all of those things.

[Enya Umanzor]

You're talking about community.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes. And this is where I get back to. Like, these are all choices that we can make personally, right. We can make the choice, like today, whether we want to go to church on Sunday. Right. We can all make that choice. Right. And when it comes to our relationships, we can all make the choice as to whether we would like. I mean, with rare exceptions, obviously there are. But most people can make the choice as to whether to get pregnant out of wedlock. I mean, like, these. These are choices that we all can make. And then we need to teach our kids, because if we do that, then their lives will be better, and if we don't do that, then their lives will be worse.

[Dej Envy]

And you believe in banning abortions, right?

[Ben Shapiro]

I'm pro life, yes.

[Dej Envy]

Even in cases of incest and rape?

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes. Why? Because this is sort of a fundamental definitional question. If you believe life begins at conception, then regardless of the source of the life, it now has an independent interest in life. So that is not to minimize the tremendous evil of rape or incest. I believe rapists should be executed, frankly, or chemically castrated at best. But that's sort of a different question from the independent source of life and whether, again, it gets back to definitions, and this conversation tends to be either you're on one side of that or the other. If you don't believe life begins at conception, then obviously you believe abortion is acceptable in a wide variety of circumstances. If you believe it's an independent life deserving of protection, then you believe it's an independent life deserving of protection.

[Dej Envy]

Lauren, what do you think about that's a woman?

[Lauren]

I think that a woman should be able to choose to do what she wants to do wherever she decides to do it. I personally, I believe that women should be able to abort babies if they want to, if they feel like that's what they need to do.

[Ben Shapiro]

Do you have a time limit on that, out of curiosity?

[Lauren]

I mean I think it should happen earlier on if it were me making a decision for myself. But I think it's up to the woman and what she's personally experiencing and what she personally went through. I really think it's a per person thing. That's why I think it's crazy when you have like these structures and these like people who are not in that, that, that situation making the decision for the woman of what you can and can't do. Because it's very like per person. My situation might be different than another woman who's sitting next to me.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right. So again, this is sort of the definitional issue that we're talking about because you're talking about what a woman should be allowed to do. And what I'm talking about is the definition of personhood, of the separate person inside the woman. I think what I push on is why do you personally believe that a woman should have an abortion earlier?

[Lauren]

Just, I think just from personal experience I've been in this situation. I just think emotionally and mentally it's less that you think about, but it does depend on how you think of when the life is formed or you know, should be looked at as like a life that you.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right, so that's. That. That I think is the big question and that's where the disconnect is.

[Lauren]

So, so, but that, what I'm saying is that that's always going to be different for each person.

[Ben Shapiro]

But I don't think that the subjective definition of life is how we define life. Meaning that you being uncomfortable with a woman having an abortion in the ninth month, you're saying that just because you're uncomfortable with it, that doesn't mean that you should stop a woman from doing that. My point is that life has a definition. We all agree, for example, that a one month old baby should not be drowned. We all agree on that. And that's not up to the personal. Should not be drowned. You shouldn't take a baby and drown in a bathtub. Right. And the question is, well, why? Because we now understand that the one month old baby, everyone agrees with this, right? Except for Peter Singer at Princeton, that a one month old baby has an independent interest in life. Right. That is a life that is separate from the woman and requires protection. Okay? So if it is a life, then we now have an objective definition. Doesn't matter what the state of mind of the woman is. It doesn't matter if she thought, you know what? I have a really tough life. My life will be better off if this baby is drowned, if I don't have to deal with this baby, and so I'm gonna drown the baby. The baby has an independent actual interest in living. And so the question becomes, is that true before birth? And I think for the vast majority of Americans are actually somewhere where you are practically meaning that the vast majority of Americans do see in sort of a soft way a distinction between the early stages of life, month two and nine month. Right. Like the approval in America of abortion at the very late stages is very, very low.

[Lauren]

Because most Americans, it stops around like four or five months for most people. Right.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, I mean, most abortions are performed in the first trimester. Yes, yes. But the point that I'm making is that the logic that you're using allows for abortion like literally right before the baby is born. And so then the question becomes, why is that? Okay. And it's not a woman's choice at that point whether that is a life or not. Because you don't get to artificially or subjectively define the meaning of things.

[Dej Envy]

We're playing with semantics though.

[Lauren]

Yeah, that's what I.

[Ben Shapiro]

It's not semantic. Either it's a life or it's not a life. Right.

[Dej Envy]

Your daughter was raped.

[Lauren]

No.

[Dej Envy]

It's almost like you're saying she's raped, but I'm gonna make her have this child.

[Ben Shapiro]

No, I mean.

[Dej Envy]

Cause you're saying you don't believe in abortion, even if rape and incest.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right. What I'm saying there is that I don't believe in abortion. In cases of rape and incest, the practical effect is horrif. Horrible. Okay, I'm not gonna pretend that it is not emotionally horrifying that particular situation. The question is whether it has an independent interest in life or not and whether there's a third party involved. If you don't believe there's a third party deserving of protection. I totally get it. I get It. But we should understand that that's the actual conversation. The actual conversation is about whether you believe that this is an interested third party being. Do you get to kill that interested third party being this human life with potential, or do you not? And so the actual argument that I don't like is the idea that you can, that everybody, it's up to every single person to define when life begins and when life does not begin. That actually is not true. Right. There's either a standard or there's not a standard. Now you can say that life begins when the baby is independent of the mom. I think it's a very dicey biological argument, and I think most Americans agree with that, that life only begins when the baby exits.

[Enya Umanzor]

I think it begins with a heartbeat.

[Lauren]

Yeah.

[Ben Shapiro]

Okay. So I think that's where most Americans are. And that's extremely early. Right. And so if that, if that's extremely. If the life begins with a heartbeat, then you're now talking about, depending on your definition of a heartbeat, somewhere between six and 10 weeks, right? Very, very, very early. And so if that is now has an independent interest, you're talking about abortion restrictions very early on. And so that's why, you know, a lot of red states have signed heartbeat laws, for example. And so again, I think that the clarity is good, right? Because now we can have a conversation, where do you think life begins? And that's a better conversation then the sort of assumption by, I think, people who are not pro life that pro life is just about controlling the woman's body. No, it isn't. Okay. It really is not. Like for pro lifers, it has literally nothing to do with the woman's body. It has to do with the independent interest of the life inside the woman and how you define that.

[Lauren]

But once you defined it, once you define it, depending on your definition, it does control what a woman can and can't do with her body.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, there are downstream effects to definitions, of course, right. I mean, if I define life as it begins at a heartbeat, then that is going to have public policy ramifications that affect, just as in anything else, if I define theft in a particular way, that's going to have downstream effects on people who commit that definition of the crime. And if I broaden the definition, it's going to include more people. That's true for literally any legal term. It's true for any word that we use in life. As you expand the definition, it affects more people in different ways. But that doesn't change the necessity to have the conversation about what the definition is. And I think it's an easy way out to basically say, well, you know, I have a definition of life. But. And it gets into very dicey territory because historically people have defined away entire populations as not human. And so we can't do that. You really don't want people looking at other people and saying, well, I don't think that this person. I mean, to take the obvious and most controversial example, for a huge percentage of American history, there was a wide variety of people in America who believe black people, we're not fully human and therefore compromise. Correct. And so the. And so was that a subjective question? That was not a subjective question. Black people are fully human and just as human as white people. Equal the same. Right. Like, and so if somebody were to say, listen, I personally am anti slavery, I think that slavery is personally wrong, but it's really up to every person to define for themselves whether a black person is fully human or not fully human. Be like, what the.

[Lauren]

I don't think you can those two things.

[Ben Shapiro]

Why?

[Lauren]

Just because I think, you know, if, if I'm making. So if you're a slave master, right? And you say, I believe slavery is right because black people aren't human. Like, that's a decision that you're making that is based on things like, you know, what the slaves can do for you and your property. Like, the, the, the benefit of what slavery will do for that slave master is so different than if a woman has to have a baby you. Because she was raped and how that will affect her life like that. I think you have a decision that you can make a lot easier.

[Dej Envy]

Almost like you force a woman twice, right?

[Lauren]

Because she, do I become a slave master or not versus do I have a baby or not?

[Enya Umanzor]

She has this baby and now she's forced Jewish analogy.

[Ben Shapiro]

Sure. So, I mean, I mean, sure. So if there was an entire population in Europe that was considered subhuman by the Nazis and they were exterminated, if you said, I am personally against the extermination of the Jews, but I understand why Germans could think that Jews are subhuman. And so, you know, it really is up to every individual to determine whether a Jew is human or not fully human and can be put in the back of a van and gassed, we'd be like, what are. What in the world? What in the world?

[Enya Umanzor]

You're saying there should be no pro. Choice in regards to that.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah. So the definitions are not a matter of choice. Definitions are a matter of actual objective fact. Otherwise we can't even Have a conversation. Because if words have meanings, then we all have to agree on at least that. Right. That much we have to agree on is the meaning of the words. And, and when it comes to, you know, sort of the slave master analogy, the point that I'm making here is not about the personal experience of the slave master. In fact, I'm saying it's completely irrelevant. What I'm saying is that the reason that slavery was wrong is because black people are fully independent human beings who require the protection of the law in the same way as everyone else. And if you're a pro lifer, you believe that's also true of the unborn.

[Enya Umanzor]

Okay, I understand what you're saying. I'm a pro choice person. But I do wonder how come pro life people aren't anti war.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, I mean, I think everybody is anti war. I think the question is the definition of when war is appropriate. I don't think who's running around going like, war is awesome? Yes, more war, let's do it.

[Enya Umanzor]

So 50,000 kids have been killed in Gaza because of this current war.

[Ben Shapiro]

Depends on the definitions and the list that you're getting killed. Well, I mean, also depends on how you're defining kid, because the way that Hamas defines kid is very different than how they define kid when it comes to recruiting for hamas. Right. They're 15 year olds with AKs on the battlefield. Unfortunately out of the womb, it is not 50,000 out of the 1. I mean, if you're talking about very, very small children is much, much lower than that.

[Enya Umanzor]

Well, my point is there are children that are being killed.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes. Who have died as collateral damage in the war. Yes.

[Enya Umanzor]

So shouldn't pro lifers be totally against that?

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, I mean, I'm against the death of any innocent human being. The question is, when you're doing foreign policy, how you prevent more deaths in the future. And the point that I think Israel is making is this war washing it off legislation.

[Enya Umanzor]

And it's actually not a matter of morals and values.

[Ben Shapiro]

No, of course it's a matter of morals and values. But you can'. Let's put it this way. It's incredibly reductive to simply say that if you are a moral person, then you oppose all war because what that does, it allows immoral people to then use that against you to destroy your civilization. If your community is attacked and bad people who don't have the same values as you decide to kill you, kill your children, rape your wife and kill her. Are you supposed to say, well, I'm anti war and so I'm going to sit here and do nothing.

[Enya Umanzor]

So isn't that the same if somebody rapes a woman and impregnates them, shouldn't in that case that person be allowed to make a choice?

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, no, the point is that the prevention. This is why you should minimize civilian casualties. To get back to the beginning of the conversation, this is why it's independently moral to try as much as possible to minimize civilian casualties. When it comes to abortion, the idea is you can minimize that casualty by just preventing it.

[Lauren]

How can you prevent being raped?

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, I mean, that's a different question again, but in that.

[Lauren]

Let's talk about that. Because what I don't like is.

[Ben Shapiro]

First of all, when we're talking about. When we're talking about rape and abortion, we should note that well over 99% of abortions are not undertaken because of rape. And so if you want to come with me and ban all abortions except for rape, I'll probably make that trade for you. Meaning if you want to ban all abortions, elective abortions, and what I have to do is give up abortion with regard to rape and incest. That is. That is a trade on a pragmatic level, politically, that I would make.

[Lauren]

Okay, so you're not dying on that hill.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, it's not. It's something. I mean, I believe that, again, rape and incest, I think is the reason people choose that argument is because it's the hardest argument to make emotionally from the pro life side. But I think that we should note that the vast majority of abortions have nothing to do with rape or incest. They have to do with elective abortions. What was that?

[Enya Umanzor]

You never got the wrong person pregnant?

[Ben Shapiro]

Jesus. No, My wife. Four times. Thank God.

[Enya Umanzor]

Oh, okay.

[Dej Envy]

You also believe homosexuality and transgender is a mental illness. Is that.

[Ben Shapiro]

No. So what I've said is that gender identity disorder is a mental illness. I've not said that about homosexuality. Homosexuality. And the reason that you can tell that is because gender identity disorder is making an actual false claim about the world. You're making a claim that you are a woman or that you feel like a woman, which is unverifiable. And so that is making a false claim about the world. A homosexual person is making the claim that they are attracted to a person of the same sex, which is not a false claim about the world. They are, I assume. So the claim that I've made from a sort of religious perspective with regard to homosexuality is the same as the claim that I make with regard to virtually all human Behavior, which is that drives are not behavior, meaning that, you know. So people ask me, from a religious perspective, I'm obviously an orthodox Jew, it's why I wear the funny hat. Right. From a religious perspective, what do you make of homosexual activity?

[Dej Envy]

And I say same sex marriages, raising kids.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right. So I'm anti same sex marriage, but anti. I'm anti same sex marriage because I believe that the fundamental basis of the family is father, mother, child. And when it comes to the actual thing that society is supposed to incentivize, it is that family structure. Now, I'm not in favor of legislation that would punish people for homosexual activity, for example. That's silly. And the government should be involved in that. But saying that you're gonna give a government benefits to people based on quote unquote, who they love, it really isn't about that. It's about you're trying to, if the government's to be involved at all, it's about attempting to incentivize family formative structures. The government has pushed too far in the other direction, actually. I mean, this is one of the big problems of many of the welfare programs of the 60s, which explicitly were meant to benefit people who did not have a father in the home and led to perverse incentives where people were not getting married specifically because the government was offering more money not to get married.

[Enya Umanzor]

I want to go back to your book because I do. I think I agree with your argument that envy is the driving force behind what you call the scavenger mindset. Like you describe it as an irresistible force that fuels resentment and entitlement. Could you expound on that?

[Ben Shapiro]

Sure. I mean, I think that again, to go back to all of us, I think we all have this problem in our lives. We see people and we envy those people. And then instead of doing something to make ourselves better, we actually make ourselves worse in the process. Or we attack systems that we think are responsible for that and tear down those systems. I use the biblical story of Cain and Abel as sort of the key load bearing story for this particular element. The story of Cain and Abel, which I think is the most elemental human story. It's fascinating. In the biblical text, in Genesis, basically it's actually Cain's idea to initiate sacrifices before God. It's not Abel's idea, it's originally Cain's idea. Cain says, let's go sacrifice. He and his brother Abel go sacrifice God for some unspecified reason, accept Abel's sacrifice, but not Cain's. And now God then gives what would be called in Yiddish and Musashmose he gives Cain a sort of pick me up speech, and he says, listen, your sacrifice wasn't accepted. You have two choices here, right? Sin crouches at your door. You can either give in to it, or you can. Or you can overcome it. And Cain doesn't listen. And he decides that out of envy, because his brother succeeded and he failed, he's gonna kill his brother. Right? First murder in human history, according to the Bible. And so the question is, what is. What is driving Cain? And what's driving Cain is the fact that instead of saying, what could I do better? He kills his brother. This is why, if you look at the Ten Commandments, for example, all of the Ten Commandments have to do with behavior. There's only one that really has to. There's only one that bars actual emotion. It's the tenth Commandment. And it says, you're not allowed to envy your neighbor's property, right? You can't envy your neighbor's wife his property. There's a difference between saying, by the way, you know, my neighbor has a really great car. I wish I could get a car like that. That's not true envy. True envy is, my neighbor has that car. I wish I had that car. That car. I don't even know how he got that car. Whatever system provided him that car, that's a bad system because he has that car and I don't have that car. Nothing is more destructive than this. It is truly horrifyingly destructive on a personal level and on a societal level. Again, this is. And you can carry it over into politics. This is the difference between saying, how do we construct systems or change systems so that more poor people can get ahead? As opposed to, there's a billionaire. That billionaire is inherently bad and evil and must have stolen from the poor person in order to become a billionaire. Which is fundamentally untrue. Just on an economic level, it is not true. I'm all for any attempts to make poor people richer, but this is why when people talk about wealth inequality or income inequality, there's a fundamental level of dishonesty there. For people who really understand the economics, the question is not whether there is inequality. The question is how do we make poor people richer? It shouldn't be about how do we make rich people poor. It should be about how do we make poor people richer.

[Enya Umanzor]

Oh, I agree.

[Ben Shapiro]

So, and I think this is a major problem in our politics. And you see it again, it used to be, I think, largely relegated to certain parts of the Democratic Party. I think you're seeing it swivel into the populist side of the Republican Party too, this sort of grievance based politics.

[Enya Umanzor]

But I think one of those ways to make poor people richer is by making the rich people pay their fair share in taxes, because those tax dollars are supposed to go to, you know, resources that will help those poor people, you know, get on their feet.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right. So I think that that is like the best case argument. That's like the steel man argument. I don't agree with it on an economic level because I don't think that it's effective. I think we've had $22 trillion in redistributive programs in America and it hasn't actually radically increased the wealth level of people at the, at the bottom level of American society.

[Enya Umanzor]

Maybe it's not going to the right programs.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, I mean, we can keep trying that. Or what we could do theoretically is recognize that one of the reasons that America is uniquely awesome is because of innovation, risk taking, investment. And some of the things that I think politicians say about the problems that we have economically are just not true. And what I mean by this is this idea that you're living worse than your parents. That's not true. You're not living worse than your parents. You're not. You have better technology. You're living in an air conditioned home. You're sitting in an air conditioned office. There's this. And you see it on the right, also the right. They'll be like, I Wish it were 1955 and I was working in a Ford factory. The hell you do. You want to stand there riveting all day in a Ford factory? You sit by a computer and your worst physical risk is sciatica.

[Enya Umanzor]

I do wish I could determine where my tax dollars go.

[Ben Shapiro]

Oh, hell yes.

[Enya Umanzor]

But I like, since we, since independence, I would love to say, hey, my tag. But you would have to, you know, send a certain amount of your money to a certain thing every year. I want to determine where my money.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, I totally agree with this and I think that this is one of the reasons why I think that the federalization, the nationalization of so much of our politics is really, really bad. It is much easier to spot your money in your local community than it is to spot your money when you send it to the far away federal government. And then it just kind of gets mixed up in a giant grab bag of cash and everybody just dives in like Scrooge McDuck and grabs as much of the cash as they can and then run away. I'm very Much in favor of devolution of authority to the most local level. I think this is where people are the happiest, by the way, and this is actually what the founders believed on a governmental, structural level, is that most power should be initiated at the local. It's why I said before, I don't think that the Trump administration should, without the permission of governors, start policing crime using the federal government. Right. That's a local crime issue. And so I think that more authority should devolve to the lowest level. And if you don't like where you live, you can move. Right. So I lived my entire life in California. My entire life, right. Except for a couple of years at Harvard. My whole life, like age 0 to 35. And then I didn't like how it was governed, and so I moved. And so now I live in Florida, and I like it better. And you know what? Cool. You know that that's.

[Enya Umanzor]

But you have the money to move.

[Lauren]

That's what say, everybody can't just get up.

[Enya Umanzor]

And that's a level of privilege that you have to acknowledge.

[Ben Shapiro]

So, actually. Well, I mean, yes, first of all, First. First of all, yes, I, you know, I'm wealthy enough to move, for sure. Also, one of the things that has actually radically declined in the United States, and this actually is a major problem, is people moving. Generally, it is easier to move now than it was 50 years ago. Right? It's easier. I mean, you can. First of all, you can get things cheaper. You can move things across the country with better modes of transportation. The population movement in the country has radically slowed. And so people would rather pay an enormous amount of money for a tiny apartment in New York City than even think about moving outside New York City to go to a place where there might be more jobs. And that actually is a problem. And I think that that has been propped up by government regulation, government spending. The belief that it's about the government can make your situation more livable, as opposed to the actual history of America was an enormous amount of population movement. And I don't think that's necessarily. By the way, you are seeing that happen in 2020, you saw a massive population movement, particularly to the south, to areas that are easier to live. And those are financial decisions, not just for me. I mean, they're members of my extended family who've moved down to Florida who don't earn nearly the kind of money that I do, because it's actually a lot cheaper, for example, to live in Florida than it is to live in New Jersey.

[Enya Umanzor]

Don't you I want to go back to the envy thing. And you touched on it a little bit. But don't you think societal structures like economic inequality can lead to envy? Like, if you can eat and I can't. Yes, I'm gonna be envious of that. If you have a house and I don't, I'm homeless. Yes, I'm gonna be envious of that. So can't you see where that can cause envy and political discontent?

[Ben Shapiro]

So, I mean, envy is a normal human thing, right? We all feel it. The question is whether that is justified. And not only whether it's justified, but whether the desire to turn that into a destruction of the system is justified. So, again, it's normal for every person feels this. If you can be a very rich person, if you live next to Bill Gates, you're gonna be envious of Bill Gates. Bill Gates has a bigger house than you. Does that mean that the systems are broken? Or does it mean maybe you should, you know, change the way you're doing things? And I think that that's why I say in the first instance, not always, but in the first instance, you should say, what can I do to change my life? If that dude next door has a really nice car, maybe I should try to figure out how he got that car. Like, how did he succeed? Right? The way that you make your life better, typically, is you find successful people and then you try to emulate the behavior of successful people. This is particularly true in the financial sphere, right? How do they make their investments? Are they blowing their money? How did they get into business? By the way, every successful billionaire that I know is a person who had multiple failed businesses before they actually succeeded. Like, risk taking is an actual skill you have to cultivate.

[Dej Envy]

And see, I don't like that. See, my biggest problem is this, right? You said you grew up one house, you had one bathroom.

[Ben Shapiro]

I'd say, like lower to middle. Middle class, yeah. Correct.

[Dej Envy]

So I know a lot of people who grew up and they struggled, right? And they tried and things didn't work. They didn't go party. They tried, and then it caught and.

[Ben Shapiro]

They did well, right?

[Dej Envy]

And I feel like sometimes we. What's the word? You penalize somebody for doing well by taxing them more than somebody who has it. But they gave up a lot. They gave up their life. They gave up their party life. They gave up going out. And I don't like the fact that you don't sometimes make poor people try to be richer, opposed to making rich people being poorer. But what I don't like is when you have a company, let's say whatever company it may be, and they're in New York, and you say, you know what? You don't have to pay taxes because we don't want you to leave. That's a smack in the face when a company brings in two, $3 billion and never have to pay a tax at all.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, again, I think that the better thing for the city of New York to do would be to lower taxes for everybody. I also do not like choosing the winners and the losers. And certain people get tax benefits or subsidies. I think that's stupid.

[Enya Umanzor]

But talking Matt Mundani.

[Ben Shapiro]

I'm talking about the.

[Enya Umanzor]

You're talking that affordability talk.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, I mean, I think the way that you actually achieve affordability is to lower the regulations and lower the taxes in New York City. It is very difficult to live in New York City. I mean, I have relatives who used to live in New Jersey. I have relatives who are currently living in la. So I'll use that as an analogy because I know the policy in LA better. I live there. The policy in LA is brutal. I mean, you can actually earn a really solid living in Los Angeles and still find it very, very difficult to pay your bills because of things like rent control, preventing development or regulations that prevent you from building new buildings or tax structures that make you pay a lot of money, or licensing structures that make you have to go get a license to cut hair. Like, all this kind of stuff is. Is really, really stupid. And again, my problem with Mamdani, I have many problems with Zormadani, but my problem with Mamdani is not the fundamental sort of critique that it's unaffordable to live in New York. I mean, duh, great method, duh. I mean, but the question is, what is now your solution? And his solution seems to be that the systems of capitalism are fundamentally broken. And I don't think that's right. I don't think that the systems of capitalism are fundamentally broken. I don't think he believes that the systems of capitalism are fundamentally broken. He's lived a life that is one of the most privileged lives I have ever heard of, of any American ever. I mean, the guy has not held a job, and he's gonna be the mayor of New York at the age of 33 after being a failed rapper. I'm a more successful rapper, for God's sake, than Zorn Momdani was.

[Enya Umanzor]

You had one record.

[Ben Shapiro]

I know, I know. And let me tell you, it was a banger. Nikki Nicki Min, it sucks. I understand. Dude, I don't even know. I don't know.

[Enya Umanzor]

I mean, Nikki retweeted.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, yeah, Nikki didn't retweet that. And then I took her side in a fight with Cardi B. And all that.

[Enya Umanzor]

Well, let me ask you a question. President Trump had the same messaging about affordability. He literally said he won the election based off one word, groceries. What was his solution? Because the economy hasn't gotten better.

[Ben Shapiro]

So I totally agree with this, actually. So, again, I think that the critique goes a long way in politics. And this goes back to my original point about politicians. Anyone can make the critique right. You look at the problems in your life. That's super easy. The critique is super easy. Things are too expensive. Yeah, no shit. Like, okay, now what are you gonna do about it? And I think that this is why, for example, I've opposed people. President Trump's tariff regime. I don't think the tariffs are good. I think they are bad public policy. I think that the free trade has made things cheaper and, yes, better, and competition is good. And so, again, I think that when it comes to diagnosing the problems. Listen, I think that President Trump, like any other president, is a mixed bag. I think more good than bad, which is why I campaigned for him. But I'm not gonna pretend that every public policy that he does is something that I agree with, because it's just not true. And I've talked about this on my show. I try to be honest with my audience when I think that the President is doing things that I disagree with.

[Enya Umanzor]

You know? You know, we've seen. I'm just going back to the envy thing. I think that's one of the most fascinating things about this book. We've seen conservatives weaponize that envy and political discontent by saying things like, you know, immigrants are the reason you don't have a job, or DEI is causing unqualified people to get jobs. What do you say to that?

[Ben Shapiro]

So I think that those are sort of two separate issues. So on the immigration front, I think that there is a problem, obviously, of illegal immigration. I think it's less economic than it is cultural, meaning that if you're bringing people in and then they are drawing more out of the system than they are putting into the system, that's a major economic problem. And I do think that if you come to the United States, that you should obviously integrate into the economic systems of the United States into the generalized love of Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States. You should love the country. I think that these are all basic things that you should do. The problem of immigration leaving a completely open border is one of sovereignty. It does have economic downstream effects and all the rest. But I think that the sort of anti immigration, generally meaning even legal immigration arguments that are made that, oh my gosh, if we bring in highly qualified immigrants, they're putting people out of jobs. I think that's just fundamentally untrue on an economic level. Typically, again, innovation makes the pie bigger. It's why you live better than your parents and grandparents do. And if you just think of the people in America who have, who have hired an awful lot of people and created enormous numbers of jobs, many of those people were not born in the United States. The rights favorite, Elon. Elon is an immigrant to the United States. The people Sundar Pichai over at Google, he is an immigrant to the United States. So I'm not anti legal immigration. I think some of the arguments that are made on this side of the populist aisle are wrong when it comes to dei. DEI is a bit of a different thing because DEI is the argument essentially that there should be a lower standard applied to certain people because of historic grievances. And that is a net loser. And the reason that that is a net loser is because what you are essentially doing, number one, is there are plenty, I think, of qualified black people who don't need the hand up in order to succeed in their particular industries. I don't think they need the extra 200 points on the SAT in order to get into Harvard. So that's number one. Number two, I don't want to.

[Enya Umanzor]

I've never been the biggest fan of dei, but I do feel like when things have been done systemically to a people to keep them down, some things have to be done systemically to actually lift them up. So when you look at all of the different, you know, legislation that has been passed that has actually oppressed black people, in that case, I don't have a problem with dei.

[Ben Shapiro]

So I think immediate reparations.

[Enya Umanzor]

DEI isn't just about black people either.

[Ben Shapiro]

No, no, it for sure is not the sort of. The problem with DEI is that it is in fact a zero sum game. Only one person is going to get that job. And so the question is, is the person who gets that job the best qualified for that job or is that a person who's less qualified for the job and is going to underperform in the job compared to what otherwise would have been? And if you want to maximize the pie for everybody, what you want is A meritocracy where the best people at any job get ahead. Now, if you're talking about reparations for immediate past wrongs, I think it's a much easier conversation. So I think that if you're in 1968, 1970, and you're talking about what can we do to rectify the problems of Jim Crow and make it right for the people who suffered under Jim Crow, I think that's a really live and interesting conversation. And I think that it's totally worth having. I think that on a sort of public policy level, reparative policies don't tend to be nearly as effective as people want them to be. Historically speaking, they work for Jewish people. In what way?

[Enya Umanzor]

Jewish people that receive reparations.

[Ben Shapiro]

You mean Holocaust reparations, for example, from Germany. So I think first of all that there was like a gigantic fight actually in Israel over whether Holocaust survivors should accept reparations from Germany. Because the idea was that it's allowing them to expiate their sins of the past and they shouldn't be allowed to expiate those sins. And it's allowing them to buy off the history for 50 grand or whatever it is. But that is not the reason why Israel has become successful economically, like just on a success level. The reality is that cutting people checks rarely makes them more successful from the government. What usually makes people more successful is a determined attempt to become the things that the meritocracy demands of you. So there were no long scale.

[Enya Umanzor]

The U.S. foreign Assistance for Israel has helped its financially.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, I mean, the U.S. foreign Assistance for Israel actually is a bargain for the United States because Israel doesn't need the money. I've said this before. Israel give it to us. I mean, take it. That's fine.

[Enya Umanzor]

The black community would gladly take it.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's in it.

[Enya Umanzor]

I can't speak for it.

[Ben Shapiro]

It's like $3 billion a year. We should point out at this point that we spend, I think, $6 billion a year on our military bases in Japan, $5 billion a year on our military bases in Germany. We spend an awful lot of money that helps an awful lot of other countries. Israel has to spend all of that money, by the way, in the United States on military product. So, so all of the money that we send to. We actually don't send money to Israel. We send military product to Israel that is made in the United States. And so it actually is a subsidy to the American defense industry. And there is a deal with Israel where Israel does intelligence sharing and also develops its own tech and can't disseminate it to the world. So for example, the helmets that our F35 pilots use, those are Israeli developed helmets like that we can see over the horizon, for example. That's because Israel developed technological add ons. So the idea that this is sort of like a zero sum, the money goes out, you get nothing back. That's actually not, that's actually not true. You make the argument that foreign aid entirely should be zeroed out. I think that that is not a particularly useful argument. Just because sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad. Like I'm by the way in favor of assistance to Ukraine to prevent Russia from taking over Ukraine. This represents a vanishing portion of our national budget. Right. If you're going to talk about like where the actual massive spending is going to. What I'd much rather do is restructure Social Security so you can keep more of your own money and you can keep more of your money and I can keep more of my own money because I'm young and I'm still earning. I'm not saying you should zero it out for people who have already earned or who are age 55 plus and approaching retirement age, but if you're 30 years old, the idea that I have to pay into a system and I don't see that money again, and when I do see that money, it's actually borrowed from China. That seems to me to be a really bad thing. And if we're talking about the national budget, 60% of it is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. If you're talking about like that $3 billion. If you took that $3 billion military defense, it represents about 20% of the American budget. And it is.

[Enya Umanzor]

I thought it was way more.

[Ben Shapiro]

It isn't. We spend.

[Enya Umanzor]

Oh, it's more, it's more for the debt.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah. We now spend more on servicing our debt than we do on our military budget, which is quite a scary thing.

[Enya Umanzor]

No, I thought the military budget was part of the debt.

[Ben Shapiro]

It's not so. Well, everything's part of the debt. Meaning like when we pay taxes in our tax revenue per year is somewhere between 4 and 5 trillion dollars. We are spending 6 to 7 trillion dollars every single year. So the rest of that is coming from, from bond sales, essentially, which is borrowing, which is a form of long term borrowing.

[Enya Umanzor]

I do want to go back to my original question though, because, you know, when you started talking about the, you know, geopolitical politics of war, what do you say to conservatives who weaponize that envy, what you call a scavenger mindset.

[Ben Shapiro]

I think it's wrong. I think it's wrong. And this is why this again, why in the book, you will not find right and left uses the binary.

[Enya Umanzor]

Gotcha.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right. Like. Like, I actually, if you go through the whole book, I think I use the term left one time in the entire book. I think it's with regard to. I think it's Sartre, the French philosopher. But I really do not think that this is a purely political binary. I think that there are people who disagree with me on policy, who are lions, who get up every day and they just disagree with me on policy, but they actually want to make the world better. They actually want to build social fabric, make their lives better, make the lives of other people better, believe primarily in personal responsibility and duty. And I think there are people who sometimes agree with me even more on public policy who have fallen into a sort of grievance politics that you can make bank off of. And I think that's. That's really ugly. I think it's bad for everybody.

[Enya Umanzor]

Before you go, I do want to talk to you about one thing you said in your book. You said the Founding Fathers in America's constitutional order.

[Ben Shapiro]

You, you.

[Enya Umanzor]

You embody. You said that they are the lions, right?

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes, sure.

[Enya Umanzor]

Who built systems of freedom and opportunity. We talked about the Three Fifths Compromise, Ben. So everybody wasn't free when those things.

[Ben Shapiro]

Like the constitution were 100 and so to pretend that. That the systems were not deeply flawed and that we didn't have to fight a gigantic civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans 80 years afterward would be obviously historically inaccurate. But the point is that the systems that they were designing provide the framework for that freedom. This is the argument that Frederick Douglass makes in his speech on July 4th, right? Is that July 4th isn't for black Americans, but it should be, right? It should be for black Americans. That's why that speech is so wonderful, is because what he's saying is that the promises the Founding Fathers made were not fulfilled. Which again, is the same thing that MLK says, right? Is that he's not throwing out the systems. He's saying the system is good, but it's flawed. Let's fix the system. That is a lion thing, Right? So you can say the Founding Fathers were lions. And also the people who are fighting what the Founding Fathers did with the Three Fifths compromise were also lions. I mean, to be fair to some of the Founding Fathers, the reason for the Three Fifths compromise is that some of the Founding Fathers were very much pro Slavery. And many of the founding fathers, like for example, John Adams, were very much anti slavery. And the reason for the three Fifths compromise is because if there were no three Fifths compromise in the Constitution, then actually the southern slave holding states would have been overrepresented. Right. John Adams and others said if the Southern states are going to treat black people as not citizens, they shouldn't be. They shouldn't be citizens for purposes of apportionment or you're going to get overrepresented in Congress. That's the historical reason for the Three Fifths compromise. But again, it is again good evidence that yes, slavery was accepted at the time, not just in America, obviously everywhere was still legal in the British Empire. The United States abolishes Slavery in 1863 under the Emancipation Proclamation. But there are many countries that continue to hold slaves today. And so I think the story of America to pretend that it's not flawed is wrong. Also, I think that again, as with any binary, it's too simplistic. There are lions who do scavenger like things. There are scavengers who do lion like things. I think we're all a combination of both those things. We should try to be as lion like as possible in our lives and in our politics and. And we'll stumble and we'll fall and we'll fail and we'll fall into envy and we'll do terrible things to one another. But the more that we can act like lions as opposed to scavengers, the better we and the country will be.

[Dej Envy]

Lauren had a question for us.

[Lauren]

Yeah, completely, I mean, maybe not completely different topic. But Candace Owens, she was here when she said that you couldn't fire her from Daily Wire like that would happen here on the Breakfast Club. So. And I saw everything that happened after and you guys said that you guys were going separate ways. She said she was finally free. Did she quit because you told her to quit or was she fired?

[Ben Shapiro]

I didn't really get into this. I mean, so like, for legal reasons, I will say that it's, you know, talking openly about this is kind of a problem. You know, I will say that Candace and I have obviously quite significant political disagreements. And as the founder of a company that, you know, is dedicated to certain propositions, we have many people who I would not hire, and I would not hire Candace Owens today.

[Enya Umanzor]

What about free speech? My boy, Andrew Schultz, he said that, you know, he said if you're not about free speech when you fire Candace, then you are just a propaganda machine for Israel.

[Ben Shapiro]

Oh, with all respect to Andrew Schultz. That's a dumbass thing to say. And the reason that's a dumb ass thing to say is because I've noticed that Candace is doing quite well for herself.

[Enya Umanzor]

She is.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right. And so I've not called for her to be deplatformed. I've not called for her to be prosecuted. I am under no obligation to pay people from my pocketbook who are espousing beliefs that I find antithetical to my own. You don't have to hire. You don't have to hire Nick Fuentes or David Duke to come be a host at the Breakfast Club. That is not a violation of free speech. That's true.

[Lauren]

There's been. The word anti Semite has been thrown around Candace Owens a lot. Do you feel like she's anti Semitic?

[Ben Shapiro]

I will say that some of the things that she says are, would, to me, certainly fall in that category. I try not to use that terminology. And the reason I try not to use that terminology is I don't think that it's useful. I think that the term has been emptied of sort of all of its content in the same way that Americans are now used to, I think, everyone being called racist. And so they stopped actually paying attention to racism in many ways, which is, I think, quite bad. I want to avoid doing the same thing here.

[Enya Umanzor]

So what's the solution, Ben? When you talk about inequality and civic inclusion, what's the solution? We've talked about a lot. Are we just selling books? Are we just promoting podcasts?

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, so I think that the solution on a personal level is go to church, get married before you have babies, get a job, find the ways in your life that you can make your life personally better, engage with your community, find policies that you think are going to be best for your community and push for those things on the local level, predominantly. I think the other thing is that, you know, I don't want it to sound self serving, but I'm, you know, I'm grateful to you for having the conversation with people on the other side of the aisle. You know, I think that that is really important. I think it's going away. And I think the only way for, you know, therefore what I call in the book a pride of lions is for people who believe in personal responsibility and duty and basic American ideals to get together and hash all this stuff out. Because we do have more in common than, you know, we do with people who want to destroy the civilization. And I think that that really needs to be strengthened in a pretty significant way.

[Enya Umanzor]

But you have to actually listen to what a person is saying and not get caught up in all the buzzwords. One of my favorite episodes of Bill Maher in recent times was when you was on there with my guy, Bakari Sellers.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes.

[Enya Umanzor]

I thought that was amazing.

[Ben Shapiro]

Bakari's awesome. Yeah. I mean, again, I think Bakari's great and we totally disagree on an enormous number of things, but it's a productive conversation.

[Dej Envy]

All right, well, pick up the book right now. It's out for you.

[Enya Umanzor]

The True Story of America and her critics, Ben Shapiro.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's right.

[Dej Envy]

Thank you for joining us this morning.

[Ben Shapiro]

And thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

[Dej Envy]

It's Ben Shapiro. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning.

[Enya Umanzor]

Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up. The Breakfast Club. So y' all done?

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[Hunter]

I'm Hunter, host of Hunting for Answers on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Join me every weekday as I share bite sized stories of missing and murdered black women and girls in America. Stories like Erica Hunt. A young mother vanished without a trace after a family gathering on 4th of July weekend 2020 16. No goodbyes, no clues, just gone. Listen to Hunting for Answers every weekday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben Shapiro]

Hi, my name is Enya Umanzor. And I'm Drew Phillips and we run a podcast called Emergency Intercom. If you're a crime junkie and you love crimes, we're not the podcast for you. But if you have unmedicated adhd. Oh my God, perfect. And want to hear people with mental illness psychobabble. Yes, yes. Then Emergency Intercom's the podcast for you. Open your free iHeartradio app, search emergency Intercom and listen. Now. If a baby is giggling in the backseat, they're probably happy. If a baby is crying in the backseat, they're probably hungry. But if a baby is sleeping in the backseat, will you remember? They're even there when you're distracted, stressed or not, usually the one who drives them, the chances of forgetting them in the back seat are much higher. It can happen to anyone. Parked cars get hot fast and can be deadly, so get in the habit of checking the back seat when you leave a message from Nitza and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart podcast.