Joe Rogan Experience #1732 - Ben Shapiro

Joe Rogan 0:00 (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Hello, Ben Shapiro.

Ben Shapiro 0:14 Well, hello, Joe Rogan.

Joe Rogan 0:15 Good to see you, buddy.

Ben Shapiro 0:15 It's good to see you outside LA.

Joe Rogan 0:16 I know. I'm a free man now and as are you.

Ben Shapiro 0:19 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:20 We've escaped the criminal communist state of C- California.

Ben Shapiro 0:24 We both look about 25% happier.

Joe Rogan 0:26 Uh, I'm definitely happier. It's way easier to live here. It's, like, l- less traffic and, uh, just forget about all the d- draconian COVID restrictions and dealing with, uh, an inept, bullshit government-

Ben Shapiro 0:38 Yep.

Joe Rogan 0:39 ... which is what it is.

Ben Shapiro 0:40 You save yourself some money too.

Joe Rogan 0:41 It's that, but it's, people are nicer.

Ben Shapiro 0:43 Yes.

Joe Rogan 0:44 It's like-

Ben Shapiro 0:44 Yes.

Joe Rogan 0:44 ... you're living in a r- a d- they're r- regular folks. Like, California is so polluted by show business, it's hard to really reconcile it. It's hard to really understand how bad it is until you leave, and then you go, "Oh, okay. That's not normal. This is normal." Like, just regular people.

Ben Shapiro 1:03 It's crazy. So I grew up in LA, right? I mean, I, I was in LA all the way up until last year basically, and the only three years I wasn't in LA I was in Boston for law school. So I- I've only been in, like, big blue cities my entire life. And when you grow up in LA it's like there's no other place... It's like growing up in New York. There's no-

Joe Rogan 1:18 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 1:18 ... other place that exists in the country. And then you leave and you're like, "Whoa, the rest of this country is kind of fantastic." And people are. They're way nicer, just way nicer. Like, in LA there's a thing you do where you walk down the street, if you're not driving, you walk down the street, you spot somebody who you don't know, you c- you kinda lock eyes with them. The first thing you do is you look away, right? You don't, you don't, like, you don't catch eyes with somebody and have a conversation with them just in the normal course of business in LA or New York. You move outside LA or New York, you're walking down the street, you lock eyes with somebody, you're like, "Hey, how are you?"

Joe Rogan 1:46 Yeah, they say hi. (laughs)

Ben Shapiro 1:47 It's crazy. It's like a crazy thing. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:49 Well, there's a thing that happens when you just get too many human beings living together where people become a nuisance, you know? It's just, there's the, well, the population density of Los Angeles is replicated in rat population density studies that they've done. Have you ever seen those?

Ben Shapiro 2:03 No, I haven't seen these.

Joe Rogan 2:04 They're really fascinating 'cause they, what they do is they've taken rats, and they take them, and they have a certain number of these rats together, and they behave fairly normally. And then as they increase the population of rats, you start seeing what you see in large cities. You start seeing rats, like, huddled in the corner nodding and shit. You see, like-

Ben Shapiro 2:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:23 ... mental illness. You see violence. You see all kinds of stuff that you see in populations of humans. And it's just, it become, uh, it, they become a factor and a negative factor instead of, you know... Obviously, rats aren't communicating like people do where, uh, y- it becomes a community and you look forward to seeing those people. But, you know, they have some sort of a communal relationship with each other.

Ben Shapiro 2:44 I mean, uh, it feels like there's sort of a background level of threat that just exists when there are tons of people-

Joe Rogan 2:48 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 2:48 ... who you don't know who are around you all the time. And in small communities it's not replicated that way 'cause you actually know your neighbors, you know the people you're dealing with-

Joe Rogan 2:54 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 2:54 ... on a regular basis. But if you're walking around a big city, just the kind of lizard part of your brain has to constantly be on alert. Okay?

Joe Rogan 3:01 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 3:01 The n- the next person who walks down the street could be the person who stabs me in the eye. And in LA that's y- that's actually not a wild consideration considering (laughs) that they've let every mentally ill drug addict out onto the streets and then said that it's a civil right for them to stay there, like, right outside people's houses. It's crazy.

Joe Rogan 3:17 If you are a real conspiracy theorist, if you're a real tinfoil hat, dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist, you would look at the LA district attorney and you would go, "What the fuck is going on here? Like, is this a plot to ruin the city? Is this, uh, I mean, is this, like, uh, has China hired this guy?"

Ben Shapiro 3:32 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:32 "Like, what is going on?"

Ben Shapiro 3:34 Between that and San Francisco.

Joe Rogan 3:35 That Gascon guy.

Ben Shapiro 3:35 Yeah. Between that and San Francisco taking beautiful cities-

Joe Rogan 3:37 It's wild.

Ben Shapiro 3:38 ... and just destroying the cities.

Joe Rogan 3:39 Destroying them.

Ben Shapiro 3:39 And, and by the way, not doing anything good for the people who are actually mentally ill and drug addicted.

Joe Rogan 3:43 No.

Ben Shapiro 3:43 Just leaving them out on the street and pretending that sleeping on a street corner is the highest form of freedom and definitely have to leave their shit just lying around-

Joe Rogan 3:50 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 3:50 ... on the streets while they poop on a corner. It's just, it's unbelievable. And at, at some point you would imagine that people would have to wake up to this. And you see this a little in New York, right? I mean, Eric Adams is a big change from Bill de Blasio.

Joe Rogan 3:59 A big change, yeah.

Ben Shapiro 4:00 And, uh, you, you hope that at some point, you know, for their own good, people in LA wake up to this. But in the meantime, I'm not gonna be there. I'm out. I don't care.

Joe Rogan 4:06 Yeah, I'm not interested in helping him. Uh, I read this article that called me and Elon cowards for, for not trying to fix it-

Ben Shapiro 4:13 Oh, come on.

Joe Rogan 4:13 ... instead of reliving. Like, what are you-

Ben Shapiro 4:14 That's happened for both you guys, so whatever. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:16 How are you gonna fix this? Yeah, how are you gonna... What, when did you leave?

Ben Shapiro 4:18 Uh, we bought in Florida last June. So it was the June before last.

Joe Rogan 4:23 Okay.

Ben Shapiro 4:23 June before last. So-

Joe Rogan 4:23 You were barely before me. Uh, 'cause I started looking in May.

Ben Shapiro 4:27 Right, exactly.

Joe Rogan 4:28 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 4:28 So we were like f-

Joe Rogan 4:28 Both of us were like, "I see the writing on the wall."

Ben Shapiro 4:31 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:32 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 4:32 Well, that was my argument to my wife. So she wanted to stay-

Joe Rogan 4:34 So did mine.

Ben Shapiro 4:34 ... for a long time. And I'd been saying for a couple of years, "Look at this tax bill. Look what we're getting in public services. Look how bad things are getting." And she's like, "No, it's fine. You know, you're making a lot of money, you pay a lot of taxes, and that's fine." I said, "Right, but we're not getting anything back. And in five years, do you think this place is gonna be better or you think this place is gonna be worse?" And then you got the COVID lockdowns where LA just went out of its mind, and they shut all the parks, and they put the yellow tape on the turnoffs off Mulholland. Like, people-

Joe Rogan 4:56 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 4:56 ... were gonna, what, gather on the turnoffs off Mulholland and just mack on each other and spread COVID-

Joe Rogan 5:00 (laughs)

Ben Shapiro 5:01 ... like crazy in those three-foot square turnoffs off Mulholland Drive? And, um, and so she was already like, "This is getting crazy." And then during the riots when they locked everybody in their house at 6:00 PM. You remember this? They just curfewed-

Joe Rogan 5:12 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 5:12 ... the entire city at 6:00 PM. And then they, on Rodeo, they curfewed it at 1:00 so people could just run up and down Rodeo Drive breaking shit.

Joe Rogan 5:20 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 5:20 And we heard gunshots at night. And we, we're not in a bad area. We heard gunshots at night. Like, they hit a, a Footlocker half a mile this way and a Walgreens half a mile that way. She's like, "Okay, I guess we can check out Florida."

Joe Rogan 5:29 Yeah, once the riots hit, that's when the mass exodus really started. Because when people started realizing that there's, uh, this weird idea that some politicians had, de Blasio was the worst example of it, to let the people, uh, just break the law and get it out of their system. Like, I don't understa- th- apparently, there's some, uh, sociological theory behind this-

Ben Shapiro 5:55 I hadn't heard that one.

Joe Rogan 5:56 I, I've heard there's some theory about, uh... And it, it was a d- widely dismissed theory from the '60s and the idea about, like, letting people riot it out of their system, almost like letting a child throw a temper tantrum. So when you saw people on Saks Fifth Avenue smashing windows and all that, the idea... And the, the cops were literally told to stand down.

Ben Shapiro 6:15 Oh, yeah. They, they bu... I mean, we saw all the pictures.

Joe Rogan 6:17 Uh-

Ben Shapiro 6:17 They burned the cop cars on Melrose, right?

Joe Rogan 6:19 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 6:19 They're just burning every cop car on Melrose.

Joe Rogan 6:21 De Blasio is the worst example of a mayor I've ever seen in my life. He's a stunningly incompetent person. When I see him talking, when I, when I see, like, what's important to him and, like, when he was eating cheeseburgers talking about the vaccine, like, "You can get a free ch... Vaccine? Uh, uh, I understand that, uh, fries are with this as well?" Like-

Ben Shapiro 6:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:39 ... y- you're eating terrible food.

Ben Shapiro 6:41 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:41 This is what makes people sick. What the fuck, man? Like-

Ben Shapiro 6:44 There, there was a run-and-gun battle for the last couple of years over who was the worst mayor. They had, like, Jenny Durkan in Seattle, who was allowing Chaz Chop to happen, and then you had Garcetti-

Joe Rogan 6:51 Right.

Ben Shapiro 6:51 ... in LA, who was allowing riots to happen. You had Bo- de Blasio in New York, you had Lori Lightfoot in Chicago.

Joe Rogan 6:55 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 6:55 It's like a run-and-gun battle over who was gonna be the worst public servant.

Joe Rogan 6:58 Yeah, I don't know who was better. Uh, you know, w- Lightfoot's in the lead. She's, she's right there with de Blasio.

Ben Shapiro 7:04 Terrible.

Joe Rogan 7:05 Well, she-

Ben Shapiro 7:05 I mean, she let me... Uh, like all the worst of de Blasio, plus, "I'm only gonna do interviews with people who look like me."

Joe Rogan 7:10 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 7:10 Like, I don't even know how you could say that. That's so crazy.

Joe Rogan 7:12 Yeah. She said she's only-

Ben Shapiro 7:14 And then she repeated it.

Joe Rogan 7:14 ... doing it with brown and Black people. Yeah, only interviews with brown and Black people, this... Which is absolutely racist. And it's just... It's, uh, it's... Did you hear about the, um, the gunfight that happened in Chicago where they let everyone go because it was mutual combat?

Ben Shapiro 7:27 No, this is-

Joe Rogan 7:28 Ooh, you don't know about this?

Ben Shapiro 7:29 No, I missed this. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 7:30 I'm happy to show Ben Shapiro some news that's gonna make you angry. Pull this up, because it's so fucking crazy. One person was dead. Um, two... I believe two other people were shot. They expa... They, they, uh, expelled 70 rounds. So 70 shots were fired on a fucking street. There's video footage of this happening, where people were just driving by freaking out. There's a dead body on the ground where a guy got shot. No charges. No charges 'cause they said it was mutual combat. Chicago's lost its fucking mind. Prosecutors reject charges against five suspects in deadly gun-related gunfight, gang-related gunfight. Now scroll up so you could see what it says, where it says about mutual combat. See if you can find where... "Suspects have been released without charges." Uh, "Cook County State's Attorney's Office has explained the prosecutors had determined that the evidence was insufficient to meet our burden of proof ap- to approve felony charges." For a fucking gunfight where 70 rounds were shot on a public street! "The state's attorney spokeswoman said, adding that the police officials agreed with the decision." I think the cops just threw their fucking hands up in the air and they're like, "We're done." But they used the term mutual combat in o- one of the, uh, one of the articles that I read.

Ben Shapiro 8:45 Well-

Joe Rogan 8:46 Which is usually related to-

Ben Shapiro 8:47 There it is.

Joe Rogan 8:47 Yeah, okay.

Ben Shapiro 8:47 "Mutual combatants was cited as the reason..."

Joe Rogan 8:49 Yeah, okay.

Ben Shapiro 8:49 Wait. I, I thought that that's what a gang war-

Joe Rogan 8:52 A fight. No-

Ben Shapiro 8:52 ... is. Like an... Anytime there's a fight, I thought it's, it's, like, two people fighting.

Joe Rogan 8:55 Well, it's... No. That term is supposed to be used for fistfights. "Mutual combatants was cited as the reason for rejection."

Ben Shapiro 9:02 Is the-

Joe Rogan 9:02 "Mutual combat is a legal term used to define a fight or struggle that two parties willingly engage in." That's a fistfight.

Ben Shapiro 9:10 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 9:10 That's two people hitting each other with their hands.

Ben Shapiro 9:11 So this is like the plot of The Last Duel right here, right?

Joe Rogan 9:13 Well, it's, it's a public safety danger. When you have a fistfight, there is very little danger that your fist is gonna fly through a window and kill a baby. You know what I'm saying?

Ben Shapiro 9:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 9:22 But when you're just shooting guns in a street, these fucking people are criminally incompetent. It's ter... Do you know how many people are becoming Republicans? I think you do.

Ben Shapiro 9:29 I, I do.

Joe Rogan 9:30 A lot.

Ben Shapiro 9:30 I do. I do.

Joe Rogan 9:30 Yeah, yeah.

Ben Shapiro 9:30 I mean, he... Look, um-

Joe Rogan 9:31 I have friends-

Ben Shapiro 9:32 My new home state, Florida-

Joe Rogan 9:33 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 9:33 ... that was a 50/50 state. That ain't a 50/50 state no more.

Joe Rogan 9:35 No, it's probably 75/25 or something crazy.

Ben Shapiro 9:37 I mean, right now it's... It, it's moved. It's never gonna be a 75/25, but-

Joe Rogan 9:40 It should be.

Ben Shapiro 9:41 It should be. But it's... But right now there's, there's news that the Democratic, the Democratic Governors Association, right, which funds all these gubernatorial races... Remember, DeSantis only beat Andrew Gillum by, like, 40,000 votes in the last election cycle. DeSantis is just gonna wipe the floor with his opponent. The DGA just pulled out. They said, "We're not gonna spend any money in Florida."

Joe Rogan 9:56 Really?

Ben Shapiro 9:57 Yeah. W-

Joe Rogan 9:58 They, they're g- they're not gonna win. It's... What he's done is amazing, because he's changed a lot of people's ideas about the way this should be handled. Because so many people, even people that came on my podcast today, were talking about criminally incompetent... Not today, but in the past rather, were saying how criminally incompetent he is and people are dying on the streets. Now you look at the COVID cases. He has less COVID cases than most other states. I think it's only second to California. There's, uh, the, the... If you look at the overall deaths, people were talking about the deaths, but when you make it-

Ben Shapiro 10:27 Age-adjusted-

Joe Rogan 10:28 ... when you age, age-adjusted-

Ben Shapiro 10:29 Age-adjusted-

Joe Rogan 10:29 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 10:29 ... it's an old state. It's the second oldest state in the country after Maine, right? And Maine has, like, seven old people and a moose.

Joe Rogan 10:34 This is, by the way, coming from someone who got COVID in Florida. I got COVID in Florida.

Ben Shapiro 10:38 A- And you're not dead?

Joe Rogan 10:39 No, I'm okay.

Ben Shapiro 10:40 Unbelievable.

Joe Rogan 10:40 No, I was okay.

Ben Shapiro 10:41 I mean, you took the horse dewormer and everything?

Joe Rogan 10:43 I did.

Ben Shapiro 10:43 I thought that would kill you too.

Joe Rogan 10:44 You know what's interesting?

Ben Shapiro 10:44 I mean, you look like a horse now. I don't, I don't know what happened.

Joe Rogan 10:46 Um, and then-

Ben Shapiro 10:47 CNN told me. They-

Joe Rogan 10:48 C- yeah. CNN, uh, never lies.

Ben Shapiro 10:50 Ever.

Joe Rogan 10:51 No.

Ben Shapiro 10:51 Ever.

Joe Rogan 10:52 They, um, they were very fair-

Ben Shapiro 10:52 I just thought that you were in the back, like-

Joe Rogan 10:54 ... with their coverage.

Ben Shapiro 10:54 ... you went over to the barn and you were just, like, grabbing some random pills and just-

Joe Rogan 10:56 Well, I can't afford people medicine.

Ben Shapiro 10:59 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 10:59 So I had to go to a feed store.

Ben Shapiro 11:02 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 11:03 It's like the... It's... I knew that, you know, they lied in the news. But when you see it about yourself, you're like, "Wow." And you see this concerted effort, this, like... Clearly, uh, uh, th- th- this is m- m- they've managed this.

Ben Shapiro 11:14 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:15 They, they've thought about this.

Ben Shapiro 11:15 The, the headline was the equivalent of, you know, "Joe Rogan just had a swig of liquid used to wash cars."

Joe Rogan 11:21 Yeah, yeah.

Ben Shapiro 11:22 Right? You don't get to drink water over there. That's, that's liquid we use to wash cars. We use all these things for a variety of purposes. Like, th-

Joe Rogan 11:28 But meanwhile, in the middle of a pandemic, when you see someone who's... I'm not young, I'm 54 years old. And when you see someone who's better in three days, making a video, and then tested positive, or tested negative rather, two days later... I was working out a day after that. Fine, I felt fine. I did 10 rounds in the bag seven days after I tested positive and I was fine. Like, really fine. Like, didn't feel anything.

Ben Shapiro 11:52 Right. But I, I've heard though that, that ever since then, Cenk Uygur can kick your ass. That's, that's what I hear.

Joe Rogan 11:56 That's what I heard too.

Ben Shapiro 11:56 I heard that, heard that, yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:57 It's very terrifying.

Ben Shapiro 11:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 11:58 He's been... Apparently, he's been fighting his whole life.

Ben Shapiro 12:00 Wow. That's, that's, uh, some scary stuff.

Joe Rogan 12:02 (clears throat) Yeah. Well-

Ben Shapiro 12:03 You had to run all the way to Texas just to avoid him. It's unbelievable.

Joe Rogan 12:05 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 12:06 Your cowardice, sir.

Joe Rogan 12:06 I don't have to run that fast, but-

Ben Shapiro 12:08 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:08 ... you know. I can kind of, like, speed walk.... it's, um, it's a strange time because I don't know why people are behaving the way they are. Why they are, uh, uh, not just, uh, actively engaging in conflict, but encouraging it, nonsensical conflict. Why people have gotten so tribal that they branched off into these, uh, these groups that, you know, our group can do no wrong and that group can do no right. And we've abandoned this idea that we're supposed to be all in this together. I thought the p- the pandemic was gonna bring people together. I really did. I thought it was gonna be like 9/11, in that people were gonna recognize, like, "Hey, this is a threat to all of us and let's all try to work together and figure this out." And I thought that if people got better, and if people took a certain medication and, and it helped them, or they had certain lifestyle choices that were better, like, things like, uh, vitamin supplementation and exercise, and all these different things that I've always been talking about, that maybe we would look at that and go, "Hey, we should probably look into this." Because it seems like there's some people that get hit really hard by this and there's some people, like Aaron Rodgers, who just brush it off like it's nothing.

Ben Shapiro 13:18 I mean, total shock that Aaron Rodgers, one of the healthiest human beings on planet Earth-

Joe Rogan 13:22 One of the best fucking quarterbacks alive.

Ben Shapiro 13:24 ... that, that I can't believe COVID didn't take him down.

Joe Rogan 13:26 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 13:26 I mean, he was a 75-year-old man with diabetes.

Joe Rogan 13:28 Ah.

Ben Shapiro 13:29 So that's i- ... So clearly COVID was going to kill him.

Joe Rogan 13:31 Well, this-

Ben Shapiro 13:32 The, the am- the amount of hatred for, for Aaron Rodgers so far outweighs the amount of upset over a member of the Las Vegas Raiders allegedly running a person over at 150 miles an hour, right? And then he got, like, booted from the team the next day. But, like, the amount of public outrage is, is kind of insane. And again, like, every adult in America and now every child in America has had the opportunity to get vaccinated. If you wanna get vaccinated, get vaccinated. Right? I did, you didn't. I don't care.

Joe Rogan 13:56 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 13:56 I don't care. Once, once everybody's had the opportunity to protect themselves, we're done. But th- uh, I think this goes to something deeper, which is we ... I think there are kinda two... I used to think there were two types of people with regard to what they thought of human nature. You know, some people think human nature is good, some people think human nature is kinda sinful. I think that's still true. But I think there's another distinction that the pandemic really exposed. There, there are two kinds of people: people who are okay with living with a certain level of risk, and people who just are not, and think that if they delegate all their power to people to make decisions for them, that all risk can be mitigated. And if that means controlling all the people around them, that's totally fine.

Joe Rogan 14:31 That's a good point.

Ben Shapiro 14:32 Because it, it really is, you know, the ... I, I think all of our society is built on the notion of risk-seeking. Right? People who build societies tend to be ... People who build companies tend to be risk-takers, and, and people who are willing to fail, right? Most people who take a risk in business fail. They don't succeed. Right? There's always the guy ... W- we feature, you know, guys like you, or people like me, or people like Jeff Be- ... you know, people who build big companies and win. Those are the people who make the covers of magazines or get ripped up on CNN for no reason. But the people who fail, I mean, that's most of the people who try to take a risk. Risk is risky. There's a whole group of people in America who no longer wanna take a risk, and they have been sold a lie. Uh, I saw a really good piece by, uh, Scott Alexander, who write- ... He used to write for Slate Star Codex before they outed him, and now he, he runs something called The Astral Star Codex. And he was reviewing a book, and the basic thesis of the book is that since the beginning of the 20th century there's been a big promise made to Americans, and that is their authorities, and they live in Washington DC or in your city, and they have a big button right here that they can hit that solves all your problems. And if they just hit it hard enough, it's gonna solve all your problems. And for a long time, the media kinda went along with that 'cause the media were part of an elite group that agreed with a lot of those, those ideas. And then the rise of the internet basically shattered that. People could get their own information. You could see through the screen that actually that button didn't exist. And so then the elites in the society had to make a choice. They could either admit that that button never existed and they couldn't smash that button and fix all your problems, which would destroy their power, or they could say, "It's actually your neighbor. Your n- ... If it weren't for your neighbor, I could hit this button, but your neighbor is in here making me not hit the button. And so you have to hate your neighbor." Right? This is why it's been so bewildering to me. So I am ... Again, I'm ... I took the vaccine, my wife took the vaccine, my parents took the vaccine. I have young kids. I have no intention of them taking the vaccine. They're seven, five, and one. There's no track record of the vaccine for kids, and the risk to them is, is, m- below minimal. But the, but you and I can disagree on the vaccine and I don't care what you do, so long as you are not posing a threat to me. And yet there's this whole idea out there that if you don't do what I want you to do, you're gonna kill me. I'm vaxed. I'm not worried about it. As soon as I was done with that second dose, I'm free and clear. And by the way, I can get a mask if I'm all that worried about it. But there's a whole group of people who never wanna think like that. They wanna mask up forever. You're starting to see it morph now. Right?

Joe Rogan 16:39 Well, I-

Ben Shapiro 16:39 It's, it's like we, we can't give each other flu, so we, we have to make sure that we mask forever. I'm not doing that.

Joe Rogan 16:43 Well, I think that w- what you said is very important. That there's a bunch of people that don't like risks in life, period. And then when this came along, all of a sudden everything was a risk.

Ben Shapiro 16:55 Right. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:55 And then when they saw other people's actions and choices as being a, a risk to them ... Uh, some of the people that I know, that I'm friends with, that I would follow on Twitter, who are riddled with anxiety. Like, I have friends that ha- ar- have real psychological problems. They're comics and nice people in general, but are terrified of everything. And I'm watching them l- completely implode because of the fact that this is a real risk. That getting sick from this disease is a real risk. And so they look at everyone's individual choices as being something that can impact their lives in a, in a negative way. And they're looking at it completely disproportionately.

Ben Shapiro 17:37 Yep.

Joe Rogan 17:38 They're not looking at it in a realistic sense, and they're not willing to look at the, the idea that there's other options. There are treatment options. Like, this is the only time ever in our life where you have to do one thing and you have to ignore all evidence that other things are effective. Monoclonal antibodies-

Ben Shapiro 17:58 Yes, this is correct.

Joe Rogan 17:59 ... are radically effective. I took 'em. I was better in 24 hours after taking them. I have told a bunch of my fr- ... including Aaron Rodgers. Like, well, you know, w- the news is talking about all this crazy shit with Aaron. What they're not talking about is s- exactly the same thing they're not talking about with me. He got better really quick.

Ben Shapiro 18:15 Yep.

Joe Rogan 18:15 And he got better with a drug that's approved for emergency use authorization, and that's what it is. But if you take that and you're sick-... then you don't need a vaccine. And that is driving people fucking crazy because they took it, they took the risk to take the vaccine and they know that a certain percentage of people do have an adverse reaction. I don't know what the percentage is because I think there's under reports. I think the Harv- there was a Harvard study that said it was between one and 10% under reported. I don't know what that number, I don't know if that's real. But the reality is that there's some sort of a risk and people took the risk and they're angry if other people don't take that risk. And then they wanna point out that there's also a risk for COVID and you're fucking up and you're making a poor choice and they made a good choice because their choice is to take this approved vaccine and your choice is to just take your chances with this virus because you're worried about the risk of the vaccine, so people like Keith Olbermann will call you a coward. Like, have you seen those-

Ben Shapiro 19:10 Yep.

Joe Rogan 19:10 ... unhinged rants from that fucking maniac?

Ben Shapiro 19:12 It's a... One of the things I think that, that really is important to note also is that when it comes to the risk calculation, most of the people who are really paranoid about COVID are people who live more like me than like you. What I mean by that is, you're a guy who's kind of in the fight arena. You, you do physical conflict, right? You put yourself at physical risk all the time. Most people who are deeply afraid of COVID are people like me. They, they're in air conditioned offices, right? They have security. Like, they, they, they've spent their whole life in a bubble and if you spend your whole life in a bubble, then any risk penetrating that bubble-

Joe Rogan 19:40 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 19:40 ... looks just unbelievably out-sized.

Joe Rogan 19:43 Exactly.

Ben Shapiro 19:43 And, and the human brain is not... W- we're not set up to calculate relative risk.

Joe Rogan 19:47 Right.

Ben Shapiro 19:47 Right? We just tend to think of things as risky or not risky. We don't tend to think of things as, like, it's a one in 10,000 chance. How do you even calculate that in your head? Does that mean, like, every 10,000 times I step out the door I might die in a car accident? What, what does that mean exactly?

Joe Rogan 19:58 Right.

Ben Shapiro 19:58 We just tend to think of activities in one of those two binary categories and so if COVID goes into the risk category and then the media just keep pounding away every day that, "You are probably gonna die if you get this thing," which is not true. That's not even true for old people, right?

Joe Rogan 20:11 No.

Ben Shapiro 20:11 Even for old people the, the chances of death if you're above 75 from getting COVID with nothing else, they're high. It's like one in 20, it's like five in 100. But if you are a 20-year-old guy who's healthy, your chances of dying from COVID are extremely low. And if you're an unvaccinated child, your chances of dying of COVID are lower than that of a vaccinated adult.

Joe Rogan 20:27 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 20:28 And, and so this, this notion that all this is the same level of risk, which is peddled by the media to try and p- it's all the platonic lie. It's all-

Joe Rogan 20:34 Exactly.

Ben Shapiro 20:34 ... you can't control your own life and so we are gonna tell you what's best for you by scaring the hell out of you. And then when it turns out people get the actual facts, when the fact shield that they've created is, is broken, when it turns out that it was not true, then people lose all faith in the institutions. And then the only way that they can try and reestablish the faith in the institutions is to keep doubling down. They have to keep doubling down and keep trying to control you. They can't let go and say, "We made some mistakes here. We shouldn't have lied in the first place. We overestimated our, our ability to know what was going on." Instead it's, "No, no, no, y- y- why don't you just listen to us? We're the science." Like, you're, you're n- that's not a thing.

Joe Rogan 21:06 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 21:06 No person is the science. The science is the science. That's all.

Joe Rogan 21:09 Not only that, they're ignoring some of the science. They're ignoring... Y- you don't hear a peep out of any of these officials telling people, "Hey folks, you've gotta lose weight. This is very important."

Ben Shapiro 21:19 Yep. No, this is great.

Joe Rogan 21:20 W- we- look at the numbers of people that are obese that catch COVID, it's very high. Here's another one. Vitamin D. The, you've got to, like, increase your level of vitamin D. Either get regular sun exposure or take a supplement. It's very simple.

Ben Shapiro 21:31 They literally told you-

Joe Rogan 21:32 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 21:32 ... "Stay in your house-"

Joe Rogan 21:33 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 21:33 "... and don't go in the sun."

Joe Rogan 21:35 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 21:35 For the vast majority of the pandemic.

Joe Rogan 21:37 Well, you can take supplements. I mean, it's not as good as being in the sun but the best vitamin D-

Ben Shapiro 21:40 No, but they kept, they kept saying like, "Don't go outside." Right? It was like-

Joe Rogan 21:43 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 21:43 At the beginning.

Joe Rogan 21:43 Right.

Ben Shapiro 21:44 And we knew within the first month people were not catching this outside.

Joe Rogan 21:46 But the r- y- right. We sorta knew. There was, there was some concern-

Ben Shapiro 21:49 There was, there was Chinese data and the Chinese data was showing-

Joe Rogan 21:51 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 21:51 ... that, like, nobody in China had gotten it.

Joe Rogan 21:52 I don't trust shit that comes out of Chinese data.

Ben Shapiro 21:55 That's fair. That's fair.

Joe Rogan 21:55 I don't trust any of it. I think there's so much nonsense coming out. I mean, look, look at what we know now about the Wuhan leak or whether or not it came from a lab. Like, the, w- what we knew a year ago versus what we know now. It's amazing how much we opened up to the lab leak idea as soon as Donald Trump was out of office. It's like, "Hey guys, you know, we've been going over these papers and, uh, seems like it's kind of possible."

Ben Shapiro 22:17 Yep.

Joe Rogan 22:18 It's-

Ben Shapiro 22:18 You know, monoclonal antibody is the same thing, right?

Joe Rogan 22:19 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 22:19 DeSantis was saying monoclonal antibodies and then Biden said it.

Joe Rogan 22:22 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 22:22 And then it was like, "Oh, monoclonal antibodies work, guys."

Joe Rogan 22:24 Well, they're restricting the use of it. They're trying to stop people from getting it.

Ben Shapiro 22:27 Well, they seized the s- they, they rejiggered the supply, right? It was being done-

Joe Rogan 22:30 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 22:30 ... at the state level and then they federalized the supply chain and they said, "Okay, now we're gonna distribute it." And they said, "That's not because we are trying to punish Florida but it's a little 'cause we're trying to punish Florida."

Joe Rogan 22:37 It's not just trying to punish Florida. It's trying to make it far more difficult to get this stuff because it discourages people from getting vaccinated.

Ben Shapiro 22:45 Right.

Joe Rogan 22:45 It's, it's, it's the same thing that we were just talking about. It's one treatment option. This is it. The vaccine. This is one binary option and that's how people are looking at it and they're not taking into consideration all these other points of data that show that obesity is a factor, that diet and exercise are a factor, that vitamin supplementation is a factor. There's a lot of factors that are involved in keeping your body healthy, but this is not... It's not conducive to this, "Brought to you by Pfizer."

Ben Shapiro 23:14 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:14 It's not conducive to that narrative.

Ben Shapiro 23:16 Listen-

Joe Rogan 23:17 Thi- this fucking narrative is scary.

Ben Shapiro 23:18 Yeah, i- i- it's the, the, the lack of willingness to expose information is totally crazy.

Joe Rogan 23:23 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 23:23 And again, this is coming from somebody who's very pro-vaccine and thinks the vast majority of adults should get a vaccine.

Joe Rogan 23:27 Well, I am very pro-vaccine. This is not a vaccine. This is essentially a gene therapy. They've changed the term what a, what a vaccine means because of this. You know that, right?

Ben Shapiro 23:39 Yeah, yeah, no. The m-

Joe Rogan 23:40 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 23:40 The mRNA's a, uh-

Joe Rogan 23:40 We-

Ben Shapiro 23:40 ... relatively new technology compared to the way they used to do vaccines, yes.

Joe Rogan 23:43 It's relatively new and there's no long term safety data.

Ben Shapiro 23:47 Well-

Joe Rogan 23:47 It doesn't exist. And we're, we're in the middle of... O- obviously it's important to do something, right? And so we're essentially in the middle of an experiment. This is a long term experiment with people and we're gonna find out f- whether it's five years from now or 10 years from now, but if you look at the vast majority of FDA approved drugs, they're, uh, uh, you know, a- if you look at all of them, like, out of the... Who knows how many thousands of drugs have been approved? Do you know how many have been pulled out once they found out there's adverse side effects after years and years of use? It's fucking nuts. It's a crazy number. Let's find out what the number is. Um, th- FDA approved drugs...... that were w- how would you Google this?

Ben Shapiro 24:31 Withdrawn, maybe.

Joe Rogan 24:32 Withdrawn, uh, after finding adverse effects. I was reading an article about this because the article was a pro-vaccine article, but they were saying, uh, l- you gotta understand how these things work. There's a reason why they do these trials over five, 10 years. There's a reason for this. So everybody that's saying, you know, safe and effective, safe and effective... For most people, yes. For most people, safe and effective. So was Vioxx. So was Vioxx. I have a friend who had a stroke from Vioxx, and he was in his 30s.

Ben Shapiro 25:02 Well, again, the, the notion that it's great for everyone or that it is-

Joe Rogan 25:06 Okay.

Ben Shapiro 25:06 Wow!

Joe Rogan 25:07 There have been 12,787 drug recalls issued by the FDA. On average, 1,279 drugs are recalled every year. Understand this, we don't know what the fuck is going to happen in 10 years.

Ben Shapiro 25:25 Well, that, that's-

Joe Rogan 25:25 We don't know.

Ben Shapiro 25:26 But that's why it was always for me about relative risk of COVID versus whatever you think-

Joe Rogan 25:30 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 25:30 ... the risks might be of the vaccine.

Joe Rogan 25:32 And it's-

Ben Shapiro 25:32 Which is why for people who are old, you really needed to get it.

Joe Rogan 25:34 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 25:34 If you're 65 and up-

Joe Rogan 25:35 Exactly.

Ben Shapiro 25:36 ... it was you do whatever you have to do to get it.

Joe Rogan 25:37 Exactly.

Ben Shapiro 25:37 And then once it got to lower ages, it was like, use your own best judgment.

Joe Rogan 25:40 And that's... I encourage my pam... my parents to get vaccinated. I encourage people that are in high-risk groups to get vaccinated. I think it does... And, and obvi- The other thing that's happening-

Ben Shapiro 25:48 And the data on that... I mean, now-

Joe Rogan 25:49 ... that's interesting-

Ben Shapiro 25:49 ... they're pushing third shots, right?

Joe Rogan 25:50 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 25:50 And, and, like, the data on third shots is really, really sketchy unless you're really old and really immunocompromised.

Joe Rogan 25:55 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 25:55 And they're pushing it anyway.

Joe Rogan 25:56 But the thing about, the thing about the, the COVID vaccine that's interesting is that the adverse side effects are less frequent in older people for whatever reason. It's interesting.

Ben Shapiro 26:05 Maybe it's just worse immune response maybe?

Joe Rogan 26:07 Maybe.

Ben Shapiro 26:07 'Cause a lot of this stuff is-

Joe Rogan 26:08 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 26:09 ... is driven by-

Joe Rogan 26:09 Exactly.

Ben Shapiro 26:10 ... the strength of the immune response.

Joe Rogan 26:11 Exactly. Well, also, you're seeing people administer it incorrectly all the fucking time, including when they did it to the president. When they jabbed the president and I said, "I don't even think they gave it to him." I was joking around and everybody's outraged, "Joe Rogan is a conspiracy the- what is he saying?" Well, you're supposed to aspirate, you fucks. When you, when you see someone get injected and they just go like that right into his arm, that is an incorrect way of vaccinating the fucking leader of the free world. Okay? If you're gonna do it to the leader of the free world, maybe you should pull it back to make sure you didn't hit a goddamn vein and then push it through, because that's what you're supposed to do. I'm not a doctor. Your wife's a doctor. I'm sure she could tell you the same thing.

Ben Shapiro 26:49 I'll ask her about it. But is it-

Joe Rogan 26:51 Ask her.

Ben Shapiro 26:51 But... (laughs) I mean, the good news for Joe Biden is he's been dead for at least 15 years.

Joe Rogan 26:54 Well, he's definitely a zombie.

Ben Shapiro 26:55 (laughs) So-

Joe Rogan 26:56 I don't know if he's technically dead 'cause he's moving around and farting all over the place apparently.

Ben Shapiro 27:01 (laughs) Yeah, that was, that was not-

Joe Rogan 27:02 How crazy is that, that lady, uh, w- f- Prince Charles's-

Ben Shapiro 27:06 Camilla.

Joe Rogan 27:06 ... wife.

Ben Shapiro 27:06 Yeah. She's going around-

Joe Rogan 27:07 She's farting on people.

Ben Shapiro 27:07 ... talking about him farting all over... Yeah. No, the-

Joe Rogan 27:09 Is this... Is it proven that she said this or is this one of them Republican rumors?

Ben Shapiro 27:12 Oh, it's from the Daily Mail, right? So the Daily Mail was saying that she was going around telling everybody that-

Joe Rogan 27:16 Well, the, the Daily Mail-

Ben Shapiro 27:16 ... he, he had, um, really unleashed the beast. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:18 The Daily Mail is a tad sketchy. I don't know if you know.

Ben Shapiro 27:21 Uh, that's fair. Fair.

Joe Rogan 27:22 Didn't Johnny Depp have a, uh, a... Didn't he duke it out with the Daily Mail? Was it the-

Ben Shapiro 27:25 Was it the Daily Mail?

Joe Rogan 27:26 I don't know.

Ben Shapiro 27:26 I can't remember if it was the Daily Mail.

Joe Rogan 27:27 I don't know.

Ben Shapiro 27:28 There, there are, there are some tabloids over there, but yeah, that was-

Joe Rogan 27:30 T- T- Tad Sketchy.

Ben Shapiro 27:32 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:32 Tad Sketchy over there.

Ben Shapiro 27:33 Well, I mean, it is, it is pretty incredible how... Yeah. So he's over there and the only thing he came away with was a story about how-

Joe Rogan 27:40 How he farted.

Ben Shapiro 27:41 ... loudly he farted.

Joe Rogan 27:41 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 27:42 That's not, that's not a great appearance. That's kind of the worst thing since, since HW barfed in somebody's lap at a dinner in Japan. That's just not, not a great presidential look.

Joe Rogan 27:48 Did he do that?

Ben Shapiro 27:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:49 Oh, that's right.

Ben Shapiro 27:50 That was my famous story, yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:51 That's right.

Ben Shapiro 27:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:52 That's right. What did he have food poisoning or something?

Ben Shapiro 27:54 Yeah, he just kinda leaned over and vomited.

Joe Rogan 27:55 Oh, that's hilarious.

Ben Shapiro 27:56 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:57 That's hilarious. What, what happens? 'Cause he's not going to make it. And this is one of the things that I said. I mean, you know, you and I are kind of on different sides of the fence politically, but we're not with everything. I am very, uh, I'm very pro-police. I'm very pro-military. I'm very pro-Second Amendment. I'm, I'm very pro- uh, protecting families and people, and I'm very pro-choice. I'm very pro- You know, you gotta... I- I'm, I'm a person of... I believe in nuance. And I, I don't... I'm not a person that's interested in subscribing to tribes and ideologies. But when I look at where we're at right now with this country, with this administration, I... This is what I said during the election, I said, "I would vote for Trump before I'd vote for B-" I didn't wind up voting for either one of them.

Ben Shapiro 28:48 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 28:49 I voted for Joe Jorgensen. It was just sort of a throw my hands up in the air-

Ben Shapiro 28:51 Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 28:52 ... vote. "But I would vote for Trump," I said, "Because I don't think Biden is there. I think he's having real problems." And I, I got people messaging me, "You're wrong. He's got... He stutters." And I'm like-

Ben Shapiro 29:05 Oh, yeah. That one.

Joe Rogan 29:06 ... "Listen, I've seen old... I know old people, you do too. You're lying to me. You know what this is. This is... This guy can't talk."

Ben Shapiro 29:12 Yeah. He's-

Joe Rogan 29:12 "Like he's falling apart."

Ben Shapiro 29:13 He's intermittently lucid, right?

Joe Rogan 29:15 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 29:15 And, and that happens a lot when, when you hit that age and-

Joe Rogan 29:17 He's probably on Adderall.

Ben Shapiro 29:18 Right.

Joe Rogan 29:19 Let's be honest. They're probably juicing him up. They're probably doing something when it's important.

Ben Shapiro 29:22 I mean, he, he is just sometimes there and he's mostly not. And he's losing his train of thought in the middle of press conferences.

Joe Rogan 29:29 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 29:29 And he's getting very cranky and, and-

Joe Rogan 29:31 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 29:31 ... crotchety with people.

Joe Rogan 29:32 Come on, man.

Ben Shapiro 29:32 Yeah. And he's yelling at people who d- Like, in the space of a week, he went from yelling at Peter Doocy on Fox News for saying that he was paying illegal immigrants or thinking of paying illegal immigrants, like, almost half a million dollars-

Joe Rogan 29:43 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 29:43 ... per person for the family separation stuff. He's like, "How... We would never consider that. That's terrible. How could you report that?" To his own administration having to walk it back and then yelling at another reporter for saying that it's bad to pay people.

Joe Rogan 29:56 Did you see Doocy with the press secretary?

Ben Shapiro 29:59 No, I missed this one.

Joe Rogan 29:59 Did you see this beautiful setup? He said, "Are you going to pay people that come over to this country legally?" And she's like, "What..." Uh, this is the substitute press, press secretary.

Ben Shapiro 30:09 Karine Jean-Pierre, maybe. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:10 Yeah. Because Jen Psaki got the COVID. So she's out and this new lady is in and she's go- she goes, "Why would I pay... Why would we pay people who come over here legally?" She goes... Doocy goes, "Why would you pay people to come over here illegally?"... and, like, the, the thug life glasses come down.

Ben Shapiro 30:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 30:29 Have you seen that?

Ben Shapiro 30:30 Oh, no. I missed that one.

Joe Rogan 30:31 Oh, you gotta see it.

Ben Shapiro 30:31 I'll have to see that. And it's-

Joe Rogan 30:32 It's, it's pretty interesting.

Ben Shapiro 30:33 But, yeah. No, Bi- Biden's not there and, and he's now in the upper 30s, low 40s. Remember, th- the thing about Biden is that he was elected... Everybody's misreading their mandate.

Joe Rogan 30:41 You mean about, uh, approval ratings is what you're saying?

Ben Shapiro 30:43 Yeah. His, his approval rating. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:45 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 30:45 May- maybe, maybe his heartbeat. But i- but (laughs) it's-

Joe Rogan 30:48 No. That would be good.

Ben Shapiro 30:50 Yeah, but-

Joe Rogan 30:50 Upper 30s would be like a marathon runner.

Ben Shapiro 30:52 Oh, really? Okay.

Joe Rogan 30:53 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 30:53 Okay.

Joe Rogan 30:53 Right? Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 30:54 Is that... Okay.

Joe Rogan 30:55 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 30:55 You know more about this than I do. Again, so-

Joe Rogan 30:56 That's... Low resting heart rate is awesome. If you get into 30, that's like Michael Bisbee in his prime.

Ben Shapiro 31:00 Wow. Okay.

Joe Rogan 31:01 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 31:01 So he's not that.

Joe Rogan 31:02 No.

Ben Shapiro 31:02 Okay. So in any case i- he is, you know... He's falling apart. He's in, uh, the high 30s, low 40s in approval rating.

Joe Rogan 31:08 But Kamala's lower.

Ben Shapiro 31:10 She's at 28%, which I don't even know how that's possible.

Joe Rogan 31:13 It's wild.

Ben Shapiro 31:13 Like, they've been hiding her. They've, like, got her in a closet somewhere and they just hide her there, 'cause every time she comes out, she weird... Like, uh, one of my life aspirations is to play poker with Kamala Harris. I'm not good at poker, but she has got to have the best poker tell of all time, right? I mean, she just cackles randomly-

Joe Rogan 31:27 Yeah. I- it's true.

Ben Shapiro 31:28 ... as soon as you ask her... I mean, she makes Hillary Clinton just look charming and personable. It's, it's, it's unbelievable. She's at 28% and she's missing. She's completely MIA and people just can't stand her. And so if you're a Democrat and you're looking at 2024, you gotta be thinking to yourself, "What do we do?" And then, you know, if you're a Republican, there's kinda Trump just waiting, biding his time, just waiting.

Joe Rogan 31:48 What do you think happens? That's the worst Trump impression ever, by the way.

Ben Shapiro 31:51 I know. It's horrible. Horrible.

Joe Rogan 31:52 You were talking earlier about your impressions of that.

Ben Shapiro 31:54 That one's not good.

Joe Rogan 31:55 (laughs)

Ben Shapiro 31:55 Yeah. My, my, my-

Joe Rogan 31:56 Do you have one that's good?

Ben Shapiro 31:57 My Obama's not bad.

Joe Rogan 31:58 Let me hear your Obama.

Ben Shapiro 31:59 Um, well, let's talk a little bit about what's going on in America today.

Joe Rogan 32:05 It's not bad.

Ben Shapiro 32:05 It's not, it's not horrific.

Joe Rogan 32:06 It's not bad.

Ben Shapiro 32:06 I have to kinda get into it. I gotta, uh...

Joe Rogan 32:08 "Can I get a glass of water?" Remember that one?

Ben Shapiro 32:10 Come on. I will say America is not red states, it's not blue states, it's the United States. It's uh...

Joe Rogan 32:17 Mm. Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 32:18 Great. Great. They need work. They're not great.

Joe Rogan 32:20 Remember when he drank the flint water? "Can I get a glass of water?"

Ben Shapiro 32:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:24 "This is not a stunt. I'm actually thirsty." Um, the, the, uh... We were talking about the, uh, the, the Kamala Harris thing. Like, who wins? Like, how does that work? Like if, if... Or, or, or who takes over?

Ben Shapiro 32:37 If Biden plots his, you mean?

Joe Rogan 32:38 If B- if Biden can't make it, and I don't think he's gonna make it.

Ben Shapiro 32:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:41 I don't think he's gonna make it in 2024.

Ben Shapiro 32:43 He has a fever temperature. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:43 And if he... If they run him again in 2024, it's, it's... There's no fucking way. There's no way. It's a layup-

Ben Shapiro 32:49 I mean-

Joe Rogan 32:49 ... for whoever's on the other side.

Ben Shapiro 32:50 The, the only thing that the Democrats are praying for, really, just on a political level, is they want Trump to come back, 'cause he has high to negatives.

Joe Rogan 32:56 You know what I think it's gonna be? I think it's gonna be Kamala and Pete Buttigieg. I think that's who they're gonna try to push.

Ben Shapiro 33:00 Yeah. I mean, I think that... I think that's right. Uh, I think that... And I think-

Joe Rogan 33:03 He's a really good speaker.

Ben Shapiro 33:05 He's very articulate.

Joe Rogan 33:06 Ha- handsome guy.

Ben Shapiro 33:07 Yep.

Joe Rogan 33:07 You know, and he checks a lot of the boxes. He's, uh, gay and married.

Ben Shapiro 33:10 It al- it allows the media to suggest again that-

Joe Rogan 33:12 A lot of progressives.

Ben Shapiro 33:12 ... anybody who opposes the agenda is anti-gay and anti-black-

Joe Rogan 33:15 Right. Right.

Ben Shapiro 33:16 ... if you have that combined ticket. They, they, they've been having trouble with that, right?

Joe Rogan 33:19 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 33:19 They keep saying that if you oppose Biden's agenda, it's 'cause you're racist, and it's like, that guy is whiter than any person on Earth.

Joe Rogan 33:24 Right. But here's the thing. What would... Who would be the lead? Would it be her as the president and him as the vice president? 'Cause that's not gonna fucking work.

Ben Shapiro 33:31 Yeah. I think it's, it's hard to say that they're going to supplant her at the top of the ticket with, with Buttigieg because then what do you do with the whole intersectional coalition of all of it, right? You're supplanting a Black woman.

Joe Rogan 33:43 Right.

Ben Shapiro 33:43 I, I'm not sure what the current math is on intersectionality. Like, who ranks higher, the gay man or the Black woman?

Joe Rogan 33:48 He would have to be trans.

Ben Shapiro 33:49 If he was trans, he would get ahead.

Joe Rogan 33:50 And if he's female... If, if he was trans, he would get a leg up.

Ben Shapiro 33:53 Right. But then is he a straight-

Joe Rogan 33:54 So right now, he's below.

Ben Shapiro 33:54 But then is he a straight woman? And then he, like, goes down on the intersectional scale or what?

Joe Rogan 33:58 No. He's a trans woman, you fucking bigot. Look. (laughs)

Ben Shapiro 34:00 Right. But then he's married to a man, right? Then she's married to a man, so then, then she's a straight trans woman, right?

Joe Rogan 34:04 Um.

Ben Shapiro 34:04 Isn't that how it works?

Joe Rogan 34:06 I don't think so. It depends.

Ben Shapiro 34:08 It's like a bad algebra problem.

Joe Rogan 34:09 Yeah. We have to... It's like two plus two is five, r- you know?

Ben Shapiro 34:13 I- uh-

Joe Rogan 34:13 Because math is racist.

Ben Shapiro 34:14 It's true. Uh, California, man.

Joe Rogan 34:15 Um, I think if you look at her approval rating, I think she might get abducted by UFOs.

Ben Shapiro 34:21 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:21 I think it's... I think-

Ben Shapiro 34:22 That's the plan.

Joe Rogan 34:23 They might, they might say they're... And I'm, and I'm not kidding. If I was her, I would be fucking terrified. I would be legitimately terrified for my life, and I'm not kidding.

Ben Shapiro 34:31 Well, I mean, she should certainly be terrified that, that they're not going to let her run for president, no question.

Joe Rogan 34:35 They're not gonna let her run for president.

Ben Shapiro 34:36 Honestly, if, if I'm the Democrats... I've been saying this since the last election cycle. If I were the Democrats, I'm praying for Michelle, right? Michelle's very popular.

Joe Rogan 34:42 Michelle Obama?

Ben Shapiro 34:43 Yeah. Michelle's very popular.

Joe Rogan 34:44 She could win.

Ben Shapiro 34:45 She could win.

Joe Rogan 34:46 She could win.

Ben Shapiro 34:46 Right?

Joe Rogan 34:46 100%.

Ben Shapiro 34:46 She's, she's, she's cultivated this very-

Joe Rogan 34:48 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 34:48 ... kind of crossover-

Joe Rogan 34:49 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 34:49 ... I'm-a-nice-person image.

Joe Rogan 34:50 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 34:50 And, yeah, sh- sh-

Joe Rogan 34:51 And she's, she's very likable.

Ben Shapiro 34:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:53 Like, she's fun. Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 34:53 She's, she's cultivated that, for sure.

Joe Rogan 34:55 I think sh- that's a good move. Um, I think that Kamala Harris has gotta figure out a way to step out. Like, I think they're gonna have to talk-

Ben Shapiro 35:02 She won't, though. She... How could she?

Joe Rogan 35:03 She has to.

Ben Shapiro 35:03 How could she?

Joe Rogan 35:04 She has to.

Ben Shapiro 35:04 She just keeps failing up.

Joe Rogan 35:05 She's gonna get sick. She's gonna get a booster.

Ben Shapiro 35:08 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:08 And the booster's gonna wreck her.

Ben Shapiro 35:09 And just go missing for 10 days-

Joe Rogan 35:11 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 35:11 ... like a-

Joe Rogan 35:11 Like, like who?

Ben Shapiro 35:12 Like, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 35:13 Who is that guy that's missing?

Ben Shapiro 35:14 Uh, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 35:14 Oh, yeah. Where is he? Um, what's his name?

Ben Shapiro 35:17 I heard a rumor.

Joe Rogan 35:18 The guy from, uh... Cal- California, right?

Ben Shapiro 35:22 Oh. I don't know what's going on with him.

Joe Rogan 35:23 I don't know either.

Ben Shapiro 35:24 Eh, there. Yeah. No one knows.

Joe Rogan 35:25 Anyway.

Ben Shapiro 35:26 So (laughs) it's, uh... Yeah. They, they've got, they got problems on that side of the aisle and... But the problem for everyone really is that they keep misreading what the mandate is, right? Like when, when Biden was elected, he was elected with basically two mandates. Be dead and don't be radical. And he was dead, but he's also being kinda radical and Americans are just not into it.

Joe Rogan 35:48 The man- the mandate wasn't be dead because they, they rolled them out for the debates.

Ben Shapiro 35:52 It was be not Trump. It was be barely alive.

Joe Rogan 35:54 Right.

Ben Shapiro 35:54 Like, be barely sentient.

Joe Rogan 35:55 Right. But he was-

Ben Shapiro 35:55 Don't make trouble and-

Joe Rogan 35:56 He was pretty good in the first debate.

Ben Shapiro 35:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:59 He was pretty good.

Ben Shapiro 35:59 Listen, I d- I defend-

Joe Rogan 36:00 Like, for him?

Ben Shapiro 36:01 God love me, I defended him against Kamala Harris, who I thought was awful in that first debate when she attacked him as a racist.

Joe Rogan 36:05 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 36:05 It was really dishonest. It just shows you how politicians are, right?

Joe Rogan 36:08 Well, not just-

Ben Shapiro 36:08 That now is the greatest thing since sliced bread for her, but that's-

Joe Rogan 36:10 Yeah. Not just that, but she said she believed the woman who accused him of sexual assault.

Ben Shapiro 36:14 Right. But now, now she's the vice president, so they're best friends again. It's-

Joe Rogan 36:17 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 36:17 We should definitely believe these people-

Joe Rogan 36:18 It's, um-

Ben Shapiro 36:19 ... and trust them with all of our life decisions.

Joe Rogan 36:21 Well, that's what's so crazy. It's like they, they expect you to have a really short memory to forget. Like, this was just a month ago you guys were at each other's neck.

Ben Shapiro 36:28 I mean, I think that was the plan with Afghanistan. I think that's the plan with everything. I think everybody is under the misimpression that there is no long-term memory and... There isn't a long-term memory, but it's almost like...... T cell memory. Like, it exists back there and when it gets activated, like, the immune system-

Joe Rogan 36:41 But you know what I think it is?

Ben Shapiro 36:41 ... spins up, you know?

Joe Rogan 36:42 I think they're accustomed to having complete control over the media narrative and they don't have that anymore. That's the difference. They've always had Fox News, which they have labeled as, uh, b- b- racist and homophobic and sexist and, and, you know, horrible warmongers and d- d- horrible greedy corporatists, and all the terrible things that they could associate with Fox News. And they s-... They felt like f-... most of the media, they had a control of. They had control of CNBC and MSNBC and-

Ben Shapiro 37:14 CNN and ABC.

Joe Rogan 37:15 ... CBS. Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 37:16 And all, all the, all the letter networks.

Joe Rogan 37:17 CBS, everything.

Ben Shapiro 37:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:18 But they don't... That's not impactful anymore. That's what's crazy.

Ben Shapiro 37:22 Well, I, I think it's why-

Joe Rogan 37:23 Something happened and there's this new wave of media, like your show and, like, Breaking Points where... Th- there's so many shows out there now where p- people actually talk about the, the real facts in a non-partisan way and explain what's going on and what moving pieces are in play and how these bills are getting passed and what is, what, what are, what are the special interest groups that are forcing this through and what's happening.

Ben Shapiro 37:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:47 This is what's happening. And that, that w-... That didn't exist before.

Ben Shapiro 37:49 But I think that, that, i- again, until people let go of the core notion that government is gonna solve their problems, it's just gonna keep bouncing back and forth. Because if you're on the right, you think the federal government's gonna solve your problem if Trump is president again.

Joe Rogan 38:01 Right.

Ben Shapiro 38:01 And if you're on the left, you think that as long as Biden's in control, the federal government's gonna solve all your problems. And so we can be as dissatisfied with the system as we wanna be on all sides of the aisle, but until we recognize that really we need to stop pretending that these people are capable of solving our problems and just they should leave us the hell alone in the main, it, it, it's just gonna get worse, I think.

Joe Rogan 38:19 Some people don't want that though.

Ben Shapiro 38:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:20 Some people want Daddy. They want Daddy to come along. I mean, this is what Benjamin... Wasn't it Benjamin Franklin that had that, the, the quote about, "People who choose s-..."

Ben Shapiro 38:29 "Surrender liberty for a little temporary security-"

Joe Rogan 38:31 Yeah. Deserve neither.

Ben Shapiro 38:31 "... deserve neither liberty or security."

Joe Rogan 38:33 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 38:33 Yep.

Joe Rogan 38:33 I mean, that's literally what you're seeing.

Ben Shapiro 38:35 Yep.

Joe Rogan 38:35 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 38:35 And, uh, and I think that that's true. I mean, there, there are polls in Britain right now showing that a majority of the population in Britain wants to just keep masks forever. And I, I think that the-

Joe Rogan 38:42 Forever?

Ben Shapiro 38:42 Forever.

Joe Rogan 38:43 But meanwhile, my friends were over there. Like, Chappelle was over there. He told me that no one wears a mask.

Ben Shapiro 38:47 Yeah, well-

Joe Rogan 38:47 So you're walking around London, it's just b-... Everybody's just acting like there's no COVID.

Ben Shapiro 38:51 Well, that's the other thing. I think that what people say to pollsters and even how they vote and then how they act in their daily lives are just not connected. I think you vote how you wanna perceive yourself very often. It's like, "I perceive myself as a good person, therefore I voted for X."

Joe Rogan 39:03 Keep those masks forever.

Ben Shapiro 39:05 And then in your personal life, I mean, this is what you see from Democratic mayors. Right? They're like, "Yeah, we're gonna push mask mandates." And then if the spirit moves you and you're London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, and you're at a concert-

Joe Rogan 39:15 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 39:15 ... and the spirit moves you, then off comes the mask. Meanwhile, you're masking up my five-year-old in class. Like, it's just...

Joe Rogan 39:19 Well, not only that, they're, they're forcing five-year-olds to be vaccinated-

Ben Shapiro 39:23 That's crazy.

Joe Rogan 39:23 ... and go into restaurants.

Ben Shapiro 39:24 That's insane.

Joe Rogan 39:25 It's insane. And, uh, th- we don't have, again, no long-term safety data, especially with children. Uh, this is... It's wild. It's, uh, also, they're not at risk. It's so wi-... If the parents are vaccinated, they're supposed to be protected. And if the, if the children catch COVID, they're not at risk, so we're done, unless this is a money-making scheme.

Ben Shapiro 39:45 People get mad at the data. So we were having this kind of knockdown, drag-out fight in, in our local area about some institutions that had mask mandates. And my wife, who's very anti-mask mandates, particularly for kids, she is a doctor. And she was talking to some people who are part of this institution and she wrote up this long document with all the links and all the data about how mask mandates for kids are ineffective, how they don't do anything, how they're really stupid, how they're counterproductive, how there's no data to back them. And I said to her, "If you send that, they're gonna get madder at you." They don't want the data. The data makes them angry. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:14 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 40:14 And she was like, "No, no, no. They'll want the data," 'cause she's a nice person and naive. And she sent it in, and sure enough, people got madder because the idea is... that once the data come up and, and kind of bite the perspective, people get very angry if their perspective is the one that, that got bitten.

Joe Rogan 40:29 Right.

Ben Shapiro 40:29 And so they, they, they have to suppress it. I, I honestly think that's part of what's happening with big tech right now. I think that there's just th-... There's almost two battles with, with regard to big tech. One is just the, the size and scope and the social effect of big tech and all of that. But the other one is, there's a group of people who really don't like alternative viewpoints being out there, and so they're going to stump as hard as they can to get people deplatformed and to-

Joe Rogan 40:49 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 40:49 ... and to de-... and to use big tech as a way of, of siphoning off perspectives.

Joe Rogan 40:53 Well, you see that in those Project Veritas videos where the people who work for these organizations are so nonchalant about the way they're discussing. Like, they're at dinner discussing how they suppress conservative voices. And if you're a person who has an understanding of the importance of free speech, which is one of the cornerstones of this country, you know that free speech works both ways. You have to hear an other person's perspective and then you argue your perspective and you see which perspective makes more logical sense. This is what free speech is all about. This is what growth is about. This is how we understand each other's p- points of view and we learn about other, uh, uh, other people's opinions and ideas. And this is how you change your own opinions and ideas. You encounter some that enter into your mind that you go, "Wow, I never considered that. That's actually a good point," and then you shift your judgment. You shift your perspective. This is important for humans. It's always been important for humans. Echo chambers are fucking terrible. They're terrible in every way, shape, and form. And this idea that we're giving up these echo chambers, we're, we're, we're, we're giving control of them to these fucking w- wokesters that work for corporations that can arbitrarily just decide, "Oh, this person talks about that. Let's fucking shadow ban her. This, this person talks about this. Let's ban their YouTube page. This person says data that's inconvenient for our narrative. Let's silence them." That is fucking crazy.

Ben Shapiro 42:21 Uh-

Joe Rogan 42:21 And it's completely un-American.

Ben Shapiro 42:22 There's something perverse that's happened too, and th- that is... You, you can spot it in the language. So until 2016, you remember social media was everybody's friend. Everybody loved social media until 2016. The media were, like, big on social media. It was great. It had been used to reach out to new voters and it had helped people in the Arab Spring-

Joe Rogan 42:36 Arab Spring. Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 42:36 ... and all this kind of stuff.

Joe Rogan 42:37 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 42:37 And then Trump wins, and all of a sudden, on a dime, everybody switches to, "Social media facilitated the spread of Russian disinformation." Now-

Joe Rogan 42:44 Right.

Ben Shapiro 42:45 ... my company is an online company. We spend a lot of time on places like Facebook, so we know what the numbers look like when you have high engagement.... the number of people who are actually affected by so-called Russian disinformation over the course of the 2020 election, the number of people who accessed those posts is less than the number of people who accessed posts from my personal Facebook page over the course of maybe three weeks or a month. Okay? It was not, it was not a massive, huge wave of Russian disinformation that shifted the 2016 election. There had to be some excuse for why Trump had won. And so it was, it was Russian disinformation. And then you saw there was this really interesting linguistic shift. They went from disinformation, which is an active thing, right? That's, like, the Russian government spreading things that are not true in order to subvert our politics, to misinformation. Right? It's only one letter different, but it's completely different. Disinformation is a state actor or a terrorist group or some organized group pushing a perspective that is false in order to undermine the comity and cohesiveness of a community. Misinformation is just... It can be true, but if it's missing context or if it's presented in a way I don't like, it's misinformation.

Joe Rogan 43:46 Right. Right.

Ben Shapiro 43:46 And so now we have to target misinformation. And that can be anything. And not only that, we will set up a group of fact-checkers, fact-checkers who all happen to align with one political point of view. And these fact-checkers will determine whether or not you have violated the ban on misinformation, and then we'll dra- downgrade you on that basis. And it doesn't matter if the fact-checkers shift their own opinion on this sort of stuff, right? "W- we'll ban you for six months from social media if you talk about the Chinese leak theory."

Joe Rogan 44:13 Right. Right.

Ben Shapiro 44:13 But then if everybody flips on a dime, then, well, you know, the fact-checkers are okay with it so long as it's the right people who are saying it now. And the same, monoclonal antibodies or hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, right? It's, it's all the same kind of stuff. It's misinformation when it's deemed inconvenient for a particular narrative. And then as soon as something is convenient for the narrative, it's not misinformation. So that, that shift has been really dangerous and really ugly. And, uh, and again, it's, it's... If they think that it's going to end well for them, that somehow this is going to reestablish social capital, that people are gonna get back together because you force them to only listen to one point of view, good luck with that.

Joe Rogan 44:47 I don't think they're thinking that, but I do think that intelligent people are waking up to the reality that being a part of these groups that are doing this, that are silencing opposing views, there's no long-term future in this. Because people recognize what is actually happening now, a growing number of people. There's still a lot of people that watch CNN that think I actually took horse dewormer-

Ben Shapiro 45:10 Yep.

Joe Rogan 45:10 ... but there's a lot of people that recognize, like, "Oh, my God. This is just a lie." Like, "Oh, my God. The news is lying about all kinds of things." And they're pushing a very limited perspective, a very limited point of view, and they're demonizing anything that has an opposing perspective. You're seeing more and more courageous journalists step out, and then you're seeing things like Substack, and you're seeing podcasts and shows like yours where people have the ability to express themselves without any worry about editorial control from all these other companies.

Ben Shapiro 45:40 And this is where the legacy media, they, they try to jump in and they try to put boots on the throat, right?

Joe Rogan 45:44 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 45:44 So you're over at Spotify, and the minute you signed over at Spotify, the legacy media went and tried to find a couple of malcontents over at Spotify to try and get them to say, "Oh, we're gonna walk out. It's gonna be just... It's gonna be blood in the streets over at Spotify." And in reality, it's, like, a couple of people who are bitching, right? But they-

Joe Rogan 45:58 Well, they-

Ben Shapiro 45:58 ... they decide-

Joe Rogan 45:58 They actually did bitch. I mean, it's not that legacy media didn't o- orchestrate that. That was people that worked there.

Ben Shapiro 46:04 No, I'm sure it was.

Joe Rogan 46:05 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 46:05 But the legacy media decide which malcontents at a particular company to magnify, right?

Joe Rogan 46:09 Well, it's-

Ben Shapiro 46:10 And it's al- it's always in one direction.

Joe Rogan 46:11 It's not even just legacy media. A lot of, uh, online websites did that, but they did that because it's, it's good clickbait. It's good for the news. This is part of the problem with journalism today, is that there's no money in print anymore. So people aren't just buying newspapers. You, you can't look for the New York Times to be this complete unbiased source of information with very clear and concise headlines. Now it's about what, what kind of engagement do you get online? Well, the, the way you get engagement online is things have to be outrageous. Do you know how many people write really good articles and then their fucking editor comes along and writes some bullshit headline for it? And so it gets submitted with something that has... It's completely different than the tone of the actual article itself, because this is the way you can get people to click on it-

Ben Shapiro 46:55 But I-

Joe Rogan 46:55 ... and they'll change things.

Ben Shapiro 46:56 ... I do think there's something else though, and, and it's why I mentioned the legacy media. And that, that is I do think that there are actors in the legacy media who want to see their sources of competition cut off at the knees. And so-

Joe Rogan 47:05 I think so too, but I think the-

Ben Shapiro 47:06 They started talking about regulating podcasts not all that long ago. And people like Kara Swisher at the New York Times talking about, you know, there... Why, why can't the same rules that apply to journalism apply to podcasts? Why can't... Why, why doesn't Facebook crack down on the dissemination of, of podcasting information? Why... Like, I, I don't think it's a coincidence that you have the Kevin Ruesses and the Ke-... Like, every single day, Kevin Roose over at the New York Times puts out a list of what he says are the top trafficked links at Facebook. Okay? And he does that specifically because it names, like, me or Dan Bongino or a few other people on the right. The idea being that Facebook is pushing really hard right-wing propaganda content. The only reason he's doing that every day is to try and pressure Facebook into not doing that anymore, right? That's the, that's the whole goal.

Joe Rogan 47:45 Mm-hmm.

Ben Shapiro 47:46 And I, I think there's a, a real concerted effort to... By, by legacy media to basically say, "The only approved sources should be us, and anybody else who's out there is not-"

Joe Rogan 47:56 I-

Ben Shapiro 47:56 "... an approved source."

Joe Rogan 47:56 I agree with you on that. I definitely agree with you on that. But I think that there are a growing number of people that are connected to legacy media that realize that you can get much further being independent. And it's a, it's a much clearer path, and you don't have to deal with editors that change the titles of your stories. You don't have to deal with these bullshit narratives that you're being forced to push. You don't, you don't have to be a, a cog in this machine.

Ben Shapiro 48:22 You know, I, I'm... I don't know if it's me moving out of California that's made me more optimistic, because I don't live kind of in the center of this anymore-

Joe Rogan 48:28 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 48:28 ... but I do feel more optimistic.I know you saw the, that, uh, announcement about the University of Austin.

Joe Rogan 48:32 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 48:32 Did you see that today?

Joe Rogan 48:33 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 48:33 It's a cool thing.

Joe Rogan 48:34 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 48:34 Like, it's a bunch of people from a bunch of different-

Joe Rogan 48:36 Mm-hmm.

Ben Shapiro 48:36 ... sides of the political aisle. You know, you got Larry Summers and Yadin Strassen.

Joe Rogan 48:39 Mm-hmm.

Ben Shapiro 48:39 Then you got Bari Weiss and Andrew Sullivan and Soribomar, who's very right wing. And you got all these people who are, are founding a university. It'll take them years to build, but they're trying to provide an alternative to a sort of propagandistic worldview that's being taught in a lot of, lot of college campuses. Like, the possibilities for building alternatives have never been higher, and that, that is the thing that makes me optimistic. And, and again, I think part of that is just living around people who don't...... think of themselves as reflections of the federal government every day. Like, if you're... I was trying to explain this to people who are from Florida, who think of themselves as Floridian. Same thing in Texas, if you talk to Texans, they think of themselves as Texans.

Joe Rogan 49:12 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 49:12 In California, you think of yourselves as Californian, kind of culturally. But it's not like the State of California stands against the federal government. The State of California has its own prerogatives-

Joe Rogan 49:21 Right.

Ben Shapiro 49:21 ... and the fed- Like, if you live in LA, LA and the federal government are kind of just the same. I mean, they're just mirror reflections of, of one another. It would never occur to you that there's sort of a separate cultural identity that exists as Californian versus the federal government. Like, Californ-

Joe Rogan 49:34 It's so transient.

Ben Shapiro 49:35 Right, i- in-

Joe Rogan 49:35 The state's so transient.

Ben Shapiro 49:37 I- i- And it's also that the p- Like, the involvement of government in your everyday life is so great-

Joe Rogan 49:43 Minimal.

Ben Shapiro 49:43 ... in, in, in California, but minimal in other parts of the country that... Like, the, your points of contact in Florida or Texas with the federal government, or at least federal government-like policy, are fairly minimal. And so when the, the federal government starts actually exerting pressure, you start feeling it more than in California.

Joe Rogan 49:58 But don't you think that before the pandemic, the way that you interacted with the government in California was minimal?

Ben Shapiro 50:05 Not with the local government.

Joe Rogan 50:07 Was less invasive than it was. And soon, as soon as-

Ben Shapiro 50:10 Oh, publicly and post-pandemic, it's crazy.

Joe Rogan 50:11 ... the community... Okay, let me just-

Ben Shapiro 50:12 Post-pandemic, it went nuts.

Joe Rogan 50:12 ... tell from my personal perspective. For me, as soon... I didn't give a fuck who the mayor of Los Angeles was, it didn't matter, until they shut down restaurants-

Ben Shapiro 50:19 Right.

Joe Rogan 50:19 ... and comedy clubs. And then I was like, "How c- What are you doing?" Like, "Who are you?" W- Who are you to tell people what they can and can't do? And especially when you're talking about, like, outdoor dining and outdoor shows, and things that don't have any risk associated with them.

Ben Shapiro 50:32 Oh, yeah. And it was, it was so obtrusive. You're right. I mean, it was... That was a, a, like-

Joe Rogan 50:35 That changed everything.

Ben Shapiro 50:35 I had seen it happening because, again, I'm conservative, so I, I feel that kind of stuff maybe more deeply. But as soon as the pandemic kicked in and they started doing just crazy shit, right? Like, I could not take my kids to a public park in the middle... I couldn't take them to school, and I also could not take them to a public park.

Joe Rogan 50:51 They closed the beach. Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 50:52 They, they, right, they, they, they put sand all over the, all over the skate park-

Joe Rogan 50:55 Right.

Ben Shapiro 50:56 ... right?

Joe Rogan 50:56 So they skated-

Ben Shapiro 50:56 Like, I'm not going to skate there, but I'm just telling you-

Joe Rogan 50:58 Right.

Ben Shapiro 50:58 ... like, when you dump sand all over the skate park, 'cause you think that people who are skating past each other at, at 15, 20 miles an hour-

Joe Rogan 51:03 (laughs)

Ben Shapiro 51:03 ... are going... (laughs) Exactly. Like-

Joe Rogan 51:05 So they're gonna breathe on each other.

Ben Shapiro 51:05 Like, s- When we went to Florida, and then we were visiting, and the first couple of nights, we just went to an outdoor restaurant 'cause they're, they're eating outdoors at the restaurants.

Joe Rogan 51:13 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 51:13 And you couldn't do that in LA. My wife and I looked at each other, and we hadn't been out to dinner with each other for two months because of this, and we were like, "This is a different thing. This is nice."

Joe Rogan 51:21 This is better.

Ben Shapiro 51:22 Yeah, this is better.

Joe Rogan 51:23 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 51:23 And I think m- the more people realize that the, the, that this is, that this is better thing, I think that-

Joe Rogan 51:29 Let's-

Ben Shapiro 51:29 ... there, there's gonna be a... Like, the great sort is, the big sort is happening. People are leaving the re- the blue states, they're coming to the red states. It is a sort ideologically.

Joe Rogan 51:36 There's still people digging their heels in. There's, you- the, you know, California still has-

Ben Shapiro 51:40 Yeah, but this-

Joe Rogan 51:40 ... 40 million fucking people there.

Ben Shapiro 51:41 It doesn't have population growth though.

Joe Rogan 51:43 No.

Ben Shapiro 51:43 California lo- is losing congressional seats.

Joe Rogan 51:45 For the first time ever.

Ben Shapiro 51:45 Right.

Joe Rogan 51:45 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 51:46 New York is losing congressional seats. And like-

Joe Rogan 51:47 It's interesting, isn't it?

Ben Shapiro 51:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:49 I mean, this is, I think... What, what? Was it 2019 was the first year that California had less people?

Ben Shapiro 51:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:55 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 51:56 Yeah. They've started, they've started losing peop-

Joe Rogan 51:57 So that was actually before the pandemic. They were, they were doing that just because of taxes and the homeless situation.

Ben Shapiro 52:02 Right.

Joe Rogan 52:03 But the homeless situation, boy, that's like fucking wild.

Ben Shapiro 52:07 Well, and it... And you weren't allowed to complain about it.

Joe Rogan 52:08 Right.

Ben Shapiro 52:08 That's the thing in California. If you are not a homeless person-

Joe Rogan 52:11 Then you're a horrible person. They changed it to the unhoused too, which was amazing.

Ben Shapiro 52:15 The unhoused?

Joe Rogan 52:16 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 52:17 Interesting.

Joe Rogan 52:17 An- they, they started to-

Ben Shapiro 52:18 The d housed or the unhoused?

Joe Rogan 52:19 Call them unhoused.

Ben Shapiro 52:19 Oh, the d- the unhoused.

Joe Rogan 52:20 They called them-

Ben Shapiro 52:21 Okay.

Joe Rogan 52:21 They started calling them the unhoused, which is always a red flag. As soon as they tried to use, like, a more innocuous term to deal with, like... Which is like a public health crisis. It's, it's a s- it's a mental health crisis, it's a public health crisis. I mean, i- i- it's also, uh, like, a wheelchair access crisis, because these poor people that are in wheelchairs, like, they can't get to the fucking sidewalks 'cause they're covered in tents. Like, the ADA should deal with something like that, right? I mean-

Ben Shapiro 52:46 Well, I mean, for, for years in California, the rule has been that you weren't allowed to take people's shit off the street, right? If people's... The... Because there was a ruling from the, from the federal courts-

Joe Rogan 52:55 Right.

Ben Shapiro 52:56 ... m- m- The ACLU was the one who did the case. There was an ordinance on the books in LA that the police were not allowed to move the "personal property" of people who are living on the streets. It's like garbage bags just filled with garbage, and you weren't allowed to take them away 'cause this was the personal property of the people who are living on the streets. How in the world this is seen as some sort of empathetic move on behalf of the homeless is beyond me. And you saw it was... I mean, it was kind of incredible, like the power of human innovation. I mean, people have built, like, two-story buildings, like, with tents, and the... I, I, I was amazed sometimes at the creativity. I mean, you'd see, like... I remember we drove past and there was a guy w- there with a, with a turntable. He had somehow hooked it into one of the light posts, like he'd actually broken into the, the light post on the street and he was using it for electricity-

Joe Rogan 53:35 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 53:35 ... and he had a turntable. And I was like, you know, kudos to him for really liking his vinyl. But I just wonder if that's, like, the, the, the best way that you want people to live in California, is on the street with a, like, an old turntable so they can play their authentic music without the perversion of digital.

Joe Rogan 53:48 Well, my thought is, if he's that innovative, why doesn't he just figure out a way to apply it to an actual life? Like, get the fuck off the street and you might be able to actually do something.

Ben Shapiro 53:57 Right.

Joe Rogan 53:57 Like, if you're the type of guy who figures out how to tap into the electrical wires-

Ben Shapiro 53:59 That's what I thought. I was like, "That's kind of..." Like, he knows more about engineering than I do.

Joe Rogan 54:03 I saw a video of a guy welding. Somebody put it online. There was a guy welding inside of his tent.

Ben Shapiro 54:07 Someone should tell him there's, like, a million open welding jobs (laughs) in the United States right now.

Joe Rogan 54:10 Oh, uh, maybe, you know, if there's-

Ben Shapiro 54:11 There are a lot of open welding jobs right now.

Joe Rogan 54:12 ... 'cause, you know, you're dealing with people that have a lot of mental health issues. That's the real issue.

Ben Shapiro 54:15 No, that's the issue. And no one will talk about that.

Joe Rogan 54:17 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 54:17 No one will talk about that, because that... What's in- what's incredible about that is that is one place where you would assume that people in a left-wing state like California would put all their focus, right?

Joe Rogan 54:25 Mm-hmm.

Ben Shapiro 54:26 Right? I mean, like, that's a place where... I'm a, I'm a super right-wing guy. The state does have a role in making sure that people who literally cannot take care of themselves have a place to go and get their medication.

Joe Rogan 54:37 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 54:38 Like, how in the world has that been a f- that been the big failure in California? Like, why is it that, that we are not making it easier to involuntarily commit people who are actually a danger to themselves and/or others living on the street? Like, it's, it's insane to me.

Joe Rogan 54:51 But involuntarily committing people, i- i- that's... A lot of them are just drug addicts. And involuntary l-... commitment of drug addicts, is-

Ben Shapiro 55:00 No, it's different. I'm talking about, like, people who are... They're, they're-

Joe Rogan 55:02 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 55:03 ... people who have serious schizophrenia issues-

Joe Rogan 55:05 Yeah, there's that too.

Ben Shapiro 55:05 ... who are living on the streets of, of California.

Joe Rogan 55:07 Right.

Ben Shapiro 55:07 Like, it's a real thing.

Joe Rogan 55:07 But how do you determine, like, who's the, what, you know, why-

Ben Shapiro 55:10 They have court hearings for this sort of thing.

Joe Rogan 55:12 Right. So-

Ben Shapiro 55:12 If you're gonna be involuntarily committed, typically there's a court hearing.

Joe Rogan 55:14 So, w- we would have an insane amount of cases in front of these already bogged-down courts, where we try to figure out-

Ben Shapiro 55:21 So fund the courts.

Joe Rogan 55:21 ... whether or not-

Ben Shapiro 55:21 Since when is spending an issue?

Joe Rogan 55:22 ... we should put people-

Ben Shapiro 55:23 It's California.

Joe Rogan 55:23 ... in some sort of a cage.

Ben Shapiro 55:25 So we'll spend-

Joe Rogan 55:25 Or an institution.

Ben Shapiro 55:26 ... tens of millions of dollars on random trains that go to nowhere in California, but you can't spend some money on the court system?

Joe Rogan 55:31 (laughs)

Ben Shapiro 55:31 That's a, that's a misallocation of resources.

Joe Rogan 55:33 Well, yeah. I, I'm not a fan of those trains that nobody uses.

Ben Shapiro 55:36 Yeah. We need to, we definitely-

Joe Rogan 55:36 But-

Ben Shapiro 55:36 ... needed a train that goes the exact same route as the I-5.

Joe Rogan 55:39 (laughs)

Ben Shapiro 55:39 Definitely necessary.

Joe Rogan 55:40 Well, the idea was that you were gonna get people in California to behave the way you get people in Connecticut and New York to behave and, and take the train to commute.

Ben Shapiro 55:45 Where all the cities are five minutes apart on the East Coast-

Joe Rogan 55:48 Well, it's-

Ben Shapiro 55:48 ... as opposed to, like, Fresno and LA?

Joe Rogan 55:50 Well, it's just, no one's gonna take those fucking things.

Ben Shapiro 55:52 Who takes a train to Fresno?

Joe Rogan 55:53 Like, it's a culture of people driving. And the idea, I guess, is, like, if you can change that culture slowly but surely, it'd be better for the environment.

Ben Shapiro 56:01 They're all such liars. I remember, uh, so Gavin Newsom was on... I did a morning radio show in L-

Joe Rogan 56:06 Wh- is that that guy that is, um-

Ben Shapiro 56:07 Wait, he's missing, right?

Joe Rogan 56:08 I heard he's missing.

Ben Shapiro 56:09 Yeah, I d- I don't know what happened to him. A- anyway, so Gavin Newsom was on this morning radio show that I was doing-

Joe Rogan 56:13 Is he missing right after he got his booster shot?

Ben Shapiro 56:16 I ha- I, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 56:19 Hm.

Ben Shapiro 56:20 Mm. Anyway, he was on this morning radio show that I was doing (laughs) and-

Joe Rogan 56:24 (laughs)

Ben Shapiro 56:24 (laughs) And, uh, and I asked him... This is when Jerry Brown was still the governor, and he was lieutenant governor. And I said, "So, you know, this whole, like, bullet train thing is really stupid and a waste of money, right?" And he's like, "Yeah." And, like, a year later, he's like, "We need a bullet train."

Joe Rogan 56:37 (laughs)

Ben Shapiro 56:38 "We really... Monorail, right? (laughs) We really need the bullet train."

Joe Rogan 56:41 (sighs) You know, it's interesting, um, your voice and your opinions, um, are, y- y- like, d- during this pandemic in particular, your, your, your profile has become magnified. And what's, uh, fascinating to me is there's people who love you, and then there's these moms who get super upset that their son is into Ben Shapiro. I have encountered many of these women, these very opinionated, uh, always liberal, college-educated women who are furious that their sons, "Well, Ben Shapiro says..." and they do not wanna hear it. What is it about these liberal women and Ben Shapiro? Like, why is this oil and water? What is going on?

Ben Shapiro 57:28 (sighs) I don't know.

Joe Rogan 57:29 (laughs)

Ben Shapiro 57:29 Honest to god, I don't know. I mean, like, I'm telling their, I'm telling their sons to, like, get married, lead responsible lives.

Joe Rogan 57:35 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 57:35 Go get a job.

Joe Rogan 57:37 I know.

Ben Shapiro 57:37 Go, go-

Joe Rogan 57:38 But it resonates-

Ben Shapiro 57:38 But, uh, it's-

Joe Rogan 57:38 ... with these boys, which is fascinating to me.

Ben Shapiro 57:40 Well, I'm, I'm telling... Uh, i- in a certain sense, Jordan Peterson and I are coming at it from very different angles. Jor- Jordan, Jordan's coming at it from a kinda spiritual and psychological angle, and I'm coming from it from a, from a very practical angle, like, what's going to bring you success in life?

Joe Rogan 57:53 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 57:53 And, but we're saying the same thing, which is-

Joe Rogan 57:55 Well, I am as well, though.

Ben Shapiro 57:56 I-

Joe Rogan 57:56 I'm saying that in a w- interesting way as well.

Ben Shapiro 57:58 Get your shit together. Yes.

Joe Rogan 57:59 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 57:59 I mean, but, but there are a lot of people out there who feel like... (sighs) Uh, I thought Jordan had a great point on this. So, th- somebody was asking him, they were saying, "Oh, you know, Jordan Peterson, he's speaking just to young, white, disaffected males." And Jordan's like, "Wouldn't you rather that I speak to them than nobody speak to them? Or are you just saying that you don't want anybody to speak to them?"

Joe Rogan 58:15 Right. Exactly.

Ben Shapiro 58:16 And, I mean, that's kind of the thing, that-

Joe Rogan 58:19 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 58:19 ... as a society, we, we sort of have said to young men that you... We actually don't want you to, to be responsible. Like, responsibility is... It's, it's somehow connected with toxic masculinity and maybe you, maybe you're assuming too much.

Joe Rogan 58:32 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 58:32 It's part of the patriarchy. And I think that's bullshit. I mean, I think that one of the chief obligations in life for a young man is to become a provider, is to become a protector of their family. Like, the way that I judge masculinity, and maybe it's self-serving, is not by how many push-ups you can do. Um, but by how many, uh, how you provide for your wife, how you provide for your children, what are you doing for your community. Right? These should be pretty simple things.

Joe Rogan 58:54 Yes.

Ben Shapiro 58:54 But people get, like, super pissed when you talk about that, because you're speaking up against the notion that... I, I guess, the, the chief and core of all human aspiration ought to be your individual identity.

Joe Rogan 59:06 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 59:06 You know? Like, if, if you just start solipsistically looking at, "How do I feel today and what do I feel about myself and my identity?" That, that's actually a really bad way to live your life. And I think that that's seen sometimes as, if I'm trying to kind of steelman my opponents, that's seen as un-empathetic. Right?

Joe Rogan 59:21 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 59:21 It's un-empathetic, because what I really should be focused on is how do you make people feel the most authentically them that they can feel? And my answer is, my, my definition of what a healthy human identity constitutes, I think, is fundamentally different from a lot of people who oppose me. I don't think that human identity is, in chief, just your feeling of internal subjective authenticity about what you're doing today. I don't think that it's all about your feelings. I think that it's very much about how you interact with society. It's about the things that you do. What kind of accomplishments are you, are you taking part in? How are you building your community? How are you innovating? What kind of risks are you taking? What kind of obligations are you undergoing? And once you do that, then people see that as judgmental, because we're in a society where the thing you're supposed to care most about is what you feel here, and then if everybody else accepts that.

Joe Rogan 1:00:08 Yeah.

Ben Shapiro 1:00:08 Right? We're supposed to be a society that's, that's chiefly built on us all accepting our own internal self-definition, and I'm saying there's an objective reality out there, and it's un-pretty. That objective reality is filled with things you're not gonna like, and then the question is, how do you deal with that objective reality while acknowledging that no one has the utopian capacity to magically wave a wand and fix all those problems?

Joe Rogan 1:00:27 Well, there's also the issue... Look, uh, I, I think your feelings are important, but I also think that people have a tendency towards self-indulgence. And if you deny that tendency, if you, uh, you ignore that fact, you're gonna create a, a bunch of people that think that the world does revolve around every single nuanced feeling that they have. Also, there's this rejection of responsibility and discipline, and this equation. They're equating discipline with, uh, d- not just toxic masculinity, but cruelty. That, you know, you're cruel if you impose discipline or if you encourage discipline. And I say, uh, th- you know, I follow Jocko Willink's advice. Discipline equals freedom. And I think that's real, and I think that if you can figure out a way to work hard, uh, you will feel satisfaction from the results of that work. It, it makes you feel better. For a society that's so concerned with feelings, you should be looking at all the different ways that the life that you choose affects the way you feel about things. And if you have really...... accomplished goals and a- a- actually exerted discipline, done things that were difficult to do that you didn't necessarily want to do, but you knew had long-term benefits, that is a part of being, uh, uh, like, an actualized human. That's a part of being a man. It's a part of being a woman. It's a part of being a person who accomplishes things in life. And people don't want to hear that sometimes 'cause they want to hear that you've done enough, you're amazing, you're a winner, you're a perfect person, you don't need to work harder. You just... Uh, people need to accept you and we need the government to step in and fill in all the holes, fill in all the blanks. And this income inequality idea, like, there's an income inequality problem in this country. Well, guess what else there is? There's a fucking effort inequality-

Ben Shapiro 1:02:25 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:25 ... problem in this country. Some people don't put forth as much effort. Does that mean that everybody should work 12 hours a day, seven days a week? No, it doesn't. It doesn't mean that, but it does mean that you probably can do more. You can probably work harder or think harder t-...