Trump or Kamala? Ben Shapiro and Sam Harris Debate.

From the free press this is honestly and I'm Barry Weiss there are no perfect political candidates but what do you do when both candidates are not just imperfect but deeply flawed and according to half of the country disqualified we love this guy he says you're not going to be a dictator are you I said no no no other than day one you were a very staunch defender of President Biden's capacity to serve Another four years right after the debate you insisted that President Biden is extraordinary strong given where we are now do you have any

regrets about what you told the American people no not at all not at all they're eating the dogs the people that came in they're eating the cats they're eating they're eating the pets of the people that live there well there was a lot that was done but there's more to do Anderson and and I'm pointing out things That need to be done that haven't been done but need to be done we did great in 2016 a lot of people don't know we did much better better in 2020 we won we won we did win it

was a rigged election it was a rigged election is there something you can point to in your life political life or in your life in the last four years that you think is a mistake that you have learned from I mean I've I I've made many mistakes Um and they range from you know if you've ever parented a child you know you make lots of mistakes too um in my role as vice president I mean I've probably worked very hard at making sure that um I am well versed on issues and um I think that

is very important it's a mistake not to be well-versed on an issue and feel compelled to answer a question we are just one week away from a presidential election that will decide if the next four years are helmed by Vice president kamla Harris or former president Donald Trump I know a lot of people who are still undecided some of them work here at the free press these undecided voters have just one presidential debate to reference and as my friends at open debates said in a Wall Street Journal oped recently I can confidently state that we

haven't yet seen a real presidential debate this year debates have devolved into Political theater With combative candidates biased media agenda-driven moderators and a fixation on social media sound bites this structure failed to deliver the substance voters need so today I'm here without the pageantry the makeup or the muted mics to host not Trump versus kamla though the invitation if you guys are watching is still very much open but two very smart people who represent each side of the choice that we are going to make a week from today Sam Harris Unrelated to kamla Harris is

a neuroscientist philosopher best-selling author and host of the essential podcast making sense today he will explain why he is voting for Harris Sam has spoken passionately and consistently on this issue since Trump came on to the scene he calls Trump quote the most dangerous cult leader on Earth and highlights Trump's character flaws things like how Trump was found liable for sexual abuse how he mocked a disabled reporter how he Said John McCain wasn't a war hero how he called Veterans suckers and losers and if I kept going on with examples here we'd be here all

day for him the biggest issue is January 6th and what he says was Trump's refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power Sam writes quote the spectacle of a sitting president refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power culminating in an attack on the capital Remains the most shocking violation of political Norms to occur in my lifetime so that's Sam Harris on the other side Ben Shapiro lawyer co-founder of the daily best-selling author of many books and host of course of the Ben Shapiro show Ben's going to explain why he's voting for Donald

Trump he argues that we were a better country under Trump and that Trump's policies make us Freer more prosperous and safer he says that under the first Trump term there were no hot Wars no inflation crisis and far less Traffic at the southern border he makes the case that Trump is not going to be abandoned by the experts but instead will delegate responsibilities to capable and trustworthy policy makers he says that kamla is incompetent and unqualified and that radicalism defines her I suspect if you're listening to this show you know these two names and have

listened to them many times before and I don't think it's an overe exaggeration to say that Ben and Sam are Two of the smartest most influential and most insightful voices on the American political scene today today I ask Ben how he puts aside Trump's character or the very least how he contends with it his efforts to subvert an American election and his lack of inhibitions especially in a future Administration where he could have far less guard rails I ask Sam how he can support kamla who hasn't come out against the faction on the left that

supports Hamas and his Bala how can he support a candidate that's flip-flopped on her policy position so frequently and even as David Axelrod recently put it goes to word salad City when asked simple questions and I ask how each candidate Stacks up on questions of democracy the economy the border Israel Iran Russia and Ukraine all that plus much more stay with [Music] us Sam Harris Ben Shapiro welcome to Honestly good to see you thank you great to be here great to see you both really really happy to have both of you I guess I want

to start by setting the table with the most basic and fundamental question which is giving each of you the opportunity to make your pitch to listeners which is the question of who you're voting for and why Sam let's start with you well I think this no secret at this point that I'm not a fan of Donald Trump's um and I I'm voting for Harris I would you know the truth is I would vote for almost anyone over Trump right so so a lot of this conversation is going to be talking about why why um I

think Trump is has disqualified himself for the the role of President and um you know I I'm happy to talk about Harris as well but I mean that that really is the the the whole story for me I mean this is a I would be voting against Trump with more or less anyone Because what I want really is normal politics right the fact that politics has taken up so much of our bandwidth of late for really for eight years nine years at this point is a sign that something's wrong right and Trump is at the

very center of that so nothing I'm I say in this conversation is going to come out of a feeling of my own partisanship you know I happen to be registered as a Democrat but I would vote for Mitt Romney at this point I Would campaign for Mitt Romney I me a a normal Republican would be absolutely fine with me so most of what I I I have to say really has nothing to do with policy even uh you know Trump has announced some policies that I I would disagree with and we can talk about those

but um the real issue for me is that Trump is the most divisive political figure to appear in my lifetime and you know we should get into the reasons for that but whatever you Think of trump right even if you think he's great uh you really can't deny that he brings out the worst in us right he brings out the worst in both his friends and his enemies and you Brett Stevens a piece on this recently so more than anything I just want this experience of continuous political emergency to end right I want that to

be behind us and from my point of view KLA Harris whatever her weakness is as a candidate would be a just a a much Needed return to normal politics right and this is of course this assumes that if Trump loses he's not running again in 4 years right I then I think that it keeps the the emergency alive but I mean for all its flaws the Democratic party is a normal political party and the Republican party is now a cult of personality which which I consider to be actually dangerous so um you know that's that's

really my main concern I don't think any of this gets better until Trump gets out of politics and to just draw a line under it let's say the election was between Mitt Romney and kamla Harris would you be voting for Mitt Romney or kamla Harris well honestly I at this point I would probably vote for Romney and but that really should not give any indication of of how fully I um favor Harris over Trump I mean I you know I'm Allin for Harris right I've I've given her money I've I mean I you know I'm

going to be Honest about what I think her flaws are as a candidate but um I mean I just yeah there just my preference is as large as it could conceivably be uh but you know I think Ben and I and and and you and I agree about many of the problems in the Democratic party and yet I would I would view a normal Republican as a corrective to that but I don't view Trump as a corrective to that I I I we I'm sure we'll get into this but I think everything that Ben and

I Worry about on the left gets worse under four more years of trump Ben let's go to you obviously you're not voting for for Kamala Harris you may have noticed um so obviously I'm coming at this from precisely the opposite point of view I've given money to president Trump I've campaigned with President Trump I brought president Trump to rabi manak menol schneerson's ohal on October 7th where he met with hostage families so I'm very involved in in this campaign so I'm going to use a bit of a different model I think that that Sam is

coming from the point of view that Trump is preemptively disqualified from the race just Period start to finish we're done and that ends the calculation for me the question is is were you better off in 2019 or are you better off in 2024 and and the way that I view this political race is that basically you have this strainer that is American politics That's the political system that involves the Constitutional checks and balances it involves the back and forth of politics it involves the rhetoric and and what goes into the strainer is what the candidate

brings to the table and and very often that's rhetoric that's policy that's Staffing that that's all the mess that whatever candidate brings and they stuff all of that stuff that entire Chen into the into the strainer and what comes out the other end of the Strainer is the thing that I'm adjudicating based upon and after the strainer in 2019 what I got was a solid economy the best foreign policy of my lifetime uh a president whose rhetoric I very often didn't like but who had made the country stronger in a variety of ways and as

of 2024 what I see is a an Administration and K Harris is the vice president of that Administration who I believe actually probably has a constitutional duty to get rid of the Person above her who that that Administration has produced a a world that is on fire in a myriad of ways has produced 40-year highs in inflation has not in fact calm the waters I know Sam was talking about normaly the reality is that Donald Trump has not been president for the last three and a half years and not only have we not returned to

normaly things seem to have gotten significantly worse in fact if we were going to sort of describe Donald Trump's role in American politics I think that one of the differences between Sam and me is that Sam would sort of declare Donald Trump the the murderer of American politics where I was I would see Donald Trump more as the corner of American politics that things were really really bad before Donald Trump actually entered the American political scene which is how he became president of the United States in the first place and Donald Trump simply being defeated

would not Make any of that go away because frankly it didn't in 2020 and so the calculation for me is is very simple Donald Trump was a better president than K Harris would be with all Donald Trump's flaws with all of his excesses and because we do have a very robust and durable constitutional system almost built to hem in his flaws and excesses what that means is that I get a lot of good policy that I wouldn't get with kamla Harris I do get a stronger American American Presence on on the world scene with regard

to America's allies I get a better economy and I think it would serve as a corrective to a Democratic party that seems to have spun out into a world of damaging wokeness because the Democratic party is either going to force itself further into this sort of leftwing corner or they're going to have to moderate and deal with the reality which is if they lose to Donald Trump twice in three election Cycles there's Something deeply wrong that cannot simply be corrected by swiveling further to the left Ben you've moved a lot since 2016 in 2016 you

wrote a column titled I will never vote for Donald Trump and I want to just read a little bit of that back to you I will never vote for Donald Trump because I stand with certain principles I stand with small government and free markets and religious freedom and personal responsibility Donald Trump you wrote stands against all of these Things he stands for Planned Parenthood and etc etc ET Etc I stand with the Constitution of the United States you wrote and its embedded protection of my god-given rights through governmental checks and balances Trump does not I

stand with conservatism Donald Trump stands against it I stand with hash never Trump what changed in these eight years for you sure he was President I mean the thing that changed is as as you can read there there are a number of Things that I assumed his presidency would be and in 2015 2016 he was to be fair to me incredibly unclear about what exactly his policies would be he was all over the map and then he was president and then I could base my next vote on what he would be like as president because

he actually was President so for example you mention I say that he was anti-free markets obviously he wasn't as president of the United States that he would be anti-religious Liberty he Obviously wasn't as president of the United States He appointed justices to the Supreme Court who I generally thought were quite good right which is something that that I doubted in that column and so all you could do is sort of Base your forecast for the future on past performance there was no past performance there was just the stuff that he had said at that point

in the campaign I can now base my future Exposition my future sort of Judgment of Of what Trump's second term will be like on a first term because he's already been president of the United States and so one of the big questions that I have for folks who sort of see Donald Trump as this hitlerian melini ask figure is if that's true then why didn't we see that in term one he tried to do many things those things were generally unsuccessful in terms of you know his excesses and so the sort of question that I

have that people you know keep Bringing up that they'll say well he'll try to do the same thing in 2028 that he did in in 2021 2020 and and the question I have is what evidence do we have that he would attempt to stick around for say a third term is that like a real worry that people have when people say that he's going to overrun the Constitutional barriers he may have attempted to do that and then he was checked at every at every Point whereas I think that actually the system is less built to

Stop i' would say the sort of fine grained excesses of the democratic party that is that is intent on actually changing many of the systems and changing the the status of normaly so for example KLA Harris has vowed to get rid of the filibuster if you get rid of the filibuster that means that you can presumably add two states that challenges the Senate balance permanently she's talked about packing the Supreme Court she's talked about Wealth taxes she's talked about passing into law certain federal legislation that she could do with 51 votes that Donald Trump has

never talked about in fact if you look at sort of the spectrum of political opinion right now Donald Trump positionally is closer to the middle on many of these issues than KLA Harris is which is one of the weirdnesses of this election Sam do you want to respond to that especially to the question of Ben Ben point being that You know if he was such a strong man if he had such hitlerian fascist Tendencies and KLA Harris has called him a fascist why didn't he do fascism in his first term well as Ben said himself

he was checked by people around him right and the concern now is that he would have not General Millie and MC Raven and and MCM and John Kelly and and serious people like that he'd have my pillow guy and Mike Flynn and a a Rogues gallery of enablers and sycophants and and Loyalists right I mean that that really is the concern and that's why you I think Ben can't draw the lessons he's drawing from the first term and broadcast them onto the second right I mean we we know what Trump says he wants to do

and he wants to do crazy things like in turn something like 12 million illegal aliens in something like concent a camps and Deport them right and if if you if you picture what this would do to our Society it's just a moral Abomination right just to take this narrow case I mean maybe we want we want to talk about immigration and and the southern border and about which I think Ben and I are going to largely agree but I'm pretty sure I don't want to live in a country where millions of children who have who

are American citizens right who have one or more parent who isn't a Citizen watch their parents get deported right if you just just imagine what that would look Like um now you might think well Trump's never going to do that right you're you're going to grade him on a curve and you're going to take him seriously but not literally Etc but you could do the same thing with kamla Harris when kamla Harris says she wants to do a wealth tax we all know that's that's she's not going to be able to do that well she's

certainly not going to be able to do that if she doesn't have a house and a senate and a supreme court which and She's seems to be likely to have none of those things at this point if she wins um but no you know so take her seriously but not literally right I mean there's a double standard here in the way partisans think about uh partisans for Trump think about what he says and and bracket everything he says as just political theater um but I want to come back to something you you said to Ben

just I mean you know all of his words at this Point on this topic could be used against him right and this this change of heart um I think is worth examining because I think we lose sight of just how not normal Trump is as a candidate I I think Ben if I had told you 10 years ago that you would one day support a presidential candidate who bragged about owning a teen beauty pageant so that he he could barge into the dressing room and augle naked underage girls right I don't I don't think you

would believe me Right if I told you that you would support a candidate who as president had been denounced by almost every fourstar General who worked under him as a as a dangerous [ __ ] right I don't think you would you would believe me or a president who had inspired an assault on our Capital directly inspired it I mean as much as you you want to parse what he might have said in that in that initial speech there's no question he he called Everyone to DC and inspir what amounted to to be a riot

on the capital and he inspired this I mean we have we had people wearing Camp ashwoods t-shirts and flying a Confederate flag smearing [ __ ] on the walls that Abraham Lincoln built right that that's what happened on January 6th and if I told you that you would support this guy and still support him a guy who has honored these people right who and who stood by as as they were calling for the hanging Of his vice president he just stood by tweeting narcissistic [ __ ] and he would later record a song with some

of the worst offenders right there's 20 of them in prison singing on jailhouse telephones he recorded his own track on this song and he plays it at his Ries right if I told you you would support such a person you been right you with your commitment to morality right and religious principles and and public probity and ethics I Don't think you would believe me but that's where we are right that's that's how fully Trump has distorted our politics so couple things so there are a couple of arguments there's one you made early and then you

sort of morphed it into the second argument about character which I'll get to in a moment so there was the first argument which was you know you're taking Trump seriously but not literally why can't we do the same with kamla so let's do that let let's Take her seriously but not literally when it comes to many of her policy prescriptions well seriously but not literally for Trump on immigration looks like he's not going to deport 12 million people by caging up entire families in concentration camps it looks like term number number one in which he

puts back in place for example rain in Mexico in which he has a a proper interpretation of what Asylum law looks like in which we we properly allocate resources for Border patrol I've been down to the Border they're completely misallocated under the Biden Administration as border patrol itself we'll tell you and then you look at the status quo that kamla Harris has presented which was effectively for three and a half years in open border and so that would be taking them seriously but not literately we look at the records not just what they say which

was sort of my original model is look at what they do not just What they say then there is the sort of character logical argument that that you're making about Donald Trump and again I think that the same could be true in Reverse if I had told you Sam Harris a few years ago that you'd be supporting a candidate who says that men can be women for example or a candidate who has openly campaigned with say Mark Ruffalo who has compared Israel to the Nazi State uh or that you would be supporting a candidate who

first action In office apparently according to the New York Times about 3 days ago was to examine intelligence reports for gendered language with regard to America's foreign adversaries who are female you'd be surprised too I guess all this is to say we've entered a magically different world For Better or For Worse I think in many ways for worse and I think you'd probably agree on that but that world exists and so now you are faced with a binary choice between Candidates and that binary Choice cannot be avoided I mean the the the question I guess

on a character logical AR you know on a level for for Sam I think is you obviously believe that Donald Trump is not just a threat to the presidency he's a threat to the Republic a grave and abiding threat to the very future of the Republic which means what means would be moral to stop him so you know to offer a couple of examples there have been a couple assassination attempts on President Trump let's assume that Trump wins the election what assassination if we are that afraid that he is going to be hilari then be

an appropriate response or less provocatively would it be an appropriate response for Kam haris who would be the presiding officer in the Senate she's the vice president of the United States to refuse to certify the election if Donald Trump were to win because obviously if he's this grave and abiding a threat so outside the norm of Our politics so far outside the possibility of a real normal politics that it can't be fixed would she be right to do that for example Sam that's a question for me on that final Point yep no I mean so

so for first of all you can flip that around you if you think Trump's attempt to hold on to power in 2020 if you think all of this business about you know pressuring Pence not to certify the election was in any way legitimate and Is any way not disqualifying for him to run for a second term well then legitimate is not disqualifying there there's not quite the same thing I think it was illegitimate and not disqualifying gradation gradations of the same problem but I mean anyone who supported that on any level as his you running

mate JD Vance claims to should support KLA Harris doing the same thing I know the law has changed in the interim happily but you should support That kind of behavior now that that KLA Harris and and Biden are in power and and overseeing this election and of course I would never I wouldn't know I would I would never support such a thing um I mean so I mean I B you've asked me essentially whether I think Trump is is orange Hitler right and I I I never have and I've never taken those concerns entirely seriously

but I I but I would point out that the leading of fascism at this point I me People like Robert Paxton use the term in application to Trump and it's not it's not an empty epithet right it's not the same thing as saying that Trump is the next Hitler figure or the next Putin figure right I I think the the difference is that Trump is not ideological you know Trump is in the Trump business Trump just wants wealth and and and fame essentially and he wants power into in order just to secure those things but

I I think there are Very few people who think he wants to create the Thousand-Year Reich I mean he wants to build condos and play golf right I mean we're talking about a game show host right who got marketed for 12 years on television as a brilliant businessman and half the country bought it right a quarter of the country has rallied to him like he's the Messiah and another quarter is is willing just to look the other way as he desecrates the most basic Norms of our democracy and The most important one which which he's

desecrated is not committing to a peaceful transfer of power I mean that is from my point of view the only thing you need to know about him to decide your vote in this election is that as a sitting president he did not commit and would not commit and still hasn't committed frankly to a peaceful transfer of power and we didn't have a peaceful transfer of power right and so that is I mean just again to come to to default to San conser ative Republican or awh Republican principles Ronald Reagan s singled this feature of our

democracy out as the key feature that I mean it is the thing that made us The Shining City on the hill to use his terms I mean the thing that the the thing that people living in [ __ ] hole countries to use Trump's terms Envy in US is this peaceful transfer of power it it is a political miracle and Trump's campaign his continued status in the Republican party as their front runner is it just a continuous desecration of that principle and I so from my point of view everything hinges on that and uh no

I don't think assassination attempts are I mean are the right remedy for that voting against him is the right remedy for that and the reason why things didn't normalize over the last four years is not because Joe Biden was so woke or kamla Harris is now a woke Manchurian candidate who will govern Like a a blue-haired activist from Barnard um no it's it's that Trump is still in our politics and we don't have a normal conservative party I mean this again to to to come back to things that you and I agree about you know

you and I could spend two hours here running down the farle and agreeing about you know just how bizarre the identitarian moral Panic has been on the far left but the problem with Trump and trumpism is that it seems to justify all of that right it Adds fuel to all of that and um and the reason the reason why the Panic is Justified frankly and again it extends to Trump's former allies right extends to his former running mate Mike Pence I mean Mike Pence has said that the American people deserve to know that Donald Trump

asked me to to be loyal to him to put my loyalty to him over my loyalty to the Constitution right that is political plutonium right and we should Rec and the Republican Party Should recognize it as such but what we have in the Republican party is is as I said a cult of personality and a loyalty test and and you have people like JD Vance And even Elon Musk bending bending the knee in this loyalty test in the most abject way asserting that they believe the big lie that he really won or might have won

the 2020 election and uh this is not just not normal and it's not compatible with with the Norms of our democracy and the sooner we wake up From this bad dream the better so again you know you talk about the peaceful transition of power which actually did happen because Donald Trump did leave office in January of 2021 and Joe Biden has been president mostly for the last three and a half years despite his his mental you cannot call January 6 a peaceful transfer of power well that's not when the that's not when the transfer power

happens people don't leave office on January 6 people leave Office on January him we would have had a genuine constitutional crisis I agree with you which is I think that why Mike Pence did the right thing and I I think that what Donald Trump the argument that Donald Trump was making between November and January was morally and legally specious with that said there was a peaceful transition of power people right but right now on the campaign Trail When Donald Trump is asked and he was on Joe Rogan a few days ago about The 2020 election

he still claims that he won the election what do you make of that I mean I obviously disagree with him I don't think that he won the 2020 election also this is part and parcel I wish it weren't I wish it weren't but it is part and parcel of a reactionary divide that has plagued our politics since before Donald Trump frankly I mean when Donald Trump won the election in 2016 we then spent three and a half years of people claiming that Donald Trump was a Russian plant and had been and had been bootstrapped into

office by the Russians manipulating Facebook this sort of election denialism is not it is not it is ugly it is bad on both sides it is it is I I won't even say that that whatat on both sides that's not true if Donald Trump wins this election I promise you you will see elections and iism on the left that is incredibly similar to what you've seen from I wanted to ask you that this is a Question for you I'm not going to filler Buster B I just want to ask you if on Election Day we

have a clear result right so this there a landslide in the swing States and someone really wins right if I told you that the losing candidate denied the results of the election and simply would not accept a loss and even appealed to their most fanatical supporters to come into the streets and and and just obviously provoked violence on the part of the mob Right and said and and and when asked you know what about the Constitution this candidate said you know to hell with the Constitution we don't have a country anymore which candidate am I

conceivably talking about well I mean I think that you know given Trump's rhetoric in 2020 obviously what you're talking about is Donald Trump I don't think that's how it'd be phrased by KLA Harris I think that the way that be phrased by Harris Harris if if she loses in a landslide you think there's a chance that she will not accept the results of the election into the streets how about a close elction how about a close selection forget about a landslide because a landslide the landslide just makes it perfectly clear I just want I just

want I'm telling why why the ne but why the necessity for for for that sort of clarity in election that's 50-50 why not actually pick a plausible scenario The most plausible scenario is that she loses in a very tight election she says there's been voter suppression and then she it's all too plausible it's also plausible because at currently the chance that there will be a landslide in the swing States is about 40% even though we're you know at 50-50 between the two candidates according to Nate silver there's a 40% chance that that one of them

runs the table in the swing States right so it's for sure that that That would that would be an electoral college Landslide we're not talking about a popular vote landslide in any Cas right so I'm talking about a clear result right where where no allegations of fraud are plausible okay so the the most obvious sort of rhetoric that would be used along those lines would be trumps and then the rhetoric would be used on the other side of trump wins would be that Trump has corrupted the system the system has been so corrupted That people

weren't able to vote properly in places like Georgia which has been the claim that there was Jim Crow 2.0 in Georgia for years there would be claims that Donald Trump was paid off by the billionaires there was foreign interference in the election there would be all of these claims and they would float around Donald Trump has all this is my original claim Sam is that Donald Trump is very obvious in his excesses Democrats and the Democratic Party and K Harris are much more I would say much more subtle in their excesses but those excesses are

no less dangerous for being more subtle in fact in some ways I think they are more dangerous being Ben you can't use a phrase like no less dangerous Hillary Clinton conceded in 24 hours that is less dangerous than this continuous Pro provocation Sam I I just disagree with you I disagree with you I think that that the the attempt by members of the media by Hillary Clinton who herself said that Donald Trump was illegitimately elected based on Russian interference in the 2016 election was highly damaging say that for how long did she say that for

does she still say that I mean she she will Yes actually she will still claim openly that there was manipulation that took place during the that is true during that there was manipulation during the 2016 election she says what I the sane thing to say is that there is Continuous foreign inter interference in our elections right that's always that's the double standard Sam now now now you're proposing a double standard no when Hillary says it it's totally subtle and fine and when Trump says it in the most obvious foolish way then it's totally different you're

just missing the the relevant details here that almost everyone thinks that there is continuous foreign interference in our elections very few People at this point think that it has been decisive and that it was decisive in in 2016 I mean the problem in 2016 it was a much bigger problem that the the internal division was was real you know and whatever Russia tried to do on Facebook was amplifying very real divisions that that exist in our society uh which we should worry about but I'm not in in contact with any Democrats and I and I

you talk to a lot of them at this point who have Wast who Have burned any fuel over over even weeks much less months or years worrying that Trump's first term was totally illegitimate because the ele the election was hacked and and I mean what what really happened I mean there there were things that that seemed decisive that that one could regret like Comey opening the the the email investigation 10 days before the election and that functioning as a kind effectively as a kind of October Surprise right I mean nothing came of it but it

seemed decisive in uh in terms of her poll poll results in those last weeks um but I mean her her loss was overdetermined and most Sayan Democrats recognize that what you do not have in the Democratic party is a cult of P personality around anyone and a series of loyalty tests I mean again this is we're so we're so far from the actual ground truth here I mean that the ground truth is that we know at this point that There were republicans in Congress right who would have voted to impeach Trump after January 6th but

they didn't because they were afraid for their lives they were afraid that someone in the Maga cult would come and kill them or members of their families right we know from Mitt Romney and we know it from Liz Cheney too um this is not normal and it's not happening on the Democratic side right this is this is a descent into if you don't like the term fascism Uh something very much like fascism I mean I would I would say that this is this is fascism punching a gaping hole in our democracy and it's it is

the effect of Trump's demagoguery if you're saying fascism is punching a gaping hole in our democracy and this is solely due to Trump and yet you also say that you would not support Kamala Harris if she for example stopped the certification of the election and so my question remains if Trump is such a Grave threat to democracy then why aren't you treating it that way voting isn't enough I don't I don't I don't treat KLA Harris as that sort of threat to democracy I think the threat to many of the instit I'm not going to

burn down the village I'm not going to burn down the Democracy in order to save it right so I'm not I'm not in favor of political your argument is that it's ending under Trump but your argument is no I I I I can well imagine that the that our Institutions are strong enough to weather a second Trump term right I don't think I don't think we we're going to be it's not going to be the Third Reich and again I don't think he has those kinds of aspirations because he's such a small figure in the

end right he is he's not he's not a man of ideas on any level right so as far as I can tell he believes almost nothing but the The crucial problem for for me is that you Know he doesn't seem to recognize that we have an interest in the maintenance of world order right I mean he I mean he he's a completely transactional figure he cares about his relationships right and and I think he probably cares about his relationships to foreign leaders to a degree that that could border on treason in certain circumstances but I

mean it's just insane that we had we had a president in him who was who said he trusts Putin More than our own intelligence agencies right and then he shared top secret information with his with Kremlin officials in the white house because he just couldn't keep his mouth shut I mean this he was he was literally just you know gossiping about intelligence Secrets related to Isis and you know Israeli intelligence went went crazy over this right I mean this is he's not a serious figure well can can I can that one actually because this one's

Actually kind of fascinating so know shifted sort of topics into into foreign policy and and maintenance of World Order and and vision of the world and this is the part where it seems rather incredible to me to support kamla Harris as somebody who has a vision of a functional world order the reality is that when we talk about Donald Trump I think that in some bizarre ways Trump and and Harris are sort of photo negatives of one another in the sense That Trump appears on the surface very unserious and he says a lot of bloviating

and silly things and then his foreign policy actually is is rather rather serious and KLA Harris appears to sometimes when she's not word salad say serious things and then her foreign policy is deeply unserious so you'll have Donald Trump and he'll say stupid things or bad things where he will say something about Isis to the Russians declassify top secret things in real Time or you or you could theoretically have the the Biden Harris Administration staffed by people who full-on leak Israeli intelligence plans in the middle of a war to the Iranian government such that it

is printed you may have such an intelligence crisis in fact that the Israeli government stops sharing intelligence with the United States specifically because every time they do it seems to be leaked to the front pages of the New York Times you could have a Foreign policy that is so deeply in Hawk to America's enemies that in the middle of an existential war in which Israel for example is fighting seven different Border Wars from seven different sources you have the the Biden Harris Administration slow walking Aid threatening a cut off in aid for supposedly humanitarian reasons

all while kamla Harris seems signally unable to for example have a sister a soldier moment with proas supporters in her own Party right and then I'm supposed to feel that that Donald Trump is the threat to to world order I mean the reality is that Ukraine was invaded under kamla Harris and Joe Biden it was not invaded under Donald Trump Donald Trump here here's the thing about foreign policy that's really funny foreign policy is is widely perceived as a as a game of of nuance and complexity when in reality foreign policy is not all that

complex and not all that Nuanced very often it amounts to if you cross this line I'll punch you in the face or I'll support people who do and that actually is something that that Donald Trump understood quite well which is was able to achieve the best record in the Middle East ofid of my life while the pseudo sophistication of the Biden Harris Administration has achieved the most massive confguration in the Middle East in my lifetime okay well then I ask I'll ask you a not nuanced question sure That should be simple enough to answer who

do you think Putin wants to win the election I I don't know who Putin wants to win the election I'll be honest you have no intuitions about this uh no and the reason that I have no intuitions about this is because I don't think that Donald Trump knows his own policy on Ukraine I don't think Putin does either Donald Trump is wildly unpredictable as you know Putin is behind much of the chaos you could you could argue who does Want to win the elction in the Middle East Iran has been actively intervening the election on

the side of K Harris we know this the intelligence Community has said this they've they actively hacked the Trump campaign okay I want to get deeper into foreign policy in a second but I want to stay on the character question for a few more beats the word that's come up in this conversation a few times fascism or Nazism it's in the air this election on both sides there Was a trump rally at Madison Square Garden yesterday and you had the spectacle of MSNBC literally playing Clips I'm not exaggerating from the Nazi rally that happened at

Madison Square Garden in 1939 saying that there was a direct line between the two things well I'm I'm happy to start or follow Ben whatever you want yes Sam go ahead well the first thing to point out is that I think we're now up to 40 of the 44 of Trump's senior most appointees I mean Mostly cabinet members you know Republicans Republicans who who worked for him who saw what he was like behind the scenes 40 of 44 don't support him right we're talking again we're talking about people like Millie and McMaster and mcraven those

are just the M's right you know John Kelly these are these are generals who had deal with what was that John Jim Mattis I mean there's a huge number of these people yeah so we're Talking about people who dealt with him you know in The Situation Room had to brief him on on the the The Fray World Order and what they encountered in the man was total incompetence and a very disconcerting uh desire to have loyalty demonstrated to him rather than to the constitution on John Kelly's account he could never make him understand why the

generals had to be loyal to the Constitution and not to him personally right and again this this takes us to The question of fascism and this is why I me John Kelly has unabashedly now started calling him a fascist um he he also called him I think the most flawed person he's ever met in his life um I think it was Millie who said he's the worst person he he he has met um again these are not part be very clear these are not partisan attacks these are serious Republicans who went to work for the

man right um but the reason why the the fascism is not just an empty epithet Is that fascism is is a little hard to Define right it's not it's it's not a set of ideas it's a style of politics right it's it's the politics of leader worship and the demonization of of enemies within to use Trump's phrase right it's all about hatred of of immigrants and and Elites and Elite institutions it focuses on the the hum humiliation and and victimhood of a native population and it emerged merges out of This Relentless appeal to the Grievances

of the mob and that is how Trump campaigns he's campaigned in this mode from the very beginning he is still in that mode he is every inch a demagogue and and you can just see how people behave around him you can see how you have to acques to his again loyalty tests all of his lies uh are the biggest ones certainly are a kind of loyalty test you have to pretend to believe The Unbelievable in order to get close to Him and function in his orbit and that's what happens and it is it is why

Scholars of fascism don't hesitate now to call him a fascist or or at least a Proto fascist so okay KLA Harris would never use a phrase like the enemies within it's it's just too coarse it's borish it's frankly too trumpy but yesterday on MSNBC they played footage of the Nazi rally in 1939 the infamous Nazi rally that took place in Madison Square Garden very clearly Suggesting more than suggesting kind of saying that the people Gathering there are not just deplorables as Hillary Clinton said in 2016 but that they're like supporters of a Nazi how is

that not exactly the thing that you're criticizing only it's issuing forth not from the mouth of the candidate but from the broader machine that's backing her well I mean it's just I don't I don't actually I I don't didn't see the the broadcast or or or the quote that you're Referencing but I mean the the way that lands for me is that that is just a way of of wiing and worrying about this very phenomenon we're discussing I me just how not normal it is to see this expression of politics in America I mean this

it's just it is you know I mean you know obviously Hillary Clinton's phrase of you know the basket of deplorables was politically disastrous right and unwise and and it shouldn't be repeated if you if you actually want to win Elections but the you know I it should never have been read given the context of her other remarks about the American people it shouldn't be read as as demonizing half the country in the way that that Trump de regularly demonizes people in this country I mean he you know he's talked about using the military against not

just protesters of like in the BLM protest you know who he thought should be shot in the leg you know ask ask anyone who knows ballistics You know what happens when you shoot people in the leg with a rifle right um you know he he's talked about using using Force military force of need be against his his political enemies right that's something that you will never hear kamla Harris or any other normal democrat or republican say well okay a few points one the demonization of a vast sad of the American public has been happening as

long as 20 8 when Barack Obama was Saying off record to donors that there was a an entire Cadre of bitter clingers who cling to God Guns religion as a unwise it's unwise but it's not the same kind of demonization we're not have a Tim Walls literally saying over the weekend that the people who are attending this this rally at Madison Square Garden which featured a multi-racial cast many of whom were extraordinarily pro-israel giant Israeli banners hanging from the rafters at some Points calling them Nazis how about Joe Biden speaking at Independence Hall and declaring

that everybody who is ultr Maga was effectively a traitor to the country and was undermining the Constitution of the United States without making any serious distinction between ultr Maga and Republican other than to say there were some good Republicans those were the ones who agreed with him you know this sort of rhetoric has not been on just one side For quite a long time to say the very least and and when we talk about you know the the grievance politics grievance politics has long run the gamut in in American politics unfortunately and going all the

way back to class basis John Edwards in the two America speeches he was making in 2004 so it it sort of depends on on how you're defining all of this and and none of that is to is to make light of of the sort of rhetoric that's being used in These campaigns I think one of the most disastrous things actually is the ratcheting up of the political rhetoric on both sides to the point where you have people on both sides saying things like we're going to be in a civil war soon we're going to be

fighting each other which is of course not true but it's but but you know that sort of rhetoric is not coming from nowhere and unfortunately I think that one of the Tendencies when people look at Trump is To pretend again that politics sort of sprang into existence when Trump came on the scene in 2015 2016 rather than seeing him as a reaction to a pre-existing politics that existed in America you know again if we want to get into the sort of origins of where we think the country started to break down a lot of people

on the left will will put it on Trump in 2015 2016 I would say that actually the campaign that broke the country was 2012 when you had a a a Less popular incumbent who had run as a great unifier in 2008 and as a racial unifier in 2008 run 2012 on a very left-wing prop agenda in which he essentially tried to Cobble together a coalition of the dispossessed in in sort of the phraseology of people like Roy toera and and single white women in order to win an election and I think that sort of broke

the way that politics was done in the country and unique way I think Barack Obama has escaped a lot of Culpability for the breakdown in our politics especially because typically whoever becomes the president's reaction to whoever was last the president um but you know again putting all of that aside this kind of one-sided notion that the people being demonized are all enemies of trump as opposed to Trump supporters is to miss the point which is that an enormous number of trump supporters have have absolutely been demonized by by the media by by the left by

entire Industries where if you if you said for many years that you were voting for Trump in many Industries in the United States you literally could not get a job this has been a serious problem in for example Hollywood you know the the the the kind of notion that that it is it is Trump in his Singularity as as fascist that is that is the problem here ignores I think the underlying problems and again I think is also happens to be a Mis definition of fascism Sam you Describe fascism as sort of a manner of

speaking sort of like populism is sort of a mode uh I don't think that's actually true I think that fascism has to be filled with a vision of what American government is and ought to be and you can make the claim that that Trump wants to centralize power in his singular personage which you know may be a thing that he aspires to that also happens to be a thing that every Democrat president of the last 20 years Has aspired to I mean Joe Biden has used executive powers in ways that dwarf what Donald Trump attempted

to do with executive power and and again this is one of the places where I have a very large scale problem with sort of the let's take Trump's rhetoric seriously when he says a dumb thing to John Kelly and he admittedly says many dumb things but when Joe Biden attempts to for example defy the Supreme Court to alleviate student loan debt or when he Attempts to use OSHA to cram down a vaccine mandate on 80 million Americans or or when Joe Biden you know or when kamla Harris puts out campaign proposals that she's going to

literally just pay people who are black business owners or Latino business owners 20 grand to pop and then relieve the loan debt which is totally unconstitutional when when she says those sorts of things and and attempts to pursue them then that is supposed to be taken as sort of rot Normal how American politics works the thing about Trump that's not normal is how he talks the thing that is normal about Donald Trump is actually what his administration looked like which is why I keep coming back to what was your life like in 2019 was it

better in 2019 or 2024 but put put aside John Kelly put aside the Atlantic piece for a second look at the list of names of people who I know that you respect Jim Mattis HR McMaster will hurt John Bolton we could Go down it's a it's a list of like a hundred people do they all have Trump derangement syndrome I mean what are they what are they seeing that is leading them to sound such an alarm and what do you make of the argument that Trump has now burned through all of the a-listers the B

listers and arguably the C listers and he's left with like Mike Lindell and you know cash Patel that are not going to be able to restrain him in the same way that's a pretty compelling Argument it's less compelling to me considering that there are a bunch of holdovers who certainly would go back into the administration so for example Mike Pompeo is very likely to go back into the administration as Secretary of State you're going to see Howard lutnick doing much of the Staffing up of this Administration as opposed to Trump himself I mean one of

one of the things that that Sam mentioned earlier which is I think probably the best description of Of President Trump in many ways is that this is a guy who likes to build condos in golf I think that's true which means that he delegates an enormous amount of power to people who are sort of Professionals in the area which is how you ended up with three fairly traditional originalist judges on the Supreme Court as opposed to the person he said he might appoint in 2015 2016 his sister so again one of the the hard Parts

about gauging Trump is what is he Just saying and what is he doing and that's why I keep going back to sort of the the strainer reference which is I already saw what he did as far as the the people who he's fired who he's been alienated from who refused to Bow the the the wonderful thing about American politics is there's a there's a nearly endless supp supply of professional politicos who are willing to fill the gap in order to in order to actually perform political functions I don't Think there's any danger of DC running

out of political who are willing to staff up top levels of the state department who aren't you know my pillow guy okay I know a lot of people that are sitting out this election or writing someone in and the reason for that is because they're absolutely disgusted they're disgusted with Trump for all of the reasons that Sam has been articulating in this conversation some of which I think Ben would agree with But they're also disgusted with what they see as the lies and the hypocrisy coming from not just the Harris campaign but more broadly the

left they see a party that claimed to care about democracy but then undermine democracy by anointing a candidate instead of holding an Open Primary they see a side that claims to care about the rule of law but then weaponize the rule of law against their Chief political opponent with feckless political lawsuits let's Exempt the Georgia case for a minute and then with KLA Harris in particular they see a Senate that they view as having lied about Biden's Fitness for office who even attacked the Integrity of the US attorney for writing that the president was too

old and too cenal to prosecute and who still is doubling down on that lie saying in a recent interview on CNN that she has no regrets about defending Biden's mental capabilities Sam I don't know anyone who hates lies And Liars more than you you've said in the past all lying is destructive of the social fabric even socalled White lies and that's one of your main reasons for opposing Trump that he's such a liar and it's obvious in the ways that he lies but what do you make of that argument that I hear and not always

so articulately put but that I often am hearing from people who are saying I cannot bring myself to vote for her because to vote for her would be to Validate this set of things that I so profoundly oppose all right well let's try to put this in some sense of proportion right Trump is I think without question the the biggest liar perhaps in human history but certainly the biggest liar anyone can name I I don't I don't know anyone any historical figure who is trailing tens of thousands of documented lies other than Trump right I

mean he's he's simply There's simply something wrong with his mind and I he lies pointlessly he lies in ways that don't serve his purpose he he lies compulsively uh and he lies obviously to to um produce certain political effects um but it is pathological and it's it's it's pathological to have a political culture that doesn't care about this degree of dishonesty in a presidential candidate I mean the the real Trump derangement syndrome is to Think that his flaws in his character you know his perhaps his dishonesty above all doesn't that don't matter right that's that's

the derangement um so you know if if we were going to decide this election on the basis of honesty and personal Integrity this just simply nothing to talk about right now if you want if you want me to run through the evidence of lying on Harris's side I'm happy to do it I me I think I think some of what You're calling lying is um not so clearcut right I mean I think there there are multiple ways of of describing what's happening with you with Joe Biden which which don't cash out to clear lying on

the part of the people who until the 11th Hour insisted that he was a viable candidate right I mean there was for instance just I mean just neurologically speaking I'm not a clinician but I can well imagine that this apparent Contradiction uh that that kamla is faced with with and and hasn't figured out how to answer is not such a contradiction I mean the contradiction is this if someone asks her Point Blank well you know if if President Biden isn't fit to run and he we've decided he isn't after that debate and because look you're

running for president why is he fit to govern right who's governing who's in the Oval Office right now uh if it's if it's a man who can't campaign Campaign how how can he run uh sorry if it's a man he can't if he can't if he can't campaign how can he run the country um now that's very easy to say and it it kind of lands well but just neurologically speaking I don't think it's necessarily true I I can well and I have this on on the authority of people who I've never met Biden and

I but um I know people who know him I know people who spoke to him even you know toward The end of the campaign his campaign and there's a difference being between being able to perform in public at a debate and being able to being compos mous given enough time in in a long conversation about decisions that have to be made and I can well imagine that while he's obviously not fit to campaign and you know and much less debate um that if you get him in the Oval Office and you ask him about you

know what should we do about Iran he he's of sound mind and you know he's he was never a great speaker um and what you what you meet in him is somebody who can still govern right now is it ideal that someone that old be in that position of power I don't think so but look Trump would be you 82 at the end of his term right we we've got another old guy uh seeking power so I think you know I would you know I'd be the first to say that that that we should we

should age test the presidency At a certain point because or at least get you know give cognitive tests to people who are of a certain age um but again I think there's probably some daylight between how Biden shows up even now in the Oval Office and how he shows up on our television sets as you know a a a totally Mor abund figure and as someone who can't campaign can't campaign for the presidency so you don't think Sam the people around Biden covered up his mental condition Knowingly well well yes but that what what they're

covering up again you know this is not I don't have any inside knowledge here but I I have a sense that this is just this is this seems quite plausible to me right what they're covering up is the fact that he is he's he's getting worse and worse as a candidate right he was never a great candidate he was never a great speaker he I mean he's never he's not someone who can speak Extemporaneously like Ben Shapiro right I mean it's like it's just not that's not how he was ever wired you know stuttering whether

whether his stutter was the problem or not he's just not a great speaker and KLA Harris is not a great speaker but um I think what they were covering up is okay yeah he's he's lost a step or two or three but we have no alternative now we're locked in the the the process is over right he's the candidate so we got to make the best of It and we got to figure out you know how to how to get him in front of the camera at the right hour of the day so he so

that he doesn't look like he's going to fall asleep and that I could could imagine was you know a one long emergency or it certainly became one at at the end of the you know the end of his campaign and and the debate what the debate did is is made the entire country realize all right this is totally unsustainable but It's not the same thing as knowing that this is a Weekend at Bernie's presidency and there's no no one in the Oval Office and the the countryes being governed by by you know functionaries whose names

we don't know right that's not that you that is not plausible to me and but yes I think it's it would be good to have a younger president there's no question but for the people who say just to push just to follow up on one aspect of that question Who say you know I would have loved an alternative to Donald Trump I would love to have voted in an Open Primary for someone that I preferred rather than been sort of have kamla Harris voed upon me do you think that's a legitimate gripe you think it's

legitimate but just who cares relationship to Trump it's it's a completely legitimate preference it it would have been my preference I think we would have a stronger candidate I think it I think kamla herself would Be a stronger candidate now if that if she hadd gone through that process I mean one of the things she's suffering is just the fact that she had to hit the ground running at at 1,000 M hour and you know we're we're witnessing all the The Kinks in her campaign get worked out when a campaign should be closing the deal

right so I mean that's just she would have been stronger had she she prevailed and became the the candidate through that process but I that's it was It was not it was not fascism that delivered that that uh circumventing of a primary it was it was you know the Democratic Party did what it did right it's not they didn't disenfranchise half the nation I mean that was not what was happening it's um but you know was it an ideal process no I think the distinction maybe between the two of you when it comes to the

question of trump and his relationship to truth is that Sam you See Trump as being a liar and Ben you on balance see Trump as a bullshitter and there's a kind of a difference between the two yes and and I think that that Sam is being um very generous with his interpretation of events surrounding Joe Biden's Health where I fully believe that we were lied to for solidly two years about Joe Biden's mental status by people close to him I mean there were articles that were widely then derided in places like the Atlantic talking About

how there were foreign leaders who were bewildered as to Joe Biden's condition two years in advance of him dropping out of the race and we were told weeks literally weeks before he dropped out of the race that any clip that showed that he was non-c compos mes was a cheap fake that was said at the White House and and that was trafficked by pretty much everybody in the media for solidly two weeks leading up to the debate and then there was the debate and It appeared that he was staring into the mall of death live

on camera and suddenly everybody switched their opinion in real time and I it is my you know Grand supposition that no one actually switched their opinion in real time if they were close to him the idea that that he is somehow behind closed doors turning handsprings and and competent mentally to actively take on the challenges of world politics I see zero evidence that that is the case Considering he can't go on the campaign Trail for a day without mentioning that Gabby gords is dead when she's alive or suggesting that a strike that that happens by

Israel against Yemen is actually a strike by doc workers the these are these are not the strains of a of a day-to-day campaign post his campaign when he's just on the tarmac answering basic questions he loses track of of who he's talking about where he is what the hell is going on around him and Meanwhile kamla Harris is still out there holding fast to the line that actually he is not not only well he is doing absolutely fine which of course does beg the question that you quite properly asked Sam which is if so then

why are you the candidate precisely the the lack of of honesty with regard to to Biden's health I think was one of the reasons why so many people were both enamored of the fact that Kam replaced him uh and also on on the right you Bewildered and angered by the sort of narrative switch that took place in real time I mean you saw this narrative switch take place in real time when we talk about honesty and politics they're really sort of three characters of the matter in a president presential race and I know that that

you know this is this may be controversial territory for some people who are on the the left side of the aisle there's the there's the candidate of the Republicans the Candidate of the Democrats and then the media that seem to be uh largely Legacy Media a sort of apparatus of the democratic party where the narrative switched from Joe Biden is totally competent Mally to Joe Biden needs to go immediately to let's forget about who's president of the United States and never mention it again to people like kamla Harris kamla Harris went solidly almost two months

without doing a a serious interview at the beginning of this Campaign and it's that sort of dishonesty that leads people like me who I agree with Barry's characterization think of trump as a bullshitter to say which are the bigger lies Trump jabbering about his golf game or the fact that we've been lied to about the health of the presidents of the United States or the fact that we've been lied to actually it's interesting that you raise golf because honestly if you if you're a golfer you only a gol only a Serious golfer can understand how

aberant it is for him to lie about golf I mean golf is is this one sport that to a degree that that again is it it seems completely bizarre is all about honor and integrity I mean if you if you're Tiger Woods at the Masters and you've won the you you've won the event and you fail to sign your your scorecard when you walk into the clubhouse after the event you lose the event right I mean that's how that's golf right and Trump Is someone who has pretended who has claimed to have won tournaments he

didn't even enter right I mean that's just a x-ray vision for any for any golfer who understands just how insane that is that that's like an x-ray vision into his character right I mean it's just it is a Sam I mean you're just you're taking very very seriously a man about I'm I'm just saying that that like even like even the things that are throw that you Are think are totally superficial give you a tremendous amount of unflattering information about the man I mean just you know there's actually something deeper to say about the golf

thing so funny funnily enough so I was talking with a friend from abroad we were discussing the uh the bizarre debate between Trump and and Biden in which they started discussing their various golf games which was the most amusing thing I've ever seen in a presidential F Politics I thought I thought it was hilarious and not only did I think it was hilarious I thought it actually said something far deeper and more interesting about the state of American politics which may be why you know I think that there may be a difference in the level

of sanguin sanguinity between Sam and me when it comes to the health of the Republic so the the way that I saw that there's two ways to see that there there's glasss half empty which is You have two old men jabbering about their golf game uh and then there is the the sort of glass half full perspective which is we are such a powerful end durable country that we can put two 80y olds on a stage jabbering about their golf game to one another and whichever one jabbers worse we will make the president of the

United States and you know what we will still be the most powerful country on the face of the Earth and everyone will love it because That's the reality the institutions of the United States are incredibly durable I mean this is something that whenever we hear about you know the threat of trump and I hear from the right too you'll hear from the right the the sort of statement this is the last election and I've ripped on it when the right says this I don't like this I don't like when Trump says it I don't like

when any politician suggests this is the last Elon Musk is saying that every single Day right and I don't like when neon says that I think that that's wrong I don't think that this is the end of the Republic if Kay Harris wins the election I think that if K Harris wins then people on my side of the isy will need to go back to the drawing board and figure out new strategies on how to thwart whatever her agenda is but because you know my view of American politics that it will continue and the institutions

are durable that means that My choice really becomes about who do I think is going to best function inside those durable guard rails that are most likely going to hold back most of the excesses if not all of the excesses of the candidates and who is going to be more professional in manipulating those guard rails and I think that that Trump's amateurism and lack of professionalism when it comes to manipulating those guard rails in some ways is a point in his favor as opposed To the professionalism of the democratic party on this ort of stuff

well speaking of jabbering on um I find kamla to be a fascinating candidate because it feels sometimes like she's being scripted by Armando and ncci I just want to read two things that she has said recently she was at a town hall with Anderson Cooper and he asked how can we differentiate your policy beliefs from Biden's not exactly a difficult question this is what she said well there's a lot that Was done but there's more to do Anderson and I am pointing out things that need to be done but haven't been done but need to

be done I I could do a dozen of these right now and you know when you have you know a democratic Grande like David Axelrod not exactly a s for Donald Trump getting on television and accusing his candidate of going to word salad City you you kind of can come to understand why some people are choosing the comprehensible [ __ ] of trump Over the incomprehensible kamla Harris at least that's you know when I'm listening to her I'm like what is what is this person actually standing for what is she actually saying what is the

positive Vision here Beyond I'm not Donald Trump and maybe I'm not Donald Trump is enough for a lot of people but I'm left I'm watching her obsessively looking for that positive vision and I'm not seeing it and Sam even in the beginning of this Conversation I asked you why are you voting for Harris and the answer amounted to CU she's not Donald Trump which I get but like help me see what is the positive vision there beyond the fact that she's not him yeah well as I said not him is really enough and it should

be enough because for me it it all falls out of the big lie and not committing to a peaceful transfer of power I mean that that is so Destructive of of the health of our democracy that I just think that's there's nothing else need be said right and I and I wonder if not that what Trump could do that would disqualify him in Ben's eyes right I mean perhaps Ben could could tell us but um for me that's more than Team Six if he used SEAL Team Six to kill his political opponents I think that

that that' probably disqualify him well in my here here's something that might be disqualifying That has not yet come up in this conversation January 6th happened four days after Trump called the Georgia Secretary of State to say I just want to find 11 11,780 votes let me repeat that I just want to find 11,780 votes to me that's arguably worse than January 6th how does that get a pass okay so it's it's not that that gets a pass I mean obviously there's an ongoing court case regarding it and There's always a matter of interpretation when

it comes to president Trump there there's the the interpretation where he's asking the Georgia Secretary of State to falsify 12,000 votes in order to overturn the Electoral results in Georgia and then there's the interpretation which find frankly more plausible which is that Donald Trump actively believes in his mind that there are a bunch of votes that are hidden in Georgia and he Believes that those votes can be found if the se he just wanted 11,000 of them all he needed was 11,000 yes because that would achieve the victory he doesn't care about about finding the

other 40,000 Have You Have you listened to that audio recently I have I I have listened to that audio actually it's so unseemly to have a president I have a question for you really it's a little bit like the difference between lying and [ __ ] is It unse I think Ben would agree or is it yeah go on right so I mean but this is this is one of the questions actually that I have for Sam so let's assume that everything that you're saying is true right let's assume that that Donald Trump is you

know a fascist and a threat to the Republic and all this sort of stuff so 48% of the American population is going to vote for him half the American population that votes in this election is going to vote for Donald Trump what does that make that you said earlier that you don't think that it's a good idea politically to label half of the American public that but does it mean that anyone who supports Donald Trump in order to say stop KLA Harris or because they what he did as president as opposed to KLA Harris does

it make them fascist does it make them sort of the the the true threats to the Republic how do you characterize those people well well obviously there are different Cohorts right there there certainly are some fascists or aspiring fascists and actual Nazis in our society and they are all in trumpistan right so they there those people I you know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about those people but but quick correct Nick quentes has apparently endorsed K Harris I'll just put that out there because Trump is too phos sematic for him but yeah

well we can we can double click on that and it's not going to go well for your side of The argument but um you know we're we're both worried about anti-Semitism and that we know it exists on the left and the right but the really scary anti-Semitism the anti-Semitism that would give us you know Timothy McVey style terrorism and violence in America is on the right right we might be more annoyed by what's on the left but if I told you that someone went into a synagogue dog this week and just murdered 20 people at

random uh and and That person was not a jihadist you if you had to guess whether it was someone on the far right or some blue-haired person who'd you know gone to the ivy league and and and uh was anti-semitic in in that vein you would be you you like me would would you know win money all day betting it was coming from the far right because that's where the the genuinely scary anti-Semitism is um and then some so some of that is in is wrapped up in This populist uh phenomenon of trumpism but no

there are many people who are just lwi information voters there are many people for whom wokeness and far-left you identity politics has become a a single issue the single issue around which they're going to react which I understand I mean I I found it as as ging as you have uh it just hasn't subsumed everything for me I've I've kept it in in some proportion with other Things that worry me um but it's not a um to to recognize how pathological Trump is to recognize the the the the message we are being given by the

Republicans who have been close to him who who uh you know ad nauseum will tell you he's unfit to serve um the the his behavior his ma is is manifestly disregulated behavior where he he seems to have nothing but contempt for our allies and nothing but praise for our enemies right and I mean He's the fact that he you know while professing to be strong is so obviously weak in that he's he's so easily manipulated by flattery right all you have to do is flatter him and he's your guy I mean I I know you

think I mean and there are many single issue voters of this sort you know many Jews who who are worried about Israel think that well Trump is better for Israel so you know I'm a single- issue voter I'm you know there's there's nothing he can say or do You know [ __ ] or otherwise uh that is going going to get me to vote for Harris because I I I'm just worried about the the the survival of Israel well Trump I I'll Grant you there there there have been hopeful signs of his support for Israel

certainly during his tenure as president but Trump is in the Trump business again I think he if if the mullers and tyon offered him a golf course deal somewhere our policy could change I mean he's that Venal he's that uh uh uncoupled from any same concern about International order and is that unprincipled and so I just think it's there's a corruption that runs you know all the way through the man that that is does not make him a reliable Ally to anyone okay so there are a few things to respond to there so on the

anti-Semitism issue I mean I think it's sort of fascinating how how you grouped you know the possibility of of terror attack on On a site obviously if if you there were a terror attack on a site today a Jewish site today it would probably come from one of historically if you're looking at the last few years one of three categories right jihadist and that means jihadist sympathizer which today is more likely to be a Democrat unfortunately or it could be a black Hebrew Israelite which we've seen a couple of those actually or it could be

a white supremacist right which well there was a Shooting in Chicago over the weekend by a guy screaming ALU Akbar correct that's right don't get me started on jihadism because that'll take the two hours well an an area where where we certainly age I don't think there's any daylight there but exactly but this is one of the the when you say genuinely scary anti-Semitism it turns out that there are multiple forms of genuinely scary anti-Semitism one is the sort of individual anti-semite who goes and Murders Jews and then there is a second type of genuinely

scary anti-Semitism and that is a systemwide infusion of anti-Semitic World Views into an entire party and you are seeing that happen inside the Democratic party right now and that is very frightening to me as a Jew and as an American when when the the intersectional ideology which suggests that victimization is equivalent to failure that you failed in life therefore you Are a victim of something and and again you can see that in a lot of grievance politics but you see it in intersectional terms on the intersectional left and the idea therefore that if you are

Jewish that means that you're successful that means you're an exploiter and and that is now that Matrix is then applied to International politics in the way that say tanasi coat has been applying it to the Israel Palestinian situation and That becomes a deeply held belief inside the Democratic party this is why for example by calling data what you see is that Republicans support Israel 66 to8 and what you see is that the Democrats barely plurality maybe support Israel and among young Democrats a plurality actually don't support Israel they support the Palestinians that to me is

a is a more systemically scary thing than the than than what's been happening on on the right and again you're talking to Somebody who is a victim of of an enormous amount of anti-Semitism including from people like white supremacist in 2015 2016 so it's not like I don't have any experience with this sort of stuff they continue to hate me just as thoroughly as they ever hated me and in fact it's one of the reasons that many of them have gone anti-trump is because I I support president Trump I've take as I mentioned before i'

I've campaigned with President Trump I've Taken him to the oal you know like because of that they are very angry with President Trump the sort of speculation you have to get to to the idea that Donald Trump is going to be more anti-israel than the Biden Harris Administration after being the most pro-israel president in American history just in political terms he's the most pro-israel president in American history that is a far stretch and as to the idea that President Trump is easy to Manipulate on foreign policy again when it comes to his rhetoric I I

I don't disagree that that very often he will say kind things about anyone who will say a kind thing to him what I Look to is what was the actual political outcome of his presidency the actual political outcome of his presidency under Barack Obama there was an invasion of Ukraine and under Joe Biden there was an invasion of Ukraine and under Donald Trump there was no invasion of Ukraine And that is because Donald Trump is wildly unpredictable and it turns out that wild unpredictability in foreign policy again is not actually a particularly terrible thing to

have some of that by the way is actual strategy by President Trump Believe It or Not president Trump has openly spoken about the fact that he will he will Bluster and he will threaten and you don't know quite what he's going to do so you can attribute that if you want to you know Sort of his natural instability but the reality is that he actually sometimes applies that that that sort of unstable formula for foreign policy in a way that does scare off America's enemies I think what putting character aside because I don't think that

the two of you are going to see eye to eye on that question I don't I I think that probably the strongest argument for Trump is his foreign policy Legacy not just because Wars weren't breaking out but good Things happened like the Abraham Accords like incentivizing European allies to take more responsibility for their defense and I think the choice sometimes feels like you have you know perhaps stability but weakness from her and craziness from him um so it feels sometimes like a choice between crazy and weak I would love for you to contend with you

know Ben's argument here that Trump's foreign policy as blustery and frankly crazy as he was and many of the Things he said when he was president absolutely alarmed me but looking back did in retrospect did it lead to a more stable world when you look at the foreign policy picture well again I I had as I said I have reasons to think that looking back is not as instructive as we'd like it to be because there were so many guard rails in place which which Trump smashed into and has vowed to remove for his second

term right I mean he all these people who who are warning Us you know again the 40 of the 44 this most senior most appointees all of these people were the guard rails and they all came away saying yeah he crashed into me and and eventually fired me because I wouldn't let him do that insane and illegal thing he wanted to do right I mean we're talking about generals who had to T had to convince him that we couldn't use our nuclear weapons right I mean this is not this is not a normal situation right

This is I mean this is a a a trump is somebody who thinks that you can stop Wars if all you need to do to stop a war is to to to bring in some Wheeler Dealer from from Queens and negotiate it like it's a a condo renovation right I mean he's he's just this is this is all [ __ ] yeah I [ __ ] is the right word for for much of what comes out of his mouth and um yes I'll grant you that he can seem crazy and unpredictable and and you know

because he is somewhat Crazy and and perhaps unpredictable but he's not all that unpredictable I mean what he's predictably bent around by flattery I mean you can be as odious a person as the the leader of North Korea that's kept his entire Society in it what is effectively a prison camp and all you have to do is flatter the man and he will he will you know claim to be in love with you right and as as far as an ally with Israel I mean he's just like you know if if memory Serves Trump's first

utterance the public utterance after October 7th was not some completely sane and compassionate expression of solidarity with Israel it was some petty criticism of Netanyahu because he had felt slighted by Netanyahu I mean it's just it's I mean he he's the guy who when the Twin Towers came down after 911 he jumped on the radio and said you know and many people say I have the tallest building in New York now right I mean That's the man right that's the man who we've already elected from a policy perspective do you think a Harris Administration would

be better on Israel than a trump Administration I do because it would be staffed by S people and what and and what we have again do you want Mr pillow guy in in the conversation with Mike Flynn and who Candace Owens who's going to be in there Jack PC I mean like no I mean on his Israel policy Mike Pompeo And David fredman are the most likely people to be in the administration and on KLA Harris's side it's most likely to be Philip Gord surrounded by grifters and Maniacs Sam I I know I know precisely

the people talking to him right so that that I'm I'm not speculating about that I mean one of the one of the argu so there there are a couple things that I think are worth noting here one is that you say that past performance is no Indicator of future performance about him and you say that about her so I grant you that that there's consistency there I tend to think that the best indicator of what a second like is what first term tell you why it's not a a good indicator for him it's not the

same Dynamic doesn't hold for her I mean she's again so so then term look like so will a kamla Harris term look like her first kamla Harris term and then just final point you keep using the word Normal and I think there are a lot of Americans who hear normal and what they actually hear is situation normal all [ __ ] up meaning ' done normal politics a lot and it turns out that things were kind of [ __ ] up and Trump things were not normal and things in terms of actual day-to-day life economically

foreign policy wise were less [ __ ] up and so would we all prefer a choice between normal and not [ __ ] up and normal and not [ __ ] that that would be great that Not [ __ ] up would be a great status quo but the reality is that there are a couple different operative levels of normal and one of the things that I think people want normaly from is their lives if people had felt satisfied Joe Biden had restored normaly when he came into office he came into office with a popularity

rating in the high 50% and within a year he had sunk those popularity ratings down into the low 40s because it turns out he was not normal It turns out that he could say all the things that he wanted that he could mutter whatever he wanted into a microphone and Americans did not feel sanguin they did not feel stable they did not feel that him blowing out the spending for example or pulling out of Afghanistan leaving billions of dollars behind while lying to the American people for months that everything was going to be totally hunky

dory over there they didn't like that either and So this kind of the the the reference to the word normal over and over and over to only refer to the behavior of the candidate as opposed to the LI the life lived by Americans is the reason that despite all the accesses some of what you and I agree on Donald Trump right now is running dead even with K Harrison may be ahead Ben just just for the listener I want you to explain who Phil Gordon is and who David freed so you said Mike Pompeo and

David fredman or Phil Gordon explain explain who that is in the so Mike Pompeo and David fredman are incredibly pro Israel David Freedman was the ambassador to Israel under Donald Trump it was it was David Freedman and Mike Pompeo who worked with President Trump to for example broker the Abraham Accords along with Jared Kushner they also helped move the the US Embassy to Jerusalem a pledge that had been made by both parties and then failed by both parties until Donald Trump became president of the United States who acknowledged the the the territorial sovereignty of the

Golan Heights by the state of Israel Phil Gordon is a a foreign policy adviser to the Kamala Harris campaign in the past he has written about his desire to effectively normal relations with Iran the kamla Harris Joe Biden campaign obviously worked very heavily also with figures like Robert Mali who actually it probably was compromised as it turns out By Iranian intelligence you know one of the things being investigated he's being investigated I I think it's very likely he was compromised by Iranian intelligence uh you know when when you when you look at the the team

I think one of the things that that's sort of fascinating about The Duality between Trump and and Biden Harris is something that that Sam you you'd once suggested that one of the things that about Trump is that he obviously in your opinion has No principles that he's completely variable that he that he does wild things he says wild things and that he doesn't have sort of a a plotting go-along to ideological sort of thrust and I I agree with with some of that I also think that if the ideological thrust of a campaign or candidate

is wrong that can be significantly more dangerous than the variability of the alternative candidate and so I know exactly what I'm going to get from a Kamla Harris presidency with regard to the Middle East because I know exactly what I got from Barack Obama and Joe Biden and I see no difference she can't even name a difference so I have very significant doubts as to why I would expect a radical change in policy from Obama or Biden except possibly to the left if you listen to people like Bernie Sanders who is now out publicly attesting

that he believes he will have a receptive ear in the White House to a Full arms embargo on the state of Israel Sam I think well I just got to respond to some of that because yep I you know I am like Ben and I think like you Barry not satisfied with the the noises that have come out of of Democrats mouths since October 7th right so what I I was I was simply going to pay you a compliment and say that of all of the people sort of I think you've you have been since

October 7th the most powerful moral voice let's say broadly on the Center left on this question which is why I think people are going to be really curious to understand why you think again putting it's impossible to put character to the side but just on a policy level why you you have faith that the Democratic party is going to be stronger against jihadism stronger against Iran and more muscular in its support of Israel yeah yeah well I mean first of all on this issue on the defense of Israel and a recognition that That ultimately regime

change in Iran is is a an imperative and a moral it's a moral imperative it's a a geostrategic imperative I I consider myself right of John Bolton at this moment right so it's like it's not you know that that's where I am and and I should point out that John Bolton doesn't support Trump either right and he's he's very hawkish on this issue um listen Harris has an impossible task and she and if she if she loses in next Week you will recognize that it was in fact impossible but she she has to hold this

or seem to hold this Coalition together and the Coalition includes a lot of um uh liberal uh and uh confused young people who think that you know who've believed everything they saw in Tik Tok about the the genocide in Gaza perpetrated by the evil IDF right I mean that's she she she needs those people to vote right otherwise there's you know we Will have a trump presidency um so on some level you know the fact that she is is as Tongue Tied as she is on this topic is is easily explained right the fact that

she must always turn the corner when when expressing her full commitment to support of Israel and and her recognition that Israel has a right to defend itself seemingly she always has to complete that sentence with but of course we need a ceasefire and and There's been far too much death and destruction in Gaza right it's been unconscionable right she has to she has to give that whole thought and never just the first part right whereas the whole thought is completely incoherent I mean it is just in fact true that if you acknowledge that Israel is

fighting an existential war against a death cult you know that is using its own civilians as as human shields uh and you acknowledge that the IDF is doing a better job of That than we have ever managed right in terms of the the ratio of you the killing of non-combatants to to combatants you know it's something like one: one in Gaza and it it's been you know 1 to n in in in in some of our conflicts with jihadists right so if you acknowledge that they're doing a better job than we have you can't then

complete the sentence with but of course we need a ceasefire and and there's been far too much death and destruction in Gaza and It's unconscionable right no they're they're fighting a defensive existential war and they're doing a better job of it than we ever have and we should support them right that's the policy I want from my party and that's the policy uh whether we're get going to get it rhetorically or not that's the policy I think we will get from a Harris Administration I mean if you look at what Biden has done I mean

Biden in in the beginning immediately after after October 7th was great I think Ben would acknowledge that that his going immediately to Israel was was was great and um and Israel has gotten a ton of support I mean in in this latest I mean there have been there have been hiccups and there's certainly been rhetorical errors but we have given more Aid to Israel in the last year than we've ever given Israel and in this latest mission where they where they flew you know soures over Iran you know my Understanding is that there were American

planes in the air you know ready to to respond if any Israeli planes went down right so we are supporting them what we aren't doing and what kamla Harris can't afford to do for purely idiotic political reasons now is spell this out clearly in moral terms that would satisfy us the three of us because there so many morons on the far left who have yet to vote so I actually wonder about that you know because when You look at the politicians who are successful in the swing States from the Democratic party that's actually not super

true so for example Josh Shapiro obviously governor of Pennsylvania Jewish very pro Israel was widely perceived as possible Kamala Harris pick which would have made for another odd Harris Shapiro ticket um but uh she didn't pick him specifically I think because she was afraid of this particular base that guy has a 60% Approval ating in the state of Pennsylvania and she'd likely be walking away with that state if she had picked him as opposed to the bizar world candidate Tim Walls the same thing is true of John fman in Pennsylvania who's been staunchly pro-israel shocking

everybody on the right with his pro-israel sentiments throughout this entire War if you look at Alyssa slotkin in Michigan who's running for a SED seat against Mike Rogers they they had a Debate in that debate they both talked about Israel and they sounded nearly identical actually on on the issue of isra there's there's also this strange phenomenon of a significant number we've written about this in the Free Press of Muslim voters going for Trump because they see him as the anti-war candidate well I don't know how CL you guys have been you know that that's

not flattering from my point of view with respect to support for Israel or their Expectations of his support for Israel let me I just I wonder I wonder if if I do wonder if if Harris if it's not indicative of something ideological for KLA Harris the fact that she has not had a sort of sister Soldier moment with regard to these campus protesters who've been making asses of themselves in the streets she should have I mean she should have I mean I I view her not picking Shapiro differently and I and here I believe I

have some behind the Scenes knowledge of what actually went down there and it's I don't think it was because you the fact that he's Jewish was perceived as a liability I think it was much more a sense you know one-on-one when she was vetting them that he wasn't a a natural number two you know I mean he was he is he ran the risk of upstaging her he wanted a real portfolio whereas Wallace was was didn't come in as is that with that kind of ambition And she was more comfortable with them for for understandable

reasons I think it was a mistake I think she you know it' be I'd be happier if she had picked Shapiro at this point um and I would have been at the time but it it's listen I I think she you know as has often been said the Democratic party is a is a weird coalitional party and it it bends around the the political rhetoric in ways that you really don't have to worry about among Republicans because it's It's just not the same um strange object politically uh and I yes I so I is is

Harris having to Pander to people who you and I don't agree with yes yes but you know she is married to an observant Jew right no the idea now we're going to get into Jewish observant observant by my standards not Maybe not maybe not by your standards whoa whoa I mean not by any standard that I've ever heard that Doug mhof is is is Observant if by if by observant Jew you mean that he occasionally identifies as Jewish to benefit the political campaign I agree but we don't have to get let's let's let's go from

Israel to Ukraine for a minute because I think the three of us are part of a vanishingly small minority in this country that see the wars in Israel and Ukraine as being at least somewhat connected but that's not how the two parties see things the Democrats have their chosen War which is Ukraine the Republicans have their chosen War which is Israel seemingly at the expense of Ukraine Trump has said some really remarkable things about Ukraine he's called zalinsky the greatest salesman on Earth every time he comes to our country he walks away with $60 billion

do he's expressed a lot of doubt that Ukraine can win he's praised Russia's military saying they beat Hitler they beat Napoleon that's what they do and then JD Vans Trump's running Mate has said pretty to my mind alarming things I got to be honest with you I don't really care what happens to ukra train one way or another let's start with you Ben you are you know hardly an isolationist I've always thought of you as someone that has a pretty muscular view on foreign policy does any of this alarm you does the sort of what

I hear as frankly appeasement rhetoric um toward Putin and Russia coming out of the current iteration of the Republican Party give you cause for concern so I mean there has been this very weird gap between JD Vance and president Trump on this particular issue and JD has actually acknowledged that Gap in the past that that he for example has suggested that there' be total defunding of the Ukrainian war effort which is something Trump has never actually said right Trump has been pretty Cy about what he wants to do on Ukraine but when I have asked

him about Ukraine he has he Has actually suggested that he would continue to fund Ukraine sufficient to essentially solidify the borders that are currently there which seems to be I think the most realistic policy considering what's going on there right now since it doesn't look like uh a Ukrainian liberation of creman or that onbass region is in the offing anytime in the near future and so then the question sort of becomes how do you best get to an offramp that solidifies the Lines and then deters future War Trump seems to be more along those lines

a lot of the lines that you say one of the weird things about when Trump talks about these sorts of things is that you can sort of read them both complimentarily and then you can also read them as as as though he's being derisive so when Donald Trump says for example that zilinski is a wonderful salesman he walks away 60 billion every time he leaves Donald Trump tends to Kind of like salesmen who walk away with 60 billion every time they leave so is that a compliment or is that an insult when When Donald Trump

is talking about the Russian military and their capacity to absorb losses right that's actually obviously true and I think that one of the big calculations that's going on in Ukraine is the Russian willingness to Simply endure enormous amounts of material loss and that's that's not unique to to Trump that's something that Historians like Victor Davis Hansen have pointed out as well in terms of his actual policy I think what Trump's actual policy looks like he he's actually never he's been he he's been if you think that he is an isolationist who's going to withdraw all

aid from Ukraine he's been shockingly unwilling to say that shall we say that which is a thing he's he's rarely shockingly unwilling to say anything but he he has never said in any sort of of context That he would full on withdraw American support from Ukraine he's called on Europe to pay up more which is the same sort of stuff that he said about NATO JD Vance has said something different right J JD has taken a different viewpoint but again the vice presidential candidate tends to to seed to the presidential candidate one thing that Trump

really doesn't like is the stigma of losing things and so if if he were to walk away from Ukraine and then Vladimir Putin Were to stroll into ke I I really don't think that President Trump would be very much in favor of that Sam do you want to weigh in on Ukraine at all well I just think we have an intern a a interest in maintaining the international rules-based order right so it's just and and Trump has never seemed to understand that right the fact as I said before that he routinely disparages our allies you

know the leaders of of the most stable and influential Democracies and routinely Praises our enemies right and and I think even cited in in uh his debate with uh with Harris that you know Victor the endorsement of Victor orbon was you know the real feather in his cap right I mean it's like he he loves dictators or quasi dictators and he seems to revile uh the the people who um he really should view as as allies and colleagues or any American president should certainly if we're going to have a multilateral Approach toward maintaining world order

right I mean I you know I think you just had a debate Barry on on your on your podcast with about um with uh Brett Stevens and Matt haibe and Jamie kch and Lee Fong I believe and um you know about you whether America should maintain its role as the world's policeman right and um clearly it should but I mean that is a multilateral job right it we shouldn't do we shouldn't have to do that alone right and and Um we can't be strong enough alone right so we need our alliances and and Trump has

you know has been the worst president in living memory in terms of actually understanding that and then encouraging uh you successfully encouraging multilateral multilateral approaches to those kinds of challenges and you know glad handing the world's dictators especially those who are behind the very conflicts that that we're most worried about I mean Putin is Behind uh both of these Wars one of one of which the the Republicans like and the other it's all one war it's one war yeah I mean in my view but Putin if you look at Putin and gin ping and the

mullers in in Iran you know that is the axis of of instability that you know we need to worry about now and they they're trading weapons we they've got you can add North Korea to that we've got North Korean soldiers uh showing up in Russia now right and Trump imagines that none Of this would have happened had he been been in power which I think there's no reason to believe that well I mean it didn't um well yes it didn't but that's I mean there are many many variables we could talk about he even imagines

that you know Hamas wouldn't have attacked Israel on October 7th I agree with him you think you think a death cult that is is in fact suicidal is calibrating Its Behavior based on who the American president is no I think the death cult That is suicidal and is and is funded by Iran and told what to do in large part by Iran would have had a different condition on the ground if Donald Trump had been president because Donald Trump would have brokered Saudi Arabians the Abraham Accords by February of 2021 whereas Joe Biden decided to

absolutely alienate the Saudis from day one of his administration thereby leading to a breakdown negotiations between the Saudis and the Israelis while he Attempted to open the economy of Iran negotiating a nuclear deal yeah I do think the geopolitical conditions make a very big difference in the discussion of what Hamas was doing on October 7th I Do by the way one one quick comment and then you go to whatever you want to go to you know I I think that when when we talk about you know the saving democracy or the international rules based order

I think one distinction between sort of how Trump addresses foreign policy and And frankly how I think a lot on the right now address foreign policy is there's a lot less talk about say democracy or the international rules based order and there's a lot more talk about what America's interests in the world are and I don't NE necessarily think that that's a bad thing I think that the the Biden Harris Administration likes to say democracy a lot while slow walking Aid to Ukraine for example or slow walking Aid to Israel or condemning Israel for supposed

human rights excesses in the Gaza Strip and they like to talk a lot about the international rules based order which in my opinion absolutely does not exist if there were an international rules-based order independent of American power and the threat of American power and the power of American Allies then it would simply self-governed which of course it does not there is no International rules based order interational law is there's No question yes that's right and so and so Donald Trump throwing American Muscle around but Ben there's a lot of people on your side of the

aisle who almost seem to celebrate or you know Revel in the end of what was once called you know the Pax Americana and I'm thinking of JD Vance I'm thinking of tuer Carlson I'm thinking of that entire wing of the party that in my view is let's put Trump aside to the minute to for a second is very very ascendent how much does that Worry you I mean that obviously worries me because I disagree with that and and one of the sort of intering battles that's being fought on the right is over these questions of

of foreign policy there's a weird horseshoe that's taken place in American foreign policy thinking where the sort of far right that you're talking about has sort of met the far left in its in its disdain for the use of American power uh and and for the maintenance of American power Abroad I think that's ignorant I think that's I think that's counterproductive obviously I think that things as simple as Freedom of the Seas which guarantee the the actual affordability and working of the global economy are due to the power and and Pro power of the United

States Navy and her allies and you're seeing that come to a complete crashing halt in places like the Red Sea specifically because of lack of deterrent power which is why everybody's Now having to ship around the the Horn of Africa so you know I I but we've been talking we've been talking about kamla Harris you know the sort of missed opportunity for a sister Soldier moment maybe with someone like Rashida T do you think that Trump could have had an opportunity for something like that with someone like Tucker but I I would point out that

she was censured right though I mean the the the far left of the Democratic Party has been shoved to the Side by the normal Democrats in a way that the far right of the Republican Party hasn't been I mean we we have this is this sorry to interrupt you Ben but I just want to respond to what you just said the again you're grading Trump on a curve here like I mean you know Tucker Carlson was sitting right next to him at the Republican National Convention right I mean Tu Tucker Carlson who just had this

I mean say what you want about uh amateur historians but I mean you know His his Holocaust revisionism on his his own podcast is something that we all noticed right and it's um uh it's bizarre and whether he's a a real anti-semite or just anti-semitic adjacent I don't know but you've got a lot of characters in there who are in good standing with Trump and certainly with trumpism uh who are explicitly encouraging I mean you're even adding JD Vance to this list they're explicitly Encouraging an American retreat from the world stage and um that is

a form of American weakness right I and I view you know I think like you do weakness to be provocative here we we need to be as strong as we've ever been perhaps stronger than we've ever been but we also need to project that strength in a way again in a multilateral way that that uh fills this this this this vacuum of power that we're noticing because it will be filled it will be filled by China it'll be filled by Russia it'll just be filled by chaos right now I agree with with your analysis obviously

the world situation I think that the the the sort of calculation you have to do when you look at both parties and again I agree with much of your assessment of of Tucker Carlson of whom I've been extraordinarily critical especially on on that particular interview that you're speaking of or when he went to Russia to talk about bread prices or whatever it Was you know that that that that sort of stuff is as you may know not not my bag uh I I'm not fond of it the the calculation that you have to make when

you are making a vote between these two candidates on this issue for putting all the other issues to the side is which one is more likely to project American power which one is more likely to actually project strength which one is more likely to project weakness in the world and here again I will return to What Donald Trump did during his first term and I think that so much of this conversation revolves around that one signal question that I think people are going to have to answer for themselves do you see his first term as

predictive of his second or do you like Sam think that all of the guard rails removed that he is going to be something completely different that we've never seen before and we're sort of in the speculative position that we were all in 2015 2016 With regard to a presumptive trump presidency well I I think that is definitely the question most Americans are thinking about and number one issue in this election and in so many others is the economy and inflation and people look back people look now at the price of eggs and the before you

pivot to the economy I just want to close the loop on what Ben just said there if what you say is true how do you explain the fact that all of these fourstar generals who Worked in the capacity of being his adviser on these very issues of how to maintain world order all of them have come out against him and in support of Harris a with with no professional Advantage for doing this I mean you you know these guys are being inundated with death threats they get their families getting doxed this is a nightmare right

and and and and yet they're doing it and and also it's against the grain of what military figures do in general because They they they they want to stay out of politics how do you explain their behavior if in fact Trump is more likely to incredibly project American power in a sane and ethical way in in in the teeth of all the threats that we face and that Donald Trump is a very difficult person interpersonally with his staff I think would be an easy way to put that you think that explains the the kinds of

sacrifices that that these figures are are now making um I I mean I Think that it it it explains didn't like their old and they feel they need to say it no I mean I think that that his treatment of them in some cases was extremely bad I think that there are significant ideological differences with some of his past picks I mean that was true for example when he fired Rex Tillerson who is his former Secretary of State and the there you know Trump is as we've mentioned and people may have noticed Volatile and unpredictable

the policy that emerged from his administration is a policy that in fact was quite good so the question again is going to be whether you think that he is now going to swivel completely into something completely new and completely different my my bet is that Trump will look very much like Trump one and that KLA will look very much like Biden 2 and if that's the betat that's a clear bet for me okay for me to go to the economy now Sure sure okay one question on the economy a few on immigration and then we'll

close I know Ben has a trip to make and thank you guys so much um Ben you're a free trade guy Trump has said that the most beautiful word in the English language is the t- word which is tariff he's proposing a 20% tari on all goods from other countries defend that how can you how can you possibly defend that that I'm I'm going to uh chalk this one up to Bullshitting specifically because I think he chalks it up to bullshitting meaning that one of the things that that he recently came out with in the

last couple of days which again seems to be a fresh proposal is that we trade a tariff regime for the complete revocation of the income tax which frankly looks a lot sexier to me than just tariffs on their own if I if I have to trade higher prices for no income tax that that that looks that's at least an interesting Proposal one of the things that that Trump tends to do when it comes to trade agreements is talk about he's going to completely rip up trade agreements and and he's going to tariff everything up to

the Sun and he tends to use it as a as a weapon of Leverage more than he does actually just tariff things randomly so for example he said that he was going to completely tear up NAFTA and do a completely new trade deal uh and and it turns out that the completely New trade deal looked very much like NAFTA with some of the changes around the edges right Donald Trump had suggested that he was going to heavily tarff Canadian Goods that were coming in in and then he actually used it as leverage in negotiations with

Justin Trudeau over over other issues so Donald Trump will stake out positions with tariffs that that are sort of Zero Sum positions economically and then use those Zero Sum positions as a way of Cudgeling other other countries into doing things that that he wants them to do so do I take seriously the idea that without any Congressional legislation at all he's going to be able to Levy a 20% tariff on everything coming into the country no I don't and I think that President Trump as Sam has mentioned he likes the wheeler deer image if he

is a Wheeler Dealer he tends to use tariffs more as a piece of Leverage to get things that he wants in sort of the same Way that he used to say about NATO well maybe NATO is not all that important you guys should increase your contributions to Nato and the predictable result was the contributions were increased to Nato and America did not actually stop supporting NATO Sam do you want to weigh in on the economy and I don't know if this is a top issue for you but go on obviously neither of us are are

economists but um I mean that the the jury is not out on these questions I Mean again this is an example of Ben and you know as everyone is forced to do uh he's grading Trump on a curve and and in this case you just discount what he says he will do and imagine you know what he will really do well because he did it well based on performance what he's done in the past he's told he's told you that tariffs are his you know his silver bullet and that he above all he you know

this is the it's the sweetest word in the English language I think above love Uh and uh he he intends to impose them right and and so so all you can go on is the stated policies of the Harris and Trump administrations by which to judge what's likely to happen and the Wall Street Journal did that two weeks ago and they went out they surveyed you know I don't know how many economists and 60% thought all of the variables like you know employment and inflation and interest rates all gets worse GDP all gets worse under

Trump and 12% thought They would get worse under Harris right so you got 60% to 12% according to a Wall Street Journal poll of economists right so that's all that's all I have to go on I mean generally speaking if you if you look at what tariffs tend to do uh they tend to be regressive in all kinds of ways that you you you wouldn't want them to be so well you and I don't disagree on tariff policy I mean I I I actually am quite anti- tariff unless you're talking about a tariff for Purposes

of protecting a security Laden industry for example but Ben you're basically saying that what Trump does and he does this time and time again is he sort of if you think of tug OFW he he takes the last man position in the tug of war not because he believes that position but because it's his way of sort of Shifting the Overton window on a particular subject yes I mean I'll give you an example so so when we held the fundraiser for president Trump we had a Conversation and and one one of the things that Trump

said to me and this allows me to do my trump impersonation which of course everybody enjoys once you're in the Trump impersonation you can't get out is the only danger but but I was speaking with President Trump and he was talking about Ukraine and Putin and he said you want to know why Vladimir Putin never invaded Ukraine I don't know if this story is true or not this is how he tells it why Vladimir Putin never invaded Ukraine the reason he never invaded Ukraine is because they said Vlad Vlad if you go into Ukraine I'm

GNA bomb the [ __ ] out of you and Vladimir Putin said no you won't Mr President and I said well I might right okay so that that is the way that Donald Trump tends to negotiate that's how he thinks of it himself okay so whether that happened or not it's a window into how he thinks of negotiation which is you take the hardest position and then The risk that you're actually going to do the thing is what creates the leverage and so that's what I'm saying about tariffs okay that's a nice transition to immigration

because earlier in this conversation Sam you know had taken Trump and you know the Trump campaign literally at their word that they're going to deport millions and millions of people do you believe that Trump's actually going to do that if he wins no I think that he's going to Focus on deporting criminal illegal aliens I think that he is going to work on Clos the Border as it currently stands I think that he's going to reinstall re in Mexico I think that he's going to reimplement the Asylum interpretation policies that were pertaining at the at

the border at the time that that he was in office and and I think that when Trump himself is is questioned on this it depends who's doing the questioning so very often you You'll hear him say to to friendlies sure we're it's going be the biggest deportation in American history we're going to round everybody up we're going to throw them all out they can't stay and then when you drill down then it'll turn out that he and JD Vance dos this too he he'll start talking about well we really have to focus on the criminal

illegal aliens first we have to focus on on the people who we don't want in in our country because in reality the the Amount of of resources that would it take in order to deport that number of illegal immigrants uh the the sort of fracture in American life that it would create would be politically unpalatable and Sam himself has said that Trump is sort of a pragmatist when it comes to this sort of stuff he just he thinks the ends of his pragmatism are his own personal glorification even if you take him by that sort

of standard I don't think that Donald Trump wants the sort Of headline that would certainly happen if if the sort of you know full scale everybody who's illegally immigrated to the United States over the course of the last 30 years which you're probably talking 20 million people at this point uh are getting rounded up and sarily shipped South of the Border so yeah I I think that the immigration policy of President Trump looks very much like the immigration policy of President Trump in term one and and again this will be I Think the we we've

said it I've said it many times if you believe that Trump one looks like Trump 2 Trump two will be better than than Harris 1 if you believe that it'll be out of the box something completely new something that you've never seen before or whatever he says on on a given day then I understand the trepidation I also think that that is failing to interpret the gap between i' I've played this game before he Barry started this entire conversation by Reading a column that I wrote in 2016 about Donald Trump in which I claimed that

he was not going to be Pro free trade that he was not going to appoint pro life justices in which I claimed that he was going to perhaps increase taxes all these sorts of things and I thought at the time time all of that is perfectly plausible because that's sort of what he said on the campaign Trail and then we actually got him as president and what we got as president Was a set a policies and I liked that set of policies and I think that he liked that set of policies because they were largely

successful and so I think he will imitate most of those policies Sam I think maybe the weakest um I think maybe the biggest vulnerability for Harris is the fact that she was meant to forgetting the actual formality of the title that she was charged with overseeing the border and that since January of 2021 when Biden came to office some 8 million migrants have come over the southern border compared to under Trump there were something like 2.4 million encounters at the southern border how do if you are advising her and I know that we're in the

home stretch of this campaign how do you think that she should contend with that record well I think she I think she can not on that issue on all these issues we've touched I think she should be able To explain her change of position uh without any embarrassment right I mean she she could easily say listen you know I've been you know vice president for nearly four years I've learned a lot right I mean I might have made some of the mistakes that Joe Biden made when he made them because would they given the same

information but you know with hindsight I can I can recognize that we made many mistakes we made many mistake it was a mistake not to do our best to Secure the southern border immediately it was our the way we pulled out out of Afghanistan was was an embarrassment right I mean that was just you know we made all kinds of mistakes right and and I recognize those mistakes and I would commit to with the benefit of hindsight to not make any of those mistakes again I mean I I don't see any anything politically suicidal about

just owning the past in that way and and then clearly stating what you intend to do in The future I think it's pretty clear that everyone you apart from a few crazy activists recogniz is that the southern border if for only political reasons is a disaster right and that you the status quo is untenable and needs to be rectified right so it's so as far as her commitment to do that I have absolutely no doubt about it and um you know so so it is on on other topics I mean again I come back to

this bizarre um Act of divination that that Ben is forced to do here with respect to Trump right you can't take what he says seriously the fact that he wants he's telling us the first thing he's going to do is Deport 12 million people or 20 million people or however many people it is you can't take that seriously he's not going to do any of that well okay but but if if KLA Harris was was making claims of that sort you wouldn't be so fast to say oh she's not going to do any of that

right and well because she did All of it you're accusing me of divination but the point I'm making is that I don't have to Divine his intent from past action you are objectively dividing Harris you're saying everything she did before doesn't matter what she's saying now is what matters no no it's it's first of all she did very little before because she was not she was not the decider but second of all she said she was you're not acknowledging the role that the guard rails played in the First Trump presidency and these guard rails are

talking to us I mean literally these guard rails have names they're names like John Kelly right they're talking to us and they're saying don't vote for this man right I know what it's like to work with him I know what he intended to do I know what he asked me for the 14th time to do and I said and I had to say no yet again right and the fact that you're you're not inclined to to take Any of that information on board I I view as a as a as a political problem and it's

it extends to everything like I mean honestly it just reversed the roles if if KLA had had dinner with Nick Fuentes and and uh Kanye West I don't think I'd ever hear the end of it from you right now but but to a footnote would you have dinner with Kanye West and and Nick Fuentes and then and then also have moved the Jerusalem Embassy and legitimized go on Heights I'm a fan of the Abraham Accords and many of the things that that Kushner did and that that Trump that Trump had him do yeah I mean

I I I think that's it there's no embarrassment on my side in acknowledging that I mean that the scope of Trump's indiscretions is is just so enormous and the liability is so obvious and the testimony about that so nonpartisan that I find it very easy to admit the things he did right and that That the Democrats have done wrong it just doesn't it doesn't sway the balance guys I know a lot of people that are not voting this year or they're you know writing in Mitt Romney or writing in Nikki Haley or writing in their

mom or their dad or their aunt or their Uncle I'm curious if you guys see that as an immoral position do you think that there's a moral obligation to vote in this election well it depends where you live I mean you know in California let's say I'm from pitt I'm from Pittsburgh let's let's say you're in Pennsylvania do you think there's a moral obligation I never find that formulation especially uh compelling because I mean if you don't know much of anything like you're you're you're kind of adding noise to the system right it's like if

you you know you're going to vote at random I don't think there's an obligation to do that if you're a you Know an especially lwi information voter and you're just voting because someone told you how you should vote I mean it's like I don't I don't really the health of our democracy does not hinge merely on everyone voting right I think we have a a moral obligation to be informed and to to to add our voices to uh this conversation you know if only by voting uh especially when it matters and I think yes in

this election I I do think it it matters more than most Ben I Agree with a lot of what Sam says there I mean I I think that you know the the election matters obviously we're on opposite sides of this one do I think that you have a moral obligation to vote uh I'm not sure that you have a moral obligation to vote just as a general proposition I I think that there there are many good reasons not to vote including you you just think that both candidates don't meet your standard for for what can

be or you have a utopian Standard of what you want you believe that you're going to achieve that goal by withholding your Vote or something like that um you know obviously I think that if you are going to vote Sam andai are going to have polar opposite views about this you know as as far as what your moral obligation to vote for is um but but as far as whether you have a moral obligation to vote just sort of generally speaking I don't think that people generally have a moral obligation To vote I guess I

wonder if you each want to make an appeal to listeners who are undecided and there are a lot of those people who listen to the show and they're not undecided from a position of ignorance they are genuinely torn about who will be the better candidate they are people who feel either abandoned or disgusted by both parties and feel politically homeless sure so I mean my my appeal is is just this this is an important election obviously there are Major political differences between the two parties the ination of the of the current Democratic party I think

is very important if you care about things like the health of the economy or the future of foreign policy if you're looking at how your life will get better versus getting worse I think that Donald Trump will do a better job of making your life better including all the guard rails including all the systems of government acknowledging that there that that the Business of politics is messy the final product of a trump Administration is going to be something that you are going to have a better time living with than you have under Joe Biden and

or under kamla Harris and as proof of that I present the period 2016 to 2019 and then the period 2021 to 2024 by way of contrast the argument is very simple are you better off than you were five years ago at this point and then the question becomes Sam's question which is if you Have not made a dispositive decision that it is impossible for you to vote for Donald Trump if that decision has not been made where you you have overcome the Obstacle of imagining to yourself that that he's going to destroy democracy or that

your vote for him will help destroy democracy then the question is just one of who will Implement policies you like best and once that's the question the clear answer is is Donald Trump and I would assume that the The counter argument is just that you can under no circumstances vote for Donald Trump because there's a barrier to entry that cannot be overcome I will notice that there has never been nor will there be an affirmative case for kamla Harris because she is not going to be a good president she can't even make the affirmative case

for herself she can't explain how she will differentiate herself from Joe Biden and she continues to be an empty vessel for whatever the Democratic party wants her to be at any given moment Sam well it's from my point of view is very simple I think I've made the case over these two hours on every one of these topics I mean you take the economy all we can go on is the fact that most economists now think that her her stated policies will be much better than his stated policies if you can't judge on the basis

of stated policies and you have to pretend to be Clairvoyant well Then then you know then it's hard to have the conversation um I just think Character Matters above all here I mean what you know what is untable in my point of view is to give the most malignantly selfish and self-interested person and dishonest person the world has ever seen right and again I don't think that that's that sounds hyperbolic it's not right it's no more hyperbolic than saying he's over six feet tall and over 200 lounds right again the man is Trailing tens of

thousands of documented lies right it's it's it's insane that we've been having this conversation uh I think it's irres responsible and dangerous to give someone of this character more power and responsibility than anyone else on earth right yeah last time around the wheels did not entirely come off because he was surrounded by comparatively normal political appointees with who had had you know serious reputations to to Protect and some you know sense of probity and and above all a a commitment to protecting the Constitution and he slam lammed up against them for four years and uh

they will all tell you now what that was like and why they think you should vote for Harris right and again this is not a partisan story at all from my point of view or theirs uh and I think that should should really decide the matter the word normal has come up a lot in this conversation like What is normal politically and I think if you know if I can sort of like look at us from 10,000 ft or maybe look at us from pre 20106 I kind of see the way that politics is maybe

deformed everybody involved in other words you know Sam one of the strongest critiques against you that's made a lot and it came up a little bit in this conversation is the idea that you have Trum TDS Trump derangement syndrome basically a hatred of trump so Profound that impairs your otherwise you know profound judgment profoundly good judgment and and Ben I think people would look at you and say your Mr you know character is Destiny you're a social conservative you care about character more than almost anything else you think it's our destiny and here you are

making excuses for Trump is there a way for us to escape maybe this is too stonery or philosophical question but is there a Way for us to escape the way that politics is maybe forcing us to compromise our principles or perhaps you guys don't see it that way but that's one thing that I'm left this convers leaving this conversation thinking about well well I would respond to the TDS claim I think I might have already said this somewhere but I I just think I I think TDs is a cute meme and it it serves to

shut down conversation but the real Trump derangement Syndrome from my Point of view is to imagine that that Trump's character flaws don't matter right I mean that to not care about a politician who lies with this kind of velocity and perversity about everything under the sun um to not care that to that you have someone who as a sitting president wouldn't commit to a peaceful transfer of power right and who and maintains the lie that he won the 2020 election when there's absolutely no evidence that he did and abundant Evidence that he didn't and to

not recognize that even just the maintenance of that lie and the requirement that his collaborators like his you current vice president maintain that lie that itself is a pro is provocative of violence right I mean that is that is it's not I mean it it would be worse if he if he solicited violence directly but just claiming again and again and again that our democracy has been stolen and that the current president for these four Years is totally illegitimate um that's dangerous right that's already a shattering of some basic Norms of our democracy that we

should want to unshatter and so I think the real derangement is to have lost sight of how uh pathological all this is and you know so again my my appeal to normal is is just that right this is a high highly non-normal situation that we should want to get out of and I view Harris's Candidacy and her her you know possible presidency as a you know above all a pivot back to normal and I do again I get to come back to a place where we started because I think Ben and I and and you

Barry agree about a lot of the pathology on the farle and we we um we worry that our institutions have lost sight of the fact that you know they really should be recognizing their their dependency on on Western values and and and and they should be willing to Protect those values institutions like Harvard and the New York Times I think all of that gets better under a a a Harris Administration and all of it gets worse it's already it's already the pendulum is already swinging back in all those institutions everyone's at the the end of

their patience with with wokeness um but I think if we get four more years of trump it's going to be all woke all the time on the left and it will seem to be justified given the way he talks and Given the kinds of alliances he's formed again you got Tucker Carlson sitting right next to him in a box seat with no daylight between them right and there's a Rogues Gallery behind Tucker um and so yeah the far-left will continue to react to that and our institutions will continue to lose their moral compass Ben as

far as the sort of character as Destiny argument the argument that that I would make is that it's not the character of the president That's the destiny of the country if that were true then we've had a lot of big problems before we've had many presidents unfortunately who have lagged in the in the character Department ranging from from JFK to to Bill Clinton um but if the the question is the character of the American people and that being its Destiny it seems to me that the character of the American people can only be built up

at the local level with Community Values that are Free of politics and that can only happen when the strangle hold that happens definition of values by the topown institions in our country by by people likea Harris or by the federal government or by the media when that stops and there's a return to a a sense of community in the daily lived life that people actually want to engage in that is where character is built and that's where the character of the country is built it's not built by kamla Harris being a massively wonderful character obviously

we don't have to get into you know her history politically but let's just say that that the sort of Sterling character references on KLA Harris I think are are somewhat overdrawn to put it mildly I think that when when we look at the character of our politicians if we believe the character of our politicians Is the destiny of the country then we are certain to have a Bad fate if we believe the character of the American people is the future of the country the question becomes how do we delegate the most power back to the

American people to live lives of virtue and to my mind there's only one party that is even attempting to pretend to talk about doing that and that is the Republican party at this point with all of its flaws and with all of its Myriad excesses Ben Shapiro Sam Harris my fantasy Harris Shapiro thank you so much For coming on honestly thanks thank you Barry great to see you both thanks for watching this debate if you liked what you see here and feel like the country needs more Fearless high integrity conversations with people that disagree with

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