#1276 - Ben Shapiro

Joe Rogan (0:10)

Yes, we're live, Ben Shapiro.

Ben Shapiro (0:12)

Hey, how's it going, dude?

Joe Rogan (0:14)

Very good, how's it going with you, man?

Ben Shapiro (0:15)

It's going well, I love the new digs. I haven't been here since you finished it over, and I walked in, I thought to myself, I've been doing my business wrong.

I mean, you got what, three employees?

Joe Rogan (0:25)

Yeah, there's not that many folks working on this.

Ben Shapiro (0:27)

Yeah, I mean, so in my offices, we have like 80, and our offices are not nearly this cool. So I'm gonna go back to my office and fire everyone, and have your folks come in and design, because I mean, it's either a lot of people, or I could have cars in my office.

Joe Rogan (0:43)

Yeah, but you wouldn't go down this route. You're more of a conservative gentleman than myself. You're wearing a suit jacket, you're your own boss.

Nobody tells you how to dress, and yet you dress like a grownup.

Ben Shapiro (0:53)

Yeah, well, you know, I won't pretend that nobody tells me how to dress. We have people who tell me how to dress, we have people who do my hair.

Joe Rogan (1:00)

Do you have all that stuff? You have like fashion folks?

Ben Shapiro (1:02)

Yeah, yeah, because I used to, I mean, if you look at the old photos of me, I have like the Hitler hair, I've got like the hair, that's the only thing about me that's hilarious, it was my old hair, and I've got the hair that kind of comes down over the forehead, and I still walk into the office wearing basically an undershirt every day, because I'm incredibly lazy when it comes to that stuff. But we have-

Joe Rogan (1:18)

You should be able to.

Ben Shapiro (1:20)

Yeah, I mean, that's the prerogative of being the boss.

Joe Rogan (1:22)

Maybe you'd be more relatable. Maybe if you showed up wearing like flip flops and t-shirt.

Ben Shapiro (1:26)

That kind of kills my brand though, no?

Joe Rogan (1:27)

Does it? What is your brand exactly?

Ben Shapiro (1:30)

I thought it was being an asshole.

Joe Rogan (1:31)

I don't think you're an asshole though.

Ben Shapiro (1:34)

Well, thank you, I appreciate it.

Joe Rogan (1:35)

You're a very nice guy, you're just conservative.

Ben Shapiro (1:36)

That's the dirty little secret though. We're not supposed to talk about that.

Joe Rogan (1:40)

But this is one of the things that bothers me so much about you being so misrepresented. When I read things about you, there was the article that we were just talking about, the alt-right sage without the rage, they called you, you're not even remotely alt-right. In fact, you were the leading target of anti-Semitic abuse for all of 2016, weren't you?

Ben Shapiro (1:59)

Yeah, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which is no ally of mine. So yeah, I mean, not only am I not alt-right, I've spent the last four years legitimately battling the alt-right, talking about how evil I think their ideology is, how evil I think white supremacy is.

First of all, people with the amica is typically not the favorites of the alt-right. And then beyond that, I mean, I think their ideology is legitimately a devastatingly awful twist on what Western civilization is supposed to be. What's amazing is a review of my new book, and my new book has several sections in there dedicated to how terrible the alt-right is. And then the interview they did with me doesn't talk about alt-right stuff at all, but they just assume I'm on the conservative right, that must mean that I am alt-right. And it's like, no, you stupid.

Joe Rogan (2:40)

There's a problem with these labels. They're disingenuous. People are labeling people in a very simple manner to try to categorize them as the enemy. And instead of just addressing these points, like I love watching your debates where you do Q&A's with college students and with people in the audience, because you can see, you agree with you or disagree with you. You have well-formulated ideas. This isn't just some bullshit that you're spouting out. You've thought these things through.

Ben Shapiro (3:05)

I've been doing this for legitimately more than half my life. I'm 35 and I started when I was 17 And I started writing a syndicated column at that point. And when you're 17, you think a lot of dumb stuff. And then you get older and you educate yourself and you spend a lot of time reading and a lot of time studying. Hopefully you have some cogent arguments after 20 years of doing anything. I mean, but the demonization is pretty astonishing. I mean, we had on Andrew Yang, he's the only Democratic candidate who has agreed to go on the Sunday special that I do. We did a full hour on UBI. It was perfectly nice. It was perfectly coherent and conciliatory. And yet people will suggest that everything I do is about destroying people on the other side because of all the Ben Shapiro destroys videos and all that kind of stuff.