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Speaker 5I've said it before and I will say it again. If I could smash a big red button that made social media altogether disappear tomorrow, I would do it at great cost to my own livelihood. I would do that because I care a lot more about my kids than I do about the clicks and the likes. I've also said it before and I'll say it again. Artificial intelligence is incredible. Overall, it is probably going to save the American economy. Now again, that may not be popular, but it happens to be true. So here is the thing. Technology is scary. Sometimes it's scary for a very good reason. And sometimes it's scary just because it's scary. But we have to tell the difference between the two. Because if we don't, we'll either destroy our own brains or we will destroy our entire economy. We'll get into all of that. Plus, Dolly Parton's death, the Democrats' continued defense of radical Islam, and the latest from the Lindsay Clancy trial. This is The Ben Shapiro Show. So again, technology is scary. And new technology is always scary. Because we're not sure exactly what to do with it. And the temptation is always to kill it. To burn it with fire. And again, sometimes I'm actually pretty sympathetic to this particular temptation. So, I don't know if you've been watching the robot games over in Beijing. But, you know, it's creepy and weird. It's creepy and weird. So here was some of what it looked like when Beijing hosted the World Robot Games. You can see gigantic lines of robots dancing in unison, walking in unison. It's from ABC News. Yeah, not a super fan. Not super into it. I mean, to be fair, the Beijing Olympics a few years back kind of looked like that. But with humans, because, again, the Chinese government would prefer automatons. Now again, some of these robots are not that scary because they're falling over. There were some funny moments in which these robots did not look like they were doing an amazing job and proceeded to sort of crash into each other. One robot fought another robot and then broke out into a victory. Here's a victory dance. Here's what that looked like. I mean, one of them actually didn't actually win, just kind of fell down. But the winning robot then broke out into a victory dance. Okay. I mean, again, some of this stuff is creepy. Some of it's scary. Some of it's just weird. Some of it was pretty funny. One of the humanoid robots kind of fell down and broke, which I have to admit made me laugh. Here's a running... Oh, well, there goes one of the robots. I'm going to say it. I'm the stretcher. But the robots will get better. Okay. And the robots will get creepier for sure. Well, there is one robot. Oh, boy. Yeah. It broke itself. And the second one just crashed. So, you know, again, it'll burn itself with fire as it turns out. But, again, I'm laughing about all this, but, again, technology is pretty scary. It can be really scary. Okay. They even made robot kids in China. I don't know why you'd want a robot kid. Regular kids are great. But they made robot kids for no reason, which is crazy. No. No. Bad. Do not like. Why? No. Because they're not producing enough regular kids in China. So they need robot kids now. All of the annoyance and none of the comfort. Okay. So, I'll be the first to say it. Sometimes we ought to burn technology with fire. Well, today, Facebook signed a gigantic settlement with some 29 states to put some new restrictions on the use of its technology for children. Now, let's be clear. Social media is disastrous for kids' brains. Disastrous. It is basically a drug. It addicts them. That's what it's designed to do. In much the same way that nicotine is addictive, it turns out that actually social media is addictive. You have hacked your brain, and now you have basically found dopamine release features that allow you to directly access the dopamine release with a few easy hand motions. And kids pick up on this stuff so fast, if you ever leave a small child in proximity of an iPad, I'm talking like two years old, that kid will find it, start manipulating it, and become addicted to it. Their eyes glaze over. They turn into little zombies. It's a real thing. And again, there's a lot of brain studies to demonstrate this. There's one study from the Curious Journal, 2025, called Modern Day High, the Neurocognitive Impact of Social Media Usage. They found, quote, social media engages in brain reward pathways akin to those seen in addictive behavior with extended beta and gamma activity, having the potential to interfere with emotional regulation and attention. These neurophysiological consequences, especially delayed alpha recovery and increased delta activity, could bring to the fore new concerns regarding digital fatigue and mental health. The research indicates the importance of platform design interventions and additional longitudinal investigations. So in other words, a lot of this stuff was designed to do it. And again, you know this yourself. If you have ever scrolled X, doom-scrolled X, the reason it's designed the way it originally was with Twitter, where you would scroll with your thumb and then you'd hear a little noise is it was literally training you in Pavlovian fashion to get that small dopamine release so that you'd want to do it again. And again, there are lots of studies along these lines. There's one study from the Children's Health Council that was funded by the NIH. And it found that children who spend more than seven hours a day of screen time may experience premature thinning of the part of the brain that processes sensory information. That data comes from a 300 million dollar research funded by the National Institutes of Health following 11,000 kids aged nine to 10. It turns out heavy screen time has negative implications for kids' emotional, psychological, and cognitive development. And kids with more screen time have premature thinning of the brain cortex. That's the part that's responsible for interpreting information from the physical world. So again, this stuff is making you stupid. And it was designed to make you stupid because it was designed to be addictive. It was designed to make you want to watch more of it. Well, now Meta has been sued in a wide variety of studies. Over its design. And they reached a $17 billion settlement. Now, to be fair, Meta is worth hundreds of billions of dollars. So this is not remotely the value of the company, but it's a pretty major settlement nonetheless. According to CNBC, Meta and a coalition of state attorneys general have settled a major federal case censoring on allegations the social media giant misrepresented the extent of child and mental health harms caused by apps like Facebook and Instagram. The settlement was revealed in a court filing released Wednesday that details several requirements Meta has to make to its apps as part of a proposed consent judgment. So, it's not just they're paying the states a bunch of money. They are. But also, they are including a bunch of new changes in the app. So, those changes apparently include daily usage limits and also nighttime blocks for teenagers who use Insta and also Facebook. Also, enhanced age assurance measures to prevent kids from ending around the security features and the creation of some additional tools for parents and guardians. Some states are clearing a couple of billion dollars. Other states didn't join in on the settlement. So, Texas didn't join in on the settlement. Florida did not join in on the settlement. Rob Bonta, who is the AG for California, said today, we've secured a settlement with Meta that will make social media less dangerous for our kids and make a world of difference for children and their families. Meta has agreed to make massive transformations that reduce the risk of harm from its platforms and will do it within months. So, what are some of the things that have been put in place? Well, Meta announced it. The majority of the terms are required to remain in place for some 10 years and they automatically apply to everyone under the age of 18 on Instagram and Facebook. So, time limits. A default two-hour daily time limit that teens can only turn off with a parent's permission. Now, again, the devil is in the details. How do you assure that it's not just the kid logging on to mom and dad's account and then turning it off themselves? Very difficult to actually assure that's what happens. Night mode. A default block from the apps between midnight and 6 a.m. Which, again, that is not a particularly huge restriction considering that the vast majority of kids the vast bulk of time that young people would spend on Facebook and Instagram presumably is not between midnight and 6 a.m. which is when they're sleeping. Notifications are muted by default between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Now, again, muted by default means theoretically you could unmute by not default. Teens will also receive prompts after every 15 minutes of continuous screen time on either Facebook or Instagram and they will receive prompts when their daily total usage hits 60 minutes and 90 minutes. Teens will be able able to choose a non-algorithmic feed. as their default. Now, again, that should be the default. The default should be non-algorithmic. The algorithmic feed is dangerous. The algorithmic feed basically feeds you what you want to see. It's one of the things that makes these feeds so addictive. It's one of the reasons why if you click on a particular video on YouTube, you are then going to be fed a bunch of similar content, and it's how you end up down crazy rabbit holes in the online space. It's why young people appear to be so siloed in their information on everything from news to entertainment. Teens will be able to turn off autoplay, but again, that is not the default. That should be the default, right? The default should be no autoplay because autoplay is the idea that when you scroll and you hit a video, it starts playing. The default should be that you actually have to click it to make it play. Now, one good development here is the teens aren't going to see the number of likes and reactions on posts by default. That is a good default. These are kids who are seeking that echo chamber, kids who want people to give them the likes and the clicks. If they can't see that, that is useful. They're also getting rid of, apparently, teens being able to use cosmetic surgery filters and extreme makeup filters. So again, why that was ever in place in the first place is insane to me, especially for young girls where social contagion is a real thing. Huge mistake to have them capable of accessing all of these filters and make their face look different. They also want age assurance, so they're investing in stronger technology to proactively catch accounts that belong to them. They're also investing in age assurance, so they're under 13s and strengthening the technology to identify accounts that are between the ages of 13 and 17. App stores have to provide developers with age information that is verified. So they're saying it's not just us. It's also the app store that has to make sure this is the case. In a second, we'll get to more on everything going on with social media. As I'm saying, your kids have been accessing a lot of crap information. That's also true for pretty much everybody who's accessing legacy media. The New York Times readership among young Americans has But it's not as though that is being replaced by better information unless you are making PragerU available to your kids. PragerU is the rising generation's last best hope. Millions of students log on every day for five-minute videos on economics, history, faith, and freedom that teach the truth, not what CNN and others want young people to believe. PragerU has no paywall, no smirking newscasters, no bias dressed up as objectivity, just the facts presented in an age appropriate, wholesome, all-American way. But PragerU runs on people like you, not the government, not advertisers who despise you. Give today. Your donation is triple match. Go to PragerU.com slash Daily Wire. It's PragerU.com slash Daily Wire. And we've been working with PragerU for years. They're awesome. I have a bunch of videos myself with PragerU. They're informing literally millions of young people every single day, but in the right way, with good information, not the algorithmic slop they're getting everywhere else. Go check them out right now. PragerU.com slash Daily Wire. Every donation you give is triple matched. Jonathan Haidt, who's been probably the leader in this area, he put out a tweet, and it's sort of half celebrity and half warning. He said, Meta's $16.7 billion settlement is the largest accountability moment in social media history for child safety. The 47 AGs who drove it deserve tremendous credit. Restricted notifications and time limits are good. It's historic the AGs have gotten design changes. The settlement leaves untouched many of the features that harm kids. For example, the algorithm, right? This is the point that I was making. It was established in the previous court case and in Meta's own research that Meta's design harms children. The work ahead is to make them change that design, not just how long kids can access Instagram's harmful design, and not just on an opt-in basis. It's a great step. Let's work together to make sure that it is not the last step. So again, all of this is beneficial. We should be moving toward more of this. I think, frankly, that there should be heavy-handed regulation on social media, and you should be banned from social media completely until you are of age. I do not think minors need or have the right to social media. Social media is a disaster area. It's terrible for them in every way it is possible for it to be terrible for them, there are a bunch of other countries that have already done this, and I think that, frankly, it would be a welcome development. Because when you are feeding algorithmic slop to young people, you are wrecking their brains, really wrecking them. And again, you can say all you want, and I've said it too. It's up to the parent to make sure their kids don't engage in this stuff. I have kids who are 12, 10, 6, 3, and 0. So I have lots of kids. And my kids are stronger than I am when it comes to not being part of this entire milieu. They're not interested in it. My 12-year-old family saying that she wants nothing to do with it. As she gets older, I hope that that remains. But there are lots of other parents who just aren't as involved on this level, and their kids' brains matter as well. And when you wreck those brains, very, very difficult to un-wreck. Now, not all tech is created equal. So one of the weirdnesses of the current way that people perceive technology is that they're actually warmer toward, for example, Facebook, Instagram, than they are toward actual technologies that are going to transform the economy. So fascinating poll demonstrates that most Americans actually like, for example, the big tech platforms. They actually like them. They think they're good. But again, I'm going to go no on that. So for example, this is a survey from the argument of 3,008 registered voters, and it finds that on Google, 29% of people are very favorable. 35% of people are somewhat favorable. On Amazon, 62%. Again, I like both Google and Amazon. Microsoft, 52% favorable. Apple is 50% favorable. But once you get to OpenAI, Grok, and Anthropic, massive unfavorables. This is particularly true with XAI and Anthropic. Why? Well, because first of all, a lot of people use ChatGPT. It turns out the more you interface with the technology, the more you tend to like it and to use it. ChatGPT, about 48% positive. And about, 27% negative. So overall, more positive than negative. With that said, it is still significantly less popular than the other sort of technology companies. What does this result in? There's an overall unease, like a very, very large overall unease about AI. Now, we should start from the beginning here. Artificial intelligence could save the American economy, seriously. AI boosts productivity. You know this yourself. If you use ChatGPT, the amount of time it would take me, just in my job, research particular data questions. And again, we go through, we check the data. But the amount of time it would take me, de novo, to research a particular multi-part complicated question is so much larger through things like Google use than it would be simply by using ChatGPT or Claude or Perplexity. It boggles the mind. It is significantly more efficient to synthesize information using AI than it is to do it using the old-fashioned way of just Googling things. And this is true in a wide variety of arenas. The uses for AI are legion, and very often, they're excellent, like really, really good. The AIs are really good, which is why, according to the Dallas Federal Reserve, quoting Goldman Sachs, you could see a massive boost in American productivity, somewhere between 0.3 and 3.0 percentage points a year over the next decade, with a median estimate of 1.5 percentage points in productivity increased. As the Dallas Federal Reserve says, if, that happened, it would make a remarkable impact. And yet, at the same time, you have a lot of people, mainly people who are catastrophists about technology and who are very often in favor of centralized control, saying they want centralized control. So, I'm amused to see so many people who are on the right who hate Bill Gates for a variety of reasons, including, for example, his devotion to the idea of big government redistributionism and also his love for global warming. Now, Bill Gates is out there ripping on AI and suggesting that, you know, mass numbers of jobs will be wiped out. Now, again, we have not seen mass numbers of jobs being wiped out. And my suspicion is that you will see jobs that are lost, but you will also see an enormous number of jobs that are gained. Jobs will change. I think that this technology will bleed into the public gradually, a little bit slower than people think it's going to. Sort of the vast unemployment wave that Bill Gates is predicting here is exaggerated. He said in an interview with that, quote, the technology has crossed dangerous thresholds in biology, cybersecurity, white collar work and human relationships. Originally, three years ago, he said that becoming bumpy AI job disruption would lead to a manageable transition and the technology would help people work efficiently. Now, he says it will wreak economic catastrophe with far fewer jobs than exist today, thanks to the speed of AI advancements and what he calls a non-existent response from government and tech leaders. So, he's afraid, he says, that if AI continues unchecked, society will turn against it entirely. He says, what is the backlash going to be as these jobs go away? It'll make the data center thing look like nothing. Now, again, Bill Gates has spent his career basically since founding Microsoft, dooming and glooming it up. It took him years to acknowledge that his sort of doomsday view of global warming was unrealistic. He wrote an entire book, which is not very good, I've read it, about how to defeat global warming. And the answer is global redistributionism, of course. And of course, he's involved in a wide variety of truly globalist institutions. And it took him a while to realize that actually all of that was nonsense. Here he was last year saying the Paris climate goals were unrealistic.
Speaker 6That was a key milestone because the countries, the world said, hey, this is a mutual problem. The temperature rise, the entire world will experience a temperature rise from the emissions from all these countries. So, getting countries to commit was very, very important. The one thing about that accord that, you know, turned out not to be realistic was the ambitious goal of staying to one point five degrees. We won't be able to do that. Even if you took all the money away from health, you wouldn't be able
Speaker 5to do that. OK, so again, why are so many people now jumping on the Bill Gates bandwagon? He was wrong about the climate accords. He was wrong about the widespread covid vaccine. He's wrong about a bunch of things. But now people are jumping on back of this. Why? Well, first of all, we should acknowledge there are a bunch of people in the AI space, the so-called AI doomers. Many of them are leading AI companies. And what they really, really want is the government to step in and heavily regulate AI so that they have market capture. One of the things to be wary of when it comes to artificial intelligence regulation is the idea that the people who have the biggest companies want to write the rules. So Dario Amodi, who is the founder of Anthropic, he wrote a 20,000 word opus on his website back in January about AI. And he acknowledges that the most obvious effect of AI is greatly increase economic growth, which, by the way, again, that is not an anodyne question. Hey, when the economic growth increases, that means you live better. It means that you have better stuff. It is easier for you to get things. Things become cheaper. You get massive advances in scientific research, biomedical innovation, manufacturing, supply chain, the financial system. He acknowledges all of that. He suggested as much as a 10 to 20 percent sustained annual GDP growth rate, which, again, I think is overstated, but would be magic. But what he actually wants is massive tax redistributionism and regulation. So the effect of all this is that people get freaked out because you have the heads of these AI companies telling you to be doomers, freaking out, worrying. And then you have a bunch of politicians who are going around catering to the freaked out rather than trying to explain what exactly is happening. And so you end up right now in politics with this bizarre increase in hatred for data. Okay. All a data center is, is a place that processes an enormous amount of data. That's it. It is a big building in which there are a bunch of computers that process data. That's the whole thing. And again, Americans are kind of fine with big buildings that do things. They just don't seem to like the data centers very much. So, for example, there's an Echelon Insights voter poll that was taken in June. It found that 68 percent of Americans voted for the data center. And that's a big thing. And that's a big thing. And that's a big thing. And that's a big thing. And that's a big thing. And that's a big thing. And that's a big thing. support an Amazon distribution center being built in their area. But only 27 percent would support versus 62 percent oppose a data center to power artificial intelligence. That makes no sense. An Amazon distribution center is likely to have a lot more ingress and egress, right? People going in and out, lots of trucks moving in and out, lots of traffic, a lot more human beings. And the same thing is true of a traditional manufacturing factory. 67 percent say they want it. Data centers are a lot cleaner. They have a lot less trucks moving in and out like there's a lot less sort of threat to communal way of life, a big building that's just kind of standing there and the employees go in and out. OK, but because people are afraid of AI, they are afraid of the data centers and because politicians are afraid of the people that are now responding to that by cracking down on the data centers. Now, there's smart ways to sort of play this politically and stupid ways. Greg Abbott in Texas is trying to cater to people who are concerned about the data centers while simultaneously not going to actually generate economic growth. City Journal has a really good piece on this, pointing out that basically Texas, which has more planned data center capacity than any other state by far. Is forcing ERCOT, which is the regional grid operator, to overhaul its review processes for large new connections. So they've created a streamlined process to group the first wave of projects together so regulators can assess them more efficiently, so basically make sure there's enough power to power the data centers. Pennsylvania under Josh Shapiro, the governor over there, is doing something different. They basically made it very, very difficult to build data centers. But I fear that an enormous number of politicians are going to drive America into the primrose path of anti-tech stupidity. Now, again, there is good tech and there's bad tech. Not all tech is created the same. Not all tech is created the same. The promises of social media were basically a giant lie. They promised more friendship. It delivered far more antipathy. It promised more information and they delivered a bunch of misinformation. Disinformation, propaganda, and slop. They promised connection and instead they often delivered addiction. And now kids have been feeling the consequences of this for a decade and a half and it's been a disaster. But I don't think that that's true of AI. If we would like to destroy ourselves, what we should do is free up social media and restrict AI. And it seems like there's still a great tendency to do that. What we actually should be doing is we should be cracking down on social media for the sake of particularly young people who are vulnerable to the addictive qualities. And we should be ensuring, obviously, the worst excesses of AI are avoided. But we should not be attempting to hamstring AI so we actually lose to the Chinese. Because if you fall behind our enemies, they are not stopping. They're not going to stop at all. Not for a moment. AI can work for us in ways that really help all of us. I don't think that's true of social media. Coming up, we'll get to Dolly Parton's death, maybe the last unifying figure, an American in public life. Why is that happening? First, do this the next time you're shopping. Turn the package around. Forget the beautiful branding on the front. Read what's actually inside the product. The ingredient list will tell you a lot. Now, take a look at that balance of nature bottle. When you start looking at what's actually in the whole health system, it's all ingredients you recognize. It's apple, broccoli, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, psyllium. The whole health system brings together 47 ingredients, real whole fruits, veggies, spices, fibers. It's not made from concentrates or naturally occurring phytonutrients that are verified through lab testing. Phytonutrients, by the way, are simply the naturally occurring plant nutrients, the compounds that contribute to the color, taste, smell of fruits, veggies, spices, other plant foods. So yes, you should read the label. You know, when I eat, I want to understand what I'm putting into my body without somebody needing to stand next to me and translate it for me. I don't want to use AI to figure out what I'm eating. If that is appealing to you to just, you know, have the ingredients in front of you, the clean stuff, the stuff you need, go to balanceofnature.com today, receive an additional 10% off when you subscribe to my channel. I'll see you next time. any of their subscriptions, just use promo code Shapiro plus use code Shapiro and balance of nature. We'll send you a free guiltless snack with your order. That's balanceofnature.com promo code Shapiro. Also, when we talk about keeping healthy, you need better sleep. I need better sleep. I got to say last few nights have not been the best because I haven't been able to sleep on my Helix sleep mattress. I've been a little bit under the weather. I can't share the room with the new baby. So I've had to sleep not in my room. So I can't be on the mattress. 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Dolly Parton passed away yesterday. As you might imagine, I'm not the world's biggest country music fan. I like the occasional Brad Paisley song, but I didn't grow up with country music. Really not my thing. With that said, Dolly Parton was something that I think we've basically forgotten in America, just Americana. Like it's fine to just love Americana. Dolly Parton is pure. She was pure Americana. There was the family message that was put out in the aftermath of her death.
Speaker 7Dolly was a farmer, just like her daddy. He farmed the soil. She farmed songs and happiness. Dolly called me and said she wants to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because after a life she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest. Rest in peace, Aunt Dolly.
Speaker 5So again, the fact that even in the message about her passing, it's funny and it's Americana, like that was the whole thing. President Trump put out a statement. He said, very sad to report that Dolly Parton, one of the greatest country singers and far beyond ever, has just passed away. It's a true loss for millions of people. There's never been anyone like her and never will. In her honor, I'm lowering the American flag throughout the United States for one of the greatest country singers in the world. Dolly Parton, one of the greatest country singers in the world. Dolly Parton, one of the greatest country singers in the world. Dolly Parton, one of the greatest country singers in the world. Dolly Parton, one of the greatest out that she grew up dirt poor, literally dirt poor. That she was essentially born in a one-bedroom cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains in Locust Ridge, according to the New York Post. She was the fourth of 12 kids. The cabin had no electricity, had no running water. They all shared space, her and her 11 siblings, in a small home. She actually recreated the cabin at her Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, for fans to visit. As the New York Times says, from her hardscrabble beginnings to glittering stardom, Ms. Parton's life was the stuff of make-believe. With her voluptuous figure, sparkly stage costumes and blonde bouffant wigs, she was likened by the writer Chet Flippo to the big rock at Candy Mountain, the Depression era symbol of abundance. Her songs spoke to millions, confronting privation and loss, even as they radiated possibility and hope. I think that really is the big thing, right? She was funny. She was entertaining. She was Americana. She wasn't about, you know, the deep darkness, the sort of evils of life. She was upbeat. If there is one word that kind of describes Dolly Parton, she was upbeat. Here's a clip of her from the Johnny Carson show back in 1979.
Speaker 8What's the song you said you made up?
Speaker 9Well, I wrote this song because it's been real good for me ever since I started on your show. And you said one time, once I got to be real famous, I probably wouldn't come back on the show, but I always will. I'm here about as much as you are. That's not supposed to be too serious. I have come a long way from the hills of Tennessee. And I've worked hard to make the folks back home real proud of me. Now everybody knows my name no matter where I go. But I never really made it till the Johnny Carson show.
Speaker 5Again, like, just fun. It was okay to be fun. There was a time in America where it was just okay to be fun. And this brings us to the second point about Dolly Parton. She remained her entire career militantly apolitical. Militantly apolitical. She was offered three times the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Twice from President Trump, once from Joe Biden. And she declined it all three times because she didn't want it to be perceived as a political choice. And here she was being asked about her politics, obviously much later in her life.
Speaker 10I just try to make life a little better. I try to lift things up when they're down. I write my songs about that sort of thing. You'll find me and my opinions, you know, in a lot of the songs. But most of it's based on, love and acceptance and lifting people up. I ask God every day to let me be a blessing to mankind and to uphold him and to glorify him. And that's how I go about my day.
Speaker 1No political rallies for you then?
Speaker 10No political rallies for me. I think my joke is that my daddy was a Republican, my mama was a Democrat, and I'm a hypocrite.
Speaker 5Again, like, again, just staying out of it. Again, there was a time in American life where this was okay. You don't have to know everybody's politics. Johnny Carson was like this too. Johnny Carson actually was a Democrat. But on any given day, you didn't know where he was going to come down. And he didn't make his politics the center of the issue. ABC at one point tried to get Dolly Parton to go off on Trump. And here's her response.
Speaker 2We have a president of the United States who said those things on that bus.
Speaker 10I'm not addressing that. I do not get into that. Of course, I have my opinion about everybody and everything. But I learned a long time ago, keep your damn mouth shut if you want to stay in show business. I'm not in show business. I'm not in politics. I'm an entertainer.
Speaker 2And yet, you're also a role model.
Speaker 10Yes, I am. That's why I don't talk about people. So if you are deciding you may want to ask me something more serious, don't, because I'm not going to answer it. Fair warning, you might still ask. Well, you can ask, but I might still tell you where to put it if I don't know where you got it.
Speaker 5I mean, good for her, right? That's why. Because I'm sure that she did have her opinions, right? And kind of gathered them sort of from the way that she approaches it. But, like, that was her whole point. Like, this is what I... What I do is entertainment, and that's not the same thing as what everybody else is doing. And this is why it rings so hollow when you see a bunch of people trying to project politics on her. So, naturally, the Democrat Socialist of America called her a hero of the working class as though she was some sort of socialist. Okay, let's be very clear. Dolly Parton was a very rich lady. Like, a very, very rich lady. I'm not aware that she apologized for it. She gave a lot of charity. She did a lot of great stuff. Trying to paint her as a sort of, you know, bizarre socialist is strange. But because she didn't do politics, you could project... You could project anything onto her. And, again, when she was singing 9 to 5, which is about the difficulties of the working life, or when she was in the movie 9 to 5, which is about the difficulties of working for a sexually harassing boss, that's what the movie's actually about, it still was not rooted in this sort of deep-seated America sucks and that's why this is happening to me nonsense that the DSA likes to push.
Speaker 9Again, she's smiling the whole time, right?
Speaker 5I mean, like, this is not about how life is so miserable.
Speaker 9Like... I could play this song.
Speaker 5I'm sure. Like, again, this is... This is... This is... This is... It was all kind of upbeat and charming. Even the hard parts were upbeat and charming. That was the whole thing. It was, like, grin through the pain, grin through the problems. Life in that... Life is hard, but that doesn't mean that you have to have a bad time doing it. Right? That is why Dolly Parton was so popular, obviously. I mean, she was always very grateful for her life. And here she was talking about retiring. This is in 2019 with CBS.
Speaker 10People always say, why don't you retire? I say, and do what? What does that even mean?
Speaker 11Sit on your pile of money and awards.
Speaker 10I don't care. I always count my blessings more than I count my money. I don't work for money. Never did. I just wanted... It was the art. It was the job. I love the work. And I've done well, and I'm thankful for it.
Speaker 5Again, like, does that sound, like, super socialistic to you? Again, the whole thing here is just a baseline American optimism. And she talks about giving back. Again, she became very wealthy, and then she spent a lot of her money giving back to people.
Speaker 10I wanted to do something special for him. As the years went by, I saw how it kind of, he was, he thought he couldn't learn to read after he was grown. It was kind of, it was just one of those things. And so I had the idea to do something special for him. You know, in the Bible where it talks about honor your father and your mother, I don't think that necessarily means just to obey them. I think it means to bring honor to their name, if you can. So I got my daddy involved with this little program. I wanted him to be a part of it. I wanted him to feel like he was part of something special. So we started the Imagination Library, where we were giving books to the children in our home county, in Sevier County, where we were born and raised. And so we'd hoped that it would do good there. And it became such a popular program that the governor of Tennessee at that time, Phil Bredesen, he thought the idea was so great, they took it, went all over Tennessee, and then later it went on into Tennessee. And now we're all over the world, in different parts of the world.
Speaker 5I mean, that's awesome. It's great. I mean, Dolly Parton also understood the mission, right? She was meticulous about only being shown in circumstances where she wanted you to see her. She knew that she'd made up her image for showbiz, and she made herself up to be that. Here she was describing the story of her look originally.
Speaker 10It was not allowed to wear makeup in the hair. And the most beautiful girl, woman I had ever seen in my life, who lived, we didn't go to town that much, but when I would, I would go to see her because she had these long red fingernails, she wore bright lipstick, she had peroxide blonde hair, wore tight clothes, short. And I thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And my mother said, oh, she's just trash. She's just a tramp. And I thought, that's what I want to be when I grow up.
Speaker 5And she was a very religious person. So again, it was all these things. She said at one point in an interview with the New York Times, I've created this and played it up, the makeup, the whole persona. She said, this isn't all I am. It's not even most of what I am. Hopefully people can see beneath the hair to know there's a brain, beneath the boobs to know there's a heart, and behind all the other stuff to know there's some talent. And again, she was quite Christian. Here was Dolly Parton describing her Christianity. And this is kind of the third part of it is that she was culturally conservative, Dolly Parton. She signaled to everybody, who's between the coastal cities, that she was one of them without ever becoming overtly political.
Speaker 10I mean, I grew up knowing Jesus loved me and I knew that through God, all things were possible. And I just grew up with those little things that we just heard all the time. My grandpa was a really good preacher. He used to scare me a little bit. He was that hellfire brimstone kind of preacher. I wrote a song years ago called Daddy Was an Old Time Preacher Man. It was about him, about my grandpa. Because in one of those songs, one of the lines is, he preached hell so hot you could feel the heat. So he was one of those people. But anyway, it was a good life and I wouldn't take nothing for it. I mean, we had a hard time. But I think everybody should be proud of their family. I think you should be proud of your religion. I don't care what it is. We're just all trying to get to God.
Speaker 5I mean, again, this is why people liked her. The family's message said, quote, Dolly has lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus, surely met by Carl, her parents, and countless others. watch her and long for her to meet her in the heavens. So why are people so upset by Dolly Parton's passing? For the same reason Americans were upset when Johnny Carson died, or when Alex Trebek died, or any other celebrity who kind of feels like they're part of our collective life, and also who works pretty hard not to step into arenas in which Americans are divided. These people feel like vestiges of a better time, a time when Americans could just kind of enjoy stuff together. We could all enjoy it without everything being so political all the damn time. Now, here's the reality. I'm not sure the political climate in America today would allow a newfangled Dolly Parton to exist. Her silence would be deafening. Her refusal to take sides would be counted as cowardice. We'd force her to say things about politics, and then we'd punish her for saying things about politics. Or maybe the secret to Dolly Parton is that she was from a different time, and then she refused to bow to the dumb standards of our own, and maybe other celebrities should take a lead from that and do the same thing. So RIP Dolly Parton, and again, one of the rare unifying moments for the United States. Now, we'll get to more on this in a moment. First, something that's surprising, when they start a business, is how often success comes down to just answering the phone. Not branding, not marketing, just doing the very simple thing of answering the phone. The problem is most businesses are still trying to manage communication with systems that were not built for modern teams. Some messages are in emails, some in text, some in voicemails, some are sitting in somebody's CRM. Eventually, nobody knows who responded to whom. And that's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo. It's spelled Q-U-O, the business communication system built so you never miss a call. Quo gives your entire team one shared number, and you don't have to worry about the number for calls and texts. Everybody can see the full conversation history, which means customers don't have to repeat themselves over and over again every time they talk to a different person. Quo also works wherever you work, on your phone, your computer, in the office, on the road. You can keep your existing number, add teammates quickly, sync your CRM, and let call routing handle itself as your business grows. Because this is 2026, AI is built in. It can even qualify leads or respond after hours, helping your business stay responsive even when you're not actively working. Everything lives in one place, calls, texts, voicemails, transcripts, customer details. Your team gets the full picture before every conversation, and that creates a better experience for everybody involved. There's a reason Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2, with more than 3,000 reviews, and why over 90,000 businesses rely on it to stay connected and responsive. Money's on the line. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free. Plus, get 20% off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash Ben. That's Q-U-O dot com slash Ben. It's more on this in a moment. First, most people have a uniform, not like a literal uniform, but you know, like the five things in your closet that you always reach for and use those because you know they're going to work in pretty much any situation, like that favorite shirt or the jeans or the sunglasses or whatever. Now, I'm constantly, for example, wearing a certain set of t-shirts and polo shirts. It's like my go-to. Well, Secovas is one of them. Okay, so Secovas is awesome. They're comfortable right out of the box. There is no painful break-in period. You put them on and they just work. Whether I'm dressing up for an event or heading to the studio or traveling for the weekend, they fit the occasion without ever having to think about it. It's one of the things about Secovas. They've handcrafted their boots using more than 200 individual steps with premium leathers, but they don't feel precious. They are made to be worn. They also have everything else to round out your wardrobe from belts and walls to denim and lightweight shirts, all built with the same attention to detail. They've got great product. You're going to want to check it out right now. Get 10% off at Secovas.com slash Shapiro when you sign up for email and texts. That's 10% off at T-E-C-O-V-A-S.com slash Shapiro. Secovas.com slash Shapiro. See site for details. Back to disunity. It turns out the Democrats are very happy to become fellow travelers with third worldism. This is the philosophy that basically suggests that America has subjected the rest of the world to poverty, privation, exploitation. Senator Chris Coons is out there suggesting that America is no longer the leader of the free world. I wonder who he thinks is.
Speaker 12I would say we are no longer the leaders of the free world. In fact, if anything, it's the primary national leader who is putting his country's men and women on the line for freedom. And we need to earn our place back as leader of the free world in the future.
Speaker 5Well, I mean, it seems to me that we are still the leader of the free world, considering we continue to provide Vladimir Zelensky the weaponry through NATO that he requires. But the reality is the Democratic Party is perfectly willing to fellow travel with people who despise America, truly despise America. And the Assan Piker thing is not a small, it's not a small thing. Assan Piker, the Twitch streamer who's campaigned with half a dozen candidates at this point, including most famously Abdul El-Sayed over in Michigan. And there are people who are trying to claim that Abdul El-Sayed is moderating toward Israel or that he's moderating in his anti-American views. Assan Piker is here to assure us that's not
Speaker 11the case. There are going to be a lot of people who are already questioning Abdul El-Sayed's sincerity on these issues that will then turn around and say, oh, he's, he's, you know, he's moderating his position on Israel, all this stuff. I don't think he is. Okay. I will say this. I am literally the person that is being dangled. And I'm going to tell you once again, he's not moderating on his, his perspective on Israel or anything like that.
Speaker 5Oh, we know, we know. It turns out, by the way, according to the Washington Free Beacon, a dozen donors to the Hitler praising neo-Nazi congressional campaign of Dan Bilzerian have also contributed, you will, you'll be shocked to learn, to Abdul El-Sayed, in many cases, spreading thousands of dollars between the two candidates. The donors include a man who has equated Zionism to Nazism and a Texas subprime auto loan entrepreneur who threw his weight behind Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massey as well. The most significant crossover donor is a guy named Ibrahim Awad, who has given more than $19,500 between both candidates. Again, Texas subprime auto loan entrepreneur, Hussein Sam-Mahrook, is also a donor to both campaigns. He has ponied up more than $150,000 to support anti-Israel candidates around the country, including, of course, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. Now, some Democrats know this is awkward. Jon Favreau over at Pod Save America is saying, we should just not talk about Hassan Piker. What if we just ignore it? Let's just ignore the problem. I know you want to ignore it, my dude. I'm aware. I'm aware that you want to draft off the energy of the Red-Green Alliance and then pretend it doesn't exist, but it's very real. This is calling on all Dems to take the don't talk about Hassan Piker for a day challenge. Can we do it? Lots of other topics to focus on with 69 days left until the midterms. Maybe if we're successful, we can try for a full week. Well, I mean, you're the ones campaigning with him. You're the one who had him on your show and glazed him. That was you. And the radicalism of the Democratic Party, their willingness to fellow travel with radical Islam is quite real. Speaking of which, the radical Islamic mayor of New York, again, astonishing as we approach the 25th anniversary of 9-11, he put out a statement yesterday, Malid al-Nabi Mubarak to Muslims in New York City and around the world. Today, we honor the life and enduring legacy of Prophet Muhammad. May peace be upon him, whose teachings of compassion, generosity, justice, faith and service have inspired communities for more than 1,400 years. I have a few questions, like a few, a few questions about the history of Islam over the course of the last 1,400 years. Has the general legacy of Islam been compassion, generosity, justice, faith and service across the course of planet Earth, like for the past several hundred years? Is that is that like today? Is that really the actual legacy of the Prophet Muhammad like right now? Is that what is that the thing? Truly. Here in New York, says Zoran Mamdani, his example, Muhammad's example reminds us that caring for one another, embracing our diversity and serving our communities makes us stronger as we work to build a better New York City for everyone. Take New Yorkers, take your lead from the Prophet Muhammad. You should conquer all the surrounding areas and put all of the men above puberty to the sword and also use deception and war and maybe, maybe have some questionable marital practices. Oh, no, no, no. Sorry. He means that you should just be like nice to each other like Muhammad would, you know. Wishing joy, peace and blessings upon all of us, peace and blessings upon every one of us. I don't know why I'm saying that, but I'm saying that you should be like nice to each other like Muhammad would, you know. Wishing joy, peace and blessings upon every one of us. I don't know why I'm saying that, but I'm saying that you should be like nice to each other like Muhammad would, you know. Wishing joy, peace and blessings upon every one of us. Precepts of religion. Religions can be interpreted a wide variety of ways. I know many reformed Muslims who have attempted to interpret the Quran in ways that are significantly more compliant with Western civilized principles. But to pretend that Islam is incontinent, as currently practiced by billions of people across Earth with those principles is a stretch. It is certainly a stretch That Zorah Mamdani, well, here is the Secretary General of the International Union of Muslim Scholars pointing out that if it weren't for 10-7, October 7th, you know, the gigantic terrorist attack murdering 1,200 Jews, then Zorah Mamdani and Al-Sayed wouldn't be elected. Why? Because of that red-green alliance.
Speaker 13Said if not for the Al-Aqsa flood, and if the Zionists were not put to shame, what is happening in Europe and America would not be happening.
Speaker 5Zorah Mamdani would not have become governor of New York State. He's not, he's the mayor. Abdur Rahman Al-Sayed would not have defeated a campaign worth $73 million. These are all the blessings of the Al-Aqsa flood. I mean, so which part of Islam is that? That was in Qatar, by the way. And again, you know, not every Muslim is radical. As I've said many, many times, lots of Muslims are not. But if we're talking about the importation of literally, millions of people from Muslim countries into the West and asking how that impacts the West, that doesn't seem like a crazy question. There's a series of videos that have been going viral. over the course of the last week or so. One in which a man went to undercover in London and asked Muslims how he could get involved with terrorist groups. And they started, some of these people just started directing him to the local mosque.
Speaker 14Do you know which mosques support bringing Sharia law to London? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 13I've got one.
Speaker 14I've got one. Okay. As I was walking, I encountered a Muslim man handing out pamphlets. How are you? Welcome to visit our mosque. Yes, sure. What is this mosque? Just here. Do they recruit for Islamic resistance groups here too? Yeah, everything, everything. Each and everything in our life. Right. And you think Sharia law is good for the UK? 100%. You want Sharia law? Yeah. Inshallah, one day we bring the caliphate to this country. Inshallah, inshallah. That was insane. So, I had to go check it out. Hello, brother. Is the mosque over there?
Speaker 9Yeah.
Speaker 14This mosque, yeah, I heard they help people find, they give weapons for you to go and train with ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
Speaker 15Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 14I entered the mosque and spoke to the representative there. What is it you guys do exactly?
Speaker 15100 people come, 67 people converted to Islam. We do training, two o'clock, we started training them.
Speaker 5So, that's great. Again, we've also decided that it would be a great idea to bring in people like Sneeko so that he could explain that actually what we ought to be worried about is a nuke wrapped in tefillin. Tefillin is phylacteries, like where it says that you're supposed to, you know, bind God's word to your arm and to your head, right, in the Bible. It's like that. He says Americans could literally look up in the sky watching a nuke wrapped in tefillin fall on their heads and still be talking about transgender sports. Alexander Dugan liked that tweet. So again, the Democratic Party willing to fellow travel with an enormous amount of this. So what can be done about this? Well, the Secretary of State announced sanctions and designation of far left tech Antifa networks and terrorist organizations yesterday. According to Fox News, a State Department memo reveals an international technology collective now under a U.S. global terrorism designation provided services to overseas terrorist groups and violent far left agitators causing chaos in American cities. According to a copy obtained by Fox News Digital, there's something called the AI Collective. It's an Italy based group that builds highly sophisticated digital infrastructure and it is used by Islamic terrorists and also apparently not just by Hamas and the IRGC, but also by Rose City Antifa. So again, that red green alliance is very real, not just in ideology, but also in practice. Meanwhile, the president declared Palestine action a global terrorist organization that is a protest group that has now been added to a list that includes Hamas, Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. All of which is very useful because something needs to be done about all of this, even as the Democrats continue to draft off of it. OK, meanwhile, updates in the Lindsay Clancy trial. So. Really interesting sort of medical debate happening in the Lindsay Clancy trial. Now, as I said, when it comes to criminal cases, I think the most important thing is to focus in on the specific facts of the case. So. The defense has claimed in this case that she had postpartum psychosis. That she was hearing voices, and that is why she killed her three kids and then tried to kill herself. The prosecution is arguing that actually she didn't hear voices, or at least it would have been unusual for her to hear voices, that that would have not been postpartum psychosis and that she's sort of making that part of the story up in order to cover for a premeditated crime. There was a forensic psychiatrist named Dr. Gregory Sadhoff testifying at Clancy's trial.
Speaker 8What was very unusual, was the fact that the voice stopped with the death of, or the strangling of her, of her youngest son, Callan. And that she went upstairs and then proceeded to engage in behavior in an effort to kill herself. But that the voice had stopped.
Speaker 5So again, he's suggesting that that is unusual, so unusual that it is unlikely to be true. That basically she's making up the voice that told her to kill her kids and that she knew full well what she was doing when she murdered her children, which of course, if that's true, she should get the death penalty. Here was a forensic psychologist called by the state, Dr. Kirk Heilbrunn. He said that she has bipolar 2, not bipolar with manic episodes. Typically bipolar 1 is the one that is sort of manic episodes. And in manic episodes, you might expect to hear voices or something like that.
Speaker 16I ended up with a diagnosis, making a diagnosis of bipolar 2 disorder, which is a slightly less, not slightly, it's a less severe form of bipolar disorder.
Speaker 4And doctor, why did you, why did you diagnose with bipolar 2 and not bipolar?
Speaker 16Because bipolar, as I said, is a more severe kind of diagnosis. It's more noticeable. And if you had a bipolar diagnosis, then I would want to see something that looks that clearly and definitely looks like a manic episode. And I did not see any evidence of that before January 24th of 2023.
Speaker 5So Allie Beth Stuckey has been watching this very closely. She put out a tweet saying that she thinks that Lindsay now deserves the death penalty. She says, Lindsay Clancy saw six doctors and had multiple hospital stays in the months leading up to the murder. For children, she was never once diagnosed with postpartum depression or psychosis. I had not realized this originally. These terms have been used and applied only during this trial, never before she killed the kids. Most people do not know that. Those to show how social media narratives can have a huge impact on how you perceive truth. She had been diagnosed with a mood disorder that left her depressed. She'd reportedly considered suicide. She had trouble sleeping. That's why she was on and off so many medications. But she had never claimed to have heard voices, except for during the short window she killed her babies. A psychologist today testified that hearing voices only once would be extremely unusual, if a person is truly having a psychotic episode. When I first started talking about this trial weeks ago, I thought the defense's case was compelling. I've long been concerned about the effects of SSRIs, and I thought for sure they could be the culprit. I don't see the strong case for that anymore. I think Lindsay was methodical, deliberate, and knew exactly what she was doing. Now again, that is Allie Beth doing what you should do, which is following the evidence as you see it. So Allie Beth changing her opinion based on the evidence that's being presented is typically how you ought to follow a case. Now, I will say that when it comes to psychiatry, psychiatry in many cases is more art than science. The way these things are typically diagnosed is based on checklists. They're based on symptomatic descriptions. You can have two different psychiatrists diagnose two separate conditions based on the same set of symptoms and a different take on medication interactions, for example. So it is a very, very vague business. That is one of the things that makes this case so difficult. Because again, if you're trying to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that she did this with malice of forethought, you have to basically dispense with any serious doubt that anyone might have about drug interactions or postpartum psychosis that manifested in this particular case or bipolar one or even a severe form of bipolar two that manifests in hallucinations. So this is part of the difficulty of this particular situation. Again, I'm not saying this is an easy case, but I think that the unease of the case is one of the things. It's a reason why everybody should be, I think, pretty careful about how they draw conclusions from all of this. And many people are not being. Particularly careful about how they draw conclusions. That apparently includes former Obama campaign strategist Lori Watkins, who appeared on GB News. Here's what that looked like discussing this case.
Speaker 17The idea that she is innocent is because these are man-hating women that are standing outside. This is what it's about. They think the husband did it. They are insane. Lori Watkins.
Speaker 18What you just said was absolutely disgusting. Thank you. You should be ashamed of yourself. Thank you. And you can hear that he's not.
Speaker 17Okay? Why? Because it's true. They're crazy. They've lost their mind.
Speaker 18Do you know why
Speaker 17they're waving for a murderer?
Speaker 18Do you know why the woman is in a wheelchair? Did you even notice that she's in a wheelchair? I couldn't care less.
Speaker 17She's a murderer.
Speaker 18Because she jumped out the window after this happened. So she should have. I would have pushed her. She didn't even know what she was doing. Be quiet, please.
Speaker 17I've had it with you. Oh, my God. And your sexism and misogyny.
Speaker 18She's a murderer. These women are cheating. I'm sorry. He's so abhorrent and disgusting of us. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 17If you two both speak at the same time, no one at home can hear.
Speaker 18You can give him the time.
Speaker 17No, no, no, no. Thomas, you've had your say. Let him dig himself a grave. Laurie, do you want to say anything else on this? Nope.
Speaker 18Let him dig his own grave.
Speaker 5Okay, so, again, I think everybody needs to actually take a step back and actually look at the case itself. Yesterday, we had the opportunity to speak with Lila Rose, the founder of Live Action, about the case. Here's what it sounded like. And, Lila, thanks so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 19Thanks. Great to see you, Ben.
Speaker 5So, obviously, people are very, very upset on a lot of levels about the Lindsay Clancy case. On one side, you have people who are upset that people are sympathetic to Lindsay Clancy's mental illness. On the other side, you have people who are very, very upset that people are unsympathetic to Lindsay Clancy's mental illness. What do you make of the whole case? Why do you think this has become such a flashpoint in American society? It seems to me that there's a pretty obvious case that she had significant and severe mental illness, and now we are, in effect, finding modes to find out, you know, just how severe that mental illness was, whether that was to blame for the murder of her three kids or whether, in fact, she was sort of using that as cover to plan the murder. If that's a fact-finding case, why has this become such a big issue?
Speaker 19Well, I think it's become such a big issue because of where we are as a society right now. I think a healthy society organizes itself around the protection of children. And any hot-taker reaction that doesn't first consider the children, I think is going to miss the point. Now, mothers matter tremendously fathers matter, families matter. But I think this is where the divide is, right, Ben? because some people are saying, like, let's center this around Lindsay's suffering, her mental health trauma, even the trauma she endured if she did take the children's lives and it wasn't of her own volition. Now she's in a wheelchair and all these millions of mothers are empathizing with their own postpartum depression experiences. But then on the other hand, there's three little children who one by one were strangled to death by the very person they trusted and should be able to trust the most. And I do think in the common discourse about it right now, we are not remembering the children enough. And I think that's because we are an abortion, pro-abortion society. A million children are killed in the name of, you know, women's rights, right, every single year. And I think there's this loss of empathy for children. So we should have empathy for mothers, but in a case like this, the primary victim, of course, are the three children, Cora, Dawson, and Colin, whose lives were so brutally ended. Yeah, Lila, one of the things that's really
Speaker 5fascinating about this particular sort of blow up is the fact that, again, it's a criminal case. It's going to come down to, you know, the fact that, you know, the fact that, you know, the prosecution can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she knew enough between right and wrong when she committed the killing, that she was committing the killing in spite of the mental illness and with malice of forethought, right? That is the entire criminal case. But the messages people are taking away seem to be completely separate from the case. So on the one hand, you have people who are trying to make the claim their postpartum depression is equivalent to what she was suffering, which is obviously not true. And on the other hand, you have people who are trying to claim that she was purely not mentally ill. And on the other hand, you have people who are trying to at all. Mental illness really doesn't exist. What do you make of the fact that, again, people seem to be separating off their own circumstances from that of the case or conflating
Speaker 19them? Right. And I think, I mean, everybody, most everybody has an experience or knows someone who's had an experience. Most everybody knows someone or has themselves had some kind of experience with anxiety or mental illness. We all know women. I mean, a third of American mothers, a fourth to a third of them are on some kind of anti-psych meds or other medications. So this is prevalent in today's society. So I think there's a lot of empathy, you know, for Lindsay. People are putting themselves in her shoes and imagining how this could have happened. And I also think, Ben, it's such a horrific act that people are trying to come up with a reason. And psychosis is a more comforting reason in a weird way than, oh, a mother just decided one day to murder her babies in this horrifically painful way of strangulation. Right. So it's almost easier for the mind to grasp, oh, it must have been psychosis. Right. The reality is, though, like, you said, this has to be legally decided in a courtroom. There's a lot of things that go into that weighing that. There have been, you know, medical experts up on stand now for weeks, you know, testifying about her condition. She didn't hear voices any time that's recorded before the actual slaying of her children. And it doesn't appear she heard them after. It was a short window when she took the lives of the children. So, of course, the prosecution is saying this is a fiction. Right. So those are all details to explore. But I do think you're right. We are, unfortunately, projecting our own struggles, maybe with mental illness or people we know with mental illness on this case, when in some cases people are not considered criminally liable by virtue of insanity. And that might be Lindsay's case. But I think people are afraid she's going to get off scot-free when she shouldn't. And that's because I will say today in American society, we do center women's feelings, emotions, decisions, choices over children. That is an objective fact based on our legal system because of abortion. So that concern, I think, is justified. And that's what's, I think, creating so much of the fury over this case on in commentary and on social media.
Speaker 5Yeah, well, I totally agree with that. I mean, if you take a look at sort of the TikTok trends that are built around this with women who are not suffering postpartum psychosis, but now are releasing videos of themselves acting pretty crazy about just the basic handling of their kids. I'm not I'm not sure exactly what they are getting at it. If they're getting at the idea that motherhood is a form of victimhood, that it ties into, as you say, a sort of re-censoring of the world around the women as opposed to around the kids. I mean, my wife and I have five. It is not easy. It is the best thing in our life by far. No, no close comparison. But even if it were not, it is the single most important responsibility we have as human beings. The fact that we're building an entire society around the idea that somehow to have children is to suffer or that mothers are the chief victims of their own children is really
Speaker 19dangerous. I totally agree. And this is what I'm most concerned about. I think you can be a champion for postpartum mothers. I've been a postpartum mother, you know, three times now with three different babies, you know, dearest friends who have struggled. Sometimes postpartum depression, obviously psychosis is an extreme case. You can have empathy. We can work for better solutions for mothers and for fathers. It's hard. This is the collective project, raising children, raising the next generation. But we can't fall into this mentality that the woman's always the victim and ignore, again, in the case, the primary victims that are these children. And you can have mental illness. You can even be in some kind of a psychotic state, hear voices and still not murder your children. There are many women and men who have places that have not committed heinous crimes. So again, I think it's really important that we center the children first. This is what's lost, I believe, in American society today. In some ways, women are centered over men and over children today. And that's why there's so much backlash, I think, against the people that are like, you know, outside the courtroom saying, we are Lindsay, we are Lindsay. Because they're saying, look, American women, they have all their rights. They even have the right to kill children, which men don't have. You know, they can't order the abortion women can. And they're always centering themselves as the victim. TikTok videos are an acknowledge that we really, in some ways, have a mass psychosis about women's victimhood and liberation today, while still saying postpartum mothers deserve care. And I think that nuance is, in some ways, totally lacking from this conversation. That's Lila Rose of Live Action.
Speaker 5Go check out all of her work over at X and also at Live Action. Lila, thanks so much for all you're doing. Appreciate it. Thanks so much, Ben. Alrighty, coming up, we will get to a bit of culture coverage, including an interesting conversation between the actress Anna Faris and her religious son, who is 14 years old. What does it mean for marriage and culture? Plus, Northwest just did a Dazed magazine cover, and we'll get to that. What's going on over there? First, if you're a Daily Wire member, again, you're going to get all this stuff, but you're not going to get any of that if you're not. So now would be the time. Become a member. Use code Shapiro. Check out for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.
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