By Douglas Ernst - The Washington Times - Monday, October 19, 2020

Ben Shapiro said his predictions about President Trump in 2016 on policy issues were wrong in 2016 and he’s now ready to vote for the Republican.

The conservative author/podcaster behind The Daily Wire released a nearly nine-minute video Monday explaining his readiness to support Mr. Trump in the voting booth.

“I did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016,” Mr. Shapiro said. “I am voting for Donald Trump in 2020. There are three reasons I’m going to vote for Donald Trump in 2020 when I didn’t four years ago. First, I was simply wrong about Donald Trump on policy. Second, I wasn’t really wrong about Donald Trump on character, but whatever damage he was going to do has already been done and it’s not going to help if I don’t vote for him this time. And third, most importantly, Democrats have lost their f—-ing minds.”

Mr. Shapiro then went on to talk about various positions that he said have earned Mr. Trump his vote.

The Republican’s stance on taxes, the environment, national security and pro-life issues are just a few that came as a pleasant surprise to the “Ben Shapiro Show” host.

“Donald Trump has governed pretty conservatively,” he continued. “I thought he would not be conservative in his governance. I was just wrong on that. Donald Trump radically cut regulation. He actually saw reductions in the number of man-hours dedicated to dealing with regulation for the first time in a long time under Donald Trump. He appointed originalist judges to the best of his ability.”

Democrats, he said, can no longer be trusted with the “mechanisms of power” because they “seek to ruin anybody who stands in their way.”

Additionally, Mr. Shapiro said the president deserves credit on two “big” issues.

“Donald Trump is the first president of my lifetime to not start any new wars, which is a kind of a big thing,” he said. “He’s resisted using the federal government to control everybody’s life during COVID. That’s a big thing. This is the biggest government power grab of my lifetime and Trump refused to do it. … Here’s the deal: I’m voting for Trump. You don’t have to like his Twitter account to vote for him. … But if you care about the Constitution and economic freedom and the security of the United States, you really don’t have a whole hell of a lot of choice.”

• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.

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