You're about to hear words from me you've never heard before. I was dead wrong. I was dead wrong about this election.

I was dead wrong that Donald Trump would not win in the primaries. I was dead wrong that Donald Trump would not beat Hillary Clinton in the general election. I was wrong that the poll data was reliable. It was not. I was wrong. The experts knew what the hell they were talking about with regard to ground game. They didn't. I was wrong that the movement of which Donald Trump bragged was just more Trumpian braggadocio rather than a real on-the-ground mass phenomenon. Now I pray fervently that Donald Trump proves me wrong again about him as a human being. I didn't vote for Trump yesterday. For all the reasons I expressed yesterday on this program, I do not think Donald Trump is a good man, let alone a great one. I'm deeply concerned he's not conservative. I'm deeply concerned

he'll fail to fulfill his promises, that he'll focus on useless fights, that he will engage

in counterproductive ones, that he'll sell out the people who voted for him. I am concerned

that Republicans justifiably intoxicated by victory over the Wicked Witch of the West Hillary Clinton will

grant a halo effect to Trump that will allow him to engage in anti-conservative policies

that will damage the country and political foolishness that will damage the conservative

movement with constituencies that conservatives are still going to have to recruit. But I have said

for months that Trump could prove me wrong. I did say that. He certainly has every

opportunity to do so now. He enters office with the majority of Republicans in the Senate. He enters

office with a majority of Republicans in the House. He enters with an open Supreme Court seat,

a vast majority of GOP state legislatures, a vast majority of GOP governors. Now is the time

for the vast change that we were promised and that

Donald Trump promised to deliver. This will require Donald Trump to change as a human. That doesn't

mean he should lose his fighting nature at all. Obviously, he should keep fighting the media.

It's the best thing that he did the entire campaign. I've praised that part of him for years and

consistently throughout the selection cycle. It doesn't mean he should stop channeling the outrage of Americans. But bad people don't become better people when they

become powerful people. And Donald Trump was just handed the keys to the car, the leadership of the

most powerful country in the history of humanity, and the most powerful office in the most powerful

country in the history of humanity. Will Trump feel freed from the boundaries set on him by the strictures of a presidential race? Will he feel unshackled to be sort of the bad Trump that we saw during the primaries and during the general? Or will Trump actually change as a human and be elevated by his office? Will he grow into the person that we all want him to be? I sincerely hope, really I hope, that I'm wrong about him and that it is the latter. I plan to hold him accountable if it's the former. As I have for the entirety of this election cycle and consistently throughout my career, I will praise Trump when he deserves it, I will criticize him when he does not deserve it. For the sake of America, for the sake of conservatism, I hope, I hope, I have nothing but

praise for president-elect Donald Trump. I'm Ben Shapiro. This is The Ben Shapiro show.

Good Trump, bad Trump, which one will we get today? I think that's the big news from the election,

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