Donald Trump is the first ex-president to be charged with a criminal offense in the United States. He is also the first person to ever face criminal charges for a campaign finance violation. The charges stem from an investigation into whether Trump conspired with Michael Cohen to pay off porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about an alleged affair she had with Trump in the early days of his presidential campaign in 2016. Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations and has repeatedly insisted that they are false and politically motivated smear campaigns meant to delegitimize his campaign for president in 2020. Now, a grand jury in Manhattan has decided to indict Trump, and he could face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of the charges brought against him. This is a historic development that will forever mark him as the nation s first former president to be prosecuted for a crime, and it s sure to set the tone for the rest of the 2020 presidential election cycle. Today's After Show Was Hosted By: John Rocha - John Bolton - John is a regular contributor to the New York Times and has been a long-time friend of the show. John is also a frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard. - Subscribe to John's new book, "The Dark Side of Politics: Inside the White House: The Inside Story of the Inside the Secret Life of the Most Powerful People in America's Most Powerful Man in the 21st Century." Subscribe to his new podcast, "Inside the Oval Office," wherever you get your news and access to the latest breaking news, your answers to everything you need to know about politics, entertainment, and everything you've ever heard on the most powerful guy in the world, including politics, including the newest thing going on anywhere you care about it! John's newest podcast, John s latest podcast on the latest in politics and everything else going on in the podcast. Subscribe and comment on social media is a must-listen to find out what s going to happen in politics, right here! Subscribe? , right here on the heels of John s newest episode of The Hill? , wherever he s listening to John s thoughts on it? and John s the most influential podcast on it, right sis and much more! . is a podcast you should listen to this week's episode on all things political news, right now! and more! Subscribe to our newest episode on politics and culture!
00:00:04.000It's the thing that they have been seeking for years on end, basically since 2015 when Donald Trump decided that he was going to run for the presidency, certainly since he actually won the presidency in 2016.
00:00:13.000The left has been foaming at the mouth, seeking the day when Donald Trump would be frog marched into a police precinct somewhere and then thrown in jail.
00:00:21.000And many prosecutors all over the nation have been aiming at this for a long time, but it was only Alvin Bragg, Brave and true.
00:00:28.000You know, the guy who won't prosecute like any crime in New York, but he definitely will prosecute a supposed misdemeanor that happened back in 2015.
00:00:37.000The grand jury yesterday finally decided they would go forward with the indictment of Donald Trump.
00:00:43.000Alvin Bragg tweeted out, quote, this evening, we contacted Mr. Trump's attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan DA's office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal.
00:00:51.000Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected, according to the New York Times.
00:00:57.000Trump's indictment comes on as many as 34 charges of falsifications of business record.
00:01:03.000These charges, the falsification of business record charges, that's a misdemeanor.
00:01:05.000In order to elevate that to a felony, so as to escape the statute of limitations, and so as to effectuate probably an arrest, In order for any of that to happen, they have to tie that to a campaign finance violation.
00:01:17.000The campaign finance violation, as we've talked about before, is specifically the question as to whether Stormy Daniels was paid off by Donald Trump using his own personal funds rather than using campaign funds when it actually was a quote-unquote campaign expenditure.
00:01:30.000So the question is going to come down to whether Trump paid off Stormy Daniels because he would have paid her off at any time because he's For sure signed hush money payments before or whether he was doing it as an election expense and then failing to properly bill that to his campaign instead paying it via Michael Cohen.
00:01:44.000Now Michael Cohen did go to jail on the basis of pleading guilty to something like that.
00:01:48.000But then Cyrus Vance, who is the DA in New York at the time, refused to elevate those charges against Trump.
00:01:53.000The feds refused to elevate campaign finance charges against Trump.
00:01:55.000Only Alvin Bragg, seven years later, is now doing this.
00:02:01.000The New York Times says Donald Trump was indicted in Manhattan on Thursday for his role in paying hush money to a porn star.
00:02:06.000According to five people with knowledge of the matter, a historic development that will shake up the 2024 presidential race and forever mark him as the nation's first former president to face criminal charges.
00:02:13.000Listen, the Democrats have now broken the glass.
00:02:17.000And they broke glass in case of emergency.
00:02:19.000And now that glass is broken, it's gonna be very hard to put it back together because here's the deal.
00:02:23.000They take a step that is absolutely unprecedented in American history.
00:02:26.000Say, kill the filibuster for judicial nominees.
00:02:29.000And not very long afterward, that entire process boomerangs around on them and Republicans are ramming through Supreme Court nominees with 51 votes.
00:02:37.000Well, if you think this is the last time you're going to see a former president indicted, you got another thing coming.
00:02:43.000Now the Democrats have made clear they are willing to go after a former president on the flimsiest of charges.
00:02:47.000And again, we'll get to how flimsy these charges are in just one second.
00:02:51.000You can just expect there will be politically motivated prosecutors on every side of the aisle going after everybody's favorite politicians.
00:02:57.000So we have now entered an era in which the opposition is basically under threat of legal indictment at all times.
00:03:03.000According to the New York Times, on Thursday evening, after news of the charges had been widely reported, the DA's office confirmed that Trump had been indicted and that prosecutors had contacted Trump's attorney to coordinate his surrender.
00:03:12.000Three people with knowledge of the matter said Trump was expected to turn himself in and face arraignment early next week, at which point the specific charges would be unsealed.
00:03:18.000Trump had for decades avoided criminal charges despite persistent scrutiny and repeated investigation, creating an aura of legal invincibility.
00:03:26.000That's one way to put it in New York Times.
00:03:27.000The other way to put this is that this is a trumped up charge and that they are going after Trump mainly because Alvin Bragg wanted to make a headline and because Democrats had to have their day.
00:03:36.000This whole situation just smacks of the Chekhov's gun idea.
00:03:42.000The playwright, Antonin Chekhov, that if you put a gun above the mantle in the first act, it must be used by the end of the second act.
00:03:49.000The looming threat of an indictment on Trump, that's been the gun above the mantle since 2015.
00:03:54.000It was going to be used somewhere in here.
00:03:57.000Trump himself put out a statement in response, in which he called Bragg a disgrace.
00:04:02.000Trump's actual statement reads, This is political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history.
00:04:08.000From the time I came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower, even before I was sworn in as your President of the United States, the radical left Democrats, the enemy of the hard-working men and women of this country, have been engaged in a witch hunt to destroy the Make America Great Again movement.
00:04:28.000The Democrats have lied, cheated, and stolen in their obsession with trying to get Trump.
00:04:31.000But now they've done the unthinkable, indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant election interference.
00:04:37.000Never before in our nation's history has this been done.
00:04:39.000The Democrats have cheated countless times over the decades, including spying on my campaign, but weaponizing our justice system to punish a political opponent who just so happens to be a president of the United States and by far the leading Republican candidate for president has never happened before, ever, says Donald Trump in his statement.
00:04:53.000Alvin Bragg, who was handpicked and funded by George Soros, is a disgrace.
00:04:56.000Rather than stop the unprecedented crime wave taking over New York City, he's doing Joe Biden's dirty work, ignoring the murders and burglaries and assaults he should be focused on.
00:05:13.000So our movement and our party united and strong will first defeat Alvin Bragg, then we'll defeat Joe Biden.
00:05:17.000We're going to throw every last one of these crooked Democrats out of office so we can make America great again.
00:05:22.000So listen, it's a shot in the arm to Trump's campaign, just on a political level.
00:05:25.000We'll get to the politics of this after we get to the legality of all of this and what comes next in terms of procedure, because things are going to get very spicy very quickly now.
00:05:33.000First, we have to talk about Daily Wire's most trusted privacy partner and a premier sponsor of this show, ExpressVPN.
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00:06:17.000slash Ben use my exclusive link EXPR ESS VPN dot com slash Ben get an extra three months for free that's ExpressVPN dot com slash Ben again ExpressVPN dot com slash Ben get an extra three months for free. Okay so the next question is what happens next?
00:06:34.000So apparently, Donald Trump is going to turn himself in.
00:06:37.000This has some ramifications, not only for Donald Trump's campaign, but also for the other campaigns.
00:06:41.000Ron DeSantis in particular, we'll get to that in a moment.
00:06:43.000First, he will be fingerprinted, he'll be photographed, he might even be handcuffed.
00:06:47.000Now, all of this for Trump's campaign, again, is a shot in the arm, because the feeling that he has been viciously attacked for no reason other than they hate him.
00:06:55.000is obviously going to boost him in the Republican primaries.
00:06:58.000Just politically speaking, that is absolutely what it's going to do.
00:07:01.000Trump, for political reasons, is going to want pictures of himself being victimized by Alvin Bragg's ridiculous prosecution here.
00:07:07.000And barring some sort of extraordinary change in the sealed charges from what we have seen before, it is a ridiculous legal case.
00:07:15.000Trump will almost certainly be accompanied at every step of the process by armed agents of the U.S.
00:07:19.000They are required by law to protect him at all times.
00:07:21.000It's a weird, unprecedented situation.
00:07:24.000There'll probably be some accommodations made for him.
00:07:26.000Most defendants who are arrested on felony charges are handcuffed, but it's unclear whether there will be some sort of exception made for Trump, particularly because, again, he's going to turn himself in and negotiate.
00:07:34.000His lawyers have already said he's not going to resist any sort of extradition or anything like that.
00:07:39.000The legality of the case itself is incredibly weak.
00:07:41.000Even Trump's most vicious enemies, people like Eli Mistal over at The Nation, even he says that this case is particularly weak.
00:07:49.000He suggests the odds the path to real justice, let alone prison time, runs through the Manhattan D.A.' 's office still seem very, very long.
00:07:56.000He points out that Michael Cohen, who's their key witness, initially lied to federal investigators.
00:08:00.000This makes him a not particularly good witness.
00:08:03.000The fact that the Southern District of New York has already looked at these charges and decided not to do anything.
00:08:08.000That the federal government looked at these charges and decided not to do anything.
00:08:11.000The fact that this is going to be a state of mind crime, really.
00:08:14.000How do you prove that Donald Trump paid off Stormy Daniels to keep quiet because of the election, as opposed to he paid her to keep quiet because he just wanted her to keep quiet?
00:08:21.000State of mind crimes are very difficult to prove.
00:08:23.000Intent crimes, particularly for Trump, are very, very difficult to prove.
00:08:27.000Again, Eli Mistal says so at The Nation.
00:08:29.000Very hard to think of somebody who hates Trump more than Eli Mistal.
00:08:32.000David French over at The New York Times says exactly the same thing.
00:08:36.000He says, most likely prosecutors will rely on an allegation of violating federal campaign finance law, specifically the claim that the hush money payments to Daniels were illegal campaign contributions.
00:09:03.000The claim that Trump violated federal law isn't necessarily frivolous, but his defense is really simple, which again, is that the hush money payments had nothing to do with the election and everything to do instead with his desire to keep the story quiet.
00:09:15.000So, is this prosecution actually going to succeed?
00:09:18.000Because everyone knows that the prosecution is so weak, if it does, people are going to feel it's one of the great miscarriages of justice in modern American history.
00:09:25.000If Donald Trump ends up being convicted on charges this flimsy just because it's happening in New York where everybody hates his guts, can you imagine the political consequences for the country if that goes forward right now?
00:09:36.000Now, remember, this is only the first trial that Trump has on on the docket.
00:09:42.000There's still something for the three other open cases against Trump.
00:09:47.000There's a special counsel, Jack Smith, on the federal level who's currently investigating whether he interfered with the peaceful transfer of power on January 6th.
00:09:54.000He's also investigating Trump's handling of classified documents.
00:09:58.000Again, I think both of those probably amount to nothing.
00:10:00.000But there's a Fulton County DNM, Fannie Willis, again, a Democrat, who's attempting to prosecute Trump on the basis that he tried to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.
00:10:09.000So this may only be the first case against Donald Trump.
00:10:46.000You know, there's sort of an internal debate in conservative circles right now over whether Democrats are targeting Trump because they want to take him off the table for 2024 or whether they're targeting Trump because they actually want to elevate him in the primaries for 2024, knowing that if he wins the primaries, He will then lose the general election.
00:11:00.000This is the going theory in Democratic circles, the same theory they used in 2015-2016.
00:11:04.000They could be totally wrong, by the way.
00:11:05.000They could elevate Trump and then Trump could win, which is their worst nightmare.
00:11:09.000But it is certainly plausible from their perspective that if they indict Trump and Trump is then elevated in the primaries, let's say he wins the primaries, does that win any independent voters in a general election?
00:11:20.000Who who voted against Donald Trump is now like, well, he was unfairly indicted.
00:12:29.000They make all their money off of Trump.
00:12:32.000They get their base out because of Trump.
00:12:34.000And right now, if you look at the polling data, what the polling data shows is that in a general election campaign, DeSantis is the candidate who scores most favorably with independents.
00:12:41.000Latest Quinnipiac poll has DeSantis up 13 points in the favorability ratings.
00:12:50.000Got Trump, net negative 27. 32% favorable, 59% unfavorable. So there's every reason to think that one reason Democrats may be very happy with this indictment is specifically because it elevates Donald Trump, which brings up the question of how exactly is Ron DeSantis responding to this?
00:13:06.000because we saw that Ron DeSantis sort of botched his first iteration of this particular question a couple of weeks ago when Trump suggested that he was gonna be indicted.
00:13:14.000And DeSantis said that while the indictment was unfair, he then talked about paying hush money to porn stars and it looked as though he was taking kind of shots at Trump while the left was attacking him.
00:13:22.000Well, now DeSantis has a second bite of the apple and he learned something for the first go around.
00:13:37.000And what that means is that it's very difficult to get the allotted amount of nutrients that you need.
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00:14:28.000Okay, so Ron DeSantis is now responding to the indictment.
00:14:32.000He's doing so with alacrity and aggressiveness.
00:14:35.000Because again, last time this happened, he wasn't fast enough off the mark.
00:14:39.000This time, within an hour of the news coming down, he tweeted out, the weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head.
00:14:48.000The Soros-backed Manhattan district attorney has consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal misconduct.
00:14:53.000And now he's stretching the law to target a political opponent.
00:14:56.000Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda.
00:15:04.000So that doesn't mean that Ron DeSantis is gonna like send people out to Mar-a-Lago and block federal arresting officers from getting into Mar-a-Lago or that he even has the ability to do that.
00:15:16.000He's sort of limited in what he can do here.
00:15:18.000Basically, the standard method for extradition, now again, all of this is kind of a moot point because the prediction is that Trump is going to go to New York and just turn himself in.
00:15:25.000He actually doesn't want to be seen being dragged out of Mar-a-Lago bodily.
00:15:31.000Instead, he's going to turn himself in New York, say I'm innocent, and proclaim that this is all a witch hunt, which it is.
00:15:35.000Okay, but let's say that he were to take the radical path of attempting to avoid extradition.
00:15:41.000Well, the process of extradition DeSantis has some say, but not total say.
00:15:46.000Under Article 4, Section 2 of the Constitution, states are supposed to extradite people who are guilty of crime or who have been accused of crimes in other states to the states where they are being accused.
00:15:55.000And that's just pure Article 4, Section 2.
00:15:57.000But there are certain procedures that DeSantis could theoretically use to slow the process.
00:16:01.000So, for example, the standard message, the standard method for interstate extradition in Florida is basically the governor of New York would write to DeSantis, Kathy Hochul would write to DeSantis with a form signed by Alvin Bragg Including a copy of the indictment.
00:16:16.000And then DeSantis would have to make sure the indictment is valid before ordering Trump's extradition from Florida.
00:16:21.000Now, making sure it's valid, that can be read in one of two ways.
00:16:24.000One is he just looks and sees that it's facially valid, like all the blanks are filled in properly.
00:16:30.000Reinvestigates the case and determines that the indictment isn't just a show trial or whatever.
00:16:35.000Now, he could theoretically do that, but in the end, that's going to be adjudicated by a judge, not by Ron DeSantis.
00:16:41.000He doesn't actually have the power to fully stop an extradition.
00:16:44.000He could theoretically delay the extradition.
00:16:46.000Theoretically, he could ask his legal affairs officer or prosecutor to review the extradition demand and write a report on it.
00:16:51.000If the extradition demand were legal, he would have to sign it within another 60 days.
00:16:57.000But again, I don't think any of this is going to happen.
00:16:58.000I think it's a smart political move for DeSantis to say that he's going to do this without actually having to do it.
00:17:03.000Certainly, if he had not been fast off the mark again, Trump would have attacked him for that, and that would have been a smack against DeSantis that scored.
00:17:10.000Because again, one of the things that Trump is trying to suggest is that DeSantis is insufficiently fighting the left, which is an absurd contention, but it is Trump's Major line of attack against DeSantis in the 2024 race.
00:17:25.000So what is the effect of all this going to be?
00:17:26.000Well, again, again, for Trump in the primaries, it's great for Trump in the primaries.
00:17:30.000He is going to he's going to zoom in the polls because Republicans are going to rally around the Trump.
00:17:35.000Now, will that last long enough to get him all the way through the primaries?
00:17:38.000I mean, it's only March of 2023, so it's doubtful that it's going to last long enough to actually get him all the way through the primaries.
00:17:43.000But there's no question that at this point, he is certainly the very strong front runner in the presidential race.
00:17:49.000And as I say before, that may have played into the entire math that Democrats are doing here.
00:17:53.000See, I don't think that Democrats, when it comes to this stuff, are completely stupid.
00:17:59.000But I think that they're smart enough to realize what they are doing.
00:18:02.000And as I say before, are they trying to take Trump off the table or are they very much trying to elevate Trump inside the Republican Party with exactly the same issue that will hurt him with independence in a general election?
00:18:12.000It seems to me it's probably the latter.
00:18:15.000In any case, they may get more than they bargained for here, because as it turns out, Maybe Americans don't actually like when you trump up charges against a former president of the United States.
00:18:23.000Now again, the precedent that's being set here is absolutely insane.
00:18:27.000And I promise you, there will be retaliation from the other side.
00:18:31.000Because we are no longer in an era where Democrats can break all the rules and then expect Marcus of Queensberry rules to apply for their opponents.
00:18:38.000Joe Biden will be indicted by someone.
00:18:40.000Somebody will come up with an indictment, a rationale for indictment, and they will indict him.
00:18:44.000Either while he's president or after he's president.
00:18:47.000There will now be a significant push by Republicans in positions of power to go after political opponents using the methods of law.
00:18:54.000If Democrats are going to do this, some mutually assured destruction has to be created.
00:18:59.000What Alvin Bragg is doing here is really, really dangerous stuff.
00:19:02.000Indicting a former president of the United States on charges that are not clear-cut and open and shut is a wild, radical risk.
00:19:10.000I mean, he's going to have to prove a lot more than he's proved so far.
00:19:13.000If what we've heard so far is reflective of what the underlying case is going to be here, then he has just opened a Pandora's box that's going to be almost impossible to close.
00:19:20.000He's exacerbating the massive divide in American life that separates American from American.
00:19:24.000We all like to believe that there is a rule of law and that people aren't going to just be brought up on charges because they're members of the wrong party.
00:19:30.000That faith is fading really, really quickly.
00:19:34.000Honestly, if Joe Biden actually wanted to help achieve the unity that he preaches about so much, he would actually tell Alvin Bragg to cut this out.
00:19:42.000But very doubtful that Joe Biden is going to get involved at all, obviously.
00:19:46.000Okay, in just one second, speaking of the country coming apart.
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00:21:00.000Okay, so meanwhile, speaking of the country coming apart at the seams, in the aftermath of a trans man shooting up a bunch of Christian school children, the left has basically decided that the right is the problem.
00:21:13.000So just to get this absolutely straight, the left-wing narrative is that when a right-wing, a purported right-wing insane person commits some act of violence, the entire right must answer for it.
00:21:24.000And also, when a, a, Nutty left-wing transgender person shoots up a bunch of Christian schoolchildren the right must also answer for.
00:21:34.000Amazing how the right must always answer for whatever is bad that happens in the world.
00:21:38.000Almost as though the media is just basically a democratic outlet.
00:21:44.000Form number one is in the gun control arena, and form number two is in the trans arena.
00:21:48.000So when it comes to gun control, the left has been promoting the idea that the right is intransigent on gun control, and that's why kids are being shot.
00:21:54.000This materialized in the halls of Congress the other day when Jamaal Bowman, Democrat of New York, got in with Thomas Massey of Kentucky.
00:22:00.000Bowman looks like a crazed nutjob here.
00:22:52.000You have to understand that for the left, the actual arguments don't matter.
00:22:57.000It's the loudness with which you make them that matters.
00:23:00.000And you're allowed to be as praised and loud and insane as you want to be.
00:23:06.000If a Republican protests in favor of Donald Trump on January 6th, runs out of control, and some people riot and trespass in the Capitol and get violent with folks, that's an insurrection that almost overthrew democracy.
00:23:15.000If, however, leftists storm the Tennessee Capitol demanding gun control, that's just people who are a little bit overly enthusiastic.
00:23:21.000In fact, you can't even say they're overly enthusiastic.
00:23:23.000They're just concerned about gun violence.
00:23:25.000That's what we learned yesterday when a bunch of leftists rushed into the Tennessee State Capitol building in Nashville.
00:23:57.000You can see people getting physical with police officers.
00:24:00.000The police officers are trying to create some sort of physical barricade here so that the various state legislators in Tennessee can be rushed to the bathroom for safekeeping.
00:24:09.000This, of course, is not insurrectionary or dangerous in any way.
00:24:11.000This is just people who are peaceful and fun-loving.
00:24:14.000You know, doing the things that really matter.
00:24:16.000And then they actually got into the state capitol hall itself.
00:24:18.000They actually got into like the center of the Capitol building where they proceeded to grab the microphone and yell at people But this is all okay guys It's not a big deal at all.
00:24:46.000This goes, by the way, all the way back to 2011.
00:24:47.000You remember that Wisconsin I saw teachers union activists who broke into, like criminals, they broke into the Wisconsin Capitol building, occupied the Wisconsin Capitol building, took up all of the places around the Capitol, were screaming, shouting, doing damage.
00:25:03.000This is, by the way, at the same time the Democratic legislators in Wisconsin were fleeing the states who tried to deny a quorum.
00:26:25.000And Republicans are the ones who are truly to blame.
00:26:27.000Meanwhile, in the second kind of line of narrative here, is even more perverse than the gun control line of narrative.
00:26:35.000The gun control narrative is ridiculous in the sense that this person legally obtained the guns.
00:26:40.000I'm unaware what law would be passed that would have prevented this person from obtaining the guns.
00:26:45.000But that takes us to our second narrative.
00:26:46.000The second narrative is that the true victims The real reason this happened, the real reason a trans man shot up a bunch of Christian school kids is because right-wingers are intolerant bigots.
00:26:55.000And so the real victim here is not the Christian school kids who got murdered.
00:26:59.000Not the Christian school teachers who got murdered.
00:27:29.000And so, now you have the media rushing out to declare solidarity with the trans community and the administration, by the way.
00:27:38.000So, Corine Jean-Pierre, in what is the clip of the day, Corine Jean-Pierre, from the White House press secretary podium, she says, you know, we have to be careful.
00:28:23.000It would be amazing if this administration could muster even one smidgen of the sympathy that they have for the supposed trans people who are under vast assault for the people who actually are dead, including children.
00:28:36.000These are supposed to be the apex sympathy creatures, and yet they can't seem to muster any sympathy at all.
00:28:41.000Remember Joe Biden out there suggesting that this shouldn't be investigated as a hate crime, because after all, Josh Hawley says it should be investigated as a hate crime.
00:28:48.000Or Joe Biden opening up his presser about this particular shooting by joking about eating ice cream.
00:28:53.000Weird how the sympathy just dries up immediately when the shooter happens to be somebody who has ideological kinship with a lot of left-wing causes.
00:29:00.000That's an amazing clip, Corinne Jean-Pierre.
00:29:02.000I mean, literally a trans person shot a bunch of kids at a Christian school for what appear to be ideologically motivated reasons, and the immediate response of the entire media is, well, obviously the real victims are trans people.
00:29:18.000In fact, Joe Biden put out a statement on Thursday morning, just a couple of days after, again, a trans man shot up a bunch of school kids, saying, it's for the transgender day of visibility.
00:29:28.000Quote, transgender Americans shape our nation's soul, proudly serving the military, curing deadly diseases, holding elected office, running thriving businesses.
00:29:35.000Today, too many transgender Americans are still denied rights and freedoms.
00:29:38.000A wave of discriminatory state laws is targeting trans youth, terrifying families, hurting kids who are not hurting anyone.
00:29:44.000I can think of some kids who were murdered And we're hurting anyone.
00:29:48.000But that doesn't fit your narrative, does it?
00:29:52.000And again, this ties more broadly into that same exact symptom that we saw with regard to gun control activists taking over buildings.
00:29:58.000If trans activists take over buildings, that's also okay.
00:30:01.000So in Kentucky, there was a vote on banning transgender mutilation of children.
00:30:07.000And the governor had vetoed it and then the Kentucky legislature passed it over the veto.
00:30:13.000Well, trans activists took over the Kentucky Capitol and they trespassed.
00:30:53.000After kids are killed by a trans person for what appear to be political reasons, you are going to do a die-in as though you're under the threat of death from a legislature that just says that you're not allowed to mutilate children?
00:31:06.000Benjamin Ryan, who again is the same NBC News pseudo-journalist, and this is the person who's had a raging desire, shall we say, to go after the Daily Wire because of our conservatism.
00:31:19.000He tried to blame the Daily Wire again for this Nashville shooting, saying, quote, Nashville is home to the Daily Wire where Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh have led an ideological war against trans people.
00:32:17.000Quote, the attempts on the right to connect violence to transgender people come even though transgender people are rarely the perpetrators of mass shootings, which are overwhelmingly carried out by cisgender men.
00:32:25.000According to criminal justice experts, there is a thing called per capita.
00:32:29.000I'm gonna do a per capita examination.
00:32:31.000There have been four mass shootings carried out by people who are gender non-binary or trans in the last couple of years alone, and there are very few gender non-binary or trans people.
00:32:39.000Per capita might be something worth exploring.
00:32:42.000What also might be worth exploring is whether you, in fact, are participating in the radicalizing of individuals by claiming that they are under genocidal threat when people simply say that boys are boys and girls are girls.
00:32:52.000This sort of media narrative was also put forward by MSNBC, so Charlotte Clymer, who is a man who believes that he is a woman, was speaking on MSNBC.
00:33:00.000What matters here is not just what Charlotte Clymer is saying.
00:33:38.000And to see these people so cynically weaponize this and exploit these children's debts and their teachers' debts, it breaks my heart.
00:33:45.000I wonder what those families are thinking right now.
00:33:47.000My guess is that what some of those families are probably thinking is it's really screwed up that people like Charlotte Klein are going on national TV and defending an agenda to push lies about gender to small children.
00:34:00.000In order to, what, make some sort of excuse for what happened in Nashville?
00:34:06.000This is a very dangerous game, but of course the media are fully perpetuating this game because they agree with the agenda.
00:34:14.000Everything has to be fit into the narrative.
00:34:16.000And that narrative is increasingly centered on the idea that children must be, they should be subjected to the idea of radical gender ideology and anyone who stands in the way of that is perpetuating both suicide and now apparently homicide.
00:34:30.000We'll get to more on this in just one second.
00:35:11.000Your personal information remains private.
00:35:13.000Your loved ones deserve a financial safety net, and you deserve a smarter way to find and buy it.
00:35:16.000Head over to policygenius.com slash Shapiro or click the link in the description, get your free life insurance quotes, see how much you could save.
00:35:33.000Also, folks, not many things can get me excited to visit the sad wreckage of what has become present day New York City, but I got to chat with my old friend, Megyn Kelly, and that was certainly exciting and fun.
00:35:42.000We just filmed the latest episode for season two of my show, The Search, available to stream right now.
00:35:46.000It was fantastic to catch up with Megan.
00:35:48.000We talked about fame, making friends, and of course, the culture wars.
00:35:51.000Here's a sneak peek of our conversation.
00:35:53.000When you first get married and your spouse is sick, you're like, oh my God, I'll take care of you.
00:35:58.000Now, when you have kids and obligations, you're like, why do you get to be sick?
00:36:01.000I need your wife here right now, because every woman out there knows that the man flu is way, way worse than the woman flu ever is.
00:36:07.000In fact, there's no accident, I did not get the flu.
00:36:09.000Because the guys get all the illnesses and the mothers are not allowed.
00:36:12.000We have to build up our immunities before we get married and have children, otherwise the whole family collapses.
00:36:18.000To watch this episode and all the episodes of The Search Is On is particularly fun, including our latest episode with comedian Russell Brand.
00:36:23.000Become a Daily Wire Plus member today.
00:36:25.000Get instant access to the entire Daily Wire Plus library of shows, movies, documentaries, upcoming kids content, and more.
00:36:31.000Just head on over to dailywireplus.com and get started today.
00:36:34.000Okay, meanwhile, the propagandistic crusade on behalf of the transgender agenda continues apace.
00:36:42.000It is amazing, again, to see what sort of behavior is excused as okay, considering that it's coming from the sort of trans community, and which behavior is considered not okay.
00:36:51.000So, for example, you're allowed to basically imply violence as much as you want, so long as you're a member of the victimized community.
00:36:57.000Here is a trans activist gushing over a book in which JK Rowling dies and saying, well, I wish it'd only been more gruesome.
00:37:41.000A person who has been a woman for zero days but claims to have been a woman for one year is now getting mainstream fashion contracts to promote purses and dresses and such.
00:37:54.000Here is a parody of a woman pretending to be a woman so that actual women will buy products that don't look all that great on a man who pretends to be a woman.
00:38:03.000It all started with the first day of spring.
00:38:05.000I am at Kate Spade New York to find the perfect spring outfit.
00:38:36.000You remember that line in As Good As It Gets where Jack Nicholson says that the way that he writes woman is he just writes a man without reason or accountability?
00:39:16.000Well, speaking of bad things happening, Russia has now arrested a Wall Street Journal reporter on spying charges.
00:39:21.000According to the Associated Press, Russia's security service arrested an American reporter for the Wall Street Journal on espionage charges.
00:39:36.000He was 31 and detained in Russia's fourth largest city.
00:39:40.000Known by the acronym FSB, the service a domestic security agency and main successor to the KGB, they are alleging that this reporter, quote, was acting on instructions from the American side to collect information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex that constitutes a state secret.
00:39:54.000The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies those allegations.
00:39:57.000They say they stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.
00:40:00.000Totally unclear what the Biden administration plans to do about this.
00:40:03.000They said they'd spoken with both the Journal and Gershkovich's family.
00:40:07.000White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, she condemned the arrest in the strongest terms and urged Americans to heed government warnings not to travel to Russia.
00:40:16.000I mean, apparently that's going to be enough as we'll use a few strongly worded letters to get back our citizens.
00:40:22.000Jean Pierre said, we've been very clear about Americans not going to Russia. It is not safe.
00:40:26.000Well, I mean, how are journalists supposed to cover things precisely?
00:40:29.000Anthony Blinken, the Secretary of State, he said, in the strongest possible terms, we condemn the Kremlin's continued attempts to intimidate, repress and punish journalists and civil society voices. Now, again, the Russians are saying that Gershkovich was looking at state secrets and that he's currently now being held in custody until May.
00:40:50.000At this point, this would be the second high-profile American who's being held, presumably over the conflict, with the United States by proxy over in Ukraine.
00:40:59.000The first was Brittany Griner, whom we traded for Viktor Bout, the arms trafficker in one of the worst WNBA deals in WNBA history.
00:41:07.000Also the only WNBA deal anyone's ever paid attention to at all.
00:41:11.000But nonetheless, is there an actual plan to get Gershovich back?
00:41:52.000Actually, Joe Biden has shown that he is a person to be toyed with when it comes to taking American citizens hostage so that Russia can get, say, you know, the world's most notorious arms dealer traded for a female basketball player who was once famous for having once dunked a basketball.
00:42:07.000Yes, I'm sure Russia is very, very intimidated at this point.
00:42:09.000Well, meanwhile, You hear me talk about being prepared for whatever life throws at you a lot on this show, and there are a lot of weird things happening in the world.
00:42:17.000Supply chain breakdowns, conflict in the Middle East, conflict in Ukraine.
00:42:21.000All of that stuff has an impact on sort of the way we live our daily lives.
00:42:24.000When those supply chains break down, you can't get the medicines that you need.
00:42:26.000Many of you take some kind of medication every day, or if you don't, you probably know somebody who does.
00:42:30.000Maybe you have a parent or grandparent who's on cholesterol medication or medication for diabetes, heart health, mental health, blood pressure.
00:42:34.000What would happen if you or your loved ones missed a day of medication?
00:42:39.000This is why you have to have a supply of these medications available at your house.
00:42:43.000If you or someone you love takes any daily medication, you need to check out JaceMedical.com slash daily.
00:42:48.000Check and see if the medication you need is one of the dozens of medications Jace can provide in your own one-year backup supply.
00:42:54.000In addition to the regular supply you get from your pharmacy, it will have up to 365 days worth of emergency storage of your daily medication.
00:43:16.000Meanwhile, as we as we look at the Biden administration suggests that it has all the strength and wherewithal to face down Vladimir Putin.
00:43:21.000We're now learning exactly what America's enemies think of Democrats, especially former Democrats.
00:43:26.000According to the Wall Street Journal, TikTok, which of course is a Chinese front group, They've now enlisted three heavyweights from American politics and business to advise it behind the scenes as the social media app tries to convince U.S.
00:43:36.000authorities it isn't beholden to the Chinese government.
00:43:38.000Now, you might think, well, I wonder which politicians or former politicians they're going to choose.
00:43:41.000Will they be right wing or will they be left wing?
00:43:46.000Oh yeah, no, no, they're all left-wing.
00:43:47.000David Plouffe and Jim Messina, veterans of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and Zinia Muka, the former longtime communications chief of Walt Disney Company, are now advising TikTok in their fight against efforts to ban it in the United States, according to people familiar with the roles.
00:44:01.000You mean Disney, which has done business with China, like in exactly the area where they are imprisoning Uighur Muslims?
00:44:09.000And you mean David Bluth and Jim Messina?
00:44:19.000If they saw the Democrats as true opponents, why are they going solely to Democrats to try and get other Democrats to do what they want them to do?
00:44:29.000Speaking of which, Democrats on the Hill are the ones who are really pushing something called the Restrict Act.
00:44:33.000There are a couple of different versions of a bill that would ban TikTok in the United States.
00:44:37.000The more ridiculous version is the so-called Restrict Act.
00:44:40.000According to Reason.com, the Restrict Act carries the possibility that it would actually criminalize people using a VPN to access stuff that has been banned.
00:44:50.000According to Senator Josh Hawley, he introduced one TikTok ban back in January.
00:44:54.000His bill would direct the president to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to block and prohibit all transactions and to prevent commercial operation of TikTok's parent company in the United States.
00:45:03.000But this new act, the Restrict Act, doesn't specifically mention TikTok or ByteDance.
00:45:08.000Secretary of Commerce broad power to, quote, identify, deter, disrupt, prevent, prohibit, investigate, or otherwise mitigate any risk So, that seems really, really broad.
00:45:15.000Like, what exactly are they trying to apply this to?
00:45:33.000It also seems like it could theoretically be read to imply that a person using a VPN to access an app controlled by a foreign adversary might be subject to criminal penalty.
00:45:42.000So leave it to Congress to screw this thing up.
00:45:45.000A Rand Paul, a Senator from Kentucky, He says this act violates the First Amendment.
00:45:48.000you There are two main reasons why we might not want to do this.
00:45:53.000The one would be the First Amendment to the Constitution.
00:45:56.000Speech is protected whether you like it or not.
00:45:59.000The second reason would be is that the Constitution actually prohibits bills of attainder.
00:46:04.000You're not allowed to have a specific bill against a person or a company.
00:46:08.000So this fails on two egregious points, pretty obvious points, and I think we ought to think about that.
00:46:15.000I think we should beware of those who peddle fear.
00:46:18.000I think we should beware of those who use fear to coax Americans to relinquish our liberties, to regulate and limit our First Amendment rights.
00:46:27.000Every accusation of data gathering that's been attributed to TikTok could also be attributed to domestic big tech companies.
00:46:36.000Well, I mean, he's right about that, except for the fact that TikTok is, of course, a Chinese front group.
00:46:40.000But with that said, you gotta draw these bills very, very, very narrowly.
00:46:43.000It doesn't look like the Restrict Act is drawn nearly as narrowly as it ought to be.
00:46:47.000OK, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.
00:47:05.000And apparently he shattered the women's bench press record by mocking the Canadian Powerlifting Union's rules that permit biological men to compete as females.
00:47:13.000So he would be mocking it except for the fact that the current record is held by a transgender woman, meaning a man.
00:47:20.000The last record was set by transgender powerlifter Ann Andres, who's recognized as a female on the Open Powerlifting Ranking site.
00:47:27.000Andrew said, why is women's bench so bad?
00:47:44.000And lots more testosterone, different muscle composition.
00:47:47.000Silverberg bench-pressed 501 pounds back in 2016 under raw rules that required an approved weight belt, approved singlet, approved wrist wraps, and chalk.
00:47:55.000But apparently, he's allowed to use even more stuff here.
00:47:58.000So he said, I am a woman, and then he came in and he broke the record left by the last transgender weightlifter.
00:48:10.000No different from when our friend Zuby decided that he was going to become a woman for a day and break every single record at the local gym that had been set by a woman.
00:48:19.000These are the wages of the stupidity that we have now embraced.
00:48:22.000So, my friend Chaya Raycheck, libs of TikTok, She has been unjustly accused by fools like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of facilitating violence against, for example, Boston Children's Hospital for pointing out that Boston Children's Hospital literally told her on the phone that they were performing trans surgeries on minors.
00:48:39.000And so she confronted, she tried to file an ethics complaint against AOC and tried to confront her on it.
00:48:45.000She went to her office, AOC had kind of run away from there, and then she actually ended up meeting her and here's how that went.
00:48:50.000I attempted to ask AOC why she lied about me in a committee hearing.
00:48:58.000So I'm back here today, one week later, and I'm going to deliver her an ethics complaint that I filed for lying about an American citizen in a committee hearing together with Mike from the Heritage Foundation Oversight.
00:49:14.000He helped me file this ethics complaint, so we filed that.
00:49:17.000And if you can give it to AOC, I would really appreciate it.
00:49:20.000And tell her to stop lying about American citizens.
00:50:02.000Well, you know, you shouldn't lie about people.
00:50:04.000It's just a bad, bad thing to do, AOC.
00:50:07.000And so you deserve whatever is the effect of that ethics complaint.
00:50:09.000Okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.
00:50:12.00060 Minutes, apparently, is now featuring, this is 60 Minutes Australia, is now featuring parents who have decided to completely botch what it means to be a parent by not raising their children with regard to gender.
00:50:30.000So they are now raising them as what they call babies.
00:51:14.000Yeah, this is a great way to completely screw up your kids emotionally and mentally.
00:51:19.000And there will be no long-term studies done on these kids for another 15-20 years, and I guarantee you 100% certainty, put it on the record right now, the kids who are raised this way will end up a lot more screwed up than the comparison group.
00:53:05.000Slow clap for our Western civilization.
00:53:07.000We are the same civilization that brought you Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, the Sistine Chapel.
00:53:15.000Augustine, great works of Western literature, the Enlightenment, and capitalism is now bringing you, let's teach small children that men can be women and get adults naked in front of them in order to make that happen.
00:53:30.000Don't worry, they're not coming for the kids.
00:53:32.000It's all just, what's the effect guys?