The Ben Shapiro Show - July 19, 2023


BREAKING: Trump Targeted By DOJ Over January 6


Episode Stats

Length

49 minutes

Words per Minute

212.14575

Word Count

10,480

Sentence Count

676

Misogynist Sentences

11

Hate Speech Sentences

18


Summary

Trump has been hit with a so-called "target letter" from Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has already brought charges against Trump in the classified documents case, and now may be preparing more indictments against Donald Trump. Will they be in addition to the January 6th indictments, or are they part of a larger conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election to President Joe Biden? Alex Blumberg and John Avlon discuss the latest development, and what it could mean for the future of the investigation. Plus, a new report from the New York Times says that Trump and his allies may be facing a variety of charges, including mail fraud, wire fraud, and obstruction of justice charges, and that they may also be charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and conspiracy to commit perjury, among other things. And, as always, there's always the question of whether or not there's any truth behind the rumors and speculation about what's going on in the White House. -- Is this all a hoax? -- What's really going on, and who's actually responsible? -- or is it all true? -- and what's the real? -- from a special counsel investigation? -- And who's really responsible for it? -- -- and why is it happening, and why should we care? -- Is it even happening? -- Or is it even a thing? ? -- and will it be enough, and how will it affect the 2020 campaign? -- is it enough? and and what we should be worried about? -- also, and is it will have any impact on the mid-term election? And will it have any effect on the 2020 mid-terms, or or -- or will it all be enough? -- -- and does it have a chance to have a fair shake? -- should we even matter? -- including in 2020? -- will it even matter, or not? -- can we even care about the outcome? -- plus, is it really matter, and will we really care about it, or will we care about what s going to happen in the midterms? or is there any of it matter, anyway? -- & will it matter at all? -- are we really matter? And, and can we really have a long-term impact on 2020 really matter in the long term? -- well, we'll find out in the next 30 days? -- We ll find out, and we'll have the answers?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 So apparently Donald Trump's team knew about this since Sunday, but they waited until Tuesday to break the news that they'd received a so-called target letter from Special Investigator Jack Smith.
00:00:09.000 Jack Smith, of course, is the special prosecutor who has brought charges against Trump in the classified documents case down in Florida.
00:00:15.000 There's a possibility he may also do so up in New Jersey.
00:00:18.000 And now apparently he is preparing charges against Donald Trump.
00:00:22.000 Another arrest, more indictments.
00:00:23.000 Along the lines of what Donald Trump did on January 6th.
00:00:26.000 Now it is unclear exactly what those charges are going to look like.
00:00:29.000 According to CNBC, former President Trump on Tuesday said he'd been told he was a target in that January 6th criminal investigation by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
00:00:37.000 Trump suggested he may soon face indictment for the January 6th probe, which is focused on Trump's efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
00:00:44.000 A spokesman for Smith declined to comment.
00:00:46.000 Trump wrote that he was given what he called the horrifying news on Sunday evening by his lawyers.
00:00:50.000 This does raise the question as to why Donald Trump released that on, you know, Tuesday.
00:00:55.000 I would suspect that it has something to do with the fact that Ron DeSantis was about to do a rather ballyhooed interview with Jake Tapper that night.
00:01:01.000 So a great way to take attention away from your chief rival is to drop a massive bombshell, another one, into the middle of the campaign.
00:01:08.000 It is, I will say, an incredible dynamic whereby every time Donald Trump gets indicted, his pulls inside the Republican Party go up.
00:01:16.000 And then his polls kind of generally go down.
00:01:18.000 It's an unbelievable dynamic because, and I understand it, Republicans look at Trump and they see a man who's being targeted over and over and over by Joe Biden's Justice Department.
00:01:27.000 And they say, well, if they're that out to get Trump, then probably I need to defend Trump.
00:01:30.000 The best way to defend Trump is to vote for him because maybe he'll become president and then he can protect himself from these legal charges.
00:01:35.000 I get the dynamic.
00:01:36.000 I'm just saying that if your chief goal is to win the presidency, maybe nominating the guy who's under multiple indictments is not like the best general election strategy.
00:01:46.000 We'll get to that in a moment, however.
00:01:48.000 A hearing in the classified documents criminal case is already set for Tuesday in Florida federal court.
00:01:53.000 Trump's lawyers wanted to push that beyond the 2024 election.
00:01:56.000 Smith's prosecutors opposed that bid.
00:01:58.000 It seems like the judge in that case is skeptical of the idea of the debt.
00:02:01.000 That particular case, the classified documents case, gets pushed beyond the 2024 election.
00:02:05.000 In all likelihood, it probably goes to trial sometime at the beginning of 2023.
00:02:10.000 So what exactly is in these latest indictment charges?
00:02:12.000 Well, again, we don't know because they've not been released as of yet.
00:02:15.000 However, according to the New York Times, President Trump and his allies are going to be hit with a variety of charges.
00:02:23.000 On Tuesday, Trump disclosed that he'd been hit with the so-called target letter.
00:02:29.000 But apparently there are three statutes that may be applied here.
00:02:35.000 The statutes concern a couple of different charges.
00:02:40.000 Apparently one is wire or mail fraud relating to Trump's fundraising efforts in the name of overturning the election results.
00:02:46.000 So it could end with a fraud charge.
00:02:48.000 The fraud charge presumably would have to do with the idea that he knew that he wasn't actually still going to be president of the United States, but he started raising a bunch of money which he then put in his own pocket and he didn't actually use for his legal cases, for example.
00:03:00.000 So that would be the mail fraud or the wire charge or apparently obstruction of justice charges that are also being considered.
00:03:05.000 Presumably that would have to do with President Trump going to particular witnesses in the January 6th case and then pressuring them to testify in a certain way.
00:03:14.000 That would sort of be the other aspect of this.
00:03:17.000 But again, it's hard to sort of say how credible the charges are or how credible the charges are not, given the fact that we don't actually know what the charges are as of yet.
00:03:28.000 One thing that is absolutely clear is that the number of different cases coming down the pike against Trump, I mean, there's obviously something political here.
00:03:37.000 It is the same DOJ run by the same Merrick Garland that appears to have essentially buried the Hunter Biden case that is now dropping a ton of bricks on Donald Trump via the special counsel.
00:03:48.000 Again, there was no special prosecutor who was actually appointed for Hunter Biden.
00:03:52.000 That was kept well within the purview of the DOJ.
00:03:54.000 In fact, that's one of the big controversies with regard to Hunter Biden is whether the Attorney who ended up bringing charges against Hunter Biden in Delaware, David Weiss, whether he had actually asked for special counsel status and been denied it by the DOJ.
00:04:07.000 According to the IRS whistleblower, Gary Shapley, that's exactly what happened, that they'd been barred from doing a full investigation by the DOJ.
00:04:13.000 So the question there is whether the DOJ is blocking charges against Joe Biden allies and pursuing charges against Donald Trump.
00:04:20.000 A bunch of theories politically as to whether the Democrats are trying to promote Trump in the primaries by indicting him over and over and over again.
00:04:25.000 I don't think it's probably as complex as all of that.
00:04:28.000 I think that probably you sick special prosecutors on people and the idea they don't come up with charges is really, really rare.
00:04:34.000 That is why when it came to the special The special investigation regarding Trump-Russia collusion?
00:04:40.000 They came up with nothing.
00:04:41.000 That means they came up with less than nothing.
00:04:42.000 Because typically the way that it works is the minute you appoint a special counsel, a special investigator, a special prosecutor, any of these things, that person is just going to dig and dig and dig until they hit even some minor level of paydirt.
00:04:53.000 And so it is not particularly shocked that once you appoint a special counsel in the January 6th case, that they're going to come up with something.
00:05:01.000 The White House, for its part, is claiming that this is the rule of law restored, which I find hard to believe from the administration that continually violates the rule of law.
00:05:08.000 Here's Corinne Jean-Pierre, World's Worst Press Secretary.
00:05:11.000 Former President Trump received a letter from the special counsel that he's being investigated for his role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
00:05:19.000 House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says the Biden administration has decided to, quote, weaponize government to go after their number one opponent, end quote.
00:05:27.000 How do you weaponize government?
00:05:30.000 Here's what we have done.
00:05:31.000 The president respects the Department of Justice, their independence.
00:05:35.000 He has been very, very steadfast on making sure that the rule of law comes back in this administration, comes back in the White House and clearly the administration more broadly.
00:05:47.000 And that's what you have seen.
00:05:48.000 I'm just not going to comment on this particular case.
00:05:52.000 Um, yeah, again, do I believe that this administration cares deeply about the rule of law?
00:05:56.000 Absolutely not.
00:05:56.000 I mean, they've evidenced zero concern, truthfully, about the rule of law at this point.
00:06:01.000 We'll get deeper into what these charges are and what they are not, because one thing that you'll notice is that they probably will not be under the Insurrection Act, right?
00:06:07.000 There's not gonna be any charges of treason here from Jack Smith.
00:06:10.000 There are not going to be any charges that Donald Trump was attempting an insurrection to overthrow the government of the United States, anything like that.
00:06:18.000 He's not going to be hit with the same charges as the January 6thers are being hit with.
00:06:21.000 He's being hit with secondary charges like obstruction of justice, like fraud.
00:06:24.000 Those are the most likely charges that are going to come up for President Trump.
00:06:27.000 We'll get to more on that in a second and how a state case in Michigan may tie into the broader January 6th case against President Trump first.
00:06:34.000 You know a company is looking out for you when they actually upgrade your service and don't charge you for it.
00:06:38.000 This is great news for new and current PeerTalk customers.
00:06:40.000 PeerTalk just added data to every plan and includes a mobile hotspot with no price increase whatsoever.
00:06:45.000 If you've considered PeerTalk before but haven't made the switch, take a look again.
00:06:48.000 For just $20 a month, you'll get unlimited talk, text, and now 50% more 5G data plus their new mobile hotspot.
00:06:53.000 This is why I love Pure Talk.
00:06:55.000 They're veteran-owned.
00:06:56.000 They only hire the best customer service team located right here in the great United States of America.
00:07:00.000 Most families are saving almost $1,000 a year while enjoying the most dependable 5G network in America.
00:07:04.000 Remember, you vote with how you spend your money.
00:07:06.000 Stop supporting those woke wireless companies that don't actually like you very much.
00:07:09.000 When you go to puretalk.com slash Shapiro, you'll save an additional 50% off your first month because they actually value you.
00:07:14.000 That's puretalk.com slash Shapiro.
00:07:16.000 Pure Talk is wireless for Americans by Americans.
00:07:19.000 Again, go to puretalk.com slash Shapiro.
00:07:21.000 You'll save an additional 50% off your very first month of coverage.
00:07:23.000 I've been using Pure Talk myself. I use it for all my business calls. They have a great wireless network.
00:07:28.000 And again, you're not giving them to people who hate your guts.
00:07:30.000 So go to puretalk.com slash apparel. Save an additional 50% off that first month of coverage.
00:07:34.000 This is a company that actually values you.
00:07:36.000 Okay, so the fact of the matter is that when it comes to this particular prosecution,
00:07:41.000 it looks like it's going to be on secondary lines.
00:07:46.000 Now, there have been some claims that Rudy Giuliani may have flipped.
00:07:51.000 The reason there was speculation about this is because apparently he did not receive a target letter.
00:07:56.000 There's a lot of talk about the possibility that Rudy Giuliani had been really facilitating a lot of the claims in the aftermath of the election that Donald Trump had won the election and he was going out there and he was actually soliciting alternative electors in various states to create Sort of elector slates that could be theoretically selected by the Congress of the United States in place of the actual certified electoral slates.
00:08:16.000 There's a lot of talk that Giuliani was going to get indicted in the January 6 probe.
00:08:19.000 Apparently that is something that is not going to happen.
00:08:23.000 According to The Independent from the UK, Giuliani reportedly participated in a voluntary interview with prosecutors as part of what is known as a Queen for a Day deal, under which the ex-mayor can avoid indictment for anything he tells prosecutors about during the interview.
00:08:36.000 And apparently, again, he did not receive a target letter in the January 6th probe, according to his own lawyer.
00:08:43.000 With that said, Giuliani's people are saying that he's not testifying against President Trump in any of these cases.
00:08:49.000 Again, it's very hard to assess the merits of the case itself before you actually have the incitement.
00:08:55.000 What I will say is that all of this has been pretty public.
00:08:56.000 I mean, we all saw all of this happen.
00:08:58.000 It is now year 2023.
00:09:00.000 All this happened in late 2020, early 2021.
00:09:03.000 So the idea that any new information has been uncovered here that radically changes the math, I'm very skeptical of that idea.
00:09:09.000 I just, I have a very tough time believing that they uncovered anything that is brand new in this particular case.
00:09:16.000 And of course, there's still more charges to come, right?
00:09:18.000 This latest federal case is not the state case in Georgia.
00:09:21.000 Now, the big problem for Trump is actually in the state cases.
00:09:24.000 In the federal cases, yes, that is a problem for him.
00:09:27.000 He could theoretically be prosecuted.
00:09:28.000 He could theoretically get prison time.
00:09:30.000 But if Trump were to win the presidency, he could pardon himself.
00:09:33.000 That is not true when it comes to the state-level cases.
00:09:35.000 So let's say that he gets prosecuted in Georgia for some sort of election interference statute.
00:09:40.000 Let's say that he got prosecuted and convicted and went to jail.
00:09:42.000 Just on a legal level, the president of the United States cannot pardon himself of the state crime.
00:09:47.000 So that would create a rather large constitutional crisis.
00:09:52.000 Again, the target letter they are saying is about obstruction and it's about fraud.
00:09:55.000 These are all secondary charges that might be easier for them to actually prove than the insurrection charges.
00:10:00.000 But I want to see the evidence.
00:10:01.000 I want to see what they came up with that supposedly changed the math so radically that now Trump is going to be prosecuted on this, you know, the year before the election while he is currently the Republican frontrunner.
00:10:11.000 It is also obvious that the prosecutors want to get this thing in before the election, right?
00:10:14.000 They definitely want this guy in the dock during the election season.
00:10:18.000 When Trump says this is election interference, again, two things can be true at once.
00:10:21.000 Number one, it can absolutely be election interference.
00:10:22.000 And number two, it can be that Trump fulfills the elements of the crime.
00:10:25.000 That's probably true when it comes to the classified documents case.
00:10:28.000 And it does speak to President Trump's lack of common sense with regard to the classified documents case.
00:10:32.000 When it comes to the January 6th stuff, and when it comes to obstruction and fraud and all the rest, The same math may apply, that it's obviously political to target him, and at the same exact time, he may fulfill the elements of a crime, especially when you're talking about trying him in a place with a jury that is democratic.
00:10:50.000 Presumably, if Jack Smith brings charges on obstruction of justice, he's not going to bring it in Florida.
00:10:54.000 Presumably, he's going to bring it in someplace like Washington, D.C.
00:10:58.000 Okay, meanwhile, this ties into the larger sort of January 6th election schemes.
00:11:07.000 So, for example, Michigan, the state of Michigan is now charging 16 people in the Elector Scheme.
00:11:13.000 And that is, you know, kind of fascinating.
00:11:15.000 According to the New York Times, the Michigan AG announced felony charges on Tuesday against 16 Republicans for falsely portraying themselves as electors from the state in an effort to overturn Donald Trump's 2020 defeat there.
00:11:25.000 Each of the defendants was charged with eight felony counts, including forgery and conspiracy to commit forgery on accusation they'd signed documents attesting falsely that they were Michigan's duly elected and qualified electors for president and vice president.
00:11:38.000 Here is the Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is a Democrat, who of course is bringing these prosecution charges.
00:11:42.000 This seems to me like this might violate First Amendment considerations, which will, I'm sure, be a defense here.
00:11:46.000 Here is Dana Nessel announcing the charges.
00:11:49.000 As part of the orchestrated plan, we allege that 16 Michigan residents met covertly in the basement of Michigan GOP headquarters and knowingly, and of their own volition, signed their names to multiple certificates stating that they were the duly elected and qualified electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America for the state of Michigan.
00:12:17.000 That was a lie.
00:12:19.000 They weren't the duly elected and qualified electors, and each of the defendants knew it.
00:12:25.000 They carried out these actions with the hope and belief that the electoral votes of Michigan's 2020 election would be awarded to the candidate of their choosing instead of the candidate that Michigan voters actually chose.
00:12:40.000 Now this looks spurious.
00:12:41.000 The reason this looks spurious is because I can call myself the President of the United States today if I actively think I'm the President of the United States today.
00:12:48.000 If I'm under the weird impression that that is in fact the case, then I have not violated the intent part of this particular statute.
00:12:53.000 In fact, what Dana Nessel is doing here Looks very much like trumping up charges as the predicate to going after Trump in Michigan in the same way that you have this attorney, Fannie Willis, down in Georgia, who's preparing to go after President Trump down there.
00:13:07.000 As the New York Times notes, Nestle began investigating the matter in early 2021, but then she referred it to the DOJ in January 2022.
00:13:13.000 She said at the time there were grounds to bring charges, but there was better investigative resources over at the federal level.
00:13:20.000 And a few months later, she posted on Twitter, quote, if we don't hold the people involved in the alternate elector scheme accountable, there's literally nothing to stop them from doing this again because there will have been no repercussions for it.
00:13:29.000 By January of this year, federal prosecutors had taken no apparent action.
00:13:32.000 Because, presumably, they saw that this was not a crime.
00:13:34.000 If I sign a document saying that I'm an elector in the state of Florida, even though I've not been quote-unquote duly appointed, but I think that I am duly appointed because I believe, because I've been told by foolish lawyers, for example, that there was, in fact, a statute under which I could be considered a duly elected member of an alternate slate, and that I could then be selected by the Congress of the United States, intent is part of the crime.
00:13:56.000 This is the big problem.
00:13:57.000 A lot of these statutes that are now being used against people like these Michigan electors, intent is part of the crime.
00:14:02.000 You have to know that you're defrauding somebody.
00:14:03.000 You have to know that you're participating in something that is not true.
00:14:06.000 It's not that you interpret the law wrong.
00:14:08.000 It's not a negligence statute.
00:14:10.000 It's a statute where you actually have to have intent.
00:14:12.000 You have to have mens rea.
00:14:14.000 Is mens rea present here?
00:14:16.000 I have a harder time believing that, and this is the big problem with the case against Trump on January 6th.
00:14:20.000 You actually have to make the case that Trump knew full well that he had not been elected President of the United States, and he essentially trumped up all of this in order to avoid the consequences of that.
00:14:29.000 Now, as I've said before, proving intent with Donald Trump is actually a really, really steep hill to climb.
00:14:34.000 This is why, for example, the tape in the classified documents case is so damaging to Trump, because he's openly saying that he knows the thing that they would have to establish if they didn't have the tape.
00:14:44.000 If Trump said, I didn't know that the classified documents were classified, I really thought I could declassify, if you just said that, and he mourned on tape saying, I knew I could not declassify these documents, I was the president, I'm not the president, like, that tape is extremely damaging to Trump.
00:14:56.000 On the January 6th matters, virtually all of these crimes are intent crimes.
00:15:00.000 Now, obstruction is not, right?
00:15:02.000 Obstruction is a situation where if you offer a thing of tangible value to someone to change their testimony, that's obstruction, which presumably is why they're going to attempt to bring obstruction charges.
00:15:11.000 But the fraud charge is an intent charge.
00:15:13.000 You have to show that Trump actively knew that the money that he was taking from people was not going to be used for legal defense, and not only did he know it was not going to be used for legal defense, he knew that the legal defense itself was spurious, and he was doing it to put money in his own pocket.
00:15:24.000 That is, again, a high hell to climb.
00:15:26.000 Intent crimes are very difficult.
00:15:29.000 Now, in a second, we'll get to the politics of all of this, because you can see the sort of way that this has thrown, again, the race into disarray.
00:15:37.000 We'll get to that in just one moment.
00:15:38.000 First, let's talk about a simple fact.
00:15:40.000 If you're a responsible person, you need life insurance.
00:15:43.000 A good life insurance plan gives you peace of mind that if something, God forbid, happens to you, you and your family will have a safety net to cover mortgage payments, college costs, or other expenses.
00:15:50.000 Policy Genius makes it easy to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and find your lowest price.
00:15:55.000 I can tell you from personal experience, I have a lot of life insurance on me.
00:15:57.000 That is a thing that gives me a lot of comfort when I go to sleep at night with Policy Genius.
00:16:01.000 You can find life insurance policies starting at just $25 per month for a million dollars in coverage.
00:16:05.000 Some options offer coverage in as little as a week and avoid those unnecessary medical exams.
00:16:08.000 Policy Genius's licensed agents work for you, not the insurance companies.
00:16:11.000 That means they don't have an incentive to recommend one insurer over another, so you can actually trust their guidance.
00:16:15.000 There are no added fees.
00:16:16.000 Your personal information remains private.
00:16:18.000 Your loved ones deserve that financial safety net, and you deserve a smarter way to find and buy it.
00:16:21.000 Head on over to policygenius.com slash Shapiro or click the link in the description to get your free life insurance quotes.
00:16:26.000 See how much you could save.
00:16:28.000 That's policygenius.com slash Shapiro.
00:16:30.000 Again, policygenius.com slash Shapiro.
00:16:33.000 Go check them out right now.
00:16:34.000 Get the life insurance you need.
00:16:34.000 It's the responsible thing to do.
00:16:36.000 Policygenius.com slash Shapiro to see how much you could save.
00:16:40.000 Okay, so all of the other candidates are now responding to all of this.
00:16:44.000 And the response seems to be very similar from all of the other candidates, which is, I would have done what Donald Trump did on January 6th, but the prosecution is political and unfair.
00:16:53.000 Vivek Ramaswamy, who's been extremely pro-Trump throughout this race, he said he would have made very different judgments than President Trump did on January 6th, but he also said that this is obviously politically motivated.
00:17:05.000 Ron DeSantis, he said that Trump should have done something differently on January 6th, but we can't have partisan prosecutions.
00:17:10.000 Here was Governor DeSantis.
00:17:12.000 Difference between being brought up on criminal charges and doing things.
00:17:17.000 Like, for example, I think it was shown how he was in the White House and didn't do anything while things were going on.
00:17:24.000 He should have come out more forcefully.
00:17:26.000 Of course that.
00:17:27.000 But to try to criminalize that, that's a different issue entirely.
00:17:31.000 And I think that we want to be in a situation where you don't have one side Just constantly trying to put the other side in jail.
00:17:41.000 And that, unfortunately, is what we're seeing now.
00:17:47.000 Okay, that seems to be the generalized political take from a bunch of Republicans.
00:17:51.000 It's basically like, wouldn't it be great if Donald Trump had not gotten himself in all of this hot water?
00:17:54.000 Wouldn't that have been an awesome thing?
00:17:56.000 Also, it's politically motivated.
00:17:58.000 Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, who is no ally of President Trump, Kemp himself turned down Trump's attempts to swivel the election in Georgia.
00:18:04.000 He said they better have some pretty good evidence if they're going to go after him this way.
00:18:08.000 What do you make, if true, that he is the target of an indictment regarding January 6th?
00:18:13.000 I know there's a lot of people, conservatives like me, that are frustrated by things like the New York indictment, but there's no doubt that these things are a distraction to the former president.
00:18:23.000 And I would just tell you, if I was the prosecutor bringing these charges, he better have some damn good evidence if you're going after a former president.
00:18:30.000 And we'll see as the process plays out, but it's certainly a distraction from us beating Joe Biden.
00:18:38.000 Okay, and that is in fact the case.
00:18:41.000 So the question is going to be, in terms of the political consequences, is there a point at which the Republican Party, many members of the base, they have a lot of sympathy for Trump, they think he's being gone after unfairly, and also they realize that it turns out that this battle Is there sort of a drama limit for the Republican Party?
00:18:56.000 a problem for them. That the more that Trump is in the headlines about his
00:19:00.000 indictment, the more he is fighting legal battles, the less the headline is that
00:19:04.000 Joe Biden is a terrible president who ought not be president anymore. In other
00:19:08.000 words, is there sort of a drama limit for the Republican Party? You can support
00:19:11.000 Trump, you can back Trump, you can think this is all unfair.
00:19:14.000 All of that can be true.
00:19:15.000 And at the same time, you can also recognize that the presidential race should not be about the various indictments of President Trump.
00:19:21.000 The presidential race should be about something else.
00:19:24.000 And that's the case that Nikki Haley was making more clearly than any of the other candidates.
00:19:27.000 Here she was last night.
00:19:30.000 The rest of this primary election is going to be in reference to Trump.
00:19:34.000 It's going to be about lawsuits.
00:19:36.000 It's going to be about legal fees.
00:19:37.000 It's going to be about judges.
00:19:39.000 And it's just going to continue to be a further and further distraction.
00:19:43.000 And that's why I am running is because we We need a new generational leader.
00:19:48.000 We can't keep dealing with this drama.
00:19:50.000 We can't keep dealing with the negativity.
00:19:52.000 We can't keep dealing with all of this.
00:19:54.000 We've got China that's literally trying to be at war with us.
00:19:57.000 You've got Iran building a bomb.
00:19:58.000 You've got North Korea detaining a soldier and testing ballistic missiles.
00:20:02.000 We need to focus on the debt and the lack of transparency in schools and crime and the craziness on the border.
00:20:09.000 We can't be sitting there focused on lawsuits over and over again.
00:20:15.000 Again, she is not wrong.
00:20:16.000 And this is going to be the question for Republicans going forward.
00:20:18.000 Would you like to win?
00:20:19.000 Would you like to battle about Joe Biden's policies?
00:20:21.000 Or do we just wish to talk about President Trump in terms of this election cycle from here until the election day?
00:20:27.000 Do we think that's a winning strategy?
00:20:29.000 Serious question.
00:20:30.000 We'll get to more on this in just one second.
00:20:31.000 First.
00:20:32.000 We have a dog.
00:20:33.000 His name is Happy.
00:20:34.000 This morning, Happy made me unhappy.
00:20:36.000 I had a book that was near his pen, and he somehow got a hold of this book.
00:20:39.000 He ripped off the cover.
00:20:40.000 He chewed it up.
00:20:41.000 It did not make me happy.
00:20:42.000 And that's my fault, because I hadn't fed him yet.
00:20:44.000 If I had fed him his rough greens earlier than that, then maybe he wouldn't have been hungry.
00:20:48.000 for my literature.
00:20:49.000 Well, the dog food you've been giving your dog is dead food.
00:20:51.000 It has very little nutritional value.
00:20:53.000 Look at it.
00:20:53.000 Brown food doesn't exactly scream at nutritional, but green food does.
00:20:56.000 Rough greens boosts happy food back to life.
00:20:58.000 It can do the same for your dog.
00:20:59.000 You don't have to go out and buy new dog food.
00:21:00.000 Just sprinkle some rough greens on their food every single day.
00:21:03.000 It contains all the necessary vitamins and minerals your dog is not getting from their regular dog food.
00:21:08.000 Happy loves his Rough Greens.
00:21:09.000 It's keeping him happy, it's keeping him healthy, and is much better for him than the cover of that book that I was reading.
00:21:13.000 Rough Greens is the only supplement your dog is going to ask for by name.
00:21:16.000 Rough Greens, you get it?
00:21:16.000 You get it's a joke.
00:21:17.000 Naturopathic Dr. Dennis Black, the founder of Rough Greens, is so confident this product will improve your dog's health, he's offering my listeners a free Jumpstart Trial Bag.
00:21:25.000 Go to FreeRuffGreens.com slash Ben.
00:21:27.000 Let Ruff Greens bring your dog's food back to life.
00:21:29.000 That is FreeRuffGreens.com slash Ben today.
00:21:32.000 Or call 833-MY-DOG-33.
00:21:34.000 That is 833-MY-DOG-33 today.
00:21:38.000 Okay, so, with that in mind, with that question in mind, who is the best candidate to square up against Joe Biden?
00:21:44.000 Is there a candidate out there?
00:21:45.000 Or are there many candidates out there who would be good at squaring up against Joe Biden without the drama?
00:21:51.000 Again, put aside your heart for a second and think with your head.
00:21:54.000 If you think that this election is going to be about Donald Trump and his legal troubles, is that something that is likely to win Donald Trump the presidency?
00:22:00.000 Or are you just betting that basically Joe Biden falls down?
00:22:03.000 I don't really like betting on luck.
00:22:05.000 It's not my favorite thing.
00:22:06.000 You're going to bet that you get lucky and Joe Biden somehow collapses.
00:22:10.000 Right now, if you look at the Trump versus Biden polls, what you find is that Donald Trump Cannot break 45% with a hammer and a blowtorch.
00:22:20.000 He can't.
00:22:21.000 There's not a poll for the last several months that shows him at above 45%.
00:22:26.000 That is not a winning number.
00:22:27.000 You're not gonna win with 45%.
00:22:29.000 The only hope that you have at that point is that the turnout for Joe Biden is just extremely low.
00:22:34.000 But the question is whether all those people are gonna come home to Joe Biden when the actual money is on the line.
00:22:40.000 And the answer is, you know, in my opinion, probably yes, that most Democratic voters are still going to show up.
00:22:44.000 You have to bet on low Democratic voter turnout.
00:22:47.000 Well, the only way you're going to get low Democratic voter turnout is if Democrats aren't motivated by the presence of Donald Trump on the ballot.
00:22:53.000 Right now, Joe Biden is in various polls ranging anywhere from like 49% in the NBC News poll, all the way down to like 40% in the Economist poll.
00:23:03.000 But again, there are a lot of voters that I would assume are going to come home to Biden.
00:23:06.000 Who are the voters who are going to come home to Trump?
00:23:09.000 Do those voters exist?
00:23:10.000 It seems like his poll numbers are pretty stable.
00:23:12.000 It seems like Joe Biden has some wiggle room right there.
00:23:15.000 Now, when it comes to, you know, Ron DeSantis or other candidates inside the Republican Party, Those candidates have yet to really have a floor or a ceiling.
00:23:23.000 So if you look at DeSantis' range, there's some polls that have DeSantis all the way up at 47% and some that have him at 48%, even 52% in one recent poll, and some polls that have him all the way down to like 38%.
00:23:33.000 There's a big range, a big fluctuation, because it turns out there may be some people who are like, well, you know, maybe I'll give him a shot.
00:23:40.000 Maybe if you're an independent deciding on the last day between DeSantis and, say, Biden, you give DeSantis a shot because you're tired of Joe Biden.
00:23:48.000 And again, that is the story of 2016, as I've mentioned, and 2020.
00:23:51.000 2016 undecideds broke 2-1 for Trump on the last day of the election.
00:23:54.000 2020 undecideds broke 2-1 for Biden on the last day of the election.
00:23:58.000 So...
00:23:59.000 DeSantis' campaign has, according to the media, been really, really flagging.
00:24:03.000 It's been having serious troubles.
00:24:04.000 Now, I'm not sure that I buy that entire sort of narrative.
00:24:10.000 The reason I'm not sure that I buy that narrative is because if I look at the actual polling data with regard to Ron DeSantis, he's basically been in the same sort of bucket since late May.
00:24:19.000 He was polling in the Real Care Politics polling average at about 20%, 19.4% as of May 20th.
00:24:22.000 20%, 19.4% as of May 20th.
00:24:26.000 He's currently pulling at 20%.
00:24:28.000 Right, so he hasn't really lost a lot of ground since late May, and we are now in mid-July.
00:24:32.000 So for about the last eight weeks, he's been in kind of the same place.
00:24:35.000 The problem is, he hasn't caught fire yet.
00:24:37.000 So the question is, how does Ron DeSantis catch fire?
00:24:39.000 Well, I mean, it's possible that somebody like DeSantis, it doesn't have to be DeSantis, but one of the people like DeSantis might catch fire by going into hostile territory and knocking some heads together.
00:24:47.000 So yesterday, DeSantis did an interview with Jake Tapper, this was supposed to be sort of the relaunch of his campaign, and he did a really good job.
00:24:54.000 Tapper asked his questions.
00:24:56.000 His questions were, again, I think cleverly worded and obviously coming from somebody of more liberal bent politically.
00:25:03.000 I mean, Jake is definitely a political liberal.
00:25:06.000 There's no question about that.
00:25:07.000 But DeSantis handled him, I thought, very, very well.
00:25:10.000 And he didn't require cleanup on aisle five.
00:25:13.000 So, for example, here was Ron DeSantis asked about winning Suburban Moms.
00:25:18.000 As you go further and further to the right on some of these divisive social issues that could alienate moderates, suburban moms, etc., Republican voters see you as less and less electable.
00:25:29.000 I took a state that had been a one-point state, and we won it by 20 percentage points, 1.5 million votes.
00:25:36.000 Our bread and butter were people like suburban moms.
00:25:39.000 We're leading a big movement for parents' rights, have the parents be involved in education, school choice, get the indoctrination out of schools.
00:25:47.000 Of course, there's bread-and-butter issues that matter too.
00:25:50.000 Inflation, more economic opportunity.
00:25:52.000 Florida's economy is ranked number one of all 50 states.
00:25:55.000 We've worked hard to make that happen.
00:25:57.000 Crime.
00:25:57.000 You see crime in all these different communities that is now even going into suburbs in some areas.
00:26:04.000 Okay, again, these are good answers.
00:26:07.000 He's answering the question he wants to be asked, not the question that Tapper is asking him.
00:26:10.000 Right?
00:26:10.000 Tapper is trying to characterize him as a radical on all of these policies, and DeSantis is just refusing to have any part of it.
00:26:16.000 Right?
00:26:16.000 Here is DeSantis on abortion, for example.
00:26:18.000 So Tapper, again, goes after him and suggests he's a radical on abortion, and here's DeSantis' answer.
00:26:23.000 You recently signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida.
00:26:26.000 Yes or no, would you support that as a nationwide ban?
00:26:29.000 So I said I'm pro-life, I will be a pro-life president, and we will support pro-life policies.
00:26:35.000 At the same time, I look at what's going on in the Congress, and, you know, I don't see them, you know, making very much headway.
00:26:42.000 I think the danger from Congress is if we lose the election, they're going to try to nationalize abortion up until the moment of birth.
00:26:50.000 And in some liberal states, you actually have post-birth Okay, so, again, there's DeSantis taking a position that is absolutely winnable in a general election after having passed an extremely conservative law in Florida.
00:27:05.000 And what he's saying is absolutely correct, right?
00:27:06.000 You can get a six-week abortion ban in Florida, but you're not going to get that nationally.
00:27:10.000 And so this idea that this is like a giant threat, that the Congress of the United States is somehow going to unify and pass a six-week abortion ban, that's really not a thing that at a national level is going to happen.
00:27:19.000 That, of course, is true.
00:27:21.000 Here's Ron DeSantis on Ukraine, again taking conservative positions with regard to the issues and not messing his pants, right?
00:27:28.000 Not turning into a massive headline.
00:27:30.000 And I understand it's a lot more boring than Trump.
00:27:33.000 Of course it is.
00:27:34.000 Of course, because there's nothing more exciting than Donald Trump.
00:27:36.000 I mean, Donald Trump is alternatively A night jousting against windmills and a man crashing his clown car into a group of raving hyenas.
00:27:46.000 It's always entertaining.
00:27:48.000 If there's one thing you can say about Trump, the dude is never not entertaining.
00:27:51.000 He is always entertaining all the time.
00:27:53.000 DeSantis is not entertaining.
00:27:54.000 He's just professional.
00:27:55.000 So here is Ron DeSantis talking about Ukraine.
00:27:59.000 As a presidential candidate, you've said that the conflict is not a vital national interest.
00:28:04.000 So, as president, what will your policy be?
00:28:07.000 Will you want to stop arming Ukraine?
00:28:09.000 Will you stop financial support for Ukraine?
00:28:11.000 So first, a vital national interest to me means we would potentially send troops there.
00:28:15.000 And I don't think anybody wants to see troops in Ukraine, and I would believe that in 2015 as well.
00:28:20.000 It's more of a secondary or tertiary interest.
00:28:23.000 The goal should be A sustainable, enduring peace in Europe, but one that does not reward aggression.
00:28:30.000 And there's going to be different levers that you're going to be able to pull.
00:28:32.000 We will pull some levers against Russia.
00:28:35.000 We're going to be much more aggressive on energy and export, because I think that's been Putin's lifeline.
00:28:40.000 I want the Europeans dependent on the United States for that, not him.
00:28:44.000 We're also going to turn the screws on the Iranians.
00:28:46.000 The Iranians have been one of Putin's biggest benefactors, and they've benefited from Biden's approach there.
00:28:52.000 So we'll use the leverage that we have.
00:28:54.000 But the goal's gonna be a sustainable peace that does not reward aggression.
00:28:58.000 Okay, and then Tapper asked him about the trans issues, and he's suggesting that DeSantis is targeting trans, and it's really terrible.
00:29:06.000 And look how DeSantis turns this into a normal question for normal people, like, should we be subsidizing trans surgeries for members of the military?
00:29:13.000 Should boys be competing with girls?
00:29:14.000 You know, the actual practical ramifications of all the fuzzy gender ideology that's being pushed by the left.
00:29:19.000 Your new policy that you announced today about the military would ban transgender Americans from serving in the military, regardless of their ability, and this comes on the heels of your campaign retweeting a video that the Log Cabin Republicans, which is a conservative LGBTQ group, said, quote, ventured into homophobic territory, unquote.
00:29:36.000 There are more than a million trans adults in the U.S.
00:29:40.000 What are their lives and the lives of the people who love and support them going to be like under a DeSantis administration?
00:29:45.000 Well look, in the military it's all about the mission first.
00:29:48.000 So there's a whole bunch of reasons why you focus on mission first.
00:29:53.000 People's individuality, it does take, you do have to check that at the door.
00:30:00.000 Again, what he's doing is he's taking the temperature down on these issues while maintaining a very consistent conservative position.
00:30:07.000 That is a smart way to do politics, what DeSantis is doing.
00:30:09.000 It's one of the reasons why, again, he turned a purple state into a bright red state in Florida.
00:30:13.000 DeSantis is actually very good at this.
00:30:14.000 And him being in hostile situations and showing that he's capable of doing this could theoretically recast the race.
00:30:19.000 Because if what Republican voters are looking for is someone who can beat Biden and who is very conservative, Then they might stop looking at the shiny fireworks over here, right, which is all of the Trump indictment kind of stuff.
00:30:30.000 And they might start looking at the actual question, which is who can beat Joe Biden and who is conservative.
00:30:34.000 So, again, I found DeSantis did an excellent job on Tapper last night.
00:30:37.000 That's no surprise, again.
00:30:37.000 I think he's a terrific governor.
00:30:39.000 I think that he is a solid candidate for president.
00:30:41.000 He's not the only one.
00:30:42.000 I think there are other solid candidates for president inside the Republican Party.
00:30:45.000 But Republican voters are going to have to decide whether they wish to be entertained or whether they wish to win.
00:30:49.000 I really think that it's a binary question.
00:30:51.000 I do not think these are the same.
00:30:52.000 Am I saying there's no chance that Trump could win the presidency of nominee?
00:30:54.000 Of course not.
00:30:55.000 I would say there's like a 35% chance that Trump could win the presidency if he receives the nomination.
00:30:59.000 It's not 0%, but it's not 70% either.
00:31:02.000 If somebody else is the nominee, it's at least a 50-50 shot.
00:31:06.000 You're increasing the odds fairly dramatically.
00:31:08.000 Because again, the person on the other side should be the issue.
00:31:11.000 Joe Biden should be the issue, not Donald Trump.
00:31:12.000 Joe Biden should be the issue, not Ron DeSantis.
00:31:14.000 Joe Biden is a weak, incoherent president who's simultaneously pushing garbage policy.
00:31:18.000 We'll get to that momentarily first.
00:31:21.000 With everything you have on your plate lately, earning your degree online seems absolutely impossible.
00:31:25.000 Well, Grand Canyon University's online programs are designed to make earning your degree easy and accessible no matter your age or stage in life.
00:31:31.000 Whether you're a busy professional looking to advance your career or a stay-at-home parent juggling family responsibility, GCU's online courses give you the flexibility you need to learn on your own terms.
00:31:39.000 GCU Grand Canyon University specializes in helping you fit your bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree into your busy day.
00:31:45.000 From scholarships to customized scheduling, your graduation team, led by your own GCU counselor, provides you the personal support you need.
00:31:51.000 Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University.
00:31:53.000 That's gcu.edu.
00:31:55.000 Again, gcu.edu.
00:31:56.000 Go check them out right now.
00:31:57.000 Also, men and women They are different, not just physically, but also on a much deeper level.
00:32:01.000 Ironically, the more the left tries to erase those differences, the more pronounced the differences actually become.
00:32:05.000 For example, women are generally more nurturing than men.
00:32:08.000 That is an evolutionary biological fact.
00:32:09.000 If you don't believe me, you can ask my wife as well.
00:32:12.000 Holding on to simple facts like this, understanding them, it's essential.
00:32:15.000 That's at the heart of Dennis Prager's new episode of PragerU, Master's Program.
00:32:18.000 In this series, Dennis is sharing 40 years worth of hard-earned wisdom as he explores all kinds of topics.
00:32:23.000 How to be a good person, hurdles to happiness, and the case for marriage.
00:32:26.000 This newest episode is extremely important because the more men and women understand each other, the more they'll be able to accept and celebrate their unique differences.
00:32:33.000 It's a great episode, you're not gonna wanna miss it.
00:32:35.000 Go to dailywireplus.com, become a member, watch PragerU master's program today.
00:32:39.000 Okay, meanwhile, now the real issue in the 2024 campaign should be the current president of the United States.
00:32:44.000 Typically, the incumbent is the person upon whom there is a referendum.
00:32:47.000 Occasionally, that's not the case.
00:32:49.000 You see that, for example, in 2004 it actually became a referendum, not really on George W. Bush, but on John Kerry and his failures.
00:32:55.000 In 2012, Barack Obama was able to shift the election question into a referendum, believe it or not.
00:33:02.000 Okay, well, this should be a referendum on Joe Biden.
00:33:04.000 Joe Biden is incompetent.
00:33:04.000 He's no longer with us.
00:33:05.000 I mean, he's not only incompetent in that he's bad at his job, he's mentally incompetent.
00:33:08.000 it should have defeated him, except that he was also able to turn it into a referendum
00:33:11.000 on Romney.
00:33:12.000 Turnout wasn't amazing on the Republican side of the aisle and all the rest.
00:33:15.000 Okay, well, this should be a referendum on Joe Biden.
00:33:17.000 Joe Biden is incompetent.
00:33:18.000 He's no longer with us.
00:33:19.000 I mean, he's not only incompetent in that he's bad at his job, he's mentally incompetent.
00:33:23.000 He's not competent.
00:33:24.000 So, for example, yesterday he was meeting with the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog.
00:33:28.000 This is part and parcel of a broader attempt by the Biden administration to draw away from Israel.
00:33:35.000 Joe Biden, who is not congenitally pro-Israel, and neither is anyone in his administration.
00:33:39.000 Jake Sullivan, all the holdovers from the Obama administration.
00:33:41.000 Obama was by far the most radically anti-Israel candidate and president in American history.
00:33:46.000 Well, Barack Obama staffed his people, his administration, people who hated Israel.
00:33:50.000 A lot of those people are holdovers in sort of the foreign policy department of the Biden administration.
00:33:55.000 He has seen the current sort of divisions in Israeli society over judicial reform as an opportunity for him to drive a wedge between Israel and the United States.
00:34:03.000 And that's why he invited Isaac Herzog, who's the president of Israel, not Bibi Netanyahu, who's the prime minister.
00:34:07.000 There's been some talk that now he's inviting Bibi.
00:34:09.000 We'll get to that in a second.
00:34:10.000 But he has this presser with Isaac Herzog.
00:34:14.000 Again, the President of Israel is a non-political position.
00:34:17.000 It's not like the President of the United States.
00:34:19.000 It's basically more like the Queen of England, the President of Israel.
00:34:22.000 You're sort of a figurehead who's there to show unity in the state of Israel.
00:34:27.000 Biden invited Herzog specifically so he wouldn't have to invite Bibi as sort of a way of wrapping Bibi across the knuckles.
00:34:33.000 In any case, Biden just starts babbling incoherently because this is what he does.
00:34:38.000 And we brought Israelis and Palestinians together at a political level. And as I affirmed the Prime Minister...
00:34:54.000 I mean, it's just... he's just... what is he even talking about?
00:34:59.000 What is he even talking about?
00:35:00.000 It's fine, guys.
00:35:01.000 We're told by the media he's totally fine, he's in great shape, he's fit as a fiddle and ready for love.
00:35:06.000 And I'll just remind you that Joe Biden is the one who said the only way that he would run for re-election, basically, is if Donald Trump was the nominee.
00:35:12.000 It wasn't just that.
00:35:13.000 Joe Biden was asked some questions, like people in the audience, right, the journalists who are assembled for this little presser, they start shouting questions at Biden, and he reacts like your 80-year-old grandmother would react if you burst into the room asking her very loud questions.
00:35:25.000 Because Joe Biden is your 80-year-old grandmother who's in a state of decline.
00:35:28.000 I mean, he's in cognitive decline.
00:35:30.000 There is no way not to see this, clearly.
00:35:33.000 Thank you for your friendship and a lot to talk about.
00:35:36.000 Thank you all very much.
00:35:37.000 And a lot of shadow questions there, but the president, we're told, did not bite on any
00:35:47.000 of them.
00:35:48.000 Is the Israeli president Isaac Herzog makes a visit to the Oval Office.
00:35:56.000 The idea that this man is going to serve until he is 86 years old is insane.
00:35:59.000 And everyone knows this.
00:36:00.000 Everyone knows this.
00:36:01.000 Democrats know this.
00:36:02.000 Republicans know this.
00:36:03.000 Which, by the way, is why a bunch of Silicon Valley money people are now buzzing about RFK Jr.
00:36:07.000 They're just looking for anybody who is not Joe Biden on that side of the aisle.
00:36:11.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has recently voiced support for RFK Jr., who's running against Biden for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
00:36:20.000 Kennedy has been feted by a handful of other tech titans, including SPAC King Chamath Palihapitiya and David Sachs, co-founding executive of PayPal and trusted ear to Elon Musk.
00:36:29.000 Again, there are a lot of people who are looking at Kennedy, not because they think Kennedy is any sort of great shapes, but because he is just not Joe Biden.
00:36:36.000 And that is what the polls are showing inside the Democratic Party, by the way.
00:36:39.000 RFK Jr.
00:36:40.000 is not somebody who has like a career in politics that is tremendously compelling.
00:36:45.000 But the national polls among Democrats right now have Joe Biden running in the low 60s.
00:36:50.000 In the low 60s.
00:36:51.000 That means 40% of Democrats, of Democrats, are like, we don't want this guy to be the nominee.
00:36:56.000 The latest RealClearPolitics polling average, it has Kennedy running at about 15%.
00:37:01.000 But the more important stat is that Joe Biden, in that same statistic, is running at 63.5%.
00:37:05.000 He's the current sitting president of the United States, and the members of his own party are only favoring him 6 to 4.
00:37:13.000 That's crazy.
00:37:14.000 These are terrible stats for Joe Biden.
00:37:17.000 By the way, there's not a poll inside the Democratic Party for the last, like, four months that has him rated at above 73%.
00:37:26.000 Most of them have him down in the low 60s.
00:37:27.000 One, the Messenger Harris X poll from mid-June has him down at 54% inside the Democratic Party.
00:37:34.000 These are awful numbers.
00:37:35.000 He's supremely vulnerable and he should be supremely vulnerable.
00:37:38.000 That's why presumably he's now resorting to bribery again.
00:37:42.000 So Joe Biden is now, he tried to bribe everybody with the student debt relief nonsense.
00:37:45.000 He tried to say he had the unilateral power under statutes that clearly didn't apply to simply relieve student loan debt to the tune of trillions of dollars.
00:37:52.000 Well, now they're trying a second attempt.
00:37:54.000 James Cavall, the Undersecretary of Education, according to Politico, said Tuesday the administration was moving as quickly as possible under the law to craft a new debt relief program in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling last month that struck down Biden's initial plan to wipe out 20 grand of debt for tens of millions of borrowers.
00:38:08.000 So Cavall is now going to try to end a round.
00:38:10.000 It's not going to work, but that's the Biden way.
00:38:13.000 He's going to make empty promises and then hope that you don't notice when they go unfulfilled.
00:38:18.000 Joe Biden's administration is on very, very shaky legs.
00:38:21.000 He's relying on the continued strength of the economy.
00:38:23.000 I think economic stagnation is around the corner, and I'm investing like it.
00:38:26.000 I think a lot of people are.
00:38:28.000 I'm not the only one.
00:38:30.000 And he has chaos inside of his own party as well.
00:38:32.000 He's an insurrectionist Democratic Party.
00:38:35.000 In terms of policy that, for example, with Isaac Herzog, who again is a rather apolitical figure in Israel.
00:38:40.000 He's a former Labor Party head, right?
00:38:42.000 An opponent to Bibi Netanyahu.
00:38:44.000 You have the Democratic Party, a segment of which is doubling down on the radical anti-Israel rhetoric, and Joe Biden doesn't even have the strength to put down that revolt.
00:38:52.000 So you'll recall that Pramila Jayapal, who's made several anti-Semitic remarks with regard to Israel, again, there's a difference between being critical of Israel and saying that Israel cannot exist as a Jewish state and be democratic.
00:39:02.000 Or Israel is a racist state, as Pramila Jayapal said.
00:39:06.000 Treating Israel differently than any other state on earth is a form of anti-Semitism, obviously.
00:39:11.000 That is something that Democrats in the Squad particularly love to do.
00:39:14.000 Rashida Tlaib, who's a wild anti-Semite, I mean, like, associates with actual known terrorist supporters.
00:39:20.000 Rashida Tlaib came out yesterday and said, Israel's just like South Africa, which is absurd.
00:39:25.000 It's just crazy.
00:39:26.000 I will note, again, Rashida Tlaib is a huge fan of the governing bodies, presumably, in the Palestinian areas.
00:39:34.000 That'd be Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria.
00:39:38.000 Those bodies allow zero Jews.
00:39:40.000 You want to talk about an apartheid state?
00:39:41.000 How about a place where Jews, if you drive in there, you might be murdered?
00:39:44.000 That's significantly worse.
00:39:44.000 But here is Rashida Tlaib going after Israel yesterday, and the congressional leadership of the Democratic Party refuses to slap her or any of the other members of the squad down.
00:39:53.000 The United Nations, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Israel's own largest human rights organization, B'Tselem, all agree that Israel is an apartheid state.
00:40:03.000 To assert otherwise, Mr. Speaker, in the face of this just body of evidence is an attempt to deny the reality and to normalize violence of apartheid.
00:40:15.000 This week, we're going to hear consistently that, you know, people totting about, like, oh, this is bipartisan support here.
00:40:21.000 But don't forget, this body, this Congress, supported the South African apartheid regime, and it was bipartisan as well.
00:40:31.000 Oh, you mean that you're going to cite a bunch of left-wing NGOs who hate Israel and openly associate with anti-Semitic bodies?
00:40:37.000 Was there any response from Democratic leadership to that?
00:40:39.000 Not really.
00:40:39.000 AOC is doing the same thing.
00:40:41.000 AOC used to be anti-Semitic adjacent, now she's just anti-Semitic.
00:40:43.000 I mean, AOC doesn't just hang out with anti-Semites, she routinely says anti-Semitic things.
00:40:47.000 Here's her latest example, where she says that Israel is in the middle of a crisis of democracy and apartheid, and she's mirroring the idiocies of her fellow anti-Semites Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.
00:40:57.000 Here she was yesterday.
00:40:58.000 The president is meeting with Herzog, this meeting happening today, and Democrats say they're boycotting this speech.
00:41:05.000 Listen.
00:41:06.000 Will you attend this address tomorrow?
00:41:08.000 I will not be attending.
00:41:09.000 There's currently a crisis of democracy and apartheid, and I think that this is something that has been a consensus among human rights organizations.
00:41:17.000 Now she's wearing her smart people glasses, so we can pretend that she actually has an IQ above 75.
00:41:22.000 It's always very impressive when she wears her smart people glasses.
00:41:25.000 In any case, The White House was specifically asked about condemning these sorts of comments, and they're like, no, no, no, we're not going to condemn them.
00:41:32.000 We're glad that people are sometimes walking them back like Pramila Jayapal, but we're not going to condemn those comments.
00:41:36.000 That'd be bad.
00:41:37.000 We can't condemn anti-Semitism inside our own party.
00:41:39.000 They have plenty of words, by the way, for RFK.
00:41:42.000 I'm just going to juxtapose here two takes on anti-Semitism from Karine Jean-Pierre.
00:41:47.000 So one is her take on the anti-Semitic comments of actual elected members of her own party.
00:41:51.000 Here she was yesterday refusing to condemn Pramila Jayapal.
00:41:55.000 Did the President have to address Congresswoman Jayapal's comment that Israel is a racist state?
00:42:01.000 What do you mean, had to address?
00:42:02.000 Did it come up at all in the conversation with President Herzog?
00:42:06.000 What we didn't hear was any condemnation of her comment from the White House.
00:42:14.000 The apology was the right thing to do.
00:42:16.000 And we've been very clear when it comes to anti-Semitism, this administration and the entire Biden-Harris administration have been clear that when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hate, that's anti-Semitism.
00:42:32.000 And that is unacceptable.
00:42:33.000 One of the reasons, and I just said this moments ago, back in May, the President put forward a comprehensive plan on how to counter anti-Semitism.
00:42:44.000 It is something that is one of its first of a kind strategy that we've not seen before, and it is comprehensive and it is ambitious.
00:42:53.000 I noticed you're not condemning the other members of the Democratic Party who are doing anti-Semitic things.
00:42:57.000 I noticed that also, the supposed anti-Semitism fight that the administration has taken on involved getting the Council on American-Islamic Relations involved.
00:43:05.000 I kid you not.
00:43:06.000 They had actual anti-Semitic groups in the room to decide the White House's anti-Semitic policies.
00:43:11.000 They're anti-Semitism policies.
00:43:12.000 Meanwhile, just contrast, here's how the White House dealt with RFK's comments.
00:43:15.000 So you'll recall that RFK was at a dinner and he suggested that maybe a bioweapon had been engineered by the Chinese government because there were certain genetic markers with regard to COVID that made it less likely to attack Chinese people or Ashkenazic Jews.
00:43:29.000 And that was based on a faulty study.
00:43:30.000 But apparently that's super anti-Semitic.
00:43:34.000 Again, I'm not sure exactly how, but you may notice a pattern here.
00:43:37.000 The rule is, if you're an ally of Joe Biden, nothing you say is actually anti-Semitic.
00:43:41.000 If you are somebody who opposes Joe Biden, anything you say can be construed as anti-Semitic.
00:43:45.000 That's the way this dumbassery works.
00:43:48.000 The claims made on that tape is false.
00:43:52.000 It is vile.
00:43:54.000 And they put our fellow Americans in danger.
00:43:58.000 If you think about the racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that come out of saying those types of things, it's an attack on our fellow citizens, our fellow Americans.
00:44:09.000 And so it is important that we essentially speak out when we hear those claims made more broadly.
00:44:17.000 I'm good.
00:44:17.000 The way that anti-Semitism works on the left is, by them and their friends, totally fine.
00:44:22.000 By anybody who opposes them, even if they're on the left, like RFK Jr.
00:44:25.000 Now all of a sudden, he's a threat to world Jewry, or some such silliness.
00:44:29.000 Okay, time for some things I like, and then some things that I hate.
00:44:32.000 So, things that I like today, there's also a thing that I hate.
00:44:35.000 So there's a new Jason Aldean song.
00:44:37.000 Okay, this new Jason Aldean song is a massive hit.
00:44:40.000 It is called, Try That in a Small Town.
00:44:43.000 The video is controversial, so controversial that it was removed by, actually, Country Music TV.
00:44:50.000 It was removed because it essentially showed various riots, and then it said, like, try that in a small town and see how it goes for you.
00:44:57.000 The accusation is that this was racist.
00:45:00.000 Which is weird, because there are a lot of black people who live in small towns.
00:45:02.000 And it turns out black people are also not super fond of rioting.
00:45:06.000 But apparently the take of the media is that if you oppose riots and you think that in a small town that sort of thing doesn't go, that means that you actually want to kill black people just randomly.
00:45:14.000 That of course is not what the song is even remotely about.
00:45:17.000 Here is some of the music video for Jason Altine's song.
00:45:21.000 He's showing you Antifa Riot.
00:45:26.000 round up, well that s*** might fly in the city. Good luck, try that in a small town,
00:45:33.000 see how far you make it down.
00:45:37.000 And he's showing Antifa riots.
00:45:39.000 And he's, uh, you know, basically the idea is, try this Antifa crap here and see how it goes for you.
00:45:45.000 There's not gonna be looting in a small town because we actually have a sense of community, right?
00:45:53.000 And then you put out a statement saying, When you grow up in a small town, it's that unspoken rule of we all have each other's backs and we look out for each other.
00:45:59.000 It feels like somewhere along the way that sense of community and respect has gotten lost.
00:46:02.000 Deep down, we're all ready to get back to that.
00:46:04.000 I hope my new music video helps you all know that you are not alone in feeling that way.
00:46:07.000 Go check it out!
00:46:09.000 And well, the left-wing insane rage clickers, they decided that the song was actually racist.
00:46:17.000 It's racist.
00:46:18.000 You're not allowed to show, presumably, criminals who are black and then say that you don't wish for criminality to prevail, and in a small town it wouldn't.
00:46:26.000 Now, it doesn't matter that many of the criminals in the video are also white.
00:46:28.000 None of that matters.
00:46:30.000 They're accusing him of racism and CMTV actually removed the video.
00:46:34.000 So here is what Jason Aldean wrote, quote, In the past 24 hours, I've been accused of releasing a pro-lynching
00:46:39.000 song, a song that has been out since May, and was subject to the
00:46:41.000 comparison that I, quote, direct, quote, was not too pleased with the
00:46:44.000 nationwide BLM protests.
00:46:45.000 These references are not only meritless, but dangerous.
00:46:47.000 There's not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it, and there isn't a single video clip that isn't real news footage.
00:46:53.000 And while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music, this one goes too far.
00:46:57.000 As so many pointed out, I was present at Route 91, where so many lost their lives, and our community recently suffered another heartbreaking tragedy.
00:47:03.000 No one, including me, wants to continue to see senseless headlines or families ripped apart.
00:47:08.000 Try That In A Small Town For Me refers to a feeling of community that I had growing up where we took care of our neighbors regardless of differences of background or belief.
00:47:15.000 Because they were our neighbors and that was above any differences.
00:47:17.000 My political views have never been something I've hidden from.
00:47:19.000 I know a lot of us in this country don't agree on how we get back to a sense of normalcy or where we go at least a day without a headline that keeps us up at night.
00:47:25.000 But the desire for it to, that's what this song is about.
00:47:29.000 And that apparently is super duper duper bad.
00:47:31.000 It's terrible.
00:47:33.000 Again, the The fact that there are people on the left who feel the necessity to treat criminality and opposition to it as aspects of race is itself racist.
00:47:44.000 If I say criminality doesn't fly in my community and your immediate take is that's racist, you are being racist.
00:47:50.000 You are suggesting that the crime is only from black people or that by targeting crime you're actually targeting black people, which is ridiculous.
00:47:56.000 A majority of the crime in the country is coming from white people.
00:48:00.000 And now, again, a disproportionate share of crime, violent crime, like murder, is taking place among black people, by young black people.
00:48:08.000 That doesn't mean that if I oppose murder, I oppose black people.
00:48:11.000 The vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of black people ain't committing murder, obviously.
00:48:15.000 It is the left that it suggests, that if you target a behavior, a disproportionate share of which is performed by a particular race, you're actually targeting the race?
00:48:23.000 That's ridiculous.
00:48:24.000 It's absurd.
00:48:25.000 It's like saying that if you target crime, what you're actually targeting is men, because virtually all crime is performed by men.
00:48:30.000 Did Jason Aldean do something wrong here?
00:48:32.000 Of course not.
00:48:33.000 Now, then they go to their backup argument.
00:48:35.000 Their backup argument is he filmed this in a town that 102 years ago had a lynching.
00:48:39.000 You gotta be kidding.
00:48:40.000 You really think that Jason Aldean was like, well, I'm gonna go to a town that had a lynching 102 years ago, and that's where I'm gonna film this video because that's where I really want this film.
00:48:46.000 It's subtle.
00:48:47.000 It's a subtle race bait.
00:48:48.000 Like, come on.
00:48:49.000 Come on.
00:48:50.000 Pathetic dweebs.
00:48:51.000 Think that people are sitting around thinking like this?
00:48:53.000 They're not.
00:48:54.000 Nobody is thinking like this.
00:48:56.000 Good for Jason Aldean for not backing down.
00:48:57.000 He shouldn't apologize.
00:48:59.000 And it doesn't seem like he will, which would make him one of the first artists who is not doing that in recent memory.
00:49:04.000 So good for Jason Aldean.
00:49:06.000 All right, you guys, the rest of the show continues right now.
00:49:08.000 Some of the stuff in the show today had to get cut because, you know, of the social media bros.
00:49:13.000 But you can go to Twitter or you go to DailyWirePlus and get all of it.
00:49:16.000 Now we'll be joined on the line by Jim Davis and Michael Graham discussing their new upcoming book, The Great De-Churching.
00:49:21.000 If you're not a member, become a member.
00:49:22.000 Use code Shapiro.
00:49:23.000 Check out for two months free on all annual plans.