Michael Cohen heads to the Hill to testify against President Trump. Controversy continues over Trump s national emergency declaration and the possibility of nuclear war between India and Pakistan. Plus, a bizarre tweet about Michael Cohen's father-in-law and his ex-wife's affair with the president's daughter. Ben Shapiro breaks it all down and gives his thoughts on it all on today's episode of The Ben Shapiro Show with Ben Shapiro! Subscribe to Ben Shapiro's new show on Podchaser on Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your shows. Subscribe and comment to stay up to date with the latest news and discuss the biggest stories in American culture. Use the hashtag on social media when posting about the show, and tag , and when tagging BenShapiro in your story. Thanks for listening and share the podcast with your friends and family! Timestamps: 1:00:00 - Michael Cohen has already released all of his testimony 2:30 - President Trump's National Emergency Declaration 3:15 - What's next for Trump? 4:40 - What will happen with nuclear war in the Middle East? 5:20 - What s next for Iran? 6:00 What s going to happen with the North Korean nuclear crisis? 7:00- What s the biggest story of the day? 8:15 9:30 11:40 12:10 - What is next for the future of the Trump administration? 15: What s coming next? 16:20 17: Is it a good day for the U.S. 17: Does your wife and father in prison? 19:15:00 | What does your wife know about your ex-boyfriend's ex-husband s ex-sister? 21:30 | What s your father in law do you think about you? 22:40 | Is he cheating on your girlfriend? 23:00 +16: What does he know about my ex-mother- What would you do in jail? 26:00 Is she cheating on me? 27:00 Do you have an ex- in jail now? 25:00 Can I remain faithful? 35:00 Does he lie to me keep me in prison yet? 36:00 What s my wife do I stay faithful to me in jail or do I lie?
00:00:10.000Well, it's a big morning, and I understand that there are people who are watching the Cohen testimony live, but we're breaking it down for you here because he already pre-released all of his testimony.
00:00:23.000I don't think there's going to be a lot new beyond his testimony that he has already released, so we're going to get through all of that this morning.
00:00:29.000We are also going to get into the possibility of nuclear war between India and Pakistan, which is like the third biggest story of the day.
00:00:35.000We can get to all of that in just one second.
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00:01:44.000Now, this is his only public testimony.
00:01:45.000He testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee Yesterday, that was behind closed doors.
00:01:51.000And then there is the the Senate committee that he's going to speak to tomorrow that is also behind closed doors.
00:01:57.000Today is the only public testimony that Michael Cohen will be giving.
00:02:01.000Suffice it to say, Republicans are very unhappy with Michael Cohen.
00:02:04.000Democrats basically have stopped visiting Pornhub for the day because the Cohen testimony is on live on C-SPAN.
00:02:09.000So there's plenty to watch if you are a Democrat.
00:02:12.000We're going to go through Michael Cohen's testimony right now.
00:02:15.000So he released, he pre-released his written testimony.
00:02:17.000This is normal in congressional hearings.
00:02:19.000You release a written version of the testimony that is given to members of the committee so they can prepare Their questions.
00:02:25.000I would not expect that the questions are going to elicit much in the way of new information.
00:02:29.000Basically Republicans are going to try to impeach the witness and Democrats are going to try to build up his credibility.
00:02:34.000That's essentially how the day is going to go on the Hill.
00:02:37.000But here is what Michael Cohen testified.
00:02:39.000He began by asking the committee to ensure that his family be protected from presidential threats and that the committee be sensitive to the questions pertaining to ongoing investigations.
00:02:48.000The reason he says this is because over the last several weeks, the president of the United States has tweeted out stuff about Michael Cohen's father-in-law.
00:02:56.000And then last night, Matt Gaetz, who is a Republican from Florida, tweeted something out that is quite wild.
00:03:01.000He tweeted out, Do your wife and father-in-law know about your girlfriends?
00:03:16.000Maybe tonight would be a good time for a chat.
00:03:18.000I wonder if she'll remain faithful when you're in prison.
00:04:01.000Does he lie to his financiers who are members of his family?
00:04:04.000And it'll be one heck of an inquiry for us, because this is someone who has tangled such a web of lies that he is not to be believed, and I think it is entirely appropriate.
00:04:14.000For any member of this body to challenge the truthfulness and veracity and character for the people who have a history of lying and have a future that undoubtedly contains nothing but lies.
00:04:25.000I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but it's very weird to go after Michael Cohen's personal life with regard to his girlfriends while defending the President of the United States, who literally has slept with everything.
00:04:38.000The reason that we're having a hearing today is because President Trump shtooped a porn star back in 2006 and then tried to pay her off with $130,000 via Michael Cohen.
00:04:46.000Like, this is a very weird line of attack.
00:04:48.000Nancy Pelosi then, of course, got up and warned Matt Gaetz and suggested that the Ethics Committee could be looking into all of this.
00:04:54.000She said, I encourage all members to be mindful that comments made on social media or in the press can adversely affect the ability of House committees to obtain the truthful and complete information necessary to fulfill their duties.
00:05:04.000OK, so that was the lead up to Michael Cohen's testimony this morning.
00:05:09.000OK, that's not something Republicans should be engaged in.
00:05:11.000Not only that, I mean, it's disgusting, frankly, to be threatening witnesses with, by the way, nudge nudge, you may have girlfriends and your wife doesn't know about like, come on, come on.
00:05:26.000He pled guilty to perjuring himself before Congress.
00:05:29.000If you want to cast doubt on his accounts, all you have to do is say, right, last time you were here, you were lying to us and you're going to jail over it.
00:05:37.000So I'm going to go with no on everything you say, unless you've got some corroborating evidence.
00:05:41.000OK, in any case, Michael Cohen goes before the committee and he talks about President Trump.
00:05:46.000Now, most of what he had to say is just simple gossip.
00:05:48.000Most of it doesn't go to actual crime.
00:05:51.000It's essentially juicy stuff that makes people feel the way they've already felt about Trump.
00:05:55.000So if you're a big Trump fan, you're going to dismiss most of this as bitter grapes from Michael Cohen, as sour grapes from Michael Cohen.
00:06:01.000That he essentially is just digging up everything bad he can say about Trump so that he can rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the media and in the eyes of the left.
00:06:09.000So he can get that strange new respect that James Comey and former FBI acting director Andrew McCabe have gotten from the left.
00:06:16.000And so if you're a Republican, that's basically where you're going to go with this.
00:06:19.000If you're a Democrat, you're going to say, right, this is what I always knew about Trump.
00:06:22.000I always knew he was a racist and a liar and a cheat.
00:06:25.000Now, if you're somebody like me and you tend to believe that the president has some fundamental lacks of character, because he does.
00:06:32.000If you're somebody who looks at this as objectively as possible, There are three baskets into which Cohen's testimony falls.
00:06:39.000One is legal problems, like legal impeachable problems for the president.
00:06:44.000There's not much in the way of that in this testimony.
00:06:59.000So let's go through Michael Cohen's testimony.
00:07:01.000We're going to do it in shorter fashion, so you don't actually have to listen to Michael Cohen's interminable recitation of his own testimony, because number one, I read faster than he does, and number two, I cut out all the self-congratulatory nonsense.
00:07:11.000So Michael Cohen led off by saying that many people doubt and attack his credibility.
00:07:15.000He says, it is for this reason I have incorporated into this opening statement documents that are irrefutable and demonstrate that the information you will hear is truthful and accurate.
00:07:23.000That is true about some of the things he says.
00:07:25.000It is not true about others of the things he says.
00:07:27.000So his most damning claims about President Trump, the only one that is really backbanging documentary evidence, is stuff we already knew, like President Trump signing checks to Michael Cohen to essentially reimburse him for paying off Stormy Daniels in the middle of the election cycle.
00:07:42.000That stuff has some documentary evidence, but we knew that already.
00:07:45.000The most damning claims, the stuff where he suggests that Trump knew about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, which we'll get to in a second, or the stuff where he suggests that Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting, there's no documentation of that whatsoever.
00:07:55.000Not only that, but the language Trump even used, according to Michael Cohen's own recitation of the facts, is substantially vague enough that it makes it very difficult to believe that Trump was actively involved, for example, in Russian collusion.
00:08:08.000In any case, Cohen says, never in a million years did I imagine when I accepted a job in 2007 to work for President Trump that he would one day run for president, launch a campaign on a platform of hate and intolerance, and actually win.
00:08:19.000Now, this is Cohen's pitch for, guys, you really should love me.
00:09:15.000That, of course, is going to be the punchline and that will be the headline in the New York Times.
00:09:19.000Trump's personal attorney colon Trump racist conman cheat.
00:09:24.000That's going to be the line and he knows it.
00:09:26.000He says, Michael Cohen says, that Trump was a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National Committee emails.
00:09:35.000The implication here is that it would be illegal for Trump to know about it.
00:09:38.000Now, there are two claims that are being made.
00:09:40.000One, he knew that Roger Stone was talking to Assange about the WikiLeaks drop.
00:09:44.000Two, the claim made by Democrats is that Trump was actually helping coordinate with WikiLeaks, i.e.
00:09:49.000the Russian government, the drop of the emails.
00:09:52.000Nothing, nothing in Cohen's account backs claim number two.
00:09:55.000So there's evidence for claim number one, namely his testimony, that Stone had told Trump that WikiLeaks was going to drop the emails.
00:10:01.000There is nothing to claim number two, which is that Trump was then telling WikiLeaks when and where to release the emails.
00:10:07.000As we'll get to, this may be yucky, but it is not, in fact, illegal, and in fact, it really isn't even atypical in American politics.
00:10:15.000Cohen says, A copy of a check Mr. Trump wrote from his personal bank account after he became president to reimburse me for the hush money payments I made to cover up his affair with an adult film star and prevent damage to his campaign.
00:10:28.000Copies of financial statements for 2011 to 2013 that he gave to such institutions as Deutsche Bank.
00:10:33.000A copy of an article with Mr. Trump's handwriting on it that reported on the auction of a portrait of himself.
00:10:39.000He arranged for the bidder ahead of time and then reimbursed the bidder from the account of his non-profit charitable foundation, with the picture now hanging in one of his country clubs.
00:10:46.000He's under investigation by the New York AG for the misuse of Trump Foundation funds, which is why the Trump Foundation has been temporarily shuttered.
00:10:54.000Copies of letters, says Cohen, I wrote at Mr. Trump's direction that threatened his high school, colleges, and the college board not to release his grades or SAT scores.
00:11:36.000Okay, I'm gonna get to more of Michael Cohen's testimony, why it's important, why it's not important, in just one second.
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00:13:18.000Well, if he didn't tell you to lie to Congress, and you don't have evidence of him instructing you to commit perjury or obstruction of justice, you got nothing.
00:13:26.000So this is why when we talk about the basket of legal problems for Trump, Cohen didn't say anything with regard to Russia or perjury that actually implicates Trump.
00:13:42.000Is anyone surprised by any of these things by the revelation that Trump stops women and then pays them off by the revelation that Trump says politically incorrect and or racist things in private?
00:13:51.000Like, is anybody shocked by any of these things, really?
00:13:54.000But even if those are true, right, which we don't know because the only person testifying is now a convicted perjurer.
00:14:43.000I'm happy Hillary Clinton is not president.
00:14:44.000There are a lot of things to like about President Trump, but it is difficult to claim that he is an honest good man because I don't think that that's the case, frankly.
00:15:04.000He says there are at least a half dozen times between the Iowa caucus in January 2016 and the end of June when Trump would ask me, how's it going in Russia, referring to the Moscow Tower project.
00:15:12.000You need to know that Mr. Trump's personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it.
00:15:20.000To be clear, Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it.
00:15:25.000He lied about it because he never expected to win the election.
00:15:27.000Okay, this is another really important line from Michael Cohen.
00:15:31.000Trump lied about this stuff because he never expected to win the election.
00:15:33.000So, the going democratic theory was that Trump made a deal with Russia for a quid pro quo.
00:15:39.000You say yes to my Moscow Tower deal, and when I win election, I will give you X, Y, and Z. But if Trump never expected to win election, what's the quid pro quo?
00:15:54.000It may be dumb, but it's not illegal to say nice things about Vladimir Putin.
00:15:58.000So if the idea is Russian collusion and Trump didn't expect to win, what's the illegal pro quo?
00:16:05.000The answer is, there wasn't one, so far as we can tell from any of the evidence that Michael Cohen is releasing.
00:16:10.000Cohen says, Trump also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project.
00:16:16.000And so I lied about it, too, because Mr. Trump had made clear to me, through his personal statements to me that we both knew were false, and through his lies to the country, that he wanted me to lie.
00:16:24.000It is plausible that Trump wanted him to lie.
00:16:26.000But if he did not instruct you to lie or threaten you with consequences for telling the truth, then that is not obstruction of justice or subordination of perjury.
00:16:36.000Over the past two years, says Michael Cohen, I've been smeared as a rat by the President of the United States.
00:17:37.000But if he wants us to believe that he is now completely contrite and he's coming clean because he wants to unburden himself, then leading off with, I'm just like the people who tried to, like, my instincts were shaped by my father's Holocaust survivorship.
00:18:31.000This is the stuff that falls into the bad category for President Trump because it will make headlines and it's difficult to refute these claims.
00:19:59.000Cohen says, As I stated earlier, Mr. Trump knew from Roger Stone in advance about the WikiLeaks drop of emails.
00:20:04.000In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump's office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone.
00:20:11.000Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone.
00:20:14.000Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that within a couple of days there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton's campaign.
00:20:24.000Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of, Wouldn't that be great?
00:20:31.000If somebody got on the phone with you and they said, your political opponent's about to be hit with a wave of bad news, no matter where it comes from, and you say, wouldn't that be terrific?
00:20:40.000And by the way, pretty demonstrative of the fact that Trump was not openly coordinating with Roger Stone or Julian Assange or WikiLeaks or the Russian government.
00:20:49.000Wouldn't that be great is an expression of surprise.
00:20:51.000As in like, that would be kind of awesome if they dropped a bunch of oppo on Hillary, wouldn't it?
00:20:56.000Nothing illegal, frankly, not even anything that bad there.
00:20:59.000Like, what's he supposed to do at that point?
00:21:01.000Notify the FBI that he thinks that Julian Assange is going to release WikiLeaks emails?
00:21:08.000Again, like, it's gonna be released two days from now.
00:21:10.000I guess he could notify the FBI, but it's not coordination.
00:21:14.000Knowing about something, and not doing anything about it, and not coordinating about it, if somebody says to you, two days from now, two days from now, somebody's gonna do something bad to your business opponent, and you're like, oh, well, that'd be kinda fun.
00:21:40.000The country has seen Mr. Trump court white supremacists and bigots.
00:21:43.000You have heard him call poorer countries bleepholes.
00:21:45.000Well, as far as him courting white supremacists and bigots, I was very, very critical of President Trump in 2016 for winking and nodding at the alt-right.
00:21:54.000In fact, one of the reasons I didn't vote for Trump in 2016 was that interview that he did with Jake Tapper where he suddenly forgot what the KKK was and who David Duke was five minutes before the Louisiana primary.
00:22:05.000I ripped President Trump a new one after Charlottesville.
00:22:08.000So, I am warm to the idea that President Trump has been too soft on groups of people that he finds benefit him politically, even if they happen to be gross.
00:22:17.000But Cohen using the bleep holes example as evidence of racism, I never really bought that argument.
00:22:24.000If you say that a particular area of the world, like a particular country, is a bad place to live because it is run poorly, that does not make it racist.
00:22:33.000Like, I think LA, frankly, is kind of a bleephole, and I live here.
00:22:36.000And that has nothing to do with the race of the people who run the city.
00:22:40.000Mayor Garcetti is a half-Jewish, half-Italian guy, I think?
00:22:44.000In private, says Michael Cohen, he's even worse.
00:22:46.000And here's where we get to the stuff that is bad for Trump.
00:22:48.000It doesn't fall into illegal and it doesn't fall into funny.
00:23:10.000Which does raise the question why you continue to work for him, but nonetheless, nonetheless, those are bad allegations for President Trump.
00:23:15.000Those will make a lot of headlines, and there is no way for Trump to refute that other than by saying, I didn't say that.
00:23:21.000So, that's gonna be a he said, he said, put that in the bad category for Trump, as opposed to the illegal or the hilarious category.
00:23:27.000Then there is more not great stuff for Trump, but it's not really, it kind of falls into the hilarious just because we already knew this about Trump.
00:23:34.000So, he says, Cohen says, Mr. Trump is a cheat.
00:23:38.000As previously stated, I'm giving the committee today three years of President Trump's financial statements from 2011 to 2013, which he gave to Deutsche Bank to inquire about a loan to buy the Buffalo Bills and to Forbes.
00:23:48.000It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.
00:23:58.000And then it talks about how he inflated and deflated his assets for public purposes again.
00:24:02.000That's mostly hilarious because, again, it's like a cheap tactic, and we all know that Trump has been doing this for years.
00:24:08.000Trump has been saying he's worth $10 billion for years.
00:24:23.000Mr. Trump, then we get to something that is in the bad category and maybe the illegal category.
00:24:28.000That is his use of a private charity to benefit himself, self-dealing via charity.
00:24:34.000Mr. Trump directed me to find a straw bidder to purchase a portrait of him that was being auctioned at an Art Hamptons event.
00:24:39.000The objective was to ensure that his portrait, which was going to be auctioned last, would go for the highest price of any portrait that afternoon.
00:24:45.000The portrait was purchased by the Fakebidder for $60,000.
00:24:47.000Mr. Trump directed the Trump Foundation, which is supposed to be a charitable organization, to repay the Fakebidder despite keeping the art for himself.
00:24:54.000Okay, so that one actually falls into all three categories.
00:24:57.000It may be illegal to sign a check from your foundation to buy a portrait that you then exhibit in your own private holdings.
00:25:09.000It's also bad in the sense that you shouldn't use charities that way, so it doesn't look very good.
00:25:12.000It's also hilarious in the fact that Trump is such an egotist that he wanted to make sure that the portrait of him was the highest bid item of the evening.
00:25:23.000It's like me going on eBay and finding somebody who's auctioning off one of my books and then me jacking up the bidding simply so that I can say that it bid for like $1,000.
00:25:35.000And then Cohen suggests that Trump is a con man.
00:25:37.000And this is where he gets to the Stormy Daniels stuff.
00:25:39.000He says, I'm giving the committee today a copy of the $130,000 wire transfer from me to Stormy Daniels' attorney during the closing days of the presidential campaign that was demanded by Ms.
00:25:50.000Clifford, that's Stormy Daniels, to maintain her silence about her affair with Mr. Trump.
00:25:54.000Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a home equity line of credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign.
00:26:02.000I did that too, without bothering to consider whether that was improper, much less whether it was the right thing to do, or how it would impact me, my family, or the public.
00:26:11.000Now this is an actual allegation of illegal activity.
00:26:14.000He's suggesting that Trump knew campaign law, and that Trump was explicitly telling him to avoid campaign disclosures by using his home equity line of credit so that nothing could be traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign.
00:26:26.000And those words negatively impact his campaign are also important because if he had just told Michael Cohen to pay off this lady, having nothing to do with the campaign, it can't be considered a campaign expenditure.
00:26:37.000Now, as I said yesterday on the program, it may still not be considered a campaign expenditure because are you actually allowed to use campaign funds to pay off your girlfriends?
00:26:45.000John Edwards' case suggests maybe not, but in any case, this is at least a legal allegation.
00:26:50.000Like, this actually has some legal importance.
00:26:53.000As Exhibit 5 to my testimony shows, says Cohen, I'm providing a copy of a $35,000 check Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on August 1st, 2017 when he was President of the United States pursuant to the cover-up, which was the basis of my guilty plea to reimburse me for the illegal hush money I paid on his behalf.
00:27:10.000Again, the idea here is that President Trump was doing all of this to avoid campaign finance law.
00:27:35.000I'd be shocked if Trump only paid off women during the campaign.
00:27:38.000That doesn't hold with what we know about Trump, who is apparently using the National Enquirer as a go-between to buy off stories as early as 2011.
00:27:45.000Because he did it to Stormy Daniels, I believe, in 2011.
00:27:49.000And then, Cohen says that Trump is a con man.
00:27:50.000Here we get to the hilarious category.
00:27:52.000He says, I'm talking about a man who declares himself brilliant, but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges, and the college board to never release his grades or SAT scores.
00:28:00.000I will admit, when I watched Cohen testify about this, I laughed out loud.
00:28:37.000But in any case, I'm just putting that out there.
00:28:40.000So, you know, I'm not threatening the SAT board to not release my SAT scores.
00:28:44.000The president of the United States threatening people not to release his SAT scores is just fantastic.
00:28:50.000And then Cohen points out that at the time Trump was talking about Obama and ripping him for not releasing his grades and calling Obama a terrible student, which is just, again, Trump has no shame.
00:29:18.000You say that you can provide no evidence that the president actually colluded with Russia, no evidence that the president actively worked with Wikileaks.
00:29:26.000You're saying the same stuff we already know from SDNY about all the campaign finance stuff.
00:30:06.000Basically, all Cohen can testify to is that he read all over the media that in the summer of 2017, there had been a meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016.
00:30:13.000This is the famous Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr.
00:31:42.000Later on in the day, we're going to be having on Representative Andy Biggs, member of the Freedom Caucus, to talk about the resolution to block President Trump's emergency declaration.
00:31:50.000We're having on Representative Ted Yoho.
00:31:52.000He's a member of the House Committee on Foreign Relations.
00:31:54.000He's here to talk about the crisis in Venezuela and the North Korean summit, so a lot to get to a little bit later on in the day.
00:32:13.000I'm here on The Ben Shapiro Show, where we talked about my personal history, my future in politics, campaign finance, the climate, just about everything.
00:33:13.000The problem is that strategic punchback would be good.
00:33:16.000All you have to say about Michael Cohen is the guy is a convicted perjurer who is self-interested in all of his testimony.
00:33:21.000He now has an incentive to make things up about Trump.
00:33:23.000He has an incentive to remember every bad thing in the worst possible light for President Trump because that's how he's getting a plea deal.
00:34:46.000Also, Republicans are doing a good job.
00:34:48.000Representative Jim Jordan, who was on the program last week, we talked a little bit about Michael Cohen appearing before the House Oversight Committee.
00:34:53.000He pointed out that Michael Cohen is not just a liar with regard to President Trump or the Trump Tower meeting, that Michael Cohen is indeed a very bad man.
00:35:00.000I mean, he's going to jail not only because of his activities with regard to President Trump or lying to Congress, he's going to jail because he was involved in a taxi medallion fraud scheme.
00:35:13.000Now, again, none of that means that Trump is clean, but it does mean that if you're going to find a witness to go after President Trump, Democrats, you may want to do better than that.
00:35:26.000OK, so with all of that said, controversy continues to rage over President Trump's visit to North Korea, the president of the United States in Vietnam right now.
00:35:36.000And apparently he is watching all of this from afar.
00:35:44.000It is unclear that anything of worth is going to happen in Vietnam.
00:35:48.000I'm highly doubtful that anything of worth will happen.
00:35:51.000Apparently he's staying up all night to watch Cohen's testimony, which again, the fact that that's been leaked is not great for the president.
00:35:56.000you actually do not want it known that you are so bothered about what Michael Cohen is going to say that you're staying up all night watching it.
00:36:02.000The proper response is, why would I care what Michael Cohen has to say?
00:36:08.000So I'm not losing one wink of sleep over Michael Cohen.
00:36:11.000Nonetheless, the president apparently is watching that from afar.
00:36:14.000I would not expect big things from the Vietnam contingent, from the Vietnam meetings that are happening right now, simply because North Korea has lied often, continuously, all the time about making a deal with the United States, and they never have really done so. all the time about making a deal with the United Right now, according to CNN, President Trump departed dinner with North Korea.
00:36:36.000Korea's Kim Jong-un at the Metropole Hotel.
00:36:38.000Trump left the hotel one hour and 42 minutes after the dinner began.
00:36:41.000The two are supposed to meet tomorrow for extended bilateral meetings before President Trump departs in the evening for Washington.
00:36:47.000Also, there will be a Trump press conference per Trump this evening.
00:36:50.000They are waiting on the official schedule with the timing.
00:36:53.000Meanwhile, hilariously enough, the prospect of nuclear war is like tertiary in the news.
00:37:00.000There's a massive possibility of an escalation of conflict between Pakistan and India to nuclear armed powers, According to FoxNews.com, tension between two of the world's nuclear powers were raised dramatically on Wednesday after Pakistan's Air Force said it shot down two Indian warplanes that crossed the disputed Kashmir border and captured each of the aircraft's pilots.
00:37:21.000of people on the ground in Pakistan beating up one of the Indian pilots, which does not seem like it complies with the Geneva Conventions.
00:37:27.000Police officials in Indian-occupied Kashmir told Reuters that two Indian pilots and a civilian on the ground died when the planes crashed.
00:37:34.000The officials did not confirm the planes were shot down by Pakistani forces.
00:37:37.000One of the pilots, named as Wing Commander Abhinandan Vartaman, was subsequently shown in a video.
00:37:43.000India's government said it objected to Pakistan's vulgar display.
00:37:46.000He was seen in two videos, one where he appeared blindfolded and bloodied.
00:37:50.000And then a second one showing him in custody with the blindfolds removed, appearing visibly more relaxed, even complimenting his captors on a fantastic cup of tea.
00:37:57.000Ravish Kumar is a spokesperson for India's Ministry of External Affairs, also claims an Indian plane shot down a Pakistani jet fighter, although Pakistan denied any of its jets had been hit, and photographic evidence had yet to emerge.
00:38:08.000Obviously, this is just another example of tensions being raised.
00:38:11.000Are we in real danger of nuclear war here?
00:38:14.000Highly, highly doubtful, given the fact that These tensions are raised on a fairly regular basis.
00:38:19.000With that said, is that a bit of a big story?
00:38:27.000Because someone took a photograph of one of her staffers eating a hamburger.
00:38:30.000So, somebody actually took a picture of her sitting with one of her staffers and pointed out that her staffer is eating hamburgers.
00:38:38.000And Ocasio-Cortez, of course, has said that her staffers should not, in fact, eat hamburgers.
00:38:42.000That people should not eat hamburgers.
00:38:44.000It's a very bad thing to eat hamburgers.
00:38:47.000AOC then fought back by saying, She said, tonight a dude was creepily and obviously taking a picture of me while pretending he wasn't and I had to break his imaginary fourth wall and say, hi, I'm a person.
00:39:07.000These are the same people who are fine with Ted Cruz and his wife being attacked in a restaurant by a bunch of protesters.
00:39:11.000But if you take a picture of her chief of staff eating a giant hamburger, like a day after AOC says we shouldn't eat hamburgers, then that is very bad.
00:39:19.000That's how we know that things are bad.
00:39:20.000We know that things are bad because someone took a picture of AOC.
00:39:30.000The Washington Examiner is saying that AOC, who is bragging about raising her lowest wage at the office to $52,000 a year, actually did this because it allowed members of her staff to avoid financial disclosures.
00:39:42.000According to the Washington Examiner, AOC's decision to cap her office salaries at 80 grand will let her chief of staff and senior employees avoid public transparency laws that would require them to reveal outside income gifts and stock trading activity.
00:39:54.000The New York Democrat announced last week she would institute a living wage in her office, paying staff members a minimum of $52,000 a year and a maximum of $80,000 a year.
00:40:03.000Under federal law, congressional employees who earn more than $126,000 a year, which includes most chiefs of staff, must submit public financial disclosure forms that detail outside income they earn, stock investments, debt, gifts, or paid trips.
00:40:17.000Of course, her chief of staff is a guy named Sycat Chakrabarty, and he would be shielded from public disclosure laws because he's not going to be paid enough.
00:40:24.000So, is that the real reason that she's doing all of this?
00:40:28.000But it is sort of weird that the average salary for a chief of staff in the House was $147,000 in 2015, but Ocasio-Cortez is going to cap her senior staff salaries at $80,000, and now they'll be able to earn outside income without publicly revealing the amount or the source.
00:40:44.000So good stuff from the very non-swampy, very fresh-faced AOC.
00:40:49.000By the way, you wonder why the Democrats are so eager to push on Michael Cohen and push Michael Cohen to the top of the news?
00:40:55.000Maybe it's because they can't stop their own congresspeople from saying inane things.
00:40:59.000For example, Representative Mary Gay Scanlon said yesterday, said yesterday in committee hearing, that the border agents for the United States are akin to Nazi collaborators.
00:41:10.000I've been struck a couple times by the denial of humanity of many of these families and children.
00:41:18.000When the issue is framed as an invasion by aliens, and when we refer to children as UACs, it's easier to pretend they're not human or worthy of compassion.
00:41:31.000This hearing is a recognition and an insistence on that humanity.
00:41:38.000A recognition that the Flores decision also addressed, and a recognition that just following orders is no more an excuse today than it was back in Germany.
00:41:48.000Don't worry, Democrats are not extreme at all.
00:41:50.000They're just comparing ICE agents to Nazi collaborators.
00:41:54.000I wonder why they're getting Michael Cohen to testify.
00:41:56.000That wasn't the only crazy statement yesterday, by the way.
00:41:58.000There's another Democratic congressman who suggested that, I believe this is Hank Thompson, who suggested that the only way to prevent all gun violence is to take away every gun.
00:42:08.000Every day, 170 felons and 50 domestic abusers are stopped from buying a gun at licensed dealers because of the background check.
00:42:21.000There's a lot of evidence out there that clarifies the fact that it works.
00:42:27.000And as far as anybody who says, well, this bill wouldn't have solved this incident, The only thing that will solve everyone is to do away with guns.
00:42:39.000So are you telling me that the critics of my bill want to do away with all guns?
00:43:05.000The reason it's worth the watch is because it is an actual take on MS-13.
00:43:08.000So you've heard President Trump talk about the dangers of MS-13, what they do, how brutal they are.
00:43:13.000The depiction of MS-13 in this movie is excellent.
00:43:16.000And the movie's called We Die Young, and it's Jean-Claude Van Damme, but it's Van Damme playing kind of a different part.
00:43:20.000It's not Van Damme kicking people in the face.
00:43:22.000Van Damme plays an ex-Marine who was wounded in combat, and now he has to help out a couple of kids who are being victimized by the MS-13 cartel.
00:43:33.000Some of the performances in this are really fantastic.
00:43:35.000David Castellanada, who plays the leader of the MS-13 gang, is really terrific.
00:43:39.000It's worth a watch, so if you're looking for something to do on a Friday night, and you want a realistic take on MS-13, go check out We Die Young.
00:43:54.000And Meghan McCain, yesterday, went on an absolute tear against her co-hosts, talking about how Democrats refuse to vote in favor of federally penalizing infanticide, leaving babies to die who are born after botched abortions.
00:44:08.000Here is Meghan McCain just dumping on her fellow hosts, rightfully so.
00:44:12.000If Democrats want to win an election going forward, are you going to be the party of late-term abortion, the party of infanticide?
00:44:21.000Is this the platform you're going to have?
00:44:23.000Because when you're talking about children and you're talking about being pro-life, this is well out of the mainstream of where Americans are at.
00:44:29.000So you think a baby born from an abortion should be put down like a dog or a cat?
00:44:35.000This is why I need to push back on it.
00:44:46.000Okay, and you keep hearing people trying to make excuses for not voting for the bill.
00:44:50.000There is no excuse for not voting for the bill.
00:44:51.000Yesterday on the radio version of the program, the additional two hours we do later in the day that you can get only if you subscribe, Senator Ben Sasse stopped by from Nebraska.
00:45:00.000He's one of the co-sponsors of this bill.
00:45:03.000The bill does not in any way violate a woman's quote-unquote right to choose.
00:45:07.000It doesn't even have to do with abortion.
00:45:09.000It says if a baby is born after an attempted abortion, you have to transfer the baby to the hospital and give it the same care you would give any other infant, and it penalizes doctors who fail to do so or who leave the baby on the table to die.
00:45:20.000That's all the bill does, and Democrats opposed it, which is insane.
00:45:23.000It is fully insane, and there's no excuse for it, and trying to paint it as a pro-choice issue is beyond crazy.
00:45:30.000Time for a couple of things that I hate.
00:45:36.000OK, so thing that I hate, number one, the Hollywood Reporter is that you knew this was coming.
00:45:40.000You knew it was just a matter of time until the left openly started defending Jussie Smollett.
00:45:45.000The reason that you knew this is because they were already on the verge of doing this when it came out that it was a hoax, that the whole thing was a hoax.
00:45:52.000Now, as I say, If you want to hear my fuller take on this, I was on Dr. Phil's show that is airing today with Andy Ngo of Quillette, as well as Sally Cohen, who's a left contributor for CNN, I believe.
00:46:06.000And we talked about hate crime hoaxes and we sort of went through all of the various issues surrounding hate crime hoaxes and hate crimes more generally.
00:46:14.000Well, the Hollywood Reporter is now headlining Hollywood Hoax, and then their suggestion is, I kid you not, that the reason that Jussie Smollett was doing all of this is because he was famous.
00:46:27.000Like, this is their actual contention.
00:46:28.000They are trying to suggest that being famous causes you, that fame causes you, to actually participate in race crime hoaxes.
00:46:39.000It says, Jussie Smollett says he's the victim of a heinous hate crime, but career pressure and addictive fame may have driven him to do all of this.
00:46:51.000So, being super famous, it says, Jussie Smollett says, he's the victim of a heinous hate crime, but career pressure and addictive fame may have driven the Empire Star to do something desperate.
00:47:08.000I'm a Jew, I could probably get away with it, right?
00:47:10.000Like, I could probably just go out there and be like, you know, I was walking down the street, two o'clock in the morning, coming back from my kosher hot dog stand, and I was beat up by a couple of people who were screaming at me, you damn Jew.
00:47:24.000Every morning I have to convince myself it's a bad idea because I'm famous.
00:47:37.000That wasn't even the worst take on Jussie Smollett.
00:47:39.000The other one is still from The Hollywood Reporter, but it comes courtesy of Ellen Page, who is really, who has acted vilely with regard to this stuff.
00:47:47.000Went on national television, blamed Mike Pence for a fake hate crime, and then suggested that Mike Pence's perspective on the sinfulness of homosexuality is responsible for vast swathes of hate crimes happening across the country.
00:48:00.000So she has an entire column today that is called hate violence is not a hoax.
00:48:04.000So in other words, I got the hate crime hoax wrong, but the general point, which is that hate crimes occurred, that's not wrong.
00:48:10.000You'll see this is something that folks on the left want.
00:48:33.000This is an insanely tolerant, wonderful country, and I'm speaking as a Jew who hires security to go from place to place because I get death threats, okay?
00:48:41.000So, I am saying this is a wonderful, incredible, tolerant country.
00:48:48.000And this notion that, well, you know, it was, at least, at least Jussie Smollett was a pathway to conversation.
00:48:52.000At least, what Jussie Smollett shows is not that Americans don't take hate crimes seriously enough.
00:48:57.000It's that we take hate crimes so seriously, we are even willing to grant credibility to some of the flimsiest, garbagiest stories ever told by people like Jussie Smollett.
00:49:04.000That's how seriously we take hate crimes.
00:49:06.000Is that the mark of a country that is deeply evil?