Mick Mulvaney spends the day on the hot seat, President Trump sends the G7 to his own resort, and our journalism-ing betters set their sights on Facebook. Plus, a look at the impact of Elijah Cummings' death on the political landscape, and a look ahead to what's in store for the future of the auto parts business. All that and much more on today's show, coming up on The Ben Shapiro Show with Ben Shapiro ( )! Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts and leave us your thoughts and reactions in the comments section below. The show is sponsored by ExpressVPN. Protect your online privacy today at expressvpn.org/ProtectYourOnline Privacy. We love our friends over at ExpressVPN, and we love our listeners over at Mailchimp. Subscribe today using our podcast s promo code POWER10 for 10% off your first month with discount codes POWER10 at checkout. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers and place them in the ad-free webinar, and don't miss out on our next free VIP membership offer! Become a supporter of the show by becoming a patron! Learn more about our sponsorships and receive 20% off the first month, plus a 20% discount when you enter the offer is good for 5 or more than $99.99. You get 10% OFF OFFER FREE when you sign up for VIP access to our 1-month VIP membership when you become a VIP membership starts! Subscribe and get 2-months get 5-widemerch + 1-up, get 3-place discount, and get an ad-only deal, they get an additional 3-day VIP membership starting at $99, plus they get a discount of $4-choice of $24-choice, and they get 7-place they get 4-place get VIP access, they also get a choice of VIP access and 2-place proverververing a course starting only $3-place and 3-choice. Allowing them get a complimentary rate of $49-choice and 3 times a month, and two-choice proverge pricing, and also get an offer of $19-only three-place pricing plan? Thanks to ExpressVPN becomes 4-country discount offer, and I'll get $5-choice starting and 1-world access to the VIP discount?
00:00:42.000According to the Associated Press, Maryland Representative Elijah Cummings, a sharecropper's son who rose to become a civil rights champion and the chairman of one of the U.S.
00:00:49.000House committees leading an impeachment inquiry of President Trump, died Thursday of complications from long-standing health problems.
00:00:58.000He was a formidable orator who advocated for the poor in his black majority district according to the Associated Press.
00:01:03.000You don't have to like Elijah Cummings' politics to understand that he was good at the game and not only that, that he was actually, according to virtually every Republican who worked with him, somebody who operated With a high level of honor inside his own chamber.
00:01:17.000There's a lot of bipartisan respect for Elijah Cummings.
00:01:20.000So all the best to his wife and family.
00:01:22.000Obviously, condolences to everybody who knew Elijah Cummings.
00:01:25.000Trey Gowdy made a really nice statement on Twitter about Elijah Cummings.
00:01:28.000He said, was one of the most powerful, beautiful, and compelling voices in American politics.
00:01:33.000The power and the beauty came from his authenticity, his conviction, the sincerity with which he held his beliefs.
00:01:37.000We rarely agreed on political matters.
00:01:39.000We never had a crossword outside of a committee room.
00:01:41.000He had a unique ability to separate the personal from the work.
00:01:44.000The story of Elijah's life would benefit everyone regardless of political ideation, the obstacles, barriers, and roadblocks he overcame, and the external and sometimes internal doubt that whispered in the ear of a young Elijah Cummings.
00:01:55.000He beat the low expectations of that former school employee who told Elijah to abandon the dream of being a lawyer, that he would never become a lawyer, to settle for a job with his hands and not his mind.
00:02:04.000Elijah loved telling that story because that school employee wound up being Elijah's first client as a lawyer.
00:02:08.000We live in an age where we see people on TV a couple of times and we think we know them and what they are about.
00:02:12.000It is true Elijah was a proud progressive with a booming melodious voice who found himself in the middle of the most major political stories over the past decade.
00:02:19.000It is inescapable that be part of his legacy, but his legacy also includes the path he took to become one of the most powerful political figures of his time.
00:02:25.000It is a path filled with pain, prejudice, obstacles, and doubt that he refused to let stop him.
00:02:30.000His legacy is fighting through the pain.
00:02:32.000His legacy is making sure there were fewer obstacles for the next Elijah Cummings.
00:02:35.000His legacy to me above all else was his faith.
00:02:38.000A faith in God that is being rewarded today with no more fights, no more battles, And no more pain.
00:02:43.000So, good for a nice statement by Trey Gowdy.
00:02:46.000And regardless of your political affiliation, when people in public service pass away and they are well respected across the political aisle, it's worthy of taking a moment.
00:03:00.000obviously surrounds the statement of President Trump's acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who also is the head of the Office of Management and Budget, has an enormous amount of power and influence inside the Trump administration, and is seen by many as the guy who's kind of Trump's hatchet man on the inside.
00:03:15.000We'll get to what Mick Mulvaney said in just one second.
00:03:18.000First of all, we have to say How many different types of cars are there on the road?
00:03:22.000Like, you're listening to this, it's quite possible you're listening to this in your car.
00:03:25.000Look out the window and you will see there are a bevy of different types of cars on the road.
00:03:29.000Do you really think that the local auto parts store has the parts that you specifically need for your car?
00:04:29.000Check them out at RockAuto.com, and write Shapiro in their How Did You Hear About Us box.
00:04:33.000So the big story over the course of yesterday was Mick Mulvaney, President Trump's acting chief of staff, coming out and saying a bevy of things about Ukraine.
00:04:46.000So let's go through the things that Mick Mulvaney actually said about Ukraine because I think some of them are Some of them are true, and some of them are badly stated, and some of them are being misconstrued, and some of them make real trouble for President Trump.
00:05:00.000So here's what Mick Mulvaney had to say about Ukraine aid.
00:05:02.000He was specifically asked whether aid to Ukraine was tied to Ukraine investigating the 2016 election, and here's what Mick Mulvaney had to say.
00:05:11.000Did he also mention to me in the past that the corruption related to the DNC server?
00:05:32.000So Mulvaney's saying, yes, there was a quid pro quo, we did hold off the military aid in order to pressure the Ukrainians to look into the 2016 election, but we didn't do the quid pro quo about investigation of the Bidens.
00:05:47.000What you just described is a quid pro quo.
00:05:49.000It is funding will not flow unless the investigation into the Democratic server Okay, now, people are construing this as he said there was a quid pro quo that is impeachable.
00:06:05.000Now, as I've said all along, the problem here is quid pro quo.
00:06:08.000What I've also said all along is that it depends what the quid pro quo is for.
00:06:11.000So, for example, we know that three Democratic senators actually wrote the administration in Ukraine just last year and said to them, we want to withhold your aid unless you are willing to fully cooperate with the Mueller investigation.
00:06:23.000So that would be a quid pro quo, would it not?
00:06:27.000In other words, there are strings attached to American aid.
00:06:29.000The question is whether the strings attached are overtly about getting a political opponent.
00:06:34.000Remember where this story started, so you can see how the story is now morphing, right?
00:06:37.000So the story started with the accusation that Donald Trump specifically said to Ukraine, you will not get your aid unless you investigate Joe Biden.
00:06:46.000Now the media are shifting this into, well it's just as bad if Trump said you won't get your aid unless you investigate Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.
00:06:58.000The United States and the people of the United States do have a legitimate interest in finding out about foreign interference in the 2016 election.
00:07:05.000And I'm having a hard time, frankly, understanding how folks on the left don't get this, considering that they just spent two years investigating, with taxpayer dollars, Russian interference in an American election.
00:07:18.000Congress who are Democrats were threatening to withhold aid from Ukraine if they didn't help with that specific investigation about the 2016 election.
00:07:24.000So in other words, if you withhold aid to Ukraine because they won't help Democrats investigate Mueller, that's okay.
00:07:29.000If you won't hand over aid to Ukraine unless they investigate Ukraine's meddling that helped Hillary Clinton, then it's very bad in a quid pro quo.
00:07:38.000I don't understand how these both can be simultaneously true.
00:07:41.000That does not make any moral sense at all.
00:07:43.000Now, that's not really where Mulvaney slipped up.
00:07:45.000So everybody is jumping on the fact that he was asked specifically about quid pro quo, and then he sort of said, yeah, we do that all the time, to mean that he is saying that there's a quid pro quo American taxpayer money to help President Trump politically.
00:07:59.000And when you're talking about a quid pro quo that matters, you have to be talking about something that you cannot use American taxpayer money to do.
00:08:07.000The accusation about Joe Biden, for example, is an accusation that Joe Biden used American taxpayer dollars, right?
00:08:13.000A billion dollars in loan guarantees to Ukraine.
00:08:16.000in order to benefit himself and his son Hunter Biden personally.
00:08:18.000That's the accusation President Trump is making.
00:08:20.000Biden's defense is, no, when I said that there is a quid pro quo, what I meant is that I'm withholding $1 billion in loan guarantees, specifically until Ukraine cleans up its act with regard to corruption.
00:08:31.000And the Obama administration was pressuring in early 2016 and throughout 2016, in fact, pressuring the Ukrainian government to clean up on corruption.
00:08:38.000And that involved investigating people like Paul Manafort, who ended up as Trump's campaign chief of staff.
00:08:44.000So, was that wrong of the Obama administration?
00:08:54.000And now Mulvaney phrased all of this in like the stupidest possible way.
00:08:58.000And in just one second, I'm going to read you the full context of his comments and explain what I think He was trying to say, but let's be real about this.
00:09:08.000He was very awkward in how he said it and he created more nightmares and more headaches for President Trump.
00:09:12.000The president's legal team today is walking away from Mulvaney saying, listen, we didn't vet that press conference.
00:09:16.000We have no idea what that guy was saying.
00:09:18.000Sean Hannity, who of course is a big defender of the president on virtually every topic, he came out and he was ripping into Mulvaney.
00:09:45.000It's just he phrased it in the worst possible way because Maybe he's just not that good at this.
00:09:50.000Again, the stupidity more than malice explanation tends to hold true for virtually everything.
00:09:55.000People make mistakes, people say dumb things, particularly in the political realm, but we'll explain word for word what he said and then you can make your own judgment.
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00:11:27.000Okay, so here is what Mick Mulvaney actually had to say word for word.
00:11:30.000So he was asked, quote, the demand for an investigation into the Democrats was part of the reason that Trump ordered to withhold funding to Ukraine.
00:11:38.000And Mulvaney said the look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation.
00:11:47.000The Obama administration withheld aid to Ukraine unless they were willing to root out corruption by looking into people like Paul Manafort, even though Paul Manafort was working with the Trump campaign at the time.
00:11:58.000Hillary Clinton was coordinating with the Ukrainian government to receive dirt on President Trump.
00:12:06.000The Democratic senators in the last year wrote a letter to the government of Ukraine saying, help out with the Mueller investigation or your aid is gonna go bye-bye.
00:12:28.000So that is the part where Mulvaney is starting to look weird, right?
00:12:33.000This is where Mulvaney starts blurring the lines and things get very weird.
00:12:37.000If he were making the claim that we are allowed to withhold funding based on investigation of things that are of importance to the American public, including foreign interference in the 2016 election, Even badly based information about foreign interference in the 2016 election, right?
00:12:50.000This is my theory, and I think it is the most plausible theory by a long shot, and that is that Rudy Giuliani was being fed bad information by Ukrainian actors.
00:12:57.000He was feeding that to President Trump.
00:12:59.000President Trump was putting that into his mind and churning out a one-note card statement on Ukraine, and that's all he really was thinking about in Ukraine.
00:13:07.000That was corruption, DNC, server, 2016, Maria Yovanovitch, like it all comes out as a ball of bleh from President Trump.
00:13:18.000And then Mulvaney interprets that as we're fighting corruption by withholding aid.
00:13:22.000And I think that's really what happened here.
00:13:40.000Like that's undercutting your own argument.
00:13:42.000If his argument is, we could withhold the aid in order to achieve the fighting of corruption, which included investigating, for example, the DNC server.
00:14:15.000People are taking the, we do quid pro quos all the time with foreign policy to mean we do political quid pro quos that benefit the president all the time with foreign policy.
00:14:24.000The context is we do stuff That it's quid pro quos with foreign governments based on foreign aid, which of course is exactly true.
00:14:31.000And then, they take out of context this other line that Mulvaney says, where he says, and I have news for everybody, get over it, there's going to be political influence in foreign policy.
00:14:39.000He doesn't mean that, get over it, the Ukrainians are going to influence American foreign policy in the election, or the Russians are going to influence American foreign policy in the election.
00:14:48.000What he means by that is that we are going to attach strings to foreign policy, and he phrases that in the worst possible way, because everyone is a dope.
00:15:15.000And just like the Mueller investigation morphed from a Trump-Russia 2016 election interference investigation into Trump obstruction of justice.
00:15:29.000So just notice the moving of the goalposts.
00:15:31.000It moved from the quid pro quos about Biden to the quid pro quos about corruption in Ukraine.
00:15:35.000Well, if the quid pro quo is about corruption in Ukraine, that is not an illegal quid pro quo.
00:15:39.000That's not even really out of the line of kind of normalcy.
00:15:43.000The only thing that's out of the line of normalcy is that Trump's standard of corruption in Ukraine seems to be based upon bad information fed to him by Rudy Giuliani, who's running around with a bunch of nefarious characters from Ukraine while being paid half a million dollars.
00:15:56.000Hey, here's the key exchange that people are ignoring, of course.
00:15:59.000The question from a reporter was, on the call, the president did ask about investigating the Bidens.
00:16:03.000Are you saying the money that was held up, that had nothing to do with the Bidens?
00:16:06.000Mulvaney said, no, the money held up had absolutely nothing to do with Biden.
00:16:09.000That was the point I was making to you.
00:16:11.000And then the reporter said, you're drawing the distinction.
00:16:13.000You're saying it would be wrong to hold up money for the Bidens.
00:16:15.000Mulvaney said, there were three factors.
00:16:17.000I was involved with the process by which the money was held up temporarily, okay?
00:16:20.000Three issues, the corruption in the country, whether or not other countries were participating in support of Ukraine, And whether or not they were cooperating in an ongoing investigation with our Department of Justice.
00:16:35.000If there's an ongoing investigation into 2016 election interference by Ukrainian government officials working with Hillary Clinton, for example, that is not wrong to withhold aid until Ukraine helps with that investigation.
00:17:01.000And the corruption in the country, whether or not the country would look, they were assisting with an ongoing investigation of corruption.
00:17:06.000How is that not an establishment of an exchange of a quid pro quo?
00:17:11.000And Mulvaney said, those are the terms you used.
00:17:12.000I mean, go look at what Gordon Sondland said today in his testimony.
00:17:14.000It was that, I think in his opening statement, he said something along the lines of they were trying to get the deliverable.
00:17:19.000And the deliverable is a statement by Ukraine about how they were going to deal with corruption, okay?
00:17:22.000Go read his testimony if you haven't already.
00:17:25.000And what he says is, and he's right, this is absolutely ordinary course of business.
00:17:29.000This is what you do when you have someone come to the White House.
00:17:30.000When you either arrange a visit for the president, you have a phone call with the president, a lot of times we use that as an opportunity to get them to make a statement of their policy or announce something they're going to do.
00:17:39.000It's one of the reasons we can't, you know, sort of announce that he's on the phone call or at the meeting.
00:17:43.000This is the ordinary course of foreign policy.
00:17:46.000So people, again, are taking him, Mulvaney, not shying away from the phrase quid pro quo to ignore what kind of quid pro quo he is talking about.
00:17:55.000Hey, if I go down to the local grocery store and I hand a person money in exchange for bread, that is a quid pro quo.
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00:20:05.000He says, I think Mr. Mulvaney's acknowledgement means that things have gone from very, very bad to much, much worse.
00:20:09.000Schiff demurred when asked how Mulvaney's comments would affect the pace of the House's impeachment inquiry.
00:20:15.000So, in other words, Democrats are going to say that things just got worse, even though basically, in reality, what Mulvaney said basically confirmed what the Trump administration was already saying.
00:20:24.000Schiff said, the idea that And Mulvaney never said that the military aid was being withheld in order to help Trump politically.
00:20:29.000reason, for the reason of serving the president's re-election campaign, is a phenomenal breach of the president's duty to defend our national security.
00:20:37.000And Mulvaney never said that the military aid was being withheld in order to help Trump politically.
00:20:42.000That misread of that one line where he says there is political influence in foreign policy, he didn't mean that this was meant to help Trump and boost Trump for 2020.
00:20:52.000He meant there are strings attached to foreign policy dollars, and it's pretty obvious from the context that that's exactly what he meant.
00:20:58.000And so Mulvaney is already walking this thing back.
00:21:01.000So again, people are picking on this one line where he said, I have news for everybody, get over it.
00:21:06.000There's going to be a political influence in foreign policy that's going to happen.
00:21:12.000Mulvaney denied any aid, again, was withheld to pressure Ukraine into going after Biden.
00:21:17.000So, Mulvaney is now saying that his remarks were misconstrued, which, by the way, they were.
00:21:21.000He issued his statement after the president's outside legal counsel tried to distance itself from Mulvaney's earlier comments at a press briefing.
00:21:28.000Mulvaney now says there is no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and that country's willingness to investigate the 2016 U.S.
00:22:21.000Okay, Mulvaney adds that Trump never told him to withhold money until the Ukrainians took action related to a server Democrats used in the 2016 election.
00:22:28.000In an earlier briefing, Mulvaney had directly cited questions about the DNC server as a reason that money for Ukraine was being held up.
00:22:34.000Okay, well, again, the questions about, Trump's bizarre questions about whether the DNC server is being held in Ukraine, which we've talked about on the show yesterday, that is founded in bad logic and bad evidence and Rudy Giuliani being an idiot.
00:22:50.000But, Withholding aid because you got bad information is not the same thing as withholding aid for political gain.
00:22:57.000Because, let's say, for the sake of argument, that this weren't a crazy theory, and that the DNC server was in fact being held in Ukraine, and demonstrated, as Trump seems to think, bizarrely, that Russia did not hack into the DNC server, Ukraine did.
00:23:11.000Wouldn't that be of relevance to the American people?
00:23:13.000I mean, we just spent two years investigating whether or not the Russians were behind the 2016 election interference.
00:23:19.000So if it was Ukraine instead, that seems like that would be relevant.
00:23:21.000Now, as I say, I think it's an idiotic theory.
00:23:23.000I don't think there's any evidence to back it, but if that's what's going on in Trump's head, then that's not necessarily about Trump's political gain.
00:23:29.000It's much more about who interfered in the 2016 election.
00:23:32.000We just spent two years investigating this and pressuring Ukraine to cooperate.
00:23:36.000A lawyer for Trump is trying to distance the president's legal team from Mulvaney.
00:23:41.000Trump's personal attorney, Jay Sekulow, issued a one-sentence statement that said the president's legal counsel was not involved in acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney's press briefing.
00:23:54.000Mulvaney has a defense here, and his defense is exactly what I'm saying, because I'm pretty sure that's what he was saying.
00:24:00.000And Trump's legal team running away from him, and now saying, well, you know, he didn't clear his stuff with us.
00:24:04.000It makes it sound like what Mulvaney actually admitted to was the crime.
00:24:08.000Like what Mulvaney admitted to was the impeachable offense, which means they call him on the carpet, they ask him about what he said, and then they impeach on that basis.
00:24:15.000So, the reaction to Mulvaney for Trump is actually as bad or worse than what Mulvaney actually said in terms of the impeachment process.
00:24:24.000And you can listen to the media coverage, which is really not honest.
00:24:28.000Toulouse Olorunnipa of the Washington Post says, Mulvaney's retort to the charges that Trump abused his office for personal political gain came in a three-word mantra that now forms the central theme of the White House impeachment response.
00:25:01.000He said in the press conference the quid pro quo wasn't about Biden.
00:25:05.000The only thing that he reversed himself on was the DNC server part, and I'm not sure why he reversed himself on it, considering that it's obviously true.
00:25:11.000That it's obviously true that Trump said, we want to withhold military aid and or a presidential meeting until the Ukrainians get to the bottom of corruption, which includes an investigation into this DNC server in 2016 election interference question.
00:25:23.000Again, for the thousandth time, based on bad information, but not based on necessarily 2020 election prospects or political malice.
00:25:34.000So, this is how it's being painted now.
00:25:37.000Honestly, that wasn't even the worst part of this press conference.
00:25:39.000The worst part of the press conference, as we will see, is Mulvaney's comments about President Trump directing the G7 to be held at the Trump Doral Resort.
00:25:55.000Okay, we'll get to that in just one second.
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00:27:07.000Okay, so the worst moment of this presser was not even the whole quid pro quo thing.
00:27:13.000The worst moment of the presser had to do with the fact that the Trump administration awarded next year's G7, the Summit of World Leaders, to his own resort, to President Trump's resort.
00:27:24.000Now, I am so annoyed by this, I cannot even tell you.
00:27:42.000It's not the president enriching himself.
00:27:44.000They say, well, he won't make any profit off of this.
00:27:46.000It's just he really, really, really likes the resort.
00:27:48.000This is where Trump's people do him a deep disservice.
00:27:51.000And Trump does himself a deep disservice.
00:27:53.000His people should be saying to him, Mr. President, you've made a whole thing out of Joe Biden appearing to be corrupt with Hunter, and now you are directing the G7 to be held at your own resort that you own?
00:28:04.000That costs millions and millions of dollars, that event?
00:28:07.000You're directing it to your own resort?
00:28:08.000Don't you think that creates the appearance of impropriety?
00:28:13.000Now, Trump, because he has never met—I mean, Trump is like my three-year-old when it comes to reverse psychology.
00:28:20.000Like, if you want Trump to do something, you tell him you don't want to do it.
00:28:23.000So maybe the best thing that should have happened here is that all of his aides should have said, best idea you ever had, Mr. President.
00:28:27.000You should totally ignore the implications of corruption.
00:28:30.000You should totally hold it at door-all.
00:28:31.000And then Trump would be like, I don't want to do it anymore.
00:28:33.000But the fact is that Everybody around Trump, unfortunately, is afraid of Trump, and nobody apparently had the balls to just say to him straight out, Mr. President, it looks really bad when you're directing giant events to your own resort in the middle of the presidency.
00:28:47.000It looks as though you're exerting the pressure of the presidency in order to raise money for your own businesses.
00:28:59.000Well, you'd have to show that the money flows.
00:29:00.000You'd have to show that Trump made some sort of profit from it.
00:29:04.000But, again, the president's desire to show off his own properties and his desire to talk about how wonderful his own properties are, it is not good for him, it is not good for his administration, it is stupid, and it is wrong.
00:29:16.000So, according to the Washington Post, Trump has awarded the 2020 Group of Seven Summit of World Leaders to his private company, scheduling the summit for June at his Trump National Doral Miami Golf Resort in Florida, the White House announced on Thursday.
00:29:28.000Trump's doral resort has been in sharp decline in recent years.
00:29:31.000Its net operating income fell 69% from 2015 to 2017.
00:29:35.000A Trump Organization representative testified last year the reason was Trump's damaged brand.
00:29:39.000Now, the G7 summit will draw hundreds of diplomats, journalists, and security personnel to the resort during one of its slowest months of the year when Miami is hot and the hotel is often less than 40% full.
00:29:49.000It will also provide a worldwide spotlight for the club.
00:29:52.000Apparently Trump passed his AIDS earlier this year.
00:30:07.000Weird that the best physical facility in the United States, anywhere in the United States for the meeting, happens to be owned by the president of the United States.
00:30:16.000And it's just, again, it's everybody around Trump trying to stroke his ego because they feel like if they stroke his ego, maybe he'll give them some of their policy priorities.
00:31:34.000My understanding is the media didn't like it because you had to drive an hour and a bus to get there either way.
00:31:38.000Okay, so Camp David was bad, but apparently, like, last I checked, it turns out that there are, like, lots of hotels and resorts in the United States.
00:32:01.000And dismissed criticisms by saying Trump is the most recognizable name in the English language and probably around the world right now, so he doesn't need help with marketing.
00:32:09.000Clearly there is profit with the Bidens.
00:32:11.000If you look at the difference between the Trump family and the Biden family, the Trump family made their money before they went into politics.
00:32:17.000If you're making the comparison between Trump and Biden, and your entire criticism of Biden is that he appeared to be using the power of his office to benefit his son, and this is an appearances question, So that was really grand for Mick Mulvaney.
00:32:37.000We'll get to more of this in just one second.
00:32:40.000We'll also get to the 2020 Democratic race and What I think was actually a really important speech by Mark Zuckerberg over at Facebook yesterday.
00:32:47.000But first, you need to go over to dailywire.com.
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00:33:32.000Okay, so a little bit more on this Ukraine stuff, and then we will move on to what I think was actually a pretty important moment over at Georgetown yesterday, because people—we'll get into that in just one second— But first, there's one final story that we have to take note of with regard to all of the Ukraine Impeachment Day 2019 talk.
00:33:56.000And that is Gordon Sondland, who is the Trump EU ambassador.
00:33:58.000He told House investigators that he opposed the president's request to run Ukraine policy through Rudy Giuliani again for the 1,000th time.
00:34:05.000This is all going to come down to Rudy Giuliani, not Mick Mulvaney.
00:34:08.000It's going to come down to Rudy Giuliani and whether Rudy Giuliani was in fact just giving the president bad information or whether he and Trump were scheming to go get Democrats.
00:34:16.000Whether they were like Elmer Fudd on a wabbit hunt or whether they were just Meanwhile, there was a big speech that was done by Mark Zuckerberg yesterday at Georgetown.
00:34:48.000I'm not going to tell them who I meet with.
00:34:50.000I'm not going to tell them what we say.
00:34:51.000The reason is because, you know, in my job, in what I do, I talk with a wide variety of extraordinarily powerful people that the left would not want me talking with.
00:34:59.000The left spends an enormous amount of time trying to shut down precisely those conversations by reporting that the conversations happen and then bringing outside pressure to bear to stop people from having those discussions in the first place.
00:35:10.000I talk with lots of people they don't want me talking with because I think the conversation is important.
00:35:16.000I think it's important to talk with people you disagree with.
00:35:18.000And so my answer to people who are asking me about meeting with Mark Zuckerberg or anybody else for that matter in a position of power is take a hike, son.
00:35:32.000And it's particularly none of your business because the goal of so many people on the left is to stop exactly the sorts of conversation that make the country better.
00:35:38.000Those conversations make the country better.
00:35:39.000The goal of the left is to prevent those conversations, which in fact is the entire issue that is happening right now with regard to Facebook.
00:35:45.000So listen, I understand conservative skepticism about Facebook.
00:35:48.000Okay, I've criticized Facebook copiously in the past when Facebook has taken action to kick people I don't even like Off of Facebook, but I think that Facebook has been too stringent in their interpretation of their own quote-unquote hate speech policy, which I think, by the way, is a stupid policy.
00:36:19.000The left doesn't like that you have an alternative method of getting your news because Facebook allows the free flow of information, more or less.
00:36:26.000Now, the more or less is a serious question.
00:36:29.000But the fact is, I over at Daily Wire can't exactly complain about Facebook's dissemination of news, considering that we get an enormous amount of traffic via Facebook.
00:36:37.000And so do a number of other conservative publishers.
00:36:40.000If it were not for social media sites like Facebook, if it were not for social media sites like Instagram, if it were not for social media sites like YouTube, it would be very difficult for you to get information.
00:36:50.000The social media sites have been very useful in ending around the media, which by the way is why the media are so all fired pissed off at Facebook.
00:36:56.000It's why the Democrats are so all fired pissed off at Facebook.
00:36:59.000It's why you're seeing Elizabeth Warren threatening to break up Facebook and other big tech companies.
00:37:04.000Not because they're worried about monopoly of information, but because they want to restore the monopoly of information.
00:37:09.000Understand that social media platforms, I may disagree with their rules.
00:37:12.000I may disagree about the implementation of the rules.
00:37:14.000I may be quite skeptical of the people who are in charge of actually making those rules apply.
00:37:20.000But, if I have a choice between a world where social media allows me to get information from a variety of sources across the political spectrum, and a world where the only newspapers I can buy at the newsstand are the New York Times, the LA Times, and the Washington Post, that is not a choice.
00:37:34.000For the journalists, it's not a choice either, which is why they hate the big tech, they hate the social media platforms.
00:37:40.000And you're starting to see all of these journalists, journalism-ing all over the place.
00:37:44.000What they would prefer is an area of limited information.
00:37:48.000They would prefer limited information.
00:37:50.000And that's why you see the New York Times today running a piece from Matt Stoller called Tech Companies Are Destroying Democracy and Freedom of the Press.
00:38:01.000Destroying it, as opposed to the New York Times, which just spread its own brand of news without any challengers in the space because there was no alternative means of distribution.
00:38:09.000Right, so the New York Times is running full pieces now by these folks.
00:38:12.000You have people like Kara Swisher, who is extremely censorious by nature, who is calling for her to be one of the controllers of Facebook's new sort of judiciary board that would help rule on whether things have violated policy.
00:38:24.000She would like to do that because Swisher happens to be censorious.
00:38:28.000Folks on the left want control of the means of the distribution of information.
00:38:32.000In any case, Mark Zuckerberg gave a speech at Georgetown, and it actually was quite an important speech, because he is actually kicking back against, in my opinion, the left.
00:38:40.000He's actually kicking back against a lot of censorious people on the left.
00:38:43.000Now, Do I trust Zuckerberg and Facebook to make all the right decisions about this stuff?
00:38:47.000No, which is why I think that we ought to cast a very hardened eye at exactly what Facebook and the social media platforms do in the interpretation of their vague and ridiculous hate speech policies.
00:38:59.000But, at least Zuckerberg seems to understand some of the problems.
00:39:02.000So he gives this speech at Georgetown, the media go nuts, it's terrible, we need to break up Facebook.
00:39:07.000Why would you trust anything the New York Times or the Washington Post are telling you?
00:39:10.000If they tell you, When it comes to what's good for freedom of speech, is that Facebook be shut down?
00:39:14.000Why would you trust the people who want a restoration of the monopoly of informational flow?
00:39:26.000But suddenly you're saying this because there's some people on the right who make a good living ripping on big tech without actually understanding all the issues.
00:39:34.000In any case, Zuckerberg Zuckerberg, honestly, I thought his speech was pretty solid yesterday over at Georgetown.
00:39:43.000Here's what he had to say about the value of free speech.
00:39:46.000Our commitment to each other, that we hold each other's right to express ourselves and be heard above our own desire to always get our way in every debate, that's how we make progress together.
00:40:00.000But this view is increasingly being challenged.
00:40:03.000Now, some people believe that giving more people a voice is driving division rather than bringing people together.
00:40:10.000More people across the spectrum believe that achieving the political outcomes that they think matter is more important than every person having a voice and being heard.
00:40:25.000Okay, at least on this point, Zuckerberg seems to get it, right?
00:40:29.000He is saying that there are people on the left who want to shut down — he doesn't say the left, obviously, he's not going to get partisan with this — but, read, it's the left, okay?
00:40:36.000There are people on the left who want to shut down certain voices, and he even gets that they're doing it by broadening the mandate of violence, by suggesting that speech is violence.
00:40:46.000Zuckerberg said in the middle of his speech, he said, people no longer have to rely on traditional gatekeepers in politics or media to make their voices heard, and that has important consequences.
00:40:53.000I understand the concerns about how tech platforms have centralized power, but I actually believe the much bigger story is how much these platforms have decentralized power by putting it directly into people's hands.
00:41:02.000You can't argue with the reality of that.
00:41:28.000He says it's hard to get the area of hate speech right.
00:41:30.000I think it's not as hard to get the area of hate speech right.
00:41:32.000I just think that the general notion of hate speech ought to go away if you are involved in inciting violence.
00:41:38.000If I were controlling policy at Facebook, I would be recommending a fulsome First Amendment standard, which means unless you are actually inciting violence, unless you are actually engaging in violation of law, I would not ban you from Facebook.
00:41:50.000I would not denigrate you on Facebook.
00:41:52.000But he's the one with the private company, and they're not, in fact, a government outlet.
00:41:56.000With that said, He is correct in his basic understanding of the issue.
00:42:04.000So for example, unlike the NBA, unlike a lot of people on the corporate left, he has refused to do business with China.
00:42:13.000He said he wanted to have service with China, but his principles with regard to what Facebook should be did not jibe with what China was doing.
00:42:20.000So that's very different from what Google has been doing.
00:42:21.000Google's just going over there and willy-nilly making deals and changing search results for the Chinese.
00:42:26.000So at least give him credit where credit is due.
00:42:28.000I wanted our services in China because I believe in connecting the whole world, and I thought, you know, maybe we could help create a more open society.
00:42:34.000And this is something that I worked hard on for a long time, but we could never come to agreement on what it would take for us to operate there, and they never let us in.
00:42:44.000And now, we have more freedom to speak out and stand up for the values that we believe in and fight for free expression around the world.
00:43:31.000I believe that we have two responsibilities.
00:43:34.000To remove content when it can cause real danger as effectively as we can, and to fight to uphold as wide of a definition of freedom of expression as possible, and to not allow the definition of what is considered dangerous to expand beyond what is absolutely necessary.
00:43:59.000The reason the media are so all fired pissed with Mark Zuckerberg and with Facebook is because he is saying stuff like this.
00:44:05.000Because Zuckerberg actually, Zuckerberg, like a lot of these big tech platforms, unlike Google, which apparently just wants to make money in China, Zuckerberg is actually paying lip service, again, we'll see how it carries out in practice, he's paying lip service to First Amendment values right there.
00:44:22.000And if the right has any brains at all, they should be cheering what Zuckerberg said yesterday about limiting the left's attempt to conflate speech with violence and broaden the definition of violence to encompass anything they disagree with.
00:44:33.000Because Zuckerberg was pushing back against that yesterday.
00:44:36.000Do you really want... Listen, I may not trust Mark Zuckerberg to set the standards, Frankly, I'm not sure that Zuckerberg, from his own speech, trusts Mark Zuckerberg to set the standards.
00:44:44.000I don't think anybody should be trusted to set the standards, per se.
00:45:12.000Like, by the way, Quick note, the same media that feel uncomfortable, like sort of uncomfortable, criticizing LeBron James over completely kowtowing to China have no problem talking about breaking up big tech and breaking up Zuckerberg's company because Zuckerberg won't do business in China.
00:45:32.000Yes, we do all have freedom of speech.
00:45:33.000But at times, there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you're not thinking about others and you're only thinking about yourself!
00:45:39.000Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on, kids?
00:45:40.000The protesters are trying to kill Ack again, Mr. Mackey.
00:45:43.000Okay, kids, we don't want another incident here, okay?
00:45:46.000They're trying to change people's lunch.
00:45:47.000They don't realize it harms people financially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
00:45:52.000And that is Cartman directly quoting LeBron James.
00:45:59.000Yes, we are still allowed, thank God, at least for the time being, to make fun of people in positions of public power.
00:46:07.000Okay, time for a very quick thing that I hate.
00:46:52.000I think that she thought that her best hit on Elizabeth Warren was not, you called yourself a Native American for 30 years on official forums.
00:47:01.000Her best attack instead was, why won't you ban Trump from Twitter, man?
00:47:06.000So Kamala Harris' campaign spokesperson, Harris aide anyway, Harris aide then sends this insane, insane note to Katharine Miller, quote, Hey, I've talked to her directly a few times when she's tweeted out, she sent this to, apparently, Ben Smith, I guess, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed.
00:47:25.000Hey, I've talked to her directly a few times when she's tweeted out stuff like this.
00:47:28.000And I told her I was glad she deleted this tweet.
00:48:07.000Because if Kamala shrugged off a Warren critique of how she wasn't with her on Facebook, we'd get raked and she would get lauded as taking on corporate power.
00:48:14.000The blithe mockery here of Kamala while lauding Warren's style is just not up to par.
00:48:18.000I say this to you to be super frank and because I really like your guys' work, the platform, and your reporters.
00:48:22.000We work well together across the board, but this is a bit problematic.