The Ben Shapiro Show - January 24, 2018


The Imploding Russia Probe | Ep. 460


Episode Stats

Length

52 minutes

Words per Minute

205.61905

Word Count

10,795

Sentence Count

721

Misogynist Sentences

10

Hate Speech Sentences

14


Summary

Republicans and Democrats battle it out over the future of the Robert Mueller special counsel probe, as Chuck Schumer searches for a strategy on illegal immigration, and we discuss the power of repentance. Also, illegal immigrants are trying to shut down Disneyland, and I don t know why they would do that, but I guess it's a good thing they don't have tickets to Disneyland, because that's a weird place to protest, because it's the happiest place on Earth, right? Also, I'm confused why illegal immigrants would try to block off Disneyland, since it has a wall around it and you need tickets to enter, and you are thrown out if you illegally trespass, but we will get to all of those things in this episode of The Ben Shapiro Show, where we discuss that, as well as the latest on the Mueller investigation, and why you should call your lawyer if you get caught in the crosshairs of the Mueller probe, because you don't know where to go to get a lawyer, and what to do if you do get caught by the FBI without one. What would you do without a lawyer? And what would you tell the FBI to do, and how would you handle the situation if you find yourself in a situation where the FBI asks you to talk to the FBI about something you're not sure where you should talk to them about it? and you don t have a lawyer with no idea where to get one? What do you do to avoid getting a lawyer to help you out of a situation like that situation? And why you need a lawyer in the FBI should do that? Well, that's what you should do, right there! Ben Shapiro is a lawyer. Subscribe to Ben Shapiro's new show on the Ben Shapiro show? Subscribe to his new show, The Weekly with Ben Shapiro? Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices and become a supporter of the show on that and other links to our new show recommendations, and much more! Subscribe and subscribe to his podcast on the show? Learn more at Ben Shapiro s new podcast, The Six Degrees of Liberalism: The Sixteenth Housewife on the Sixteenth Street Podcasts on the Fourteenth episode of Six Figures Podcast Six Figures, the Six Figures of the New York Times, The FiveThirtyEight, The Independent Journalist, on Sixteenth Avenue, on Podchaser, on the FiveThirtyFive, and The Six Figures Project.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Republicans and Democrats battle it out over the future of the Robert Mueller special counsel probe, Chuck Schumer searches for a strategy on illegal immigration, and we discuss the power of repentance.
00:00:09.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:00:10.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:00:16.000 So, the Russia probe is all over the news.
00:00:18.000 We're going to discuss that.
00:00:19.000 We are also going to get to illegal immigrants trying to shut down Disneyland, which is terrible.
00:00:23.000 It's the happiest place on Earth.
00:00:24.000 Why would you do that?
00:00:25.000 Also, I'm confused why illegal immigrants would try to shut down Disneyland.
00:00:28.000 It has a wall around it, and you need tickets to enter, and you are thrown out if you illegally trespass.
00:00:32.000 So, that seems like a weird place to protest.
00:00:34.000 But we will get to all of those things.
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00:02:20.000 All right, so I want to bring you the latest on the Mueller investigation, so...
00:02:24.000 There's a lot going on in the Mueller investigation, but very little of it has to do with Trump-Russia collusion.
00:02:29.000 Now, we were promised that Trump-Russia collusion was what this entire thing was about.
00:02:33.000 It appears more and more, day by day, that this investigation has nothing to do with Trump-Russia collusion.
00:02:38.000 It has everything to do with obstruction of justice.
00:02:40.000 That's what it looks like it is moving toward.
00:02:42.000 So on Wednesday, there are a bevy of new stories about the Mueller investigation.
00:02:46.000 And apparently the special counsel is now trying to get Trump himself in for an interview.
00:02:50.000 Trump would be a fool to do the interview, because the minute that Trump interviews with the guy, it's a perjury trap.
00:02:55.000 Every time you talk with the federal government, first rule, okay, just as a lawyer, and this is true, right, left, center.
00:03:00.000 Everybody, if the police ever ask to talk to you, the answer is, wait, let me call my lawyer.
00:03:05.000 Okay, that's always the answer.
00:03:06.000 If you want to be safe, your answer is, wait, let me call my lawyer.
00:03:09.000 Not because you distrust the police or you think they're going to do something wrong, but because you're going to get caught in traps where you don't know exactly how to navigate these waters, right?
00:03:17.000 The first word of any defense counsel when you walk into that room is, don't talk here without a lawyer.
00:03:22.000 And that would certainly be true for Mike Flynn.
00:03:23.000 Mike Flynn talked to the FBI without a lawyer, and now he finds himself facing five years in federal prison.
00:03:29.000 Do not talk to the FBI without a lawyer.
00:03:30.000 This is certainly true of Trump, who has a tendency to babble on at the mouth.
00:03:35.000 Well, this interview would presumably be focused on Trump's firing of former FBI Director James Comey, his alleged request to Comey to let now-indicted former National Security Advisor Flynn go, and his pressure on various officials ranging from Attorney General Jeff Sessions to Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe with regard to the Trump-Russia collusion investigation.
00:03:51.000 So according to the Washington Post, Robert Mueller wants to investigate Trump especially about the firings of Flynn and Comey.
00:03:58.000 Sessions and Comey...
00:03:59.000 So here's the pattern of behavior to go back in time.
00:04:16.000 According to Comey, Trump asked him for a loyalty oath back in January.
00:04:19.000 Then in February, Trump fired Flynn because back in December, Flynn had called up the Russian government and asked them to vote a certain way on a resolution at the UN, and then he lied about the FBI to it, so Trump fires Flynn.
00:04:29.000 Immediately thereafter, Comey says that Trump asked Comey to let Flynn go.
00:04:33.000 Trump didn't help his case when he tweeted out that he had to let Flynn go because Flynn lied to the FBI.
00:04:37.000 That makes it sound like Trump was trying to manipulate Comey into allowing Flynn to get off on federal charges, which could be seen as him trying to move the investigation in one direction or another.
00:04:47.000 Then in May, of course, Trump fires Comey and then says on national TV that he did it because of the Russia investigation.
00:04:54.000 And then in May, Trump asked Andrew McCabe, the deputy FBI director, how he voted in the last election cycle when he was taking over as interim director.
00:05:01.000 Throughout this period, Trump was harassing Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Twitter, presumably for accusing himself from the Russia investigation.
00:05:08.000 So what exactly is Mueller doing with all of this?
00:05:09.000 What here was illegal?
00:05:10.000 Supposedly this is all about him obstructing justice, Trump obstructing justice, getting in the way of justice.
00:05:16.000 And Democrats have been saying this for months, that this is the direction they thought the investigation was moving.
00:05:20.000 Now note, this investigation began with the accusation that the Trump campaign worked with the Russians in order to win the election and to stop Hillary Clinton from becoming president.
00:05:29.000 Now what we're talking about has nothing to do with any of this.
00:05:33.000 So when you talk about an investigation that has broadened out and moved sideways, just like every special counsel investigation ever, this is what has happened here, and that is Robert Mueller's fault.
00:05:42.000 When your job is to find crime, you find crime, even if that crime has to be manipulated on the back of other crimes, meaning that Flynn probably didn't do anything wrong when he called up the Russian government, but he lied to the FBI.
00:05:51.000 So he's caught in sort of a perjury trap, as I suggested before, and then Trump is now going to be caught in an obstruction trap because he said something to Comey about it.
00:05:59.000 At least that is what it looks like is happening here.
00:06:01.000 Diane Feinstein, the senator from California, she's been suggesting this for months.
00:06:04.000 Back in December, she said, quote,
00:06:19.000 And I see it most importantly in what happened with the firing of former FBI Director Comey.
00:06:23.000 It is my belief that it is directly because he did not agree to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation, that's obstruction of justice.
00:06:28.000 Now, is it really obstruction of justice?
00:06:30.000 As I've explained multiple times on the show, the answer is no.
00:06:33.000 There are three separate federal laws that deal with obstruction of justice.
00:06:35.000 There's 18 U.S.
00:06:36.000 Code 1503, that is called the Omnibus Clause of obstruction of justice.
00:06:41.000 It covers, quote, corruptly or by any threatening letter or communication, influencing or impeding or endeavoring to influence, obstruct or impede, the due administration of justice.
00:06:49.000 But the clause requires a pending judicial proceeding that was supposedly obstructed.
00:06:53.000 There is no pending judicial proceeding that has been found here as of yet.
00:06:57.000 Okay, so that really does not apply.
00:06:59.000 Also, you'd have to prove that Trump materially impeded the investigation.
00:07:02.000 There's no real suggestion he's done that, right?
00:07:04.000 The special counsel continues to investigate.
00:07:06.000 He hasn't fired Robert Mueller.
00:07:07.000 He fired James Comey, but that didn't stop the investigation.
00:07:10.000 Whatever he said to Comey about investigating Flynn didn't stop Comey from investigating Flynn, as Comey freely admitted in front of Congress.
00:07:15.000 Okay, second clause is 18 U.S.
00:07:17.000 Code 1512c.
00:07:19.000 First of all, it's not clear that an FBI investigation is actually an official proceeding, but also you have to prove intent under this crime.
00:07:30.000 You have to prove that there was an intent to obstruct justice and a substantial step toward the accomplishment of that goal.
00:07:36.000 What was the substantial step?
00:07:37.000 Now, maybe you make the case that the substantial step was him firing Comey, but
00:07:41.000 Trump can fire Comey for any reason whatsoever.
00:07:42.000 That's not obstruction of justice.
00:07:44.000 Unless he actually stops the investigation.
00:07:46.000 Unless he stands in and stops the investigation cold and says, you are no longer allowed to perform this investigation.
00:07:52.000 Even that may not be obstruction of justice, by the way.
00:07:54.000 But he would actually have to come in and say, I want you to find me innocent.
00:07:56.000 That would be obstruction of justice.
00:07:57.000 He comes in, he says, I will fire you unless you find me innocent in this probe.
00:08:00.000 That's probably obstruction of justice.
00:08:02.000 But there's no clear
00:08:05.000 Evidence that that was the case.
00:08:06.000 He wanted Comey to find a medicine, but he didn't shut down the investigation after Comey refused to do so.
00:08:11.000 Then there's 18 U.S.
00:08:12.000 Code 1519.
00:08:13.000 This provision covers destroying evidence.
00:08:15.000 There's no evidence that Trump has destroyed evidence.
00:08:16.000 So, what exactly is Robert Mueller doing at this point?
00:08:20.000 It looks like he's setting the groundwork for what would be an impeachment hunt by Democrats after the 2018 House elections if they win back control of the House.
00:08:27.000 All over non-illegal obstruction of an investigation that found no underlying crime other than lying to the FBI, which is a crime, but it was not the crime that we were promised.
00:08:35.000 Now Trump is going to be tempted to pardon everybody who lied to the FBI.
00:08:38.000 Republicans will surely defend Trump.
00:08:40.000 Democrats will say this is all impeachable because people lied to the FBI and then Trump, quote-unquote, obstructed justice, even if he didn't legally do so.
00:08:46.000 So you could get a nasty, knock-down, drag-out fight over an issue completely unrelated to Trump-Russia collusion.
00:08:53.000 That's the direction that this investigation is moving.
00:08:55.000 And it's no wonder that people in Republican places of power are finding this difficult to deal with.
00:09:02.000 They're finding this discomforting.
00:09:04.000 Because this is not what was suggested.
00:09:07.000 This is not what the investigation was originally about.
00:09:09.000 Democrats said Hillary Clinton's election was stolen.
00:09:11.000 Donald Trump stole the election with Vladimir Putin's help.
00:09:13.000 That obviously is not what has happened here and no evidence has been provided that suggests that this is what has happened here.
00:09:19.000 Now, Democrats aren't letting the Russia stuff go, obviously, because they can't.
00:09:23.000 They've told their base that Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia is behind everything.
00:09:26.000 Like, just today, Dianne Feinstein and Adam Schiff, both Democrats from California, pushed Facebook and Twitter to investigate the Release the Memo social media campaign.
00:09:35.000 That campaign, as you recall, we've talked about it for the last week, that is a campaign to release Devin Nunes' House Intelligence memo that apparently compiles a bunch of failures of FISA,
00:09:44.000 Including, presumably, that FISA based its original investigation, its original warrant, on Carter Page, a Trump foreign policy advisor, on bad intel, right?
00:09:53.000 On bad intel provided by a Democratic oppo firm.
00:09:56.000 So now, Feinstein and Schiff are pushing Facebook and Twitter, suggesting that perhaps Russian bots are manipulating the hashtag release the memo.
00:10:03.000 The whole goal here, by the way, is to push Facebook and Twitter so they shut down conservative news and information.
00:10:08.000 That's what the Democrats want to do here.
00:10:09.000 So, they are corrupt.
00:10:11.000 They are pushing the Russia stuff in a way that is dishonest, I think.
00:10:15.000 But, you know, I think that there's another side to this story, too.
00:10:18.000 And in a second, I'm going to discuss the other side to this story, because the way that Republicans are responding to this investigation
00:10:24.000 Could be right, and it could be very wrong.
00:10:25.000 I'll explain what I mean by that in just a second.
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00:12:05.000 Okay, so.
00:12:06.000 With all of this said about the Mueller investigation, there is another controversy that has arisen.
00:12:11.000 And that, of course, is whether the Mueller investigation should be done away with completely.
00:12:15.000 Now, the Republican case that the Mueller investigation should be done away with completely is not that the Mueller investigation has found nothing on Trump-Russia so far.
00:12:21.000 Because we don't know that, right?
00:12:22.000 We don't know what Mueller has found.
00:12:24.000 He hasn't revealed that.
00:12:25.000 And it's a little bit of a jump from saying that the investigation was initially compromised to suggesting that the entire investigation will find nothing.
00:12:31.000 We just don't know.
00:12:33.000 Right?
00:12:33.000 By all implication, I would think that they really have nothing.
00:12:36.000 That's my opinion, though.
00:12:37.000 I don't have the underlying facts, and so I'm trying to separate my own opinion from the facts.
00:12:41.000 So we'll have to wait to find out whether the Mueller investigation actually finds something.
00:12:44.000 If all they find is Flynn and obstruction of justice, I think everyone is going to be disappointed, and should be, at least in terms of what they were promised.
00:12:50.000 So...
00:12:51.000 Meanwhile, the Republicans are attacking the investigation itself by attacking the FBI.
00:12:56.000 Here is the problem.
00:12:57.000 Either the FBI was corrupted by Democrats or it is not corrupt and the Republicans are corrupting the FBI and targeting the FBI to defend Trump.
00:13:05.000 Neither of these answers is good.
00:13:07.000 Neither of these is good for the country.
00:13:08.000 If it turns out that Democrats compromise the FBI in an attempt to stop President Trump from becoming president, and then continue to use the FBI in an attempt to curb Trump's presidency, then that is corruption at the highest levels.
00:13:18.000 That is the destruction of one of the great American institutions.
00:13:21.000 It is the destruction of a law enforcement agency that requires the trust of the American people.
00:13:26.000 It's just along the lines of the Obama administration compromising the IRS and using it as a political baton.
00:13:31.000 So, that's option number one.
00:13:33.000 Republicans are right, and the FBI has been significantly compromised by Democrats, and there is a quote-unquote deep state problem going on.
00:13:40.000 Then there's theory number two.
00:13:41.000 Then there's theory number two, right?
00:13:43.000 Theory number two is that the Democrats did not actually compromise the FBI.
00:13:47.000 The FBI may have some problematic figures like Peter Strzok and Lisa Page in it,
00:13:51.000 But that does not mean the FBI is actually compromised.
00:13:54.000 The investigation is moving as most investigations do.
00:13:56.000 There's not serious Democratic infiltration of the FBI.
00:13:59.000 It's just working as a law enforcement agency does.
00:14:02.000 In which case, Republicans are targeting a law enforcement agency for destruction in order to defend President Trump, which is a really, really bad look.
00:14:10.000 Okay, here is the basis for all of this.
00:14:12.000 So, in the last few weeks, here are the revelations regarding alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and most of all, regarding the FBI's investigation of it.
00:14:21.000 Okay, text messages between FBI agents Peter Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page talked openly about a quote-unquote path you threw out for consideration in Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's office as a quote, insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40, with reference to a Trump election.
00:14:35.000 I mean, here's how it reads, anyway, just to allayment.
00:14:39.000 What it reads like is, we have an insurance policy against Trump being elected, and that is this investigation into Trump.
00:14:46.000 Strzok worked heavily on the Hillary investigation.
00:14:48.000 He helped exonerate her.
00:14:49.000 He was also deeply involved in the Trump-Russia collusion investigation.
00:14:52.000 Okay, that's breaking story number one.
00:14:54.000 Breaking story number two.
00:14:55.000 Representatives Trey Gowdy and John Ratcliffe, they said that there are text messages between Strzok and Page that referenced a quote-unquote secret society working against Trump.
00:15:03.000 We haven't seen any of that so far.
00:15:05.000 And now, Senator Ron Johnson, who had echoed those comments, he said that his secret society comments were based on an informant and the words used in the Strzok-Page text exchange.
00:15:13.000 He says he does not know exactly what they meant.
00:15:15.000 So everybody is taking that super seriously and suggesting that the secret society is some sort of
00:15:20.000 You know, Bilderberg conspiracy to take down Trump inside the FBI.
00:15:24.000 Ron Johnson is saying that he doesn't really know what that means, so we gotta take all that with a grain of salt.
00:15:28.000 More nefarious is that the FBI somehow lost a batch of text messages between Strzok and Page.
00:15:32.000 They turned over about 50,000 Strzok-Page text messages, but the period in which they do not have messages from Strzok to Page and vice versa is December 2016 to May 2017, which is during this entire compromising period.
00:15:44.000 It's during the bulk of the investigation into Flynn, the firing of Comey, the supposed quasi-threat to Andrew McCabe.
00:15:52.000 Okay, and apparently the text messages stopped going missing, conveniently enough, the day that Robert Mueller took over the probe.
00:15:58.000 Which suggests that maybe they were texting about James Comey, and then they got rid of all of those texts.
00:16:01.000 All those texts were deleted, or the FBI got rid of all of them as soon as Mueller took over because it made the investigation look bad.
00:16:08.000 Okay, the FBI did change its language regarding Hillary Clinton before Hillary was even interviewed.
00:16:11.000 And, of course, the news that the Democrats hate is this House Intelligence Committee Chairman Nunes four-page memo that purportedly blew the lid off the FISA malfeasance in the Trump-Russia collusion case, presumably suggesting that the original FISA warrants against Carter Page was garnered based on a bad dossier compiled by Fusion GPS at the behalf of Democrats and in collusion with the Obama administration, the DOJ, and the FBI.
00:16:34.000 Okay, so that's all of the information.
00:16:36.000 Now here's the question.
00:16:38.000 Is the FBI actually a corrupt, deeply corrupt place?
00:16:41.000 So there are a bunch of Republicans who are suggesting that the answer is yes, that there's a deeply corrupt thing going on here, right?
00:16:46.000 President Trump is suggesting this himself.
00:16:48.000 President Trump tweeted this out yesterday.
00:16:50.000 He tweeted out...
00:16:53.000 So that, of course, is a joke.
00:17:00.000 The Democrats and the media don't understand a joke, so they thought that Trump was actually blaming Samsung, which is idiotic.
00:17:05.000 He is joking that the FBI did away with these.
00:17:07.000 There were not, by the way, 50,000 text messages that were lost between Strzok and Page.
00:17:11.000 There are 50,000 text messages total between Strzok and Page, and some of those were lost.
00:17:15.000 We don't know exactly how many.
00:17:17.000 Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that Trump is deeply concerned that the FBI agents are biased against him and that the FBI has been deeply corrupted and compromised.
00:17:25.000 Why does he think this is one of the biggest stories in a long time?
00:17:29.000 I think he thinks that there's a great cause for concern.
00:17:33.000 That five months worth of text messages have gone missing, particularly given the individual
00:17:40.000 Part of that process has already been shown to be extremely biased against the president and was involved in what seems to be some very inappropriate behavior.
00:17:50.000 And that certainly is a great concern.
00:17:52.000 You guys are absolutely obsessed with everything to do with collusion, if it has anything to do with the president.
00:17:59.000 We hope that you'll take some of that same obsession, energy, and fervor and direct it to some of the places where it looks like there could have been some
00:18:10.000 Okay, so obviously the Trump administration thinks that the FBI is going after them.
00:18:16.000 Ron Johnson, as I mentioned, the senator from Wisconsin, he's suggesting the same thing.
00:18:20.000 He says,
00:18:23.000 So when the DOJ sent you this letter saying that there was this glitch that prevented those five months of text from being released to you, did you buy it?
00:18:32.000 Do you buy it?
00:18:34.000 Well, I'm suspicious.
00:18:35.000 I want to get to the bottom of it.
00:18:36.000 And there's so many experts in IT that say that those messages are somewhere and they need to be retrieved.
00:18:43.000 We need to see it because the timing is very suspicious.
00:18:45.000 From mid-December of 2016 after the election,
00:18:48.000 Okay, so this is the Republican theory, right?
00:18:50.000 The Republican theory is that the Trump administration is being targeted from inside the FBI by a secret society.
00:18:56.000 You know, this all sounds conspiratorial.
00:18:58.000 Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
00:18:59.000 But one of two things is true.
00:19:00.000 Either the FBI is deeply corrupt, or
00:19:16.000 The Republicans are targeting the FBI in order to defend Trump, which would be deeply corrupt in and of itself.
00:19:21.000 Now, I was really disappointed yesterday.
00:19:22.000 Rush Limbaugh, who, of course, I'm a big fan of.
00:19:24.000 He's the granddaddy of us all in talk radio and in sort of the conservative commentary, at least those of us who speak for a living.
00:19:31.000 Yesterday, Rush, I thought, went over the line when he was discussing the intel community.
00:19:36.000 He suggested in almost
00:19:38.000 You remember what the intelligence agencies were telling us in the war in Iraq?
00:19:42.000 You remember what they were telling us?
00:19:43.000 There was detail.
00:19:44.000 There were photos.
00:19:44.000 There was conclusive evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
00:19:47.000 And it wasn't just U.S.
00:19:48.000 intel.
00:20:04.000 It was MI5, MI6.
00:20:05.000 It was intelligence agencies all over the world.
00:20:09.000 What if?
00:20:11.000 Just what if?
00:20:13.000 Remember, they all thought Gore had won that election until the Supreme Court came along and stole it for Bush.
00:20:20.000 This is what they thought.
00:20:22.000 The Democrat Party
00:20:24.000 Okay, Rush goes on here to basically suggest that maybe the Iraq War intel was compromised in order to get Bush, which doesn't make any sense along the timeline.
00:20:38.000 The Iraq War wasn't launched until 2003.
00:20:40.000 Bush was elected in 2000.
00:20:42.000 Beyond that, the Iraq War never would have gone forward if it had not been for 9-11.
00:20:45.000 Ann Coulter has been targeting the FBI as well, suggesting the FBI was always corrupt.
00:20:50.000 What's weird is that she's conflating corrupt and incompetent.
00:20:52.000 The FBI has certainly made mistakes, no question about it.
00:20:55.000 She suggests that the FBI is responsible for 9-11 to a certain extent, which I think is dubious in the extreme.
00:21:01.000 But this is the danger that Republicans run into.
00:21:05.000 You can question corruption at the FBI without even questioning the corruption of the entire institution.
00:21:09.000 You can say there were bad apples at the FBI who corrupted this investigation, fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine, the entire investigation is corrupt.
00:21:15.000 But instead, Republicans are falling into this trap of now targeting the entire FBI, which of course is not good for the country.
00:21:20.000 And it's especially not good for the country if the Republican Party is corruptly targeting the FBI because there is something there and they're just defending Trump no matter what.
00:21:27.000 I don't know enough to answer this question.
00:21:29.000 You don't know enough to answer this question.
00:21:31.000 The only way this question gets answered is once we know exactly what Mueller knows, know what was in that FISA warrant, which by the way, Trump can declassify at any time that FISA warrant on Carter Page.
00:21:40.000 I want to know what's in that warrant, don't you?
00:21:42.000 Trump can declassify it at any time.
00:21:43.000 I want more information before I decide that either the FBI is corrupt or that the Republicans are corrupt for calling the FBI corrupt.
00:21:49.000 One of these two things is apparently true, and there is no third answer.
00:21:53.000 There really is no third answer.
00:21:55.000 Maybe there's a third answer.
00:21:56.000 I think the third answer actually would be that there are members of the FBI who were corrupt like Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, but not the entire FBI, and that doesn't necessarily compromise the entire investigation.
00:22:04.000 Or if it does compromise the entire investigation, that's not an indictment of the entire FBI.
00:22:09.000 That would be, I think, the reasonable third position.
00:22:11.000 But those are not the positions people are taking.
00:22:12.000 Democrats are saying the FBI is spotless, and therefore Trump was engaged in obstruction of justice in attempting to get the FBI.
00:22:18.000 Republicans are saying the FBI is deeply corrupt and was corrupted by the Obama administration, and therefore ending the Mueller investigation is necessary.
00:22:24.000 I don't think actually either of those two positions are correct, and I think both of them lack significant evidence.
00:22:30.000 Well, in just one second, I want to move on to the fallout from DACA.
00:22:33.000 And what's coming next on the DACA negotiations.
00:22:36.000 First, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Dollar Shave Club.
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00:24:01.000 Well, all of this unfolds on the Mueller investigation.
00:24:03.000 Basically, the temptation for Trump here is going to be fire Mueller, pardon everyone, end this thing as soon as it's possible.
00:24:10.000 I think that would be a big mistake at this point.
00:24:12.000 Believe me, if it turns out that there's nothing to the Mueller investigation, if it turns out that this is really, I think, flimsy stuff, then people will be out there
00:24:23.000 I've been trying to take as much as I can a factually based look at what's happening here and try and base my opinion on those facts.
00:24:30.000 I'm going to wait for more facts to decide whether or not this investigation is just deeply corrupt.
00:24:34.000 I will say that it looks like there are problems inside the FBI.
00:24:38.000 I don't know if those problems go to the entire FBI.
00:24:40.000 I don't know if they discredit the entire investigation.
00:24:42.000 I'll also say that, you know, the pattern of obstruction that Mueller is trying to find in Trump can be explained one of two ways.
00:24:48.000 Either Trump is trying to obstruct justice in order to defend his friends and hide from something nefarious, or Trump is dolt, is a dolt, and he just says stuff because he feels it.
00:24:57.000 Like, I like Flynn, call me, could you leave him alone?
00:25:00.000 Or Flynn's, or Comey's annoying me because he won't just say I'm innocent, I know I'm innocent, he's fired.
00:25:05.000 Right?
00:25:06.000 Honestly, what makes all of these scandals seem to go away a little bit, anyway, is if you suggest that they are mostly based on stupidity rather than malice.
00:25:14.000 When it comes to government, that's almost always a good bet.
00:25:17.000 It's not just true of Trump, it's true of pretty much everyone.
00:25:19.000 Stupidity rather than malice usually rules the day.
00:25:21.000 When it is malice, it's pretty clear.
00:25:23.000 Like Adam Schiff and Dianne Feinstein suggesting that Russian bots are behind Release the Memo, that's malice to me because Feinstein and Schiff are both smart people and they know better than this.
00:25:30.000 But,
00:25:32.000 All of this mostly looks like an insane amount of stupidity piled on top of stupidity rather than malice in a get-Trump effort, but my mind is willing to be persuaded on any of these scores.
00:25:43.000 I just need more evidence.
00:25:43.000 Okay, so, meanwhile, more fallout from DACA.
00:25:46.000 So obviously the government shutdown ended earlier this week.
00:25:48.000 Democrats got nothing in return.
00:25:50.000 But they are receiving some protests, which is quite entertaining.
00:25:55.000 Apparently, there were a bunch of DACA recipients, DREAMers, who actually went outside Chuck Schumer's house and were protesting outside Chuck Schumer's house yesterday.
00:26:03.000 That wasn't the only place that they were protesting, by the way.
00:26:06.000 They apparently blocked an entrance to Disneyland on Monday.
00:26:08.000 Now, we were at Disneyland on Sunday.
00:26:10.000 We had a great time, met some fans, which is always
00:26:12.000 A party?
00:26:13.000 It's kind of fun going to places like Disneyland.
00:26:15.000 You meet a lot of listeners, and hello to all of the people I met at Disneyland.
00:26:18.000 That was always a party.
00:26:19.000 But according to the LA Times, the next day, Monday, DACA recipients stood in a crosswalk at South Harbor Boulevard around 10 a.m.
00:26:25.000 and blocked buses from entering the Anaheim theme park.
00:26:27.000 Fifteen protesters were quickly removed by law enforcement officers and were relocated to a sidewalk where they held signs and chanted, no dream, no deal.
00:26:35.000 So there's about 20 people and Disneyland operated completely normally.
00:26:39.000 I do have a question, as I say, as a regular Disneyland patron and, yes, season ticket holder.
00:26:44.000 I have two young children.
00:26:45.000 This is insanely idiotic.
00:26:47.000 What in the hell does the happiest place on earth have to do with people illegally in the country retaining their ability to stay in the country?
00:26:54.000 It ought to be noted that Disneyland has a pretty strict immigration policy.
00:26:57.000 No ticket, no entry.
00:26:59.000 And they have a wall, a giant fence around the entire park.
00:27:02.000 And if you try to climb the wall, they will call the police on you.
00:27:05.000 So Disneyland, unless they were protesting for free entry to Disneyland, which is something I might be able to get behind on occasion, I don't know why they would do this.
00:27:12.000 But it just demonstrates that demonstrators themselves just do things without really any thought, simply to get the press.
00:27:19.000 Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer is idiotically trying to blackmail Republicans.
00:27:22.000 I don't think any of this is going anywhere, as I suggested yesterday.
00:27:24.000 I don't think a DACA deal is imminent.
00:27:26.000 I don't think that Mitch McConnell is going to push one.
00:27:28.000 I don't think Trump is going to sign one.
00:27:29.000 I think, in all likelihood, we hit the March 5th deadline for reinstating deportations, and Trump just says,
00:27:36.000 We're not going to give you papers, but we're also not going to deport most of the DREAMers.
00:27:39.000 And they go back to sort of this in-the-shadows, in-between status.
00:27:42.000 I got some emails yesterday, and they're quite correct, suggesting this is bad for the DREAMers because with their current sort of green card status, they can get jobs.
00:27:49.000 Trump would prevent them from getting jobs.
00:27:51.000 The truth is that illegal immigrants in this country have been working for a very long time, which is how they've been able to stay in the country.
00:27:57.000 And yes, it will revoke certain legal status in terms of work, but it won't actually deport them.
00:28:03.000 Anyway, Chuck Schumer is trying to blackmail McConnell saying, you have 16 days, or I'm gonna get really mad.
00:28:09.000 Like, he's saying that he's not gonna shut down the government again, or at least he's implied that, so I'm not sure what the stick is.
00:28:15.000 I understand that the carrot is the docket deal, I just don't know what the stick is.
00:28:17.000 Here's Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader, warning McConnell.
00:28:20.000 So, the Republican majority now has 16 days.
00:28:25.000 To work with us to write a bill that can get 60 votes and prevent the Dreamers from being deported.
00:28:32.000 The clock is ticking.
00:28:34.000 16 days.
00:28:35.000 That's not much time.
00:28:37.000 Gotta get moving.
00:28:38.000 Okay, so I don't know what clock is ticking.
00:28:42.000 Like, on February 8th, are they going to shut down the government again?
00:28:43.000 I mean, Schumer just gave away all his leverage.
00:28:45.000 He also said yesterday that it was pretty obvious the Democrats weren't going to be willing to shut down the government for the Dreamers.
00:28:50.000 I mean, he said this literally yesterday.
00:28:52.000 Now, for two days, the government was shut down.
00:28:55.000 But all of us in the Democratic caucus, not just the moderates, but the liberals as well, came to the view that if we carried it on much longer, two things would happen.
00:29:05.000 A, no one would budge.
00:29:07.000 The public would lose support of the shutdown.
00:29:09.000 The public does not like shutdowns.
00:29:11.000 And we'd actually lose support for DREAMers, too, because people love the DREAMers but don't want the government shut down for it.
00:29:17.000 So we cut the best deal that we could.
00:29:20.000 So I'm really confused as to what the threat is.
00:29:22.000 He's saying you have 16 days, or I won't shut down the government again because our people don't want us to do this?
00:29:27.000 Good luck with that strategy.
00:29:28.000 It's going nowhere.
00:29:29.000 The reality is Schumer doesn't want a deal because he wants to be able to claim Republicans stopped a deal.
00:29:33.000 Republicans do want a deal, but not on the terms Democrats are offering.
00:29:37.000 And the Democrats are basically offering nothing now.
00:29:39.000 I mean, Schumer yesterday decided that he was going to withdraw his pittance of an offer, $1.6 billion in border security in return for legal status for the Dreamers and their parents.
00:29:47.000 And Trump said no, and then Schumer withdrew the offer after Trump said no.
00:29:51.000 So this is going nowhere.
00:29:53.000 What is hilarious I mentioned is the Dreamers showing up at Chuck Schumer's house.
00:29:56.000 Here are some of the Dreamers protesting outside Schumer's house.
00:29:59.000 If Trump won't let us dream, we won't let him sleep.
00:30:02.000 If Trump won't let us dream, we won't let him sleep.
00:30:05.000 If Trump won't let us dream, we won't let him sleep.
00:30:12.000 Okay, it says if Chuck won't let us dream, then we won't let him sleep.
00:30:17.000 Note to these people, Chuck Schumer was not sleeping in his house last night.
00:30:20.000 He was in Washington, D.C., so very bright stuff.
00:30:22.000 Again, the Democrats are offering nothing.
00:30:24.000 Blumenthal, Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, he said that Democrats would support increased border security but no wall, so obviously this negotiation is going nowhere.
00:30:37.000 A border wall is a waste of money.
00:30:40.000 Squandering billions of dollars on an ineffective solution to border security is really reprehensible.
00:30:48.000 So we are going to be supporting border security.
00:30:51.000 Surveillance, drones, more training for the agents who are there and additional agents.
00:30:57.000 Okay, this is nonsense.
00:30:58.000 They don't want more border security.
00:30:59.000 They don't want a deal.
00:31:00.000 They don't want a deal of any sort here.
00:31:02.000 Okay, so here's the reality.
00:31:04.000 The Democrats are not interested in a deal because Democrats aren't in favor of illegal immigration.
00:31:09.000 They really are.
00:31:10.000 The reason that I say this is because the state of California, my home state, perhaps
00:31:16.000 I don't think perhaps.
00:31:16.000 It is the dumbest state in the union.
00:31:20.000 Apparently, there's a new California policy that begins on April 2nd that automatically registers people who obtain or renew driver's licenses to vote.
00:31:29.000 Okay, this is the new policy.
00:31:31.000 The new state policy is that you are registered to vote automatically when you obtain or renew your driver's license.
00:31:38.000 Well, here's the problem.
00:31:39.000 In the state of California, illegal immigrants have driver's licenses.
00:31:41.000 So you can renew, you can actually register to vote in the state of California as an illegal immigrant right now.
00:31:47.000 So, the idea that they're trying to crack down on illegal immigrants is silly.
00:31:50.000 By the way, there are certain principalities, I believe, in California where they're openly saying, maybe we should allow illegal immigrants to vote.
00:31:55.000 We'll just give them de facto citizenship and allow them to vote.
00:31:58.000 So, pretty amazing stuff.
00:32:00.000 But Democrats obviously have an interest in the continuation of illegal immigration.
00:32:04.000 That's why they are fighting so hard against border security.
00:32:06.000 And that is constantly worth pointing out.
00:32:08.000 Okay.
00:32:08.000 In just a second, I'm going to discuss with you the latest that's happening at UConn.
00:32:11.000 I'm supposed to speak at University of Connecticut tonight.
00:32:13.000 Plus...
00:32:14.000 Is it worthwhile to forgive President Trump for his sins, for his trespasses?
00:32:19.000 Because it seems like some evangelicals are willing to do just that, and I'll discuss whether that's appropriate or not.
00:32:24.000 But first, you're going to have to go over and subscribe.
00:32:26.000 So, first of all, before we get to that, I just want to say that on January 30th, you need to be watching, because our president is going to be speaking to the nation in the first State of the Union address, right?
00:32:34.000 It's going to be a really exciting event, and you should watch it with us here at The Daily Web.
00:32:37.000 We're doing a special broadcast.
00:32:38.000 It's going to be awesome, starting at 8 p.m.
00:32:39.000 Eastern, 5 p.m.
00:32:40.000 Pacific.
00:32:41.000 We're going to be hanging out with you the entire time, leading up to
00:32:44.000 During, after the address, we will be there for every wild hand gesture, for every crazy statement, for every Democrat refusing to stand for particular heroes.
00:32:52.000 We will be there for all of it, right?
00:32:54.000 And you can catch the live streams at Daily Wire, Daily Wire Facebook, or Daily Wire YouTube to spend the evening with me, with Andrew Klavan, with Michael Moles, and with Daily Wire god, King Jeremy Boring.
00:33:03.000 And a bunch of special guests who are going to be dropping by.
00:33:05.000 People that you know and love and who may or may not have mugs.
00:33:07.000 We're going to be having all of them in to relentlessly mock our government and our political leaders.
00:33:12.000 It'll basically be like MS3TK Mystery Science Theater.
00:33:16.000 It'll be like that, except with politics.
00:33:18.000 It should be a lot of fun.
00:33:18.000 If you watched our election night broadcast, it was a lot of fun.
00:33:21.000 This should be even more fun because there isn't the pressure of worrying about Hillary Clinton becoming president and or Donald Trump becoming president.
00:33:28.000 So that's next Tuesday, January 30th, 8 p.m.
00:33:30.000 Eastern, 5 p.m.
00:33:31.000 Pacific.
00:33:31.000 Follow us on Facebook and YouTube.
00:33:33.000 Get notified when we go live so we can spend every single terrible moment of the state.
00:33:37.000 I hate the State of the Union.
00:33:38.000 I freaking hate it.
00:33:38.000 I think the State of the Union is garbage.
00:33:40.000 I'll talk about that more next week, but I really, really hate the State of the Union.
00:33:43.000 I think it's an imperial spectacle.
00:33:44.000 That is absolute nonsense and hogwash.
00:33:47.000 It is not mandated by the Constitution.
00:33:49.000 The Constitution suggests that the President can be requested to give an update to Congress from time to time.
00:33:55.000 He can send it in a letter.
00:33:56.000 That, I think, would be better.
00:33:57.000 But instead, we're all going to have to pretend to think this is a great American spectacle.
00:34:01.000 Anyway!
00:34:01.000 We're going to be there and be negative and terrible about it, or at least I will.
00:34:04.000 And then Michael Knowles and Andrew Clavin will be all happy-dappy-do about it.
00:34:07.000 And then Jeremy Boring will sit there and drink.
00:34:08.000 So that'll basically be how the evening goes.
00:34:09.000 And you can join us, again, at Daily Wire, Facebook, Daily Wire, YouTube, my Facebook page as well, dailywire.com, all the usual places for that.
00:34:17.000 Okay, now, if you want to subscribe to the show, $9.99 a month, get to a subscription to dailywire.com.
00:34:22.000 And when you get that subscription to dailywire.com, you get the rest of my show live, you get to be part of my mailbag, you get Clavin's show live, Knowles' show live.
00:34:28.000 You also get, with the annual subscription, $99 a year, our world-famous Daily Wire Leftist Tears Hot or Cold Tumblr.
00:34:35.000 I got a great email from somebody today, actually, about the Tumblr.
00:34:38.000 Apparently, this fellow works at a leftist company and he keeps the Tumblr in his car.
00:34:43.000 He drinks coffee on the way to and from work, and apparently he walked into the office, and there was a guy he was supposed to interview with, and the guy hurriedly took his DailyWire Tumblr off his desk and hid it in his drawer.
00:34:55.000 And so our stalwart friends then had a half-hour meeting about how awesome we are.
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00:35:25.000 Alrighty, so I want to give you the update from University of Connecticut.
00:35:28.000 So I am supposed to speak at University of Connecticut tonight.
00:35:30.000 Originally, this event was open to the public.
00:35:32.000 As always, as usual, the left made enough trouble that now they're staffing up with police officers and they have barred the general public from attending the speech, which is just inane.
00:35:41.000 Apparently, we're only in a room that fits about 250 people.
00:35:44.000 There have been over 500 student reservations at a minimum.
00:35:48.000 If they'd opened it up to the public, there probably would've been another 1,000.
00:35:51.000 But as it is, it is restricted to students alone.
00:35:53.000 They say for security reasons.
00:35:54.000 Oddly enough, when Anita Hill spoke here just about a month and a half ago, there was no security presence necessary, essentially, and everyone from the general public was allowed to attend.
00:36:03.000 This is the new way of preventing the message from getting out, is by preventing the public from coming and listening.
00:36:07.000 Now, I'm not going to put that all on UConn.
00:36:09.000 I don't think it's the administration that is making this issue happen.
00:36:14.000 Except to the extent that they are allowing the heckler's veto to prevent the public from hearing what we do.
00:36:19.000 So that is happening tonight at 7 p.m.
00:36:21.000 at UConn's.
00:36:22.000 We'll be speaking there.
00:36:23.000 The Antifa group there is upset with me.
00:36:26.000 Apparently they had encouraged people to show up and directly confront Lucy and Winfrich, but instead of protesting me directly, they say that they are going to set up a parallel event with some guy that I've really never heard of, who's kind of an obscure gadfly who, as far as I can tell, his only prominence in life has come from writing a piece about me for an
00:36:46.000 For a magazine that he self funds or funds on charitable contributions and that nobody has ever read except for this one article about me He's speaking at the same time.
00:36:54.000 So I will say I am very excited that I have generated an entire bendistry I'm very excited that I have generated an entire cottage industry of people who can just follow me around critiquing me.
00:37:04.000 So that's exciting But they're having a separate event because they're trying to draw people away from hearing my message because this is what the left does instead of holding their event at a different time or coming to the event and then asking questions and
00:37:14.000 Instead, they're going to hold a separate event where they have some guy deliberately misconstrue everything I've ever written, and then talk about how I'm not as smart as I think I am.
00:37:20.000 That's actually the title of it, that I'm not as insightful as I think I am, which is weird, because I actually don't think I'm that insightful.
00:37:26.000 I actually think that I say things that are pretty obvious most of the time.
00:37:29.000 In any case, Antifa says that I am an extreme conservative who thrives on media attention of his campus opposition, so rather than getting people out to fill the auditorium, we decided at our general meeting to support students pushing for alternative programming to counter his toxic politics.
00:37:43.000 So, you know, good.
00:37:45.000 Don't show up and ruin my event.
00:37:47.000 That's great.
00:37:47.000 I'd prefer, I'd much prefer to push instead for civilized conversation.
00:37:53.000 My favorite part of their little letter to the editor is that my beliefs caused me to overlook the need for ethnic studies and diversity-related education in the United States.
00:38:01.000 Oh no!
00:38:02.000 Oh no, I oppose ethnic studies!
00:38:04.000 Eww!
00:38:04.000 Useless branches of study that provide zero jobs to anyone outside of the ethnic studies divisions at universities like UConn!
00:38:09.000 Eww!
00:38:12.000 So, they've decided that they're going to fight for social injustice.
00:38:16.000 That makes sense.
00:38:17.000 They're fighting for social injustice, that's true, in our own forums in which we frame the message.
00:38:21.000 They're not going to come to my event tonight.
00:38:23.000 That's fine with me.
00:38:24.000 I don't need you at my event, it turns out, to get the crowd out.
00:38:26.000 Turns out a lot of people want to hear what I have to say anyway, so that works for me.
00:38:31.000 So we'll give you all of the updates tomorrow after this speech.
00:38:34.000 Beyond that...
00:38:36.000 In other news, there is a lot of hubbub now over comments from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.
00:38:42.000 So I know Tony Perkins.
00:38:43.000 I like Tony Perkins.
00:38:44.000 But he made some comments that I thought were sort of weird regarding bad behavior in public fora.
00:38:50.000 So here is what Tony Perkins had to say about President Trump and his bad behavior.
00:38:54.000 In 2016, he allegedly paid off a porn star $130,000 to avoid talking about an affair that they had while he was married to Melania and shortly after she'd given birth to their son, Barron.
00:39:04.000 Here's Tony Perkins defending Trump.
00:39:05.000 Let me try to understand.
00:39:08.000 You used the exact word mulligan to talk about this.
00:39:11.000 And obviously the most recent allegations involve an affair with a porn star that began a few months after his wife gave birth, the president's wife.
00:39:19.000 And they also involve the president's personal attorney reportedly paying off the porn star for her silence.
00:39:24.000 And you're saying you get a mulligan, you get a do-over here.
00:39:27.000 I'm quoting you.
00:39:28.000 Why?
00:39:30.000 Well, if this behavior were occurring today, right now, as he is President of the United States, I can assure you that my support and the support of evangelicals would be dissipating very rapidly.
00:39:41.000 But we're talking about something that occurred 10 years ago, among a number of things that occurred with this President prior to being President, and myself, along with a lot of evangelicals, were not supportive of him.
00:39:53.000 In fact, I campaigned hard for one of his competitors.
00:39:56.000 It was when it was down to him and Hillary Clinton.
00:39:59.000 He wanted to have the support of evangelicals and he came to them saying, I'm going to pro-life justices.
00:40:05.000 I'm picking a pro-life conservative running mate.
00:40:08.000 So here's my big problem with all of this.
00:40:09.000 Okay, so he's basically saying that Trump gets a mulligan because it happened 10 years ago.
00:40:13.000 Okay, you don't get a mulligan.
00:40:14.000 What you do get is us saying we like your policies but please you having sex with porn stars and then paying them off allegedly is disgusting behavior and inexcusable and gross and I don't understand for the life of me why religious people, Christians, Jews, anyone can't understand this simple distinction.
00:40:31.000 You don't have to defend every bad thing that Trump does or give him a mulligan on it just because he's doing a bunch of stuff that you like.
00:40:37.000 Lots of people do stuff that I like.
00:40:39.000 Bill Clinton pursued policies that today I would like in terms of deficit reduction.
00:40:43.000 Okay, that doesn't mean that I gave him a pass on all of his evils.
00:40:46.000 And the idea, by the way, that evangelicals or religious people would break with Trump en masse if it turned out he was having sex with a porn star right now in the White House is just not true.
00:40:55.000 It's just not true.
00:40:55.000 I don't see any basis for that in any of the polling data that I've seen so far.
00:41:00.000 And this is anti-biblical, okay?
00:41:02.000 I'm just gonna put it out there.
00:41:03.000 It is anti-biblical to suggest that Trump gets a mulligan, he gets a do-over for the evils that he has committed, when he's never repented.
00:41:10.000 When he's never repented.
00:41:10.000 So normally we save the Bible segment for the end of the show, but let me talk a little bit about what the Bible has to say about repentance.
00:41:16.000 Because President Trump is somebody who has said that he doesn't seek forgiveness, right?
00:41:20.000 This is back in 2015.
00:41:21.000 Trump was asked about seeking forgiveness, and here's what he had to say.
00:41:24.000 Okay, so if you never were able to ask God for forgiveness, let me just point this out, okay?
00:41:27.000 The reason that he is not like David is because David did repent, okay?
00:41:30.000 Psalm 32, David famously repents, right?
00:41:32.000 It says,
00:41:50.000 Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
00:41:53.000 Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them, and in whose spirit is no deceit.
00:41:57.000 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
00:42:01.000 For day and night your hand was heavy on me, my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.
00:42:04.000 Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and did not cover up my iniquity.
00:42:08.000 I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
00:42:14.000 That's the point.
00:42:16.000 If you want to rejoice in the Lord, you actually have to confess.
00:42:19.000 You actually have to repent.
00:42:20.000 This is something Trump has not done.
00:42:21.000 So it is not Tony Perkins' job, or my job, or your job to provide absolution to the President on these charges.
00:42:26.000 The President is going to have to go to God for that absolution.
00:42:29.000 We can say that we back all of his policy when it comes to abortion.
00:42:32.000 We back his policy when it comes to religious freedom.
00:42:34.000 We back a lot of his policies when it comes to judges.
00:42:37.000 It is not our job to give him mulligans on personal transgressions.
00:42:41.000 If you can't hold these two thoughts in your head at the same time, I would suggest that you are doing something wrong.
00:42:46.000 I think part of the problem here is that there has been a widespread worship of government that has spread throughout the land.
00:42:51.000 There's a poll from yesterday from the Wall Street Journal-NBC that suggests Americans, when they were asked whether government should do more or whether government is already doing too much, they split 58-38.
00:43:02.000 Right, saying that the government should do more, 58%, while the government is already doing too much, 38%.
00:43:09.000 Worth noting, in 1995, after Republicans took over Congress in the Republican Revolution of Gingrich, the split was 32% said more government, 62% said less government.
00:43:21.000 In October 2010, just before the GOP swamped Democrats and took back the House, that divide was 45 to 50.
00:43:26.000 So in other words, more Americans thought we should have a government that does less than have a government that does more.
00:43:33.000 But ever since, we've thought the government ought to do more, and that now includes a large number of Republicans.
00:43:39.000 A huge number of Republicans now say that the government should do more.
00:43:42.000 So if you look at January 2010, the role of government, 17% of Republicans in 2010 said that the government should do more.
00:43:50.000 Today that number has almost doubled.
00:43:53.000 33% of Republicans say the government should do more.
00:43:55.000 If you think that the government is going to save you, if you think that the government's job is to help you, and save you, and enrich your life, and it's not just there to protect you,
00:44:04.000 Then you're more likely to give a lot of leeway to politicians.
00:44:07.000 You're gonna say, I want the guy in charge who agrees with me because the government needs to save me.
00:44:11.000 The government needs to help me.
00:44:12.000 This is a mistake.
00:44:14.000 It's a big mistake.
00:44:16.000 You shouldn't be worshipping the head of the government just because he's the head of the government.
00:44:19.000 And you shouldn't be making excuses or giving him mulligans over behavior that he has not repented for.
00:44:23.000 I find this whole thing rather distasteful.
00:44:27.000 Now speaking of distasteful,
00:44:29.000 John Kerry apparently, John Kerry did something so insane yesterday or the day before that it's just, it's ridiculous.
00:44:39.000 According to the Jerusalem Post, the White House confirms that since the Jerusalem declaration there's been a complete disconnect between the Palestinian Authority and the Trump administration, but it now turns out the previous administration maintains contact with PA officials.
00:44:52.000 Ma'arif reported that former — that's an Israeli newspaper — reported that Secretary of State John Kerry met in London with a close associate of terrorist Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, terrorist is my word, for a long and open conversation.
00:45:03.000 Apparently, this guy who's representing Abbas, a guy named Hussein Agha, reported details of the conversation to senior PA officials in Ramallah.
00:45:12.000 A senior PA official confirmed to Ma'arif the meeting took place.
00:45:15.000 So what exactly did Kerry say?
00:45:17.000 Listen to this.
00:45:17.000 This is insane.
00:45:19.000 During the conversation, according to the report, John Kerry asked Acha to convey a message to Abbas and to ask him to hold on and be strong.
00:45:28.000 Telled Abbas, a terrorist leader who openly came out two weeks ago and said that Trump's house should basically burn down, and suggested that Nikki Haley should feel the wrath of God, and suggested that Israel is not Jewish territory, and suggested that terrorism ought to be pursued, hold on and be strong.
00:45:43.000 This is the former administration that goes around saying that Trump is a danger to the Middle East and the world?
00:45:48.000 This administration?
00:45:49.000 The Obama administration?
00:45:49.000 I mean, you wonder why evangelicals rally to Trump?
00:45:51.000 They shouldn't rally to his sins.
00:45:53.000 But you wonder why they rally to Trump?
00:45:54.000 It's because of garbage like this.
00:45:55.000 John Kerry apparently told Agha, who is again the stand-in for Mahmoud Abbas, who's now serving the 14th year of his four-year election term.
00:46:02.000 He was originally elected
00:46:04.000 Stay strong in his spirit and play for time.
00:46:07.000 He will not break.
00:46:08.000 He will not yield to President Trump's demands.
00:46:20.000 So, you have Kerry over there performing his own foreign policy.
00:46:23.000 Hilarious that Mike Flynn is basically gonna go to jail because he lied to the FBI about a supposed violation of the Logan Act.
00:46:29.000 But you got John Kerry going out there and openly saying to foreign terrorists, by the way, just hold on, don't do anything, we're coming and we're gonna help you.
00:46:39.000 Funny how the media don't seem to care about this story very much.
00:46:40.000 Funny how it's just the right-wing media picking up on this and the Jerusalem Post.
00:46:44.000 When Mike Flynn was talking to the Russians during the transition, this is a big story, but John Kerry, who's not in power and hasn't been in power for a year and a half, John Kerry is sitting around talking with the Palestinian terrorists about why they should hold up hope against Trump.
00:47:00.000 And then he said, maybe it was time for the Palestinians to define their peace principles and present a positive plan.
00:47:05.000 And then he suggested that he was going to run for president.
00:47:08.000 Then he suggested that if he just waits till 2020, then Trump will be ousted and perhaps Kerry will run for president.
00:47:15.000 This is why Republicans do not trust Democrats.
00:47:17.000 It's why people don't trust the media.
00:47:18.000 If the media refused to cover stories like this, but they are going to go hog-wild over Trump-Russia collusion, no wonder the media has lost the trust of the American people.
00:47:26.000 Okay, so now let's do some things I like and some things that I hate.
00:47:29.000 So, one quick thing that I like today.
00:47:31.000 So we've been doing fantasy stories.
00:47:32.000 This, of course, is the classic fantasy story of all time.
00:47:35.000 It's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
00:47:38.000 It's just a delightful book.
00:47:40.000 Forget about all the allegations about Lewis Carroll for just a second, because I don't think we need to get into whether he was into small children in order to judge the quality of his work.
00:47:48.000 This is actually an interesting issue.
00:47:49.000 There are a lot of people who think that if somebody's a really bad person that we can't enjoy their art.
00:47:53.000 I've always found this a bizarre stipulation.
00:47:55.000 If the art itself is replete with disgustingness, that's one thing, but if you're just saying that a bad person can't make a great painting, I think that's idiotic.
00:48:02.000 This book is really terrific, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
00:48:06.000 I remember reading this when I was
00:48:07.000 Probably eight.
00:48:10.000 And the characters, the wordplay, it's just, it's a lot of fun.
00:48:14.000 Children's books from that period are so clever.
00:48:16.000 You read Winnie the Pooh, it's incredibly clever.
00:48:18.000 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, incredibly clever.
00:48:20.000 The Wizard of Oz, incredibly clever.
00:48:22.000 Children's literature now is, I think, not clever at all.
00:48:25.000 I know a lot of people love Harry Potter, which is really children's literature.
00:48:28.000 Harry Potter can't hold a candle to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
00:48:31.000 It is, I think,
00:48:33.000 Dunderheaded and right on the nose.
00:48:34.000 I'm not a Harry Potter fan, but Alice's Adventures in Wonderland I think is quite great and and utterly worth reading.
00:48:40.000 Okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.
00:48:47.000 Okay, so first thing that I hate, The New York Times' Mike Rosenberg actually tweeted out, he was very upset because, I guess he's a Seattle Times reporter, actually?
00:48:57.000 So, he was very upset because after the Amazon Go launch, Amazon Go launched yesterday, and Jeff Bezos' stock gained about $2.8 billion in value.
00:49:05.000 Okay, Amazon Go are basically these convenience stores, you walk in, there's no attendant, you grab your products off the shelf, you walk out, no problem, it's charged to your Amazon account.
00:49:13.000 And so, Jeff Bezos had a stock gain, because this is a cool invention.
00:49:17.000 So here's what Mike Rosenberg tweeted.
00:49:19.000 Jeff Bezos made $2.8 billion in one day after his company introduced technology that eliminates the need for cashiers.
00:49:25.000 All cashiers in America make an average of $210 million a day combined.
00:49:31.000 So what?
00:49:32.000 I'm confused.
00:49:32.000 Why is that a thing?
00:49:34.000 Like that doesn't make... Like what?
00:49:37.000 Here's why that's a stupid point.
00:49:38.000 The reason that's a stupid point is even if you were to assume that Jeff Bezos is somehow taking money out of the pockets of a bunch of poor cashiers,
00:49:47.000 The reality is that it's not that he's making $2.8 billion off cashiers losing money to the tune of $210 million a day.
00:49:55.000 That means that if he saved the entire industry, the cost of cashiers for 10 days, they would pay for that $2.8 billion.
00:50:03.000 The point is that, number one, the statistic is severely flawed.
00:50:07.000 They're taking the stock price, which is reflecting the power of a new technology that is going to affect the market over time, and comparing that to a one-day takeaway for cashiers?
00:50:14.000 The statistic just makes no sense, but the suggestion, of course, by Mike Rosenberg, is that something terrible has happened here.
00:50:20.000 That the evil Jeff Bezos has stolen the livelihoods of cashiers.
00:50:23.000 No, evil Jeff Bezos just made technology better and lower your costs at the supermarket.
00:50:27.000 Because guess who pays for those cashiers?
00:50:28.000 It's you, right?
00:50:29.000 When you go to the supermarket and you pay for things, you're paying the cashiers.
00:50:33.000 Why do you think that all of these, like Ralph's, has put in these self-use...
00:50:41.000 I don't think so.
00:50:57.000 We arrived in North Korea on Saturday.
00:51:00.000 We flew the North Korean state airline.
00:51:02.000 It's about an hour and a half flight from Beijing.
00:51:05.000 They even make an announcement in flight when you've actually crossed the border into North Korea.
00:51:09.000 We quickly passed through immigrations, went through a very lengthy and very detailed customs inspection of not only our equipment, but our personal items down to the novels we were reading.
00:51:20.000 Yeah, so what?
00:51:20.000 Right?
00:51:21.000 So, so as, so as, um...
00:51:45.000 Walter Durante, treated by the Soviets.
00:51:47.000 The idea that they were treated really well by an evil regime, that means the regime is fine, just stupidity.
00:51:52.000 He's raked over the coals as well he should be.
00:51:54.000 Okay, we'll be back here tomorrow.
00:51:55.000 We'll be broadcasting, I believe, from Dallas.
00:51:57.000 We're moving around the country a lot.
00:51:58.000 We'll be broadcasting from Dallas, but I will give you the update on how it went at UConn tonight.
00:52:01.000 You can also watch the UConn broadcast tonight at yaf.org.
00:52:04.000 I believe we'll also put it up on our Facebook page and Twitter and all of the usual places, so check it out.
00:52:09.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:52:09.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:52:14.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Mathis Glover.
00:52:17.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
00:52:18.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
00:52:20.000 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
00:52:22.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.
00:52:23.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.
00:52:25.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.
00:52:26.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.
00:52:29.000 Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.