James Comey is back on CNN defending himself against the charge of "obstruction of justice" by President Trump, who fired him because he was a bad at his job. But James Comey has a dog in this fight, and it's the media. President Trump fired James Comey for being a bad man, and now James Comey is on CNN explaining exactly why it is that President Trump is a very bad man and why James Comey should have been fired a long time ago. Plus, President Trump faces down China, North Korea, and Iran, and 2020 Democrats swing further to the left, and we check out the mailbag. This is The Ben Shapiro Show, where we discuss all things news involving President Trump and the Russia investigation, and much, much more! Subscribe to the show to get immediate access to all of the latest breaking news involving the Trump administration, the White House, the DOJ, the FBI, and the DOJ's investigation into the ongoing Russia probe. Subscribe today using our podcast s promo code "GPODCAST" to receive 20% off your first month with discount code "WEBINAR" at checkout. The offer ends May 13, 2019. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes and promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers. Use the promo code: at checkout to receive $10 and receive 10% off the purchase of $50 or more when you place an ad discount when you enter the offer begins. or more than $50, and receive a coupon code "The Ben Shapiro Freebie. We'll be giving you get 10% OFF your first week of the deal! and get 5 VIP membership when you sign up for a chance to get $5 or more, and a discount of $10 or more get $10, and get 10 VIP access when you get a VIP discount when they enter the deal? Learn more about the deal starts in the VIP discount starts starting at $99 and get $4 VIP membership starts in VIP access starts after May 13th, they get VIP access, they also get 5-get $5, and they get 7 days of VIP access and get 7-place discount, they can get 7 VIP access. Free shipping starts Monday, only 3-place they receive 5-choice of $24-choice, and 7-choice pricing starts after they get my ad discount, and I'll get an ad-only offer.
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00:01:32.000Okay, so we begin today with the media's attempts to continue to paint the Trump administration as engaged in some sort of cover-up.
00:01:39.000Last night, James Comey appeared on CNN.
00:01:42.000And appearing on CNN, he was asked basically to rip everyone inside the Trump administration, to talk about how evil the Trump administration was, to talk about how President Trump obstructed justice.
00:01:51.000Now, James Comey has a dog in this fight.
00:01:54.000Okay, James Comey, his firing led off the entire obstruction of justice debacle.
00:02:00.000It was James Comey's firing, which, by the way, was perfectly appropriate.
00:02:04.000He should have been fired as soon as President Trump took office.
00:02:06.000Frankly, Obama should have fired him after he did that press conference about Hillary Clinton back in July of 2016.
00:02:12.000But James Comey was fired for a cause.
00:02:36.000Then Trump went on national TV and said, well, I guess this Russia stuff is done because now we can openly say I'm not under investigation.
00:02:43.000James Comey and the rest of the media took that to mean Trump fired Comey in order to stymie the investigation.
00:02:47.000Now, as we know, the investigation was not stymied.
00:02:51.000We keep hearing there's been a cover-up, there's been obstruction.
00:02:53.000We keep hearing that President Trump is involving himself in the nitty-gritty details of the Mueller report, of the investigation, in an attempt to prevent public knowledge of the nefarious activities in which he participated.
00:03:04.000I've seen not a lot of evidence of that.
00:03:07.000The fact is we are all privy to the Mueller report.
00:03:09.000The fact is Robert Mueller, James Comey was fired in the middle of 2017.
00:03:17.000That is when we got the Mueller report.
00:03:18.000So for two full years, Robert Mueller had access to pretty much everyone inside the Trump administration, to millions of documents, to grand jury testimony.
00:03:26.000So the idea that James Comey's firing represented some sort of obstruction of justice is simply absurd.
00:03:31.000But Comey is very invested in that narrative because otherwise he got fired for being crappy at his job, and that James Comey can't accept.
00:03:37.000So he's been going around for the last couple of years taking Taking aspirational pictures of himself in great places of nature, looking up at the forest, looking down at the ocean, and then pondering life.
00:03:50.000He's being brought back forth by the media to explain exactly why it is that President Trump is a very, very bad, cruel, bad orange man.
00:03:57.000So here is Comey explaining that Trump obstructed justice, according to James Comey.
00:04:01.000I'll explain how absurd this is in just a second.
00:04:03.000There are now, I think it's up to 800 former federal prosecutors who have worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations who have signed a statement saying that Mueller's findings would have produced obstruction charges against President Trump if he weren't president.
00:04:22.000I actually think the ones that would be most likely charged are not necessarily the ones that involved me, but particularly this McGann episode and another episode where he was trying to get the Attorney General to limit the investigation only to future elections are examples that any reasonable prosecutor would charge.
00:04:39.000Okay, so that is really an amazing statement by James Comey.
00:04:43.000Now, the reason it's an amazing statement is because the reason that Trump could not be charged with obstruction of justice is because obstruction of justice is, in fact, a crime that requires intent.
00:04:53.000It's a crime that requires you to intend to obstruct justice.
00:04:55.000You want to stop the investigation because you think it's going to uncover something.
00:04:59.000In the absence of an underlying crime, it's very difficult to obstruct justice.
00:05:03.000Because what exactly would your intent be?
00:05:29.000It was James Comey, I remember, who said about Hillary Clinton that Hillary Clinton was not guilty of violating rules about classified material because she did not have the requisite intent.
00:05:42.000You know where intent is not an element of the crime?
00:05:44.000When it comes to the mishandling of classified material.
00:05:47.000You do not have to intend to expose classified material to prying eyes.
00:05:50.000You do not have to intend to do anything wrong.
00:05:54.000If you take classified materials and you put them in public view, you are guilty of the crime.
00:05:58.000James Comey personally wrote intent into a law that had no intent, and now he's writing intent out of a law to castigate President Trump, which does demonstrate a fair bit of political bias on the part of a guy who proclaims that he is a wonderful law enforcement officer without any bias.
00:06:15.000James Comey went on to explain that the DOJ should actually charge President Trump when he is no longer president.
00:06:22.000You think he should be charged when he's out of office?
00:06:57.000Robert Mueller had every capacity to say, listen, according to the DOJ rules, according to the Office of Legal Counsel, it is unlikely that you can prosecute the president on these charges.
00:07:06.000However, I would recommend an obstruction charge against the president were it not for these OLC rules, meaning that he should be prosecuted when he's no longer president.
00:08:24.000There's a lot of emotion in James Comey for a guy who pretends that he is just motivated, that he is just motivated specifically by all of this, that he's motivated specifically by a desire to enforce the law.
00:08:36.000Now, hilariously, Comey was asked about the FBI under his auspices.
00:08:40.000Two of his top agents were Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
00:08:43.000They're having an affair with one another.
00:08:44.000Strzok was personally heading up Both the Hillary investigation as well as the Trump investigation.
00:08:49.000And Comey admits, uh, yeah, they may have made us look bad, you know, with the whole texting each other and talking about how much they hated Trump.
00:08:54.000And then Peter Strzok manipulating the investigation, the timing of the investigation.
00:09:00.000That's according to the inspector general of the DOJ, Michael Horowitz, who found that ironically, that struck had actually put the Hillary investigation on the back burner in favor of the Trump investigation.
00:09:12.000And the irony comes in in that because he put the Hillary investigation on the back burner, the investigation only started to look at Huma Abedin's computer like a week before the election.
00:09:23.000And if he had not done that, then they probably uncovered that a month earlier and they take care of it a month earlier.
00:09:27.000And Hillary has a better shot at winning the election.
00:09:29.000Here is Comey admitting, yeah, you know, I was running the FBI, but my top agents, they made us look real bad.
00:09:35.000Do you acknowledge that this whole episode with Strzok and Page, that it damaged the reputation of the FBI and perhaps tarnished the investigation?
00:10:06.000You overseeing all of that hurt the institution.
00:10:09.000So the fact that James Comey is still being trotted out as some sort of authority on this stuff does demonstrate that the media are pretty biased on this sort of thing.
00:10:17.000I mean, they could be asking James Comey all the same questions that I'm asking.
00:10:20.000What is your evidence that Donald Trump had requisite intent?
00:10:22.000We know that he fired you not because he wanted to obstruct the investigation.
00:10:33.000It's amazing how all you have to do to become a hero of the resistance is stop Hillary Clinton from becoming president and then yell at President Trump.
00:10:41.000If it were not for James Comey, much better shot Hillary Clinton is sitting in the White House right now.
00:10:46.000If it were not for James Comey, Then it's quite possible that the entire Trump-Russia collusion investigation would have gone down the drain much earlier.
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00:12:37.000Okay, well the actual big story of the day is the possibility of a trade war with China.
00:12:43.000China said on Friday it's going to retaliate because the United States did move to increase tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese products on Friday, effectively breaking a month's long truce, seriously complicating ongoing talks according to the Global Times, which is a Chinese publication.
00:12:56.000The Chinese side deeply regrets the U.S.
00:12:58.000actions and will have to take countermeasures.
00:13:00.000The Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement after the United States started to raise tariffs on Chinese goods.
00:13:05.000Following through on earlier threats by U.S.
00:13:08.000raised a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese products, including electronics, clothes and toys, to 25 percent starting at 12.01 p.m.
00:13:24.000Customs and Border Protection, such a grace period was not offered in the previous three rounds of tariffs.
00:13:30.000Apparently, the government of China's statement did not specify what countermeasures China would take and when it would implement those countermeasures, but analysts said there were several measures China could take that would inflict pain on the United States economy and that the measures would be announced shortly.
00:13:44.000He Weiwen is a former senior Chinese trade official.
00:13:48.000He told the Global Times, I think China will respond very soon.
00:13:50.000China will also have to make good on its own words.
00:13:53.000Otherwise, it will be at a huge disadvantage to the US team at the negotiations.
00:13:57.000Now, one of the things that has been happening is that President Trump has been sending some mixed signals on all of this.
00:14:03.000Now, what you want when it comes to foreign policy, particularly, is a very consistent policy, as I've been saying for years.
00:14:09.000President Trump's view of tariffs is wrong.
00:14:11.000His view of tariffs is that tariffs make America richer.
00:14:13.000That if all we did was raise trade barriers on imports of products from other countries, we would actually be bringing manufacturing home, and the American people would be more prosperous and richer.
00:14:23.000Manufacturing would return to America's shores.
00:14:25.000Historically, this is not what tariffs have done.
00:14:27.000Historically, what tariffs have done is decimate your capacity to compete on a global level, lead to outsourcing by companies, job loss, and stagnation in the country in which the tariffs are applied.
00:14:41.000We are all not just producers, we are all consumers.
00:14:44.000What tariffs do is they benefit a specific segment of the market at the expense of all the other consumers.
00:14:48.000So, let's say you have a tariff on Chinese steel.
00:14:50.000That benefits the American steel producers, because now they no longer have to compete with the Chinese steel producers, but American steel consumers, including the car companies, those people are going to be paying higher prices.
00:15:01.000That is reflected onto consumers, and so it's less money in your pocket.
00:15:05.000Tariffs foster political dysfunction by creating conflict between various interest groups in the United States, as well as with foreign countries.
00:15:12.000Now this does not mean that tariffs can't be a useful tool of policy.
00:15:15.000And this is where it's important to understand what President Trump is doing and important for him to be consistent.
00:15:19.000In just a second I'm going to explain.
00:15:21.000So, the consistent policy here should be, and would be, Look, we don't want any tariffs.
00:15:41.000Government top-down policy that subsidizes certain industries at the expense of other industries typically does not end well, even for those industries.
00:15:48.000Because once those companies are taken off the subsidies, they fail to be competitive.
00:15:53.000The free market is great at creating durable companies that are capable of competing in a global market without subsidies.
00:16:00.000Once you start subsidizing things, people become dependent on the subsidies.
00:16:03.000This is what happened to the American car companies in the 1950s and 60s.
00:16:07.000America's car companies used to run the world.
00:16:45.000So if you really want to inflict pain on China to get them to stop stealing intellectual trade property, intellectual property, then that is at least understandable.
00:16:53.000The problem for President Trump is that he sends mixed signals.
00:16:55.000One signal is we don't want any tariffs, but if we have to punish you, we will.
00:16:59.000And the other signal that sort of Larry Kudlow signal, the other signal is tariffs are great.
00:17:03.000So, President Trump today, for example, is tweeting out about how tariffs are a wonderful thing.
00:17:07.000So, President Trump is tweeting out right now that if you produce in America, there will be no tariffs.
00:17:15.000He says, Great consumer price index just out.
00:17:26.000Your all-time favorite president got tired of waiting for China to help out and start buying from our farmers, the greatest anywhere in the world.
00:17:33.000Build your products in the United States and there are no tariffs.
00:17:37.000He says, if we bought $15 billion of agriculture from our farmers, far more than China buys now, we would have more than $85 billion left over for new infrastructure, healthcare, or anything else.
00:17:46.000China would greatly slow down and we would automatically speed up.
00:17:49.000Tariffs will make our country much stronger, not weaker.
00:18:10.000And this is the push that Trump himself is making.
00:18:14.000And that is sending mixed signals to the market, because the market is saying, okay, well, if he is happy with the tariffs, if he likes the tariffs, if all of this was an excuse to get to the tariffs, then maybe he just wants to leave those in place.
00:18:25.000And if he just wants to leave those in place, that could cost all of us a lot of money, because tariffs actually, as just a policy, Not as a tool of leverage, but as a policy, are pretty bad.
00:18:36.000This is what the UK Sun reports today.
00:18:37.000Donald Trump wiped nearly $1.5 trillion off global markets with a single Twitter blast, vowing to double tariffs on Chinese goods after they broke a crucial trade deal.
00:18:46.000The US president renewed hostilities between the two economic giants by threatening to once more ramp up the cost of Beijing trading in the United States.
00:18:53.000He pledged to hike tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods from Friday, rocking equity markets across the world.
00:18:59.000And that's because equity markets have typically thought that Trump was a lot of bluster.
00:19:03.000But once these things kick in, the feeling is that Trump wants to leave them in place not because they're good policy, but specifically because he actually likes tariffs.
00:19:11.000And now he is causing all sorts of confusion again on Twitter.
00:19:14.000According to Bloomberg, President Trump, the morning after levying fresh tariffs on China, caused confusion among traders by tweeting that there is no need to rush on China trade.
00:19:22.000Meaning, okay, maybe we'll just leave these tariffs in place for a while.
00:19:26.000And the markets went, oh boy, that's not good.
00:19:28.000Now, one of the things that people have been ignoring about the fact that the markets have been quite hot to this point is that there has been a bit of anticipation of this in the markets.
00:19:38.000The markets were anticipating at the end of last year that tariffs were going to kick in, and so they accelerated a lot of their buying from foreign manufacturers.
00:19:45.000And that led to an increase in the amount of spending, the amount of dollars flowing through the United States economy.
00:19:51.000It caused a lot of imports to be bought, for example.
00:19:54.000That's why the trade deficit has actually been getting worse under President Trump.
00:19:57.000An earlier tweet was deleted and then reposted with minor changes.
00:20:01.000He tweeted out this morning, Well, that's not really how tariffs work.
00:20:44.000China, of course, has said that it wants to retaliate.
00:20:47.000So there's a battle inside the Trump administration right now between the Larry Kudlows and between President Trump and Peter Navarro, who's one of his trade advisors on China, who really is not particularly good at his job.
00:20:58.000All of this is creating disquiet in the markets.
00:21:01.000Again, I think that if President Trump were using trade barriers as leverage to push China to start adhering to intellectual property law, that would at least be excusable.
00:21:12.000I think there are other measures that can be used, but that at least is an excuse.
00:21:15.000For him to be proclaiming that tariffs are inherently good is just not true.
00:21:18.000The Smoot-Hawley tariffs at the beginning of the Great Depression helped exacerbate the Great Depression by leading other countries to raise their tariffs as well.
00:21:26.000And all of that led to less of an export market for American goods and higher prices for American workers.
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00:23:08.000As Chinese and American officials try to reach a trade deal, President Xi Jinping faces a painful, possibly damaging choice to try to protect his aura of indomitability or retreat after President Trump accused China of reneging on the terms of a draft agreement and threatened to raise tariffs.
00:23:22.000The stakes rose sharply for the Chinese leader this week after Mr. Trump and his chief trade representative Robert Lighthizer publicly accused China of backing down on commitments.
00:23:30.000The sticking point appeared to be a late decision by Mr. Xi to reject American demands that China change laws constraining American businesses.
00:23:37.000When Trump leapt onto Twitter to complain, it was a public rebuke that put Xi in a tight spot.
00:23:42.000Xi is China's most powerful leader in decades.
00:23:44.000He guards his image as a visionary statesman guiding his country to greatness.
00:23:47.000China's relationship with the United States is its most important relationship.
00:23:51.000If ties between the countries are mismanaged, that could damage China's economy and tarnish Xi's image.
00:23:56.000Trade talks that just last week seemed close to fruition have abruptly become a flashpoint in the rocky relationship.
00:24:02.000Xi now faces questions at home over whether he miscalculated Trump's resolve.
00:24:06.000Domestic rumblings could grow if the United States forces Xi to make concessions, or if the talks break down.
00:24:11.000According to Paul Henley, a former China director on the National Security Council, who now runs the Carnegie Xinhua Center for Global Policy in Beijing, quote, Xi is walking a tightrope.
00:24:21.000He is going to be the one that has to make the most concessions, and that makes this all the more difficult for him.
00:24:26.000On Thursday, shortly before the trade talks were set to resume, of course, North Korea shot off short-range missiles.
00:24:31.000The United States had been pushing China to get involved.
00:24:35.000Even if the timing of the launch is a coincidence, perhaps that puts pressure on the United States to point out that China needs to be a partner.
00:24:44.000He said, quote, I come bearing sincerity and hope in the current special circumstances told a reasoned frank exchange of views with the U.S. side.
00:24:50.000China believes that increasing tariffs won't solve problems, won't benefit China or the United States, nor will it benefit the global economy.
00:24:57.000China had been willing to protect intellectual property and open its markets to American business, but the Trump administration wanted the agreement to specify that some of those changes actually be made in Chinese law.
00:25:08.000Apparently, China didn't want to do that.
00:25:09.000They wanted to make an informal policy and Trump was saying, no, you need to change your law so that formally you cannot renege on this agreement.
00:25:17.000Wang Yong is a director of the Center for International Political Economy at Peking University.
00:25:23.000He said, Trump, of course, doesn't care too much about that.
00:25:30.000Trump is trying to push for a public concession.
00:25:32.000I guess the idea here is that Trump, if he pushed for a private concession, maybe they would do it.
00:25:37.000Who the hell knows whether that is true?
00:25:40.000According to Professor Tu, everyone may have greater doubts and uncertainty about the future of the Chinese economy, Chinese-U.S.
00:25:48.000This uncertainty will certainly affect production, investment, and consumption.
00:25:52.000Chinese officials are still struggling to understand the president, according to the New York Times.
00:25:57.000Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, said, quote, there are a lot of voices in Washington that are either sharply or harshly critical of China's action in trade, in their military expansionism, in their actions in the South China Sea, fill in the blank.
00:26:08.000So as I say, Trump being strong with China is fine.
00:26:12.000Trump embracing tariffs is not so fine.
00:26:14.000The question is which one of these things is correct?
00:26:20.000Now maybe, maybe this works out to the tune of China takes Trump's warm embrace of tariffs as more of a credible threat than they would otherwise.
00:26:28.000That Trump's team and Trump himself think that if he just says tariffs are wonderful, then China will back down because they don't want the tariffs and the tariffs hurt China worse than they hurt us.
00:26:39.000With that said, as a general point of policy, I don't think that that is correct, obviously.
00:26:44.000And also, I don't actually think you need to say that.
00:26:46.000I think that you can simply say to them, listen, we are reluctantly imposing these tariffs because you won't do X. But, you know, maybe this is President Trump selling past the sale, as Scott Adams likes to say.
00:26:58.000We'll obviously be watching this closely.
00:27:00.000It's a high-risk move for President Trump, politically speaking.
00:27:03.000The reason that it is a high-risk move for President Trump is because if the tariffs continue, it will undoubtedly damage the United States economy.
00:27:10.000There's already been talk about how much more robust the recovery would be, how much more robust the United States economy would be right now if we were not engaged in sporadic trade wars with various folks.
00:27:23.000It does raise the question overall, by the way, as to whether, for example, the United States ever should have worked on opening China in the first place.
00:27:29.000The case for opening China is that it would make China more liberal, more democratic.
00:27:54.000officials say that they have more than promises to stop China from stealing intellectual property rights.
00:28:01.000This time, Robert Lighthizer, who's the head of the U.S.
00:28:03.000Trade Association, has pushed an enforcement system that gives the U.S.
00:28:06.000the right to impose tariffs if it decides that China is not living up to the deal.
00:28:10.000China barred from responding in kind, so China wouldn't be able to respond against us.
00:28:16.000Cleet Williams, a former senior White House trade official, who is at Akin Gump, a major law firm, he said, we've had these conversations with China for years.
00:28:23.000If you don't have specific commitments backed up with enforcement, you don't have anything.
00:28:27.000So again, if this is President Trump being tough with leverage, for it.
00:28:31.000If this is President Trump embracing tariffs the way he, on a gut level, seems to do, not really in favor of it.
00:28:36.000Meanwhile, chaos still breaking out on the North Korean peninsula, on the Korean peninsula.
00:28:42.000Over the over the course of the last two days, the United States seized a North Korean freighter that was caught shipping coal in violation of United States of UN sanctions.
00:28:49.000Rather, the Justice Department revealed on Thursday, the 17,000 ton cargo ship called the Wise Honest was stopped in Indonesia last year after it was found to be carrying coal.
00:28:58.000The ship's captain charged with violating Indonesian law.
00:29:00.000Last July, the United States filed an action to seize the ship.
00:29:03.000And finally, they went ahead and did that.
00:29:04.000North Korea, of course, has also fired a couple of rockets This week in a major move toward reigniting a lot of the conflict between North Korea and the United States.
00:29:15.000Presumably that is because the Trump administration has been moving away from concessions to the North Koreans as they should.
00:29:25.000So, there are a couple ways to read this.
00:29:27.000Overall, overall, the way to read this could be that President Trump is getting very tough on foreign policy and that's great.
00:29:33.000The other way to read this is that this is a bit chaotic, that we don't actually know what his foreign policy is and that foreign actors are taking advantage of that or acting from confusion.
00:30:01.000When the founders crafted the Constitution, the first thing they did was to make sacred the rights of the individual to share their ideas without limitation by their government.
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00:30:13.000You know how strongly I believe in these principles.
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00:32:08.000Here's a little bit of what it sounded like.
00:32:11.000In the absence of some defeater, it seems to me that we're perfectly within our rights in believing that there is an objective realm of moral values and duties, just as we're within our rights in believing that there is a world of physical objects around us.
00:33:03.000He's received a signed copy of my book, The Right Side of History, and his doggie bowl has been replaced with a Leftist Tears tumbler, so no wonder he is happy.
00:33:09.000Maureen writes, Knuckles was so happy to get his signed book today, he is studying up so he can destroy his leftist dog friends.
00:33:15.000He has his tumbler all ready to collect their doggy tears.
00:33:17.000Facts don't care about dogs' feelings.
00:33:19.000I don't know how you would tell the politics of a dog.
00:33:22.000I think all dogs go to heaven, which means all dogs are conservative.
00:33:25.000Anyway, thanks to Marina and Knuckles for your support.
00:33:28.000All right, so go check us out also at YouTube or iTunes.
00:33:32.000We are one of the biggest podcasts in America.
00:33:34.000We ranked second of all podcasts on planet Earth last month.
00:33:51.000So let's talk a little bit about the Democrats and the Russia probes.
00:33:56.000So they continue to claim that obstruction is occurring.
00:33:59.000Obviously, the media are relying on James Comey, but the Democrats just keep saying that there's obstruction, there's obstruction, there's obstruction.
00:34:06.000I don't think there's a lot there for them to grab.
00:34:09.000So Jerry Nadler keeps saying this is obstruction without any proof of obstruction.
00:34:13.000Okay, tell us about it, Representative Nadler.
00:34:15.000The Attorney General has told us repeatedly, and all the Republicans, Senator McConnell and others have told us, that the finding of the Mueller report was no collusion, no obstruction.
00:34:25.000If that's true, why are they trying to hide it?
00:34:52.000Every aspect of this, where they say President Trump is obstructed, the only area where you can credibly claim that President Trump did not give all the information to Mueller is the area where he didn't sit down with Mueller, which no lawyer in their right mind would allow Trump to do.
00:35:06.000Nancy Pelosi says she supports Jerry Nadler, however, and she thinks that William Barr should presumably be held in contempt.
00:35:12.000If she had the courage of her convictions, she'd call for impeachment, but she's not doing that.
00:35:16.000We're talking about a cumulative effect of obstruction that the administration is engaged in and the president declaring that he is Not going to honor any subpoenas from the Congress.
00:35:34.000So I support the path that our chairman are on, and I do believe that it will establish the case for where we go from here.
00:35:50.000Alrighty, so again, the fact that she is continuing to push this demonstrates how dishonest all of this is.
00:35:56.000I'm with President Trump when he says that this has now become a hoax and a witch hunt.
00:36:00.000Again, I was very skeptical of that sort of language, but now at this point with the Democrats having the Mueller report in front of them and continuing to maintain this stuff, I'm with President Trump now when he says that this is a hoax and a witch hunt.
00:36:13.000Joe Biden is moving ever to the left in an attempt to cut off Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and all the rest What you do is you work on this idea of earned citizens.
00:36:21.000So Vice President Joe Biden, look at how he has switched on illegal immigration.
00:36:28.000So it used to be that he thought illegal immigrants should be deported.
00:36:32.000Now he thinks illegal immigrants should get free health care, effectively speaking.
00:36:35.000Here is Joe Biden now versus then on illegal immigration.
00:36:38.000What you do is you work on this idea of earned citizens.
00:36:43.000You make them all return to the border to get a tamper-proof car.
00:36:47.000You force everyone to have a criminal background check.
00:36:52.000You require that they have to have, prove they have a job.
00:36:56.000You have to require you prove that they have, are paying Social Security and paying their taxes.
00:37:03.000And then, if they do that, and are prepared to pay a fine, over the next six years they can earn their way to citizenship and learn to speak English and learn to deal like everyone else did in order to gain citizenship.
00:37:16.000But if they don't, then you send them back.
00:37:18.000Do you think that undocumented immigrants who are in this country and are law-abiding should be entitled to federal benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, for example?
00:37:28.000Look, I think that anyone who is in a situation where they're in need of health care, regardless of whether they're documented or undocumented, we have an obligation to see that they're cared for.
00:37:41.000That's why I think we need more clinics around the country.
00:37:44.000So it seems like he has changed his tune just a little bit.
00:38:43.000Even people on the left understand that what Bernie Sanders and AOC are proposing here, making banks out of the post offices, is very, very dumb.
00:38:50.000Kevin Drum has a piece from years ago about all of this.
00:38:53.000Kevin Drum is a columnist for Mother Jones, which is a far-left magazine.
00:38:58.000And he says, what exactly is the core competency that would allow the Postal Service to excel at banking?
00:39:03.000So they say what would make it good is that there are lots of post offices.
00:39:08.000Lots of banks, like 100,000 across the United States.
00:39:11.000What else would make these great for banks?
00:39:13.000Trust and familiarity with the postal brand?
00:39:16.000Again, not a lot of people actually trust the post office.
00:39:18.000And also, when Sanders and AOC are talking about what exactly should happen with these small accounts, small accounts do exist at banks.
00:39:28.000And also, there are such things as payday lenders.
00:39:32.000And the biggest problem with providing very small loans from banks is that the default rate is extraordinary.
00:39:37.000So what AOC and Bernie Sanders really are talking about is the federal government subsidizing people with another entitlement program that will give loans to people who they know will not be able to repay those loans in small amounts via the post office.
00:40:35.000And it has got to, we have to stand up to the greed of Wall Street and change it.
00:40:39.000If you voluntarily sign a credit card statement, if you sign a contract with a credit card company, then you take out a bunch of credit and then you can't pay it, that would be on you.
00:41:12.000If they hold him in civil contempt for this, it will end up in the Supreme Court.
00:41:15.000He will sue them on the basis that this is not appropriate and that they are compelling him to violate American law.
00:41:21.000I think he'd be likely to win in that case.
00:41:23.000Sarah says, Hey Ben, I'm an English teacher in public high school.
00:41:25.000This year, for the first time in my career, I had a parent strongly object to the novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
00:41:29.000She claimed it was inappropriate and outdated, and it made her daughter uncomfortable.
00:41:33.000And of course, I was racist for choosing to teach it.
00:41:35.000To my shame, I gave in and decided not to teach the book this year.
00:41:38.000I noticed on Twitter you said you consider it one of the top American novels.
00:41:41.000Some teachers have a bans in the book because they argue it others African American students and should be replaced with a book written by a person of color.
00:41:47.000I was wondering what is your argument for the value of teaching To Kill a Mockingbird To kill a mockingbird is one of the great American novels.
00:41:55.000It is a story about the inculcation of civilization and morality in children and the need to defend people who specifically are being treated as other for unjust reasons.
00:42:05.000To kill a mockingbird is one of the great moral stories.
00:42:08.000It's almost part of the American mythology.
00:42:09.000This great moral story of Atticus Finch, a Southern lawyer who is standing up for a wrongly accused black man in the in the Jim Crow South.
00:42:19.000And the consequences of doing that, the consequences for, how you could read that as a racist book is absolutely beyond me.
00:42:25.000I do not understand how that is possible.
00:42:27.000But it does show how the nature of our view of race in America, and really, not even race in America, of how America should view race has changed.
00:42:36.000To Kill a Mockingbird is an aspirational book.
00:42:38.000It's about how we should treat each other with regard to race.
00:42:41.000We should treat each other as individual human beings with innate human decency, and we should aspire to be Atticus Finch.
00:42:47.000A few years back, Harper Lee's estate released an early draft of To Kill a Mockingbird in which Atticus Finch is basically an old racist.
00:42:56.000And it's about Harper Lee writing about her father and the entire book cast Atticus Finch as an old style, brutal Jim Crow racist.
00:43:05.000And the critics were talking about, many of the critics were talking about how this book is more of a real appreciation of what America is and was than To Kill a Mockingbird.
00:43:13.000Well, it is true there were a lot of old-style Jim Crow racists in the South during Jim Crow.
00:43:18.000It is also true that if you want to teach people about what America can be, you teach them about To Kill a Mockingbird.
00:43:23.000If you want to teach people about what America was, then you actually just show them tape, because we have video.
00:43:28.000James says, Hey Ben, how do you talk to your kids about the Holocaust?
00:43:30.000I want to know how best to talk to my kids about the horrors of slavery without them viewing themselves as victims.
00:43:35.000Can you wish my wife, Audrey, a happy birthday?
00:43:51.000I think they will be old enough maybe when they hit seven or eight years old.
00:43:55.000And what I will talk about is that There is a long history of persecution against Jews in a variety of countries, culminating in probably the worst persecution in the history of mankind, the Holocaust.
00:44:08.000This is why you should be grateful that you live in the greatest time, in the greatest civilization, in the greatest country.
00:44:13.000And you should be grateful for the people around you who fought to end that Holocaust.
00:44:17.000You should be grateful to America, which fought to stop that Holocaust.
00:44:20.000You should understand that there's a potential for grave evil in every human heart, including your own.
00:44:25.000And we should work to wipe away that evil.
00:44:28.000You should understand that the power of the collective is so intense that sometimes people who even consider themselves decent go along with evil.
00:44:36.000And you need to stand up and say, no, you use it as a moral teaching tool.
00:44:38.000The same thing I would assume is true of slavery.
00:44:42.000I wouldn't teach it as you're a victim because the Holocaust happened.
00:44:49.000Evil does sometimes specifically target Jews, just as evil does sometimes specifically target black folks.
00:44:55.000And the only way to fight it is to stand up and shout about it and rally good people around the cause to fight against it when appropriate, without considering yourself a victim in a society that has fought to end slavery, in a society that has fought to stop the Holocaust, in a society that ended Jim Crow.
00:45:14.000I mean, it's great to live in a country where we can say all of those things, isn't it?
00:45:18.000Kyle says, In some of the research I've come across, I've seen the comparison between CEO wages compared to their other fellow employees has grown to around 400 times the average worker over the past two decades.
00:45:27.000I am curious as to the validity of this information, and if it is true economically, is there something we can do?
00:45:32.000Or is this something the economy will sort out on its own, given enough time?
00:45:34.000Well, I don't really see why the gap between the CEO wages and fellow employees is of concern.
00:45:41.000The question is whether people are being underpaid.
00:45:42.000People have said this about, you know, the CEO of McDonald's.
00:45:44.000McDonald's has tens, if not hundreds of thousands of employees, and the CEO makes a few million dollars a year.
00:45:50.000Well, the average McDonald's employee is making whatever it is, 12 bucks an hour or something.
00:45:55.000If you were to fire the CEO and redistribute his salary, everybody'd get maybe a five cent raise, 10 cent raise, something like that.
00:46:02.000The The question is not what the CEO makes.
00:46:04.000When you decide whether to hire a CEO, you have to pay him market wages to get whoever you think is best at that job.
00:46:10.000And that's something approved by the board in order to bring in talent.
00:46:14.000And being a CEO requires years of education.
00:46:16.000It requires years of hard work and a skill set.
00:46:19.000And if that person's bad, they get all the blame, obviously.
00:46:22.000So I'm very little concerned about this.
00:46:25.000I do not care very much about income inequality.
00:46:27.000I care a lot about what happens to people at the bottom end of the scale and whether in fact there are systematic obstructions being put in their way to grow their income.
00:46:36.000If not, then I'm not concerned that the CEO makes a lot of money.
00:46:39.000He's not stealing that money from people who are working the counter at McDonald's or something.
00:46:44.000I think that if Biden wins the nomination in 2020, he's the odds-on favorite to win.
00:47:10.000You know, there are some things that Trump can do to be competitive, but I think that if he had to put money on it, it's at best a 50-50 shot that Trump wins against Joe Biden in a reelect effort.
00:47:19.000With the recent rocket attacks in Israel over the weekend, a Jewish law question came into mind.
00:47:23.000Are Jewish soldiers who protect Israel exempt from observing Shabbat?
00:47:26.000Yeah, they are given what is called a heter.
00:47:28.000They are allowed to protect Their fellow Jews, because it is a situation of what we call pikuach nefesh, a life being in danger.
00:47:34.000When a life is in danger, you're allowed to violate virtually every commandment in the Torah, with the exception of you're not allowed to kill somebody.
00:47:40.000like an innocent person, if your life is in danger, you're not allowed to commit a sexual sin if your life is in danger, and you're not allowed to defame the name of God, basically commit idolatry if your life is in danger.
00:47:52.000Otherwise, you're allowed to violate any of the rules.
00:47:55.000Rice says, Dear Ben, I live in the UK.
00:47:56.000People on the left often bring up the example of Saudi Arabia as a country we sell arms to and have an economic relationship with, despite the human rights atrocities they engage in, saying this proves our foreign policy is all about power and oil.
00:48:06.000So would I prefer that Saudi Arabia were a thriving westernized democracy?
00:48:20.000Also, if we don't support Saudi Arabia in the region, then Iran takes power.
00:48:25.000That is a very bad thing, because Iran is much more dangerous than Saudi Arabia in terms of its regional aspirations, as well as its global terror reach.
00:48:33.000We always have to consider the alternative when it comes to foreign policy because, again, foreign policy doesn't happen in a vacuum.
00:48:39.000William says, hey, Ben, in history class, we are learning about the Social Security Act and FDR's policies as governor and president.
00:48:45.000I was wondering what your critiques of his policies are and how we can reduce the welfare state today.
00:48:50.000Well, his his socialist his social policies weren't socialist policies.
00:48:55.000His policies were very bad for the economy.
00:48:58.000There's a study from UCLA that suggests they lengthened the Great Depression by up to eight years.
00:49:02.000As far as his Social Security Act, that has effectively taken over 33% of the federal budget and will be bankrupt by 2030.
00:49:10.000It is my view that, as opposed to seizing money from people and putting it in a government account that is then used for other purposes in what is effectively a pyramid scheme, if you actually wanted to have the government involved in retirement, which I don't think that it should be, but if you were going to, what you would do is set up a personalized savings account, put the money in the personalized savings account for the person, and then that would be it.
00:49:30.000Then at least they're saving the money.
00:49:31.000But that's not what Social Security does.
00:50:14.000Meaning that if I pay 30% of my income, no matter what my income, that's going to be a heavy chunk of my income.
00:50:21.000And it's a lot more absolute money when you are wealthy than when you are poor.
00:50:25.000In fact, the United States has one of the more progressive income tax rates in the Western world.
00:50:29.000Rich people pay way more than poor people.
00:50:32.000And if we actually had a quote-unquote socialist system, it's the poor who would pay for it, the middle class and the poor, which is why the highest tax brackets in many Scandinavian countries starts at around $60,000.
00:50:43.000Since it is impossible that Trump wins California, would you consider voting for Howard Schultz as an independent candidate instead if he has a competitive chance?
00:50:50.000Obviously, you don't agree with him on a lot of issues, but in terms of fiscal responsibility and identity politics, he's far more reasonable and moderate Well, if the idea is that that would throw the electoral votes away from the Democrats and toward Howard Schultz and prevent a Democrat from reaching 270, then yeah, that's just strategic voting.
00:51:06.000So, I think strategic voting is sometimes justifiable.
00:51:12.000As a conservative, I'm very skeptical of government mandates on what should be personal choices, but not vaccinating your children can put others at risk.
00:51:18.000Yes, I'm in favor of the government mandating vaccinations.
00:51:27.000When it comes to vaccinations, vaccinations do create externalities.
00:51:31.000Lack of vaccination of your child does not just impact your child, it makes your child a potential carrier for people who cannot get vaccinations, including kids who have cancer, pregnant mothers, and babies under one year of age.
00:51:40.000It's why we've had a return to a measles outbreak after that disease had effectively been wiped out of the United States decades ago.
00:51:51.000Should the United States recognize the Republic of China, aka Taiwan, as the rightful government of mainland China?
00:51:57.000Very difficult to recognize Taiwan as the rightful government of mainland China when they don't have any control over mainland China without that amounting to an effective declaration of war against China.
00:52:05.000So, on a realpolitik level, I can't see that happening.
00:52:09.000All right, let's do some stuff I like and then some stuff that I hate.
00:52:15.000So, I have to acknowledge that it is amusing to watch as Democrats make claims about the economy that are just outright false.
00:52:25.000So, Senator Richard Blumenthal, who says a lot of very weird things, was on CNBC.
00:52:30.000And he started talking about Facebook.
00:52:33.000And he makes the case that breaking up companies like Facebook would increase jobs and prosperity.
00:52:40.000I think that Facebook needs to be broken up.
00:52:43.000The acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp need to be unwound.
00:52:49.000And there needs to be Department of Justice scrutiny about appropriate antitrust remedy.
00:52:54.000So we're not talking about attacking prosperity or jobs.
00:52:59.000In fact, increased jobs and greater prosperity in more competition.
00:53:05.000And really, Facebook here is the only company that we're talking about.
00:53:10.000So, you know, when he talks about, you know, breaking up, breaking up companies creates jobs and prosperity.
00:53:15.000So I guess the idea is that if you have lots of competition in a sector that creates jobs and prosperity, isn't that the underlying logic there?
00:53:22.000Oh, wait, that's what we say about everything in the free market.
00:53:24.000They only say it when they want to break up a company that is successful and not jacking customers.