The New York Times publishes an anonymous piece that says a senior Trump administration official is secretly sabotaging the president's agenda. In other news, Cory Booker is behaving like an infant again, which means it must be a day that ends in Y. Then, an abortionist and consulting medical director of Physicians for Reproductive Health, Dr. Ann Davis, stops by to discuss abortion and the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. Finally, the mailbag.
00:04:36.560There's one interesting word here, which is load star.
00:04:39.740And this has everyone saying that it was Mike Pence who wrote this, which is absurd.
00:04:44.240Nobody seriously believes that the sitting vice president wrote this poorly written piece for the New York Times.
00:04:49.900The main reason I don't think it was him is because it's not well written.
00:04:52.100And it says, you know, the load star, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:04:57.020People notice that Mike Pence has used the word load star in a number of speeches over the years.
00:05:02.660Okay, but also the way that these things work, it could easily be somebody using this keyword that is associated with Pence to kind of frame him and get the pressure off of themselves.
00:05:16.540It's a traitor, it's a troll, or it's a tall tale.
00:05:20.720Those are the three T's of this anonymous essay in the New York Times.
00:05:25.160Either this person does exist, and he is actually a senior official, and he is actually sabotaging the Trump administration, or it's someone who is, this is coming out of the Trump administration, and they're trying to troll the New York Times into destroying their journalistic credibility by running this outrageous anonymous essay in the op-ed pages, or the New York Times completely made it up.
00:05:59.400President Trump has been talking about this the whole time.
00:06:01.760President Trump has been saying there is a deep state.
00:06:03.840There are embedded interests in Washington, in the administration, working for the administration, who oppose the agenda that was elected by the American people in 2016.
00:06:13.240So we know that that's true, both because this essay was published and because we've heard about it for so long, and we've seen the evidence of that.
00:06:21.260It certainly could be the case that this is all legit, and this person really is at the high level, and he's trying to undermine the Trump agenda.
00:06:29.940If that is the case, he's a real traitor to his country.
00:06:32.300President Trump tweeted out, treason, all question marks, all capital letters, and that isn't overstating the case.
00:06:39.080The American people did not elect this random staffer who published in the New York Times.
00:07:18.200No, you're undermining the constitutional order.
00:07:20.440They're complaining about the Russians interfering in the election.
00:07:23.180What is greater election interference than trying to overturn the results of a presidential election, than trying to sabotage the will of the American people and the constitutional order as expressed in 2016?
00:07:40.700If, at the worst scenario, if this is really the case, this person should be very ashamed and they should be ferreted out of the government.
00:07:49.040This is a huge offense to the American people and a huge threat to liberty.
00:13:05.820I had tears of rage when I heard about his experience in that meeting.
00:13:08.720And for you not to feel that hurt and that pain and to dismiss some of the questions of my colleagues,
00:13:15.900saying I've already answered that line of questions when tens of millions of Americans are hurting right now because of what they're worried about what happened in the White House.
00:13:54.640So here is Cory actually at this hearing today.
00:13:57.580Senator Corden actually made a very good point.
00:14:00.060I knowingly violated the rules that were put forth.
00:14:04.380And I'm told that the committee confidential rules have knowing consequences.
00:14:09.700I'm going to release the email about racial profiling.
00:14:12.040And I understand that that the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate.
00:14:16.980And if Senator Cornyn believes that I violated Senate rules, I openly invite and accept the consequences of my team releasing that email right now.
00:14:27.180What I'm releasing this document right now to show, sir, is that we have a process here for a person, the highest office in the land for a lifetime appointment.
00:14:43.000We're rushing through this before me and my colleagues can even read and digest the information.
00:14:48.600Running for president is no excuse for violating the rules of the Senate.
00:14:53.100No senator deserves to sit on this committee or serve in the Senate, in my view, if they decide to be a law unto themselves and willingly flout the rules of the Senate and the determination of confidentiality and classification.
00:15:07.300That is irresponsible in conduct unbecoming a senator.
00:15:23.760If there's a big fight about kicking Cory Booker out of the Senate, then he sort of has a chance to rise up to a tier one candidate in 2020.
00:16:15.260We're very lucky to have a guest here today.
00:16:18.000You know, it's very hard to get guests from the left and guests who disagree with our point of view on.
00:16:22.380And Dr. Ann Davis has agreed to join the program to discuss these Kavanaugh hearings and the role that abortion and Roe v. Wade is going to be playing in this.
00:16:31.300And Dr. Ann Davis is the consulting medical director of Physicians for Reproductive Health and an abortion provider herself.
00:16:42.740So, Dr. Davis, before we begin, I want your thoughts on this Kavanaugh hearing and on the future of abortion politics in the country.
00:16:49.760I have to begin with the name of your organization, the Physicians for Reproductive Health.
00:16:56.080Because it has always seemed to me that of all of the euphemisms that we have in the abortion debate, reproductive health is the most outrageous one, as reproduction and abortion are diametrically opposed.
00:17:09.060Why is it the case that the abortion movement, the pro-abortion movement, relies on euphemistic and dishonest language in so much of their political activity?
00:17:17.980So, our name, Physicians for Reproductive Health, really refers to our mission, which is that we support comprehensive reproductive health for everyone.
00:17:30.580So, that would include all the things I do as an OB-GYN, contraception, of course, and abortion pertinent to this show.
00:17:39.180But it's really a health, reproductive health concerns all reproductive health.
00:17:43.960So, that's the explanation for our name.
00:17:45.880But this is the question I always ask, because I'm not suggesting that being an obstetrician gynecologist or delivering babies or any other of the medical aspects of that position don't concern reproductive health.
00:17:58.840What I'm saying is that it seems bizarre to include abortion so essentially in this.
00:18:04.880And I'm not just picking on your organization or your work, but so much in the political debates.
00:18:09.660We never hear abortion called by its own name.
00:18:31.760Why is it about abortion politics that it has to be lumped within all of these apparently unrelated medical activities?
00:18:41.700I think that what is happening there, what you've noticed, is that there's a lot of stigma around abortion, as we all know, so that people aren't necessarily comfortable saying the word abortion or talking about it.
00:19:35.120It's very common in the years after Roe v. Wade was decided, the abortion rate nearly doubled, I think.
00:19:42.700Since then, it's dropped dramatically, but there was certainly an explosion in the 1970s and early 80s.
00:19:50.100And yet, when we look at the polling, and not just from right-wing firms, not just from religious firms, but even left-wing polling firms like Gallup,
00:19:57.040we find that the majority of Americans, and the majority of American women in particular, oppose abortion in the second and certainly in the third terms.
00:20:07.260What does this mean for the future of abortion politics?
00:20:09.780So much of the Kavanaugh hearing has come down to whether or not he would overturn Roe v. Wade.
00:20:16.340And so much of the abortion debate happens on, you know, is abortion morally permissible in the first three hours of pregnancy or something.
00:20:25.420Abortion is certainly a common medical procedure, and yet the majority of Americans oppose it in the second and third term.
00:20:33.320Is there a point at which the abortion movement will have to say, abortion should not be licit in the second and the third term?
00:20:41.720Is there a point at which we can say, this is no longer merely a medical procedure that doesn't involve human beings and is infanticide?
00:20:51.000I'd like to backtrack a bit into your point, which is to say, remember that, you know, we have very, very clear numbers about when abortions are performed in the United States.
00:21:04.940The huge majority of abortions are performed early in pregnancy.
00:21:09.060So we know that about 85 percent of abortions are performed very, very early.
00:21:16.280We also know that abortion is much, much safer the earlier that a woman can have one.
00:21:22.280So it's a simple, safe surgical procedure or medication that you can take early on in pregnancy and very, very safe and simple and suitable to just taking that in an office, a doctor's office and being able to do that.
00:21:35.220Also, it's very important to understand that the nomination of Kavanaugh really threatens the safety of abortion in our country, because as abortion gets harder to access and there are places in our country right now where it's very, very difficult for women to access abortion, the harder it is to access, the later it goes into pregnancy.
00:21:56.880So when it's difficult to find an abortion because your insurance won't cover it, because you have to drive a really long way to get to a place to have one, when you have a waiting period, there are numerous restrictions.
00:22:08.860They've been just piling up over the last five to 10 years, hundreds, literally hundreds of restrictions in the states.
00:22:16.840And so what that does is it moves the abortion later into the process and that makes it less safe.
00:22:22.260So it's in our interest to make sure that there's access to abortion in order to help women have access early so that abortion really remains safe.
00:22:30.720And that's something I hear from my patients in my practice.
00:22:34.300You know, they're very, very grateful to be able to get in early and take care of themselves in a way that's going to be safe for them.
00:22:41.580But, Dr. Davis, this does seem to evade the question, which we're talking about the safety of abortion.
00:22:46.560The point for people who oppose abortion is that abortion is never safe for the baby who is being killed.
00:22:51.540And so my question is, is there a point, not just at which it's less safe for the woman to have an abortion, say, in the third trimester or I don't know,
00:23:01.560but is there a point at which the pro-abortion movement, the people who are advocates of abortion, will say, after this date, this is infanticide.
00:23:10.420Surely we would all say killing a baby who's one day old and has been born for a day, that that is not morally licit, that that is a sin and that's a crime.
00:23:18.400Is there a point before then, especially looking now and even looking at poll numbers of public opinion on abortions and late-term abortions,
00:23:26.220where the pro-abortion movement and abortion providers will say, this is not morally licit, this is killing a baby in either the second trimester or the third trimester?
00:23:36.960I'd really like to focus more on the reality of the medical care that we're actually providing.
00:23:42.180But this is the reality. The babies are living in reality.
00:23:47.040I'm not quite sure where your question is going.
00:23:52.400You know, to my mind and our practice, the things that we're concerned about,
00:23:55.940we're concerned about making sure people get their care early, that the care is safe.
00:24:00.340Those are the things that are important to my patients and that I'm dealing with every day.
00:24:04.680The patients that I took care of this morning, we really, what they're concerned about is their safety,
00:24:11.500their reproductive health, their fertility, their future, and that's what we're really focused on.
00:24:16.540The average patient isn't saying, you know, this particular number of days in my pregnancy.
00:24:28.640Every situation with a pregnancy is going to be different in terms of the gestational age.
00:24:32.480And again, having abortions later in pregnancy is really the minority.
00:24:36.000The majority of people really are facing a situation where they're early in pregnancy and they need to get the care at that time.
00:24:43.820Abortion is extremely safe if you compare the risk, for instance, of something extreme like a woman's death, a woman dying during an abortion.
00:24:52.820That is eight times, six to eight more times likely to happen giving birth.
00:25:56.900You're you're perfectly able to say that.
00:26:00.060I just want to know if there will be a moment when the pro abortion movement acknowledges that there is a living human being inside of that woman
00:26:08.640that is being snuffed out and killed in the process of providing a safe abortion to the woman.
00:26:15.940Well, in the conversation, I can tell you what happens in the reality of medical practice, which is in my office.
00:26:21.720I think that's really where the most important part of the practice happens.
00:26:26.980And not in not between people in theoretical, but really those conversations that happen between a woman and a doctor or another provider in her health for her life.
00:26:35.940Yes, the baby is not theoretically killed.
00:26:47.780That is exactly what happens when someone has an abortion.
00:26:51.660So really what we're focused on is making sure she gets the right care at the right time and making sure that she has access to that care.
00:26:58.840And I suppose then, so my follow-up question, if we're talking about care, if we're talking about the medical realities of these things,
00:27:08.020we must take into consideration the Hippocratic Oath not to hurt a patient, not to cause harm, at first do no harm.
00:27:14.380Is there any point in the gestational age of the unborn baby at which you would treat that unborn baby as a human patient that you have to care for medically and physically?
00:27:27.520Well, I think, you know, when you talk about the meaning of things, it really depends on the person, her beliefs, the beliefs of her family.
00:27:41.060I'm asking your beliefs as a leader in this field.
00:27:42.940I am very clear about my beliefs, which is that I'm in full support of a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, as well as all the other forms.
00:27:51.340All the way up until the day of birth?
00:28:08.940That is what I am talking about and asking specifically.
00:28:11.340Do you support the right to an abortion up until the day of giving birth?
00:28:15.700My personal practice is that I provide care within the full scope of the law and in compliance with all the rules and the laws of my state and my hospital.
00:29:05.380But I am asking you as a matter of not just of state law.
00:29:09.020I know the state laws, not just a federal law.
00:29:11.300I'm asking you as a question of the practice of abortion itself and with your expertise in the medical field.
00:29:16.740Do you support medically, not legally, not politically, medically, do you support the woman's right to an abortion up until the day of birth?
00:29:28.320Is there any limit on gestational age at which point you yourself, regardless of the law, would say, I will not perform this abortion?
00:29:35.620That's not a scenario that occurs in my practice.
00:29:41.380It's not something that I have to make decisions about because it isn't a real scenario.
00:29:51.560It might not be a practical one that you experience.
00:29:54.100I understand, but I think you're focusing on something that is so outlandish and bizarre to imply that people are having abortions the day before a baby is born.
00:30:03.080Dr. Davis, I'm using this as an example to take the logical.
00:30:07.040I'm not really sure where you're going with it.
00:31:07.840Just even in the last few days, I've had circumstances where we've been looking at pregnancies that have gotten very medically complicated.
00:31:20.600And, you know, imagine that something like this happens to you where you're at a certain gestational age.
00:31:24.800I don't think it's going to happen to me, pardon my flippancy.
00:31:27.460Okay, well, imagine it happens to someone in your family or a friend of yours.
00:31:30.920And these things do happen all the time.
00:31:33.100You know, human reproduction is not perfect.
00:31:35.580So things happen where conditions develop either with health.
00:31:39.740Women can get very, very critically ill when they're pregnant.
00:31:43.280But, Dr. Davis, we would agree the vast, vast majority of abortions occur.
00:31:48.680Things can happen with fetal development.
00:31:51.100So we're in a situation where we have to make sure we're following the law.
00:31:54.800We're following best practices, and we're doing the right thing for that woman.
00:31:58.880It isn't necessarily about whether it's this many days or that many days.
00:32:16.780But those are things that happen here every day of the week.
00:32:20.160We have patients in scenarios where they have complicated care.
00:32:24.100We're providing very advanced care to them really to save their lives.
00:32:28.060And we need to have the flexibility to give the right care at the right time at whatever stage we can in the full practice of being in compliance with our local laws.
00:32:42.400But I do want to bring up one point, which is you mentioned the threats to the life of the woman.
00:32:46.680And surely we can agree, the numbers are in, that the vast, vast, vast majority of abortions that take place, over 99% of abortions, do not concern cases of rape or incest or threat to the life of the mother.
00:32:57.900Which brings me to my last question, again, in your work, not so much as a doctor, but as a consultant to the physicians for reproductive health, which is that we know from Dr. Bernard Nathanson, the guy who founded NARAL, the biggest pro-abortion organization in the country.
00:33:18.220And who ran the largest abortion clinic in the country for two years.
00:33:22.060We know that the number that we're constantly told, women will die, thousands of women died per year from illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade.
00:33:32.220This has come up in judicial hearings from Bork all the way up to the present.
00:33:36.300We hear it every single time a Republican nominates a judge.
00:33:39.500We know from him, the man who invented that statistic, that it was plucked out of thin air.
00:33:44.900He said, quote, in NARAL, we generally emphasize the frame of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter, it was always 5,000 or 10,000 deaths a year.
00:33:52.980I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose that others did too if they stopped to think of it.
00:33:57.980But in the morality of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics?
00:34:04.960The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated.
00:34:07.880Anything within reason that had to be done was permissible.
00:34:10.640We know from the Centers for Disease Control that the year before Roe v. Wade was decided, the actual number of women who died from illegal abortions was 39.
00:34:18.800The number of women who died from legal abortions was 24.
00:34:21.820Abortion was only legal in 20 states, which means statistically both legal and illegal abortions were about as risky as one another.
00:34:29.080Moving forward in this debate, and in these judicial hearings, will the abortion movement stop the demonstrable lie that thousands of women will die per year if Roe v. Wade is overturned?
00:34:46.040Will they stop that, or will they continue to harp on that?
00:34:48.840And I ask you personally if you've ever had any of the thoughts or skepticism or pauses that Bernard Nathanson has had with regard to the moral quality of the activity that you're doing.
00:35:16.180If there's a 5% chance that that is true, if there's a 10% chance, if there's a 95% chance, how sure are you and does the activity of abortion give you pause?
00:35:28.240There were a lot of questions in there.
00:35:33.520I have a master's degree in public health, and I'm a researcher, so I'm very happy to look at numbers and think about numbers.
00:35:40.760And I'm not in charge of messaging for a movement.
00:35:43.400I'm a doctor, and I am also a patient advocate.
00:35:47.900You're a patient advocate, which is why I like your public opinion on this.
00:35:51.340But what I want to say, that when we look at numbers like how many people died before abortion was legal and how many people died after abortion was legal,
00:36:00.060I think it's very easy to understand the difference between illegal abortion and legal abortion back in, you know, decades ago, that there really were not methods available to people that were safe.
00:36:15.980And statistically speaking, just as many women died from legal as illegal abortions.
00:36:19.780Explain that. I'm happy to explain that.
00:36:21.420So when we talked to doctors who were practicing before abortion was legal, it was very common for women to come into the emergency room critically ill, wind up with a hysterectomy.
00:36:33.780They may not have died, but there was a lot of serious morbidity, losing their fertility, nearly losing their life, having emergency operations.
00:36:41.120And those were routine things. There were whole wards and hospitals dedicated to trying to save women's lives after attempts at illegal abortion.
00:36:48.700Those things don't exist anymore, and they didn't exist after abortion became legal.
00:36:53.940So you don't need a whole lot of very particular numbers to understand that things got a lot, a lot safer.
00:37:00.120It seems to me the numbers clarify things better than the anecdotes do.
00:37:02.960I agree. But when you take, when you try to count something that's illegal, right, it's super hard to do that.
00:37:09.320And how do you count somebody dying? You write something on a death certificate.
00:37:13.440If it's a circumstance where something is highly stigmatized, it's pretty hard to count.
00:37:17.640And what you see on a death certificate may have nothing to do with what actually happened.
00:37:21.520Maybe it says the patient died of septic shock, but it was as a result of an illegal abortion.
00:37:25.780Certainly. But, doctor, we do have statistics on crime. We collect statistics on crime very well.
00:37:30.660Right. So I think we know, you know, I think we know from common sense in terms of the practice and observing the practice what happened.
00:37:39.060That's not something that was that was something that was very, very well documented.
00:37:44.020And even colleagues, you know, 10 years ago, some of those doctors are older now, but they told us what it was like.
00:37:49.000And these were people working in major medical centers in the United States.
00:37:54.020And that really was the backbone of trying to make sure that abortion became safe because so many women were injured and even lost their lives.
00:38:00.660So that's not something we want to see come back again.
00:38:03.140You can argue about whether or not things would be different now that we have different abortion methods.
00:38:09.200It may be that illegal abortion may not be as physically unsafe for a woman.
00:38:14.280But keep in mind that if abortion becomes illegal, there are new risks, right?
00:38:18.380There are risks for people like me who provide it.
00:38:20.540There are risks for patients in terms of taking medication.
00:38:24.080Well, I'm sorry. What do you mean there are risks for people like you?
00:38:26.080And they're incarcerated for ending a pregnancy if Roe is overturned.
00:38:30.320So those things are real concerns for us.
00:38:39.540But considering the example of Dr. Bernard Nathanson, among others, major not only abortionists, abortion providers, heads of abortion clinics and abortion advocates who have totally changed their position.
00:38:52.700We regularly see this, people who supported abortion rights, who then became pro-life.
00:38:57.460This happened to me myself, and I was convinced by a bioethicist to change my opinion.
00:39:01.860I previously thought abortion was perfectly permissible.
00:39:08.200Even if you are not going to conclude that a baby in the womb is with 100% certainty a moral being worthy of dignity and respect and the protection of life,
00:39:18.480would you be willing to grant that there's perhaps an 80% chance or a 20% chance or even a 2% chance that that baby in the womb has moral value?
00:39:48.640That's why I teach young doctors to provide the care that I do, really so that women get the best care that they can.
00:39:54.100And that should be a priority for everybody.
00:39:56.060Well, doctor, I have to thank you for coming on.
00:39:58.600Not a lot of people who are on the left will come on my show, and very few people who are in your position are willing to speak to conservative outlets.
00:40:07.780So I certainly have to thank you for doing that, and I'll be praying for you.
00:40:19.720Wow, I know we ran really long, but I just can't believe it.
00:40:23.760It's an amazing thing when you have the opportunity for that sort of conversation because she just won't accept, she won't even acknowledge the premise.
00:40:35.840She wouldn't even acknowledge the premise.
00:40:37.920Is there any chance that this human life that we know is a human life, it's not a platypus, and it's not dead, it's a human life, is there any chance that that has moral significance?
00:40:47.480She wouldn't even acknowledge the premise.
00:40:49.640I think that tells you everything you need to know about the abortion debate.
00:40:52.120We'll try to get to a couple mailbag questions.
00:40:54.280If you're on dailywire.com, thank you very much.
00:40:56.360You help us keep the lights on and covfefe in my cup.
00:40:58.680If you are on Facebook or YouTube, we definitely got censored after that discussion.
00:41:04.240That was far too frank and honest a discussion to possibly be allowed to be had on social media pages.
00:41:11.540It's $10 a month, $100 for an annual membership.
00:41:14.540You get me, you get the Andrew Klavan show, you get the Ben Shapiro show, you get to ask questions in the mailbag, although this week you only get to ask like two because we ran a little late in our conversation.
00:41:23.160And you get to ask questions in the conversation, speaking of, which we'll next time have Ben Shapiro, the big boss himself.
00:44:04.400You kind of go through the fire of it and then you come back out.
00:44:07.860Part of it is that the left has gone so insane that people who aren't like me to the right of Attila the Hun, people who are like Dave Rubin, have come over to the right as well.
00:44:17.840Because they sure can't stay on the left.
00:44:19.360There's no room for them in the Democrat Party.
00:44:21.460I was a conservative before I had any religious views again.
00:44:29.260So I don't know that you have to have those religious views.
00:44:31.940But once you accept the reality of Christianity or Judaism or whatever your theistic religious views are, it's very hard if you follow those ideas to their logical conclusions.
00:44:45.000It's very hard to remain a leftist because the left has totally embraced materialism, has totally embraced a scientistic materialist worldview that precludes any sense of meaning and the human soul and sin and grace and redemption.
00:45:01.200So I think I think that will also help bring people back over as well.