The Ben Shapiro Show - August 06, 2018


An Epic Trump Tweetstorm | Ep. 596

Topics
Trump tweets and air quality Tate Speech policies stamps.com promo code Peter Millar clothing
Hosted by
Ben Shapiro
Mentioned
Donald Trump Jr. Alex Jones Hillary Clinton LeBron James Peter Millar Five Pocket Pants Robert Mueller James Madison Legacy Box Terrence Williams Caitlyn Jenner Candace Owens Barack Obama Sarah Zhang Donald Trump Sr. Michael Jordan Richard Nixon Jeremy Corbyn Charlie Kirk Don Lemon Abraham Lincoln and 35 more
David Mamet | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 13 The Self-Pitying Media | Ep. 597

Episode Stats


Length

50 minutes

Words per minute

207.02

Word count

10,358

Sentence count

742

Harmful content

Misogyny

12

sentences flagged

Toxicity

60

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Social media companies target Alex Jones, Trump goes off on the Trump Tower meeting, and the left continues to defend racism so long as it's directed against white people. All that and much more on today's show from Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire show on CNN's "ACL" and The Ben Shapiro Show on CBS Radio's "Hollywood Reporter" with Chacho Vazquez. Subscribe to "The Daily Wire" wherever you get your shows and listen to them 24/7. You'll get access to all the latest news and analysis from CNN, CBS, NBC, and other major news outlets including the New York Times, The New York Post, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal. Use the promo code POWER10 for 10% off your first purchase when you enter the portal. That's $10 or more when you buy your first month's worth of Power10 at $99.99. That includes shipping, handling, and handling fees. Protect your energy and your environment by becoming a POWER10 Member! You get 10% OFF Power10 when you sign up for a complimentary Power10 membership when you place an order of $99 or more. Plus, you get 20% off the entire month when you become a Power10 Member. If you're looking for a discount, you can get 15% off of your purchase through Power10, plus an additional $5 discount when you upgrade your membership gets you an extra $5,000 when you start using the discount offer. Power10 gets an ad discount when they begin their first month, they offer a maximum of $50, they'll get $99, they get you an ad-free version of the offer of $150, they also get $50 and they get $25, plus they get an additional 5,000, they can get a complimentary VIP membership when they get the deal of $75, they receive $99 they get my ad-only policy. They also get my $150 and I'll get a freebie when they receive my $99 and I get my first promo code, and I also get a discount when I'm able to rate my ad starts in the first place. they also receive $49, and they receive a discount of $95, they have my $49 and they can receive $50 they get a VIP discount. I'll also get 5% off my ad begins in the ad starts start them at $49 or they get their first rate of $49.99 and get an ad starts after they begin my first week of the program starts my first month.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Social media companies target Alex Jones, Trump goes off on the Trump Tower meeting, tariffs Anne LeBron, and the left continues to defend racism so long as it's directed against white people.
00:00:10.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:00:10.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:00:16.000 Oh man, we have so much to get to today.
00:00:17.000 It was a very full weekend of Trump tweets and more Trump tweets and then even more Trump tweets after that.
00:00:22.000 I want to remind you, I think we're only about a week away from our big live events.
00:00:25.000 So if you're going to go check out those last minute tickets now is the time at dailywire.com slash events.
00:00:29.000 Go check those out.
00:00:30.000 Also,
00:00:31.000 It is imperative that you think about the quality of the air that you are breathing.
00:00:34.000 There's this article that I saw last week about how air pollution in national parks is as bad as the top 20 major cities in the United States.
00:00:41.000 Probably that's Trump's fault, but the reason apparently is because these parks are downwind of air pollution sources like agriculture, industry, major highways, and urban areas.
00:00:49.000 So basically, there's now nowhere to run except inside.
00:00:51.000 We know the indoor air quality is actually worse very often than the air quality outside, which is one of the reasons why you need to go to Filterbuy.com and keep a fresh set of filters in your home's central air system and at the office.
00:01:02.000 We use Filterbuy.com here at the Daily Wire offices.
00:01:04.000 I use it at my house as well.
00:01:06.000 Filterbuy is America's leading provider of HVAC filters for homes and small businesses.
00:01:10.000 They have over 600 sizes that ship for free within 24 hours.
00:01:13.000 Plus, they're manufactured right here in the United States.
00:01:16.000 I recommend you set up auto delivery also.
00:01:18.000 So you don't forget to regularly switch up your filters like I normally do, but now I no longer have to worry about it because the filters just arrive regularly.
00:01:25.000 Plus, they knock 5% off the order when you sign up.
00:01:28.000 Save time, save money, breathe better.
00:01:30.000 It's filterbuy.com.
00:01:31.000 That's filter, B-U-Y dot com, filterbuy.com.
00:01:34.000 And tell them I sent you, again, filterbuy.com.
00:01:36.000 Go check them out.
00:01:37.000 Make your air quality cleaner.
00:01:39.000 OK, so big story over the weekend is that Apple and Facebook have now targeted Alex Jones over at InfoWars. 0.96
00:01:45.000 For those who don't know who Alex Jones is, he's a crazy human.
00:01:48.000 So Alex Jones' craze extends to believing that there was a pizza shop in Washington, D.C. 0.93
00:01:55.000 that was associated with Hillary Clinton that was running pedophiles from it or some such. 1.00
00:02:00.000 He also has suggested that the Sandy Hook massacre was actually a false flag, that it was a bunch of child actors.
00:02:07.000 He has suggested that Seth Rich was murdered by Hillary Clinton, I believe.
00:02:10.000 I think he was involved in the Seth Rich stuff as well.
00:02:12.000 There are very few conspiracy theories in which Alex Jones does not engage.
00:02:16.000 Most famously, he has said in the past that he believes that the government is turning the frogs gay by somehow changing the chemical composition in the water.
00:02:26.000 He's most famous for
00:02:28.000 His emotional outbursts on his show.
00:02:45.000 Well, he has a very large following because conspiracy theories are, in fact, extraordinarily popular.
00:02:50.000 When people are seeking to place order on chaos, they look to conspiracy theories.
00:02:54.000 There are a lot of people who are big names, who are followers of Alex Jones.
00:02:58.000 Most famously, the President of the United States used to call in regularly to Alex Jones and saw Alex Jones as a quasi-ally.
00:03:03.000 Alex Jones claimed that after the election, President Trump was calling him fairly regularly.
00:03:08.000 Jones, as I say, is a toxic personality of the highest order.
00:03:13.000 He and I have gotten into it in the past.
00:03:15.000 That actually ended with him doing a weird imitation of me, which I will play for you in a few minutes here.
00:03:21.000 But here's what Facebook and Apple are saying.
00:03:23.000 So Facebook and Apple have now banned him.
00:03:25.000 They're clamping down on him.
00:03:27.000 Suffice it to say that while I think that Alex Jones is basically a giant dumpster fire of human, that he smells like the burning garbage that aerates the scent of New York City, I think that Alex Jones should not be banned from Apple and Facebook simply because
00:03:43.000 The standards that are being used by a lot of these social media companies are extraordinarily vague.
00:03:47.000 Apple and Facebook, according to CNBC, have now clamped down on content by Alex Jones Monday.
00:03:51.000 The former pulled five of his podcasts.
00:03:53.000 The latter removed four pages controlled by him.
00:03:55.000 Apple confirmed on Monday it removed five of the six podcasts, which included Jones' infamous The Alex Jones Show, as well as a number of other InfoWars audio streams.
00:04:03.000 The news was originally reported by BuzzFeed News.
00:04:05.000 Jones, of course, is a controversial conspiracy theorist who has claimed that the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, and he has been hit with other content bans from YouTube as well as Spotify.
00:04:15.000 Apple's move is pretty dramatic.
00:04:16.000 They've taken down the entire library of InfoWars podcasts rather than a select few episodes.
00:04:20.000 An Apple spokesperson said, quote,
00:04:23.000 Let's do it!
00:04:41.000 So they say that he has persistently uploaded content in breach of various content guidelines.
00:04:46.000 Facebook says the same.
00:04:47.000 In July, Facebook removed four of Jones' videos and hid his own personal profile with a 30-day ban over what the firm deemed as a violation of its policies on bullying and hate speech.
00:04:57.000 The company explained that when it deletes content, the removal counts as a strike, essentially a warning against the person that uploaded it in the first place.
00:05:04.000 In the case of pages, Facebook says it holds both a page and an administrator who posts content in violation of its rules accountable.
00:05:10.000 They said that this was not about fake news.
00:05:12.000 They said this was not because of Jones's tendencies toward conspiracism.
00:05:16.000 Instead, it was about hate speech and bullying.
00:05:19.000 They said, while much of the discussion around InfoWars has been related to false news, which is a serious issue we are working to address by demoting links marked wrong by fact checkers and suggesting additional content, none of the violations that spurred today's removals were related to this.
00:05:33.000 So it is again unclear what exactly it was that triggered all of this.
00:05:38.000 They say that it was it was his threatening language.
00:05:41.000 But again, I would need to see the specific threatening language that he was using.
00:05:45.000 And I'm somebody who's been threatened by Alex Jones.
00:05:47.000 I mean, Alex Jones has legitimately gone on his show and threatened that he would send
00:05:51.000 His buddies down to the people who help fund Daily Wire, that he would send those people down to their ranch in Texas and have them harassed.
00:06:01.000 I mean, Alex Jones is a bad guy.
00:06:03.000 But the problem is this.
00:06:05.000 Once you start saying that hate speech is a rationale for banning people from social media, you get into some very, very vague territory.
00:06:10.000 Because as we know, the left does not have a consistent standard that they uphold when they are looking at hate speech.
00:06:15.000 They don't say that anything that is hateful is banned and then define hateful in extraordinarily specific terms.
00:06:20.000 They don't say anything that is offensive is banned because a lot of things are offensive.
00:06:23.000 Instead, they use this term hate speech to simply label stuff they don't like hate speech.
00:06:27.000 I know this because I've been targeted, not by social media per se, but by a lot of folks on the left who suggest that I am some sort of provocateur involved in hate speech.
00:06:36.000 What exactly have I said that is hate speech?
00:06:38.000 Well, their favorite is that I don't use preferred pronouns.
00:06:41.000 So if somebody like Caitlyn Jenner says that Caitlyn Jenner is a woman, I will still say that Caitlyn Jenner is a man, and I will say Caitlyn Jenner is a he.
00:06:48.000 This is hate speech, according to a lot of folks on the left.
00:06:51.000 Well, what's to prevent Apple or
00:06:54.000 Facebook, from removing my content online simply because I don't abide by their standards.
00:06:59.000 There are rumors today that a lot of these social media giants are going to start banning or restricting content from people who they deem climate change deniers.
00:07:07.000 Not even people who acknowledge that climate change is happening, but worry that it may not be happening to the same extent that some on the left say and don't look like the left's solutions.
00:07:16.000 Those people may not be safe from the predations of social media also.
00:07:21.000 So, again, what exactly is so terrible?
00:07:25.000 The company said it removed Alex Jones' pages for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslim, and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies.
00:07:35.000 Again, this is where we get into some serious, serious issues.
00:07:38.000 What exactly violates that hate speech policy? 0.99
00:07:41.000 So if I say that transgender people have mental disorders, which they do, okay? 1.00
00:07:46.000 Gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder is, as you may have noticed from the term gender identity disorder, a disorder. 0.98
00:07:52.000 If you say that, is that now hate speech? 0.97
00:07:54.000 What if I say that while not all Muslims are terrorists, a disproportionate number of terrorists are Muslim? 0.98
00:07:59.000 Is that hate speech? 0.98
00:08:00.000 Because that is also a fact.
00:08:01.000 What if I say that immigrants coming to the United States, you know, ought to be vetted because we don't know who's violent and who is not? 1.00
00:08:08.000 Is that hate speech?
00:08:09.000 I don't think it is.
00:08:10.000 I don't even think it comes close to hate speech.
00:08:12.000 But one of the big problems is that you have too many folks on the left who decide that anything they don't like now is hate speech.
00:08:19.000 And I'm not... Again, one of the things that's very weird about this is that I really dislike Alex Jones's brand.
00:08:26.000 I think that Alex Jones is a liar. 0.91
00:08:27.000 I think he's a conspiracist. 0.99
00:08:28.000 I think he does say horrible things and hateful things on a regular basis.
00:08:31.000 But there is no consistent standard that you can set.
00:08:34.000 There is no limiting principle to Facebook or Apple
00:08:38.000 I think I'll get in your business.
00:08:39.000 You know what happens when I get in people's businesses, boy?
00:08:41.000 They ain't in business long, son!
00:09:06.000 You like what I did to your daddy, Beck?
00:09:08.000 He really did it to himself, didn't he?
00:09:10.000 But we told everybody what he was.
00:09:12.000 Okay, so that weirdo, right, was threatening me on his show, and I'm now defending his show.
00:09:15.000 Clearly, I'm a bad guy.
00:09:18.000 It's just dangerous stuff.
00:09:21.000 I think it's deeply dangerous stuff to have so many folks on the left trying to determine what content constitutes hate speech.
00:09:27.000 The reason that I think that it's deeply dangerous, and the reason I don't trust them, is because there is a massive double standard when it comes to the left, and for example, racism.
00:09:34.000 So, when I suggest that hatred of a particular race is the definition of racism, people on the left will say, well, it depends on the race.
00:09:43.000 So, for example, there's an article in the New York Times this week all about why calling white people racist may not actually be the most, the best possible way of curbing racism.
00:09:52.000 And this article drew all sorts of hatred from folks on the political left.
00:09:56.000 The article
00:09:58.000 was an opinion piece by a woman named Margaret Rankle, and what it said was, This argument goes,
00:10:18.000 Southerners aren't alone in believing such mendacity, but the South is where slavery and segregation metastasize, so it may be more concentrated here.
00:10:24.000 Whatever this insidious delusion takes hold, however, it requires a gargantuan ignorance of history to maintain.
00:10:29.000 And there's a lot of ignorance afoot in the land right now.
00:10:31.000 More people in Tennessee today drive cars bearing a license plate, it's emblazoned with the Confederate battle flag than ever before, a strong majority of Southerners, 61%, 0.99
00:10:39.000 Okay, they're definitely all racist.
00:10:40.000 So this is a very leftist article, but it's coming under fire from the left.
00:10:42.000 Why?
00:10:42.000 Because here is the point.
00:11:07.000 They don't believe they are.
00:11:08.000 And the problem with writing off people who don't recognize this country's pervasive and enduring culture of white supremacy, much less the ways in which they themselves benefit from it, is simple.
00:11:16.000 Being called a racist almost never causes a racist to wake up.
00:11:19.000 Being called a racist almost never causes a racist to say, oh wow, you're right.
00:11:23.000 I get that it's hard not to scream racist at a racist.
00:11:25.000 If you're a white person who wants to be an advocate, it's both infuriating and demoralizing to know that the people causing all the suffering are people who look just like you.
00:11:33.000 Here's what is also true.
00:11:34.000 Prejudice is endemic to humanity itself.
00:11:36.000 Human beings are tribal creatures. 0.99
00:11:38.000 We trust the familiar and are drawn to it.
00:11:40.000 We distrust the unfamiliar and keep our distance.
00:11:42.000 White people, liberal and conservative, often claim not to notice another person's race, but it's just not true.
00:11:47.000 We are hardwired to recognize difference and to view it as an aberration. 0.95
00:11:50.000 Noticing difference is not the same thing as hating difference, of course, but I'm not just talking about vicious white supremacists here.
00:11:55.000 I'm talking about garden variety prejudice, and the answer that this lady says is, maybe yelling racist at people is not actually a good idea. 0.95
00:12:02.000 Because when you yell racist to people, all you are doing is alienating people.
00:12:08.000 This author says, Take a breath.
00:12:09.000 When you encounter a person who believes he's merely honoring his ancestors by driving a car with an image of the Confederate battle flag on the tag, when a Facebook friend announces it's disrespectful to take a knee during the national anthem, when you sit down next to someone at a church picnic who genuinely loves and respects the black people they know, but who consistently votes for politicians with overtly racist policies, stop for a moment and take a breath.
00:12:27.000 Before you say a single word, think of all the times you made an assumption about a stranger that proved to be untrue.
00:12:32.000 Think of the times you found yourself feeling uneasy in the company of strangers of another race.
00:12:35.000 This is not only a reasonable article, it's a far-left article, right?
00:12:39.000 It suggests that all of these are elements of racism, but the best way to fight all of that is not to yell racist to people.
00:12:45.000 The left says that this is a huge mistake.
00:12:48.000 The left says that if you yell racist at a bunch of non-racist white people, that's totally fine, but if you say anything racist
00:12:54.000 about a member of another race, then it's racism.
00:12:57.000 I want to explain why the left believes this and what the ramifications are of that in just one second.
00:13:01.000 First, let's talk about stamps.
00:13:03.000 Okay, so how much time have you spent driving down to the post office lately?
00:13:07.000 Probably you've spent some.
00:13:08.000 Well, if the answer is some, the answer could be none, because no matter the great services of the post office,
00:13:12.000 It's even easier at Stamps.com, where you can access all of those great services right from your desk, 24-7, when it is convenient for you.
00:13:19.000 You buy and print official U.S.
00:13:20.000 postage for any letter, any package, using your own computer and printer.
00:13:24.000 The mail carrier picks it up.
00:13:25.000 You just click, print, mail, you're done.
00:13:27.000 It couldn't be easier.
00:13:28.000 We use Stamps.com here at the Daily Wire offices.
00:13:30.000 We use it at my house as well.
00:13:32.000 And right now, when you use promo code SHAPIRO, you get a special offer.
00:13:35.000 55 bucks of free postage, a digital scale, and a four-week trial.
00:13:39.000 Go to stamps.com.
00:13:40.000 Before you do anything else, you go and you click on the radio microphone at the top of the homepage, and you type in Shapiro.
00:13:45.000 That's stamps.com, and you enter promo code Shapiro.
00:13:47.000 Again, stamps.com, promo code Shapiro, and you get that special offer.
00:13:51.000 It includes up to 55 bucks of free postage, a digital scale, plus that four-week trial.
00:13:55.000 The service is the post office right there at your desk.
00:13:58.000 It makes it really, really simple.
00:13:59.000 Again, stamps.com, promo code Shapiro, stamps.com.
00:14:02.000 Click on that radio microphone at the top of the page.
00:14:05.000 And use promo code Shapiro.
00:14:06.000 Okay, so.
00:14:08.000 There's this article in the New York Times in which it says, maybe you don't want to call all white people racist.
00:14:11.000 And the left goes mad.
00:14:13.000 Why shouldn't we call all white people racist? 0.99
00:14:16.000 Instead, we should point out that when people are racist, they're racist.
00:14:21.000 Okay, so here's an article from Linda Tirado over at the Daily Beast. 0.90
00:14:24.000 And this is fascinating.
00:14:25.000 She says, poverty doesn't make you racist.
00:14:27.000 It's more that the exhaustion strips you of the ability to dissemble for long.
00:14:30.000 So if you're inclined toward racism already, it shows.
00:14:33.000 A life lived close to tears of sheer fatigue and stress is not one in which you can expend the energy to stop yourself spouting your resentments or wielding your fears as a weapon.
00:14:41.000 So in other words, some people choose racism, poverty doesn't cause racism, but individuals are responsible for their own racism, so why would you go easy on white racists?
00:14:50.000 That's an opinion with which I have some sympathy.
00:14:53.000 The problem is that the left has then claimed that Sarah Zhang, who is this new member of the New York Times editorial board, who has literally dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of anti-white hate tweets on her feed, right, she's been left alone by the left.
00:15:05.000 The left says that her brand of racism is just fine.
00:15:07.000 Now, how do you know the left has a double standard on this?
00:15:09.000 Because this is hilarious.
00:15:10.000 Candace Owens, who is black, right, a black woman, she took all of Sarah Zhang's tweets, or some of them, and she replaced the word white with black, tweeted them out, and Twitter banned her for a day. 1.00
00:15:21.000 Sarah Zhang is still on Twitter.
00:15:22.000 Candace Owens was tossed from Twitter for a day.
00:15:24.000 Twitter called it a mistake, but it's pretty obvious that there's a double standard in how exactly the left approaches these issues.
00:15:30.000 So when we talk about Alex Jones and whether Alex Jones ought to be banned by Facebook or Apple, no matter how much you dislike Alex Jones, the reality is the left is never going to consistently apply their standards, which suggests that if we have to choose between an inconsistently applied standard and no standard, no standard might actually be the better move, which is a scary place to be because the left is so
00:15:49.000 Damn dishonest about their social standards on this sort of stuff.
00:15:52.000 Okay. 0.99
00:15:53.000 Meanwhile, over the weekend, it was a busy weekend for the President of the United States particularly.
00:15:58.000 He decided to tweet a lot, a lot, a lot.
00:16:01.000 Many of the tweets.
00:16:02.000 So many tweets.
00:16:04.000 So, the President of the United States
00:16:06.000 We're good to go.
00:16:26.000 A Russian source writing to Donald Trump Jr.
00:16:29.000 saying, we have information or the Russian government may have information on Hillary Clinton.
00:16:33.000 Would you like to get together with an emissary of the Russian government to hear this dirt?
00:16:37.000 And Donald Trump Jr.
00:16:37.000 was like, yeah, let's do it.
00:16:39.000 Yeah.
00:16:40.000 So then they had the meeting.
00:16:42.000 And just to recall the timeline, after they had the meeting,
00:16:45.000 The president of the United States dictated a statement to Donald Trump Jr.
00:16:49.000 in which Donald Trump Jr.
00:16:50.000 said that the meeting was originally about adoptions, that it was really about adoption policy and Russia wanting to change adoption policy.
00:16:56.000 And so they had the meeting.
00:16:57.000 And then it turned out that the meeting was not about adoption policy.
00:17:00.000 It was, in fact, about dirt, getting dirt on Hillary Clinton. 0.60
00:17:03.000 And the president's lawyer said that Trump didn't know any of this, that Trump was not involved with the drafting of the statement at all.
00:17:09.000 Then it turned out that Trump was indeed involved with the drafting of the statement.
00:17:12.000 He, in fact, dictated the statement essentially word for word.
00:17:15.000 And then, yesterday, the President of the United States tweeted this out.
00:17:18.000 So he tweeted out, quote,
00:17:32.000 So the entire world goes nuts because now President Trump, who once claimed that this meeting was about adoptions and that he had nothing to do with writing the statements, has now announced that he wrote the statement and also that the meeting was not about adoptions.
00:17:43.000 The meeting was actually about getting information on Hillary Clinton.
00:17:47.000 Now, people are pointing out that the media is overwrought on this, considering that Trump tweeted the same thing like a year ago.
00:17:53.000 Here's a flashback tweet.
00:17:56.000 This is from July 2017.
00:18:01.000 That's politics.
00:18:01.000 So there he was a year ago, essentially implicitly acknowledging that the meeting was, in fact, about gathering info on Hillary Clinton.
00:18:08.000 Go back to the other tweet.
00:18:10.000 This tweet from yesterday, however, I think does say a little bit more
00:18:13.000 Right?
00:18:13.000 It's a full admission that the meeting was to get information on an opponent.
00:18:16.000 And it does raise the question as to whether Trump knew about it in advance.
00:18:19.000 He says he did not know about it, but he's speaking like he knows exactly what happened at the meeting.
00:18:24.000 So this raises a second question.
00:18:25.000 Did he know exactly what happened at the meeting when he wrote this statement that was false to the press?
00:18:30.000 Now, you do run into a couple of questions.
00:18:32.000 The big question here is, so what exactly is illegal here?
00:18:38.000 What exactly is illegal?
00:18:39.000 And it's not truly clear what is illegal about any of this.
00:18:42.000 Glenn Beck asked me a question on Twitter yesterday.
00:18:45.000 That was a very good question.
00:18:46.000 What he asked was, if it's illegal for Donald Trump Jr.
00:18:48.000 to get information on an opponent from a source that is not a U.S.
00:18:51.000 citizen, how can the Clinton campaign and Fusion GPS gather information using a former British spy without violation?
00:18:58.000 Seems like a reasonable question, right?
00:19:00.000 How is it that you're saying it's criminal for Donald Trump Jr.
00:19:02.000 to go get information from the Russians about Hillary Clinton, but it's not illegal for Hillary Clinton to pay Fusion GPS to go to a British spy named Christopher Steele, who will then go to Russia and then obtain OPPO information on Donald Trump?
00:19:14.000 How is one illegal, but the other is not illegal?
00:19:16.000 And the answer is, I'm not sure any of it is actually illegal.
00:19:19.000 Eugene Volokh, who is a brilliant, brilliant lawyer, I think he teaches at UCLA School of Law still,
00:19:24.000 He has a piece over at the Washington Post talking about whether it is a crime to do opposition research using foreign nationals.
00:19:31.000 And he essentially concludes that it probably is not.
00:19:34.000 That there is nothing in law that prevents you from going and talking to a Chinese citizen about the sins of your political opponents. 0.54
00:19:41.000 Or he gives this example.
00:19:42.000 He says, what happens if a Turkish dissenter
00:19:46.000 Knows that there's a corrupt relationship between President Obama and the Turkish government and decides to tell the opposition in the presidential election about it.
00:19:53.000 Are you just supposed to ignore that information?
00:19:55.000 Are you supposed to pretend that the person didn't say it?
00:19:58.000 Is it collusion to work with that person?
00:20:01.000 And Volokh comes down on the side of no, that none of this is illegal, that Donald Trump Jr.
00:20:04.000 meeting with the Russians was not, in fact, illegal, that getting information from the Russians probably was not illegal.
00:20:09.000 I think that that is plausible, and I think it's probably right.
00:20:11.000 I think it's difficult to imagine how exactly it's illegal for Donald Trump Jr.
00:20:15.000 or even Donald Trump Sr., right, even Trump himself, to actually go and talk with Vladimir Putin and get information directly.
00:20:22.000 Now, is it good?
00:20:24.000 Is it smart?
00:20:24.000 Is it right?
00:20:25.000 Is it politically viable?
00:20:27.000 No, I don't think that it is.
00:20:28.000 There are a couple of other areas in which illegality could, in fact, be implicated.
00:20:32.000 I'm going to talk about those in just a second.
00:20:34.000 First, I got to tell you about Peter Millar.
00:20:35.000 OK, so the clothes from Peter Millar are just first rate.
00:20:38.000 As you know, I've been working on upping my style game and giving my closet a makeover.
00:20:42.000 And Peter Millar is making
00:20:43.000 All of that happened.
00:20:44.000 It's easily the most comfortable clothing I've ever worn.
00:20:46.000 I mean, this stuff is just supremely comfortable.
00:20:48.000 The Peter Millar Polo Shirts, which I love.
00:20:50.000 They offer comfort and style.
00:20:52.000 They're easy to take care of.
00:20:53.000 They're right out of the dryer.
00:20:53.000 You don't have to put an iron to them.
00:20:55.000 They're great for the golf course.
00:20:56.000 They even have sun protection built into the shirt.
00:20:57.000 Peter Millar Five Pocket Pants are lightweight.
00:20:59.000 They are highly breathable.
00:21:01.000 It's really hot this summer, so you want Peter Millar stuff.
00:21:03.000 It's made from the highest quality Pima cotton.
00:21:05.000 They have comfort stretch for ease of movement.
00:21:06.000 They fit like your favorite jeans with a style to be worn anywhere.
00:21:09.000 They have Peter Millar's exclusive wash and finish to enhance that softness as well.
00:21:13.000 And their performance shorts are moisture-wicking, breathable, quick-drying.
00:21:16.000 Their shorts are really comfortable.
00:21:18.000 All their clothes, they're stylish, they look great, and they really feel good.
00:21:21.000 Peter Malar is my go-to clothing for vacation, work events, the golf course, even working out.
00:21:26.000 I put Peter Malar on in the morning, and then you never look out of place.
00:21:29.000 You can check him out on social media at Peter Millar and at Peter Millar Golf.
00:21:32.000 Most comfortable clothing you're ever going to wear, go over to PeterMillar.com slash Ben and you can check out some of my Peter Millar favorites.
00:21:38.000 Be sure to use my link.
00:21:39.000 You'll receive complimentary shipping and a free hat.
00:21:41.000 That's PeterMillar.com.
00:21:43.000 That's Peter Millar.
00:21:44.000 M-I-L-L-A-R dot com slash Ben.
00:21:46.000 PeterMillar.com slash Ben.
00:21:48.000 Use that slash Ben so they know we sent you and you can get that complimentary shipping and the free hat.
00:21:52.000 PeterMillar.com slash Ben.
00:21:54.000 Awesome clothes.
00:21:54.000 Just go check it out right now.
00:21:56.000 OK, so is there any illegality to Donald Trump Jr.
00:21:59.000 having met with this Russian lawyer now that President Trump has admitted that that is what exactly the meeting was about?
00:22:05.000 Well, not unless there was coordination regarding an underlying crime.
00:22:08.000 So let's say that Donald Trump Jr.
00:22:09.000 or Donald Trump Sr.
00:22:10.000 met with Russian lawyers and then they decided that they were going to
00:22:15.000 Hack the DNC and coordinate about that.
00:22:18.000 Well, hacking the DNC is illegal.
00:22:19.000 So if you are in the midst of a conspiracy to hack the DNC, that's illegal activity.
00:22:24.000 There's no evidence that this is exactly what happened.
00:22:27.000 Other possible areas of illegality.
00:22:29.000 Unreported campaign expenditures.
00:22:31.000 So let's say that the Trump administration, or the Trump campaign rather, paid the Russians for the information, then didn't report it to the FEC.
00:22:38.000 Well, that would be a violation of campaign finance.
00:22:40.000 The theory that they are using most often here, though, is illegal in-kind contributions unreported from foreign sources.
00:22:46.000 So, in other words, you've got the Russian government that is donating information to the Trump campaign, and that acts as an illegal in-kind contribution.
00:22:55.000 Again, though, I'm unsure that's the way that the law ought to be applied.
00:22:58.000 And the reason I say that is, again, you have a situation where
00:23:02.000 You find out that the president of the United States is in bed with the Turkish government and a Turkish dissenter goes to the opposition in the United States and gives that information.
00:23:11.000 Is that an illegal in-kind contribution?
00:23:13.000 Hard to imagine that counts as an illegal in-kind contribution.
00:23:16.000 People do stuff for campaigns on a daily basis.
00:23:18.000 That's not necessarily an illegal in-kind contribution.
00:23:22.000 And the bar is a little bit higher than that.
00:23:24.000 And it should be higher than that because the fact is that free flow of information during a campaign is actually a good thing.
00:23:29.000 We want to know more about the candidates for whom we are voting.
00:23:32.000 So what is the distinction, theoretically, between Hillary Clinton hiring Fusion GPS to hire a foreign citizen to go get oppo on Trump and Trump Jr. 0.93
00:23:41.000 working with the Russians? 0.52
00:23:42.000 There could theoretically be two distinctions.
00:23:43.000 First distinction could be that Hillary may not have known that Fusion would use a foreign source where Trump Jr.
00:23:48.000 directly met with one.
00:23:49.000 And second,
00:23:50.000 Hillary paid Fusion GPS and apparently reported it to the FEC, so at least the FEC knew what was going on, whereas Trump Jr.
00:23:56.000 didn't pay for anything or report.
00:23:58.000 But that leads to this bizarre situation where if you pay a foreign source for oppo on your opponent, that's better than just getting it on a volunteer basis from a foreign source.
00:24:06.000 So in other words, it's not clear that Trump Jr.
00:24:08.000 actually committed a crime in any of this.
00:24:10.000 So all of the talk about Trump Jr.
00:24:12.000 and Trump admitting that this whole thing was designed to get OPPO research on Hillary Clinton, not clear that any of that is criminal, even if it is true.
00:24:18.000 Now, is it politically good?
00:24:19.000 No.
00:24:20.000 Impeachment is a political crime.
00:24:22.000 It is not a crime crime.
00:24:24.000 The President of the United States may not even be able to be tried in a criminal court.
00:24:28.000 That's actually very unclear under the Constitution of the United States.
00:24:31.000 What is pretty clear, however,
00:24:33.000 Is that if the president of the United States knew that the Russian government was attempting to work with him to take down Hillary Clinton and he decided to operate in those fears, that Democrats would attempt impeachment.
00:24:44.000 They would claim that this was enough to go after President Trump.
00:24:46.000 This is why you are seeing the Trump team say collusion is not a crime.
00:24:50.000 Saying, okay, you actually need a crime in order to impeach.
00:24:53.000 The Democrats are just going to impeach for whatever reason they can get behind.
00:24:56.000 Now, where is the actual criminal activity?
00:24:58.000 Well, Donald Trump Jr.
00:24:59.000 did testify, I believe, under oath, that Donald Trump Sr.
00:25:03.000 did not know about the Trump Tower meeting.
00:25:04.000 If it turns out that is false, that's what we call a perjury trap.
00:25:07.000 And now Donald Trump Jr.
00:25:08.000 is in danger of perjury and they could try to flip him against his dad, theoretically.
00:25:12.000 That could be a serious problem.
00:25:12.000 But Trump has never testified.
00:25:14.000 So none of this actually affects Trump personally.
00:25:18.000 Unless Donald Trump was colluding with the Russians to actually commit a crime, and not just they were giving him information about Hillary Clinton, that they were hacking Hillary, and they were doing it with Trump's express coordination, that would be a crime.
00:25:31.000 Anything else here is probably not a crime.
00:25:33.000 Now, this does raise another issue, and that is obstruction.
00:25:36.000 So, the Mueller investigation is now focusing in on obstruction of justice.
00:25:42.000 They're trying to suggest that President Trump is trying to obstruct the investigation, and therefore,
00:25:46.000 He has committed a crime in that sphere.
00:25:48.000 Well, obstruction of justice would actually require him to shut down the investigation or stop the investigation in some way.
00:25:53.000 There's no evidence that he has done any of that whatsoever yet.
00:25:57.000 And it is not, in fact, obstruction of justice if the president doesn't decide to speak with Robert Mueller.
00:26:02.000 It's a serious legal question right now as to whether President Trump, if subpoenaed by Robert Mueller, actually has to obey the subpoena.
00:26:09.000 There's a case against Richard Nixon in which Richard Nixon was forced to give up evidence against himself.
00:26:13.000 He was forced by a court to give up the Watergate tapes.
00:26:16.000 But it's not clear, per se, the Supreme Court ruled, but it's not clear exactly whether Nixon would have had to testify in front of Congress if they had called him, or if a special investigator had called the president, whether the president would be compelled to testify.
00:26:29.000 Not clear at all.
00:26:30.000 Jay Sekulow, who's still on the president's legal team, he says that President Trump is not going to obey subpoenas.
00:26:34.000 If Robert Mueller decides to go after him, he may just ignore it.
00:26:38.000 In a subpoena, you file what's called a motion to quash.
00:26:40.000 That will be argued at the district court, then it would go to the Court of Appeals, then it would go to the Supreme Court of the United States.
00:26:46.000 From the Supreme Court of the United States, it goes back down to the lower courts again.
00:26:50.000 A subpoena for live testimony has never
00:26:53.000 Okay, so this is going to be the argument that Trump makes.
00:27:02.000 Now, is the strongest argument that he has politically that none of this is a crime?
00:27:06.000 No.
00:27:06.000 The strongest argument he has politically is that he didn't know about any of it, he didn't involve himself in any of it, there was no actual collusion in any legal or real sense.
00:27:15.000 If however it turns out that there was in fact collusion, it's possible the collusion is not a crime.
00:27:19.000 Then we have to determine whether the President of the United States gets tried in an actual criminal court or whether the proper approach is impeachment.
00:27:25.000 It seems to me that constitutionally the proper approach is indeed impeachment.
00:27:29.000 That was the system the founders set up.
00:27:31.000 If you could just
00:27:31.000 Remove a president by having a criminal case brought against him.
00:27:35.000 This would happen to virtually every president because it's not too hard to come up with a situation in which the president committed a crime.
00:27:43.000 I wrote an entire book about why theoretically you should be able to prosecute a president.
00:27:47.000 It was called The Case Against Barack Obama.
00:27:49.000 It was about Barack Obama's various crimes, his violations of statutory law, and the suggestion that I made is that law might have to be changed to allow for the prosecution of presidents, but I think that the Constitution itself is not really designed for that.
00:28:03.000 You may actually need a constitutional amendment, although all of this is a really murky area of the law because
00:28:08.000 It hasn't really happened very often.
00:28:09.000 Only two presidents ever have been impeached in the House.
00:28:12.000 Andrew Johnson was impeached in the House, and Bill Clinton was impeached in the House.
00:28:17.000 Neither of them were actually convicted in the Senate, so both of them ended up retaining their office, obviously.
00:28:22.000 Okay, so, with all of this said,
00:28:26.000 Is the president of the United States in bad shape?
00:28:28.000 Because I don't think so until the Mueller report comes out.
00:28:30.000 Again, this is all political, but it doesn't behoove the president to be tweeting about all of this.
00:28:34.000 The fact that he is tweeting out that this meeting between Trump Jr.
00:28:38.000 and the Russians was actually about gathering oppo on Hillary Clinton.
00:28:43.000 It's just not smart.
00:28:43.000 I don't know what's possessing him to do this.
00:28:45.000 I think he was just bored over the weekend, and he decided he's going to tweet out a bunch of stuff.
00:28:48.000 And as we will see, these sort of stream-of-consciousness Twitter threads from the president, if you want him to be successful, folks, you got to root for him to stop, because it's not helping him in any way.
00:28:58.000 I'll give you a couple of other examples in just a second.
00:29:01.000 First, let's talk about Legacy Box.
00:29:03.000 So, when's the last time you watched those home movies, right?
00:29:05.000 You taped those years ago, and then you stuck them in your closet, and then you forgot about them, and you haven't taken them out forever.
00:29:10.000 And then you've got a bunch in the garage and those are all moldering and they're falling apart.
00:29:13.000 Well, if you feel like there's all this stuff in your closet you're not using, instead what you should be doing is taking all of that and sending it to Legacybox.
00:29:19.000 It's a simple, affordable way to get your recorded moments digitally preserved on DVD or thumb drive so you never have to worry about it again.
00:29:24.000 There's a fire in your house and you're not rushing to your closet to get boxes of old tapes.
00:29:28.000 You just grab the thumb drive and go.
00:29:29.000 Here's how it works.
00:29:30.000 You load Legacy Box with your old tapes, film pictures, audio recordings, you send it back, and then you get them back in a couple of weeks on DVD or a convenient thumb drive, ready to watch, share, and relive.
00:29:39.000 It's just awesome.
00:29:40.000 Legacy Box takes care of everything, and they provide updates at every step of the process.
00:29:43.000 So, several years ago, my parents decided they wanted to preserve all of their family memories on DVD.
00:29:47.000 It cost a fortune.
00:29:49.000 We looked at Legacy Box, my family did, and it is significantly cheaper, and it's a lot easier because you just send it off and they've got it labeled so you know where every piece is at every step of the process.
00:29:58.000 Go check it out right now.
00:29:59.000 Over 350,000 families have used Legacy Box, and for a limited time, when you go to LegacyBox.com slash Ben and enter my code Ben, you get a 40% discount on your order.
00:30:07.000 That's LegacyBox.com slash Ben.
00:30:10.000 Again, LegacyBox.com slash Ben.
00:30:11.000 You get a 40% discount on your order.
00:30:13.000 It's totally worth it.
00:30:14.000 It makes a fantastic gift for your parents, particularly.
00:30:17.000 Go check it out.
00:30:17.000 LegacyBox.com slash Ben.
00:30:19.000 Again, LegacyBox.com slash Ben.
00:30:21.000 Okay, so speaking of the President's tweets, we're gonna get to the President tweeting about LeBron and tweeting about tariffs and tweeting about the press.
00:30:27.000 It's a busy weekend on Twitter for the president.
00:30:29.000 But first, you're going to have to go over to dailywire.com and subscribe.
00:30:32.000 $9.99 a month gets you a subscription to Daily Wire.
00:30:34.000 Go over there.
00:30:35.000 We have all sorts of awesome stuff happening behind the paywall at dailywire.com.
00:30:38.000 And you help us bring you the show.
00:30:40.000 Also, for $99 a year, you get this.
00:30:42.000 The very greatest in all beverage vessels.
00:30:43.000 The leftist here is hot or cold tumbler.
00:30:45.000 Go.
00:30:46.000 Behold it.
00:30:47.000 Enjoy it.
00:30:48.000 Hold it in your hands.
00:30:50.000 And you shall experience the glory that is.
00:30:52.000 So $99 a year gets you that.
00:30:53.000 Plus,
00:30:55.000 Go over, subscribe to YouTube or iTunes and you can be part of our Sunday special.
00:30:59.000 We just had David Mamet on our Sunday special last week and we have a bunch of awesome guests coming up in the next few weeks as well.
00:31:05.000 So go check that out.
00:31:05.000 We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast in the nation.
00:31:13.000 All righty, so let's talk about the rest of President Trump's Twitter.
00:31:17.000 So he didn't just tweet about how the Trump Tower meeting, which is now two years old, how that Trump Tower meeting was actually about colluding with the Russians, right?
00:31:25.000 He didn't just tweet about that.
00:31:26.000 He also decided to tweet about LeBron James.
00:31:29.000 He was very angry because last week LeBron James said that President Trump had polarized sports. 0.96
00:31:33.000 As I said last week, I felt that this was a foolish statement.
00:31:35.000 I don't think that it's true.
00:31:37.000 Sports has been polarized for a long time in this country.
00:31:39.000 It was polarized under Barack Obama.
00:31:41.000 I'm old enough to remember when players were coming out on the field in the NFL and doing hands up, don't shoot.
00:31:46.000 And when Colin Kaepernick was kneeling for the anthem before Trump was president.
00:31:49.000 So Trump is not wrong that LeBron is wrong, but Trump then tweeted this.
00:31:53.000 I like Mike. 0.97
00:32:03.000 Alright, so he is basically calling Don Lemon dumb. 0.99
00:32:07.000 Which, you know, frankly, he calls everybody in media dumb. 0.98
00:32:10.000 Like, all the time. 0.98
00:32:11.000 It happens all the time. 0.99
00:32:13.000 And then he says that LeBron is actually dumb as well. 0.98
00:32:17.000 And then he said he likes Michael Jordan. 0.98
00:32:19.000 Which is...
00:32:20.000 Pretty hysterical.
00:32:21.000 So now we're going to get into a full-on, greatest-of-all-time conversation between LeBron James and Michael Jordan, led by Donald Trump, which is going to be awesome.
00:32:30.000 By the way, I will take Jordan narrowly. 0.83
00:32:32.000 LeBron has definitely climbed in the rankings.
00:32:34.000 In any case, is this smart?
00:32:37.000 Is this good?
00:32:38.000 Well, probably not.
00:32:39.000 However, is it racist?
00:32:42.000 No, it's not racist.
00:32:43.000 It's not racist. 0.97
00:32:43.000 Okay, for the president to call Don Lemon dumb or LeBron James dumb or Maxine Waters dumb, no, that's not racist because a complete listing of all the people that President Trump has called dumb numbers into the millions. 0.97
00:32:54.000 Seriously, there are fewer people that President Trump has not called dumb than has called dumb on planet Earth right now. 0.98
00:32:59.000 And yet the media decides that all of this is just evidence of President Trump's racism. 0.98
00:33:03.000 Now, is this a fight that Trump needed to pick?
00:33:04.000 Do we really need to have a Donald Trump versus LeBron James fight?
00:33:08.000 He's the president of the United States.
00:33:09.000 Is this really worthwhile?
00:33:11.000 Plus, LeBron James is not the worst guy, right?
00:33:13.000 LeBron James is a pretty clean-living dude.
00:33:14.000 He's married to the mother of his couple of kids.
00:33:16.000 He married her late, but he married her.
00:33:18.000 He's building a charter school in Cleveland that, by all accounts, is pretty awesome.
00:33:22.000 Is this really the best move?
00:33:23.000 Probably not.
00:33:24.000 But is it racist?
00:33:26.000 No, it's not racist.
00:33:27.000 And this just demonstrates how the media, by overreach, make Trump's case for him that they are biased against him.
00:33:32.000 Here is Anna Navarro, titular Republican on CNN. 0.87
00:33:35.000 She has made a newfound career out of bashing President Trump, which is really just silly.
00:33:42.000 I'm not sure what makes her a Republican anymore, since she's embraced virtually every lefty policy proposal. 0.96
00:33:46.000 In any case, she tweeted out, Trump called Don Lemon, LeBron James, and Maxine Waters dumb.
00:33:50.000 One is from the South, one is from Cleveland, one is from LA, one is in the NBA, one is on TV, one is in Congress. 0.92
00:33:54.000 Hmm.
00:33:54.000 I wonder what they could possibly have in common.
00:33:56.000 Oh wait.
00:33:57.000 And then a black hand.
00:33:58.000 And then she said this on CNN.
00:34:00.000 If you don't see this as racist, I would ask you to please go get your vision checked. 1.00
00:34:05.000 When it comes to African Americans, when it comes to black people, he seems to go to the low IQ, dumbest person in the world attack quite often. 1.00
00:34:14.000 It is his go-to when it comes to African Americans, that they are dumb. 1.00
00:34:19.000 Okay, or alternatively, he calls everyone dumb because the President of the United States has insulted everyone from Chuck Todd to Jeb Bush. 1.00
00:34:29.000 I mean, legitimately, he calls every single person dumb, right? 0.98
00:34:35.000 He asked if he could have an IQ comparison with his own Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. 1.00
00:34:40.000 He calls everybody dumb. 0.99
00:34:42.000 Like, there's a huge list of insults. 0.98
00:34:45.000 There are 487 people the president has insulted on Twitter, and I don't think that that's been updated.
00:34:50.000 It was published in January 2016.
00:34:52.000 President does this all the time.
00:34:54.000 He's called Mika Brzezinski low IQ. 0.57
00:34:55.000 Is Mika Brzezinski black? 0.78
00:34:57.000 Of course not. 0.95
00:34:58.000 But the media always have to jump to their favorite insults, and that means that the President of the United States is racist.
00:35:02.000 Now again, is it worthwhile for the President of the United States to be attacking LeBron James and talking about Michael Jordan?
00:35:09.000 No, but we know that the President is puerile on his Twitter account. 0.99
00:35:12.000 And the fact the media feel the necessity to overreach on all of these issues is particularly stupid. 0.98
00:35:17.000 Speaking of media overreach on all of these particular issues, President Trump tweeted versus the press. 0.96
00:35:21.000 He knows that the way to get his base out is to attack the press consistently and openly.
00:35:25.000 Here was President Trump tweeting out against the press.
00:35:27.000 He tweeted, The fake news hates me because they are the enemy of the people only because they know it's true.
00:35:33.000 I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American people.
00:35:37.000 They purposely cause great division and distrust.
00:35:39.000 They can also cause war. 0.99
00:35:40.000 They're very dangerous and sick.
00:35:42.000 OK, so number one, I'm not sure which war he's saying that the American media caused.
00:35:46.000 The last time the American media caused a war was probably the Cuban War, probably Spanish-American War, in which Teddy Roosevelt was a rough rider.
00:35:53.000 So it's been probably 120 years since the media legitimately caused a war in the United States.
00:35:58.000 However,
00:35:59.000 And the fact that Trump is attacking the media as the enemy of the people. 0.98
00:36:02.000 The reason he does this is because he's a troll. 0.98
00:36:04.000 He's a Twitter troll. 0.92
00:36:06.000 Okay? 0.66
00:36:06.000 He's a guy who trolls the comments. 0.66
00:36:07.000 And the left falls for it every time.
00:36:09.000 So here's Chuck Todd saying this rationalizes violence.
00:36:13.000 When you call a group of people, you otherize them the way he's trying to do with the press, calling them sick and sort of dehumanizing them.
00:36:20.000 It makes violence against the press easier to rationalize for some.
00:36:23.000 Oh really?
00:36:24.000 That's the big deal?
00:36:25.000 The violence against the press is going to be rationalized?
00:36:27.000 Where are all the cases of violence against the press by Trump supporters?
00:36:30.000 I'm just wondering.
00:36:31.000 Really, I'm wondering, because, like, this morning, Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk, over at TPUSA, they were sitting in a restaurant over in Philadelphia, and a bunch of Antifa members saw them, decided to run inside, and then harassed them out of a restaurant, where they started dumping water on them.
00:36:45.000 Here's what that looked like and sounded like.
00:36:46.000 What?
00:36:48.000 Supremacy!
00:36:50.000 What?
00:36:50.000 Supremacy!
00:36:52.000 What?
00:36:52.000 Supremacy!
00:36:53.000 Get that out of my face. 0.95
00:36:55.000 Don't let that touch me.
00:36:56.000 I'm not Canadian.
00:37:01.000 And then they're trying to scream, just geniuses over here.
00:37:06.000 I do have to, and then they're pouring water on Charlie, which is, yes, I'm sure that the media have much to fear, but those on the right, understand, it's only Trump that has made this climate.
00:37:15.000 It's only Trump that has made this climate.
00:37:17.000 Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens, by the way, you're gonna be hard-pressed to find any two bigger Trump supporters in America, and they're the ones who are having water poured on them for the sin of sitting at a restaurant in Philadelphia.
00:37:27.000 So, look, Trump knows how to troll the press, and the press fall for it every time.
00:37:30.000 Still, should the president be calling the press the enemy of the people?
00:37:33.000 No.
00:37:34.000 Is it something that,
00:37:36.000 Like, Abraham Lincoln, sitting around, 1861.
00:37:39.000 Calling the press the enemy of the people?
00:37:40.000 Not really.
00:37:41.000 Also fair to say, Abraham Lincoln suspended the rights of habeas corpus in jail, journalists.
00:37:45.000 Worth noting that, as well.
00:37:47.000 Although he was in the middle of a civil war at the time.
00:37:49.000 So, is this appropriate?
00:37:50.000 Not particularly.
00:37:51.000 Okay, so.
00:37:52.000 Meanwhile, the President of the United States' Twitter rage didn't end there.
00:37:55.000 He also decided to go off on tariffs.
00:37:56.000 Now, there's been this great debate
00:37:59.000 That has broken out amongst folks on the right as to whether Trump is legitimately a fan of tariffs or whether he is not.
00:38:04.000 The answer is he is legitimately a fan of tariffs.
00:38:06.000 The president likes to signal on the one hand that he wants to lower all tariffs to zero and on the other hand that he likes tariffs.
00:38:13.000 The lower tariffs to zero argument is actually not the one coming from President Trump's heart.
00:38:17.000 The reason I know this is because if you look at President Trump's rhetoric over the last legitimately 35 years, he has always been in favor of high trade barriers and protectionism.
00:38:25.000 He's a fan of high trade barriers and protectionism.
00:38:28.000 And he tweeted out his fanhood for tariffs over the weekend.
00:38:30.000 He tweeted out, In either event, it means jobs and great wealth.
00:38:46.000 And they continued along these lines.
00:39:03.000 Okay, there are so many things wrong with these tweets, just on an economic level, that it's hard to describe all of them.
00:39:08.000 Let's begin with the idea that the quote-unquote tariffs are working big time.
00:39:12.000 There's no evidence that the tariffs are working big time.
00:39:14.000 The only thing they are doing is actually directing American business out of the country.
00:39:17.000 He says that every country on earth wants to take wealth out of the United States, always to our detriment.
00:39:21.000 Me buying a product from a foreign company at a cheaper price is not me being victimized by that company. 0.80
00:39:28.000 That is silly towns.
00:39:29.000 And that company has to reinvest in the United States, which is why some of the biggest automakers in the United States are Toyota and Honda, as well as BMW, by the way. 0.84
00:39:37.000 And then he says, he says, No, it does not.
00:39:46.000 It does not mean jobs and great wealth to tax the American people by charging them higher prices for the goods that they wish to buy.
00:39:53.000 And then he continues with the falsehoods here.
00:39:55.000 I mean, this is not even economically literate.
00:39:59.000 He says, because of tariffs, we will be able to start paying down large amounts of the $21 trillion in debt that has been accumulated.
00:40:04.000 In order for that to be true,
00:40:06.000 What he basically has to be saying is the amount of taxes that we take off of foreign products, right, by raising the price and then we tax a product as it comes in, we're going to take all that money and we're going to pay it back to pay down the debt.
00:40:18.000 The problem is, of course, that when you lower the economic growth in a society, which is what tariffs also do, you take in less income tax and less sales tax.
00:40:24.000 So, there's no evidence that tariffs are going to outweigh the economic impact of the tariffs in terms of paying down the debt.
00:40:31.000 Also worth noting, President Trump has blown out the deficit.
00:40:33.000 I know that we're all supposed to pretend that this has been a fiscally responsible administration.
00:40:36.000 This has not been a fiscally responsible administration.
00:40:39.000 I like a lot of their monetary policy.
00:40:41.000 I like the tax cuts.
00:40:42.000 I like the regulatory policy.
00:40:44.000 They are blowing out the spending.
00:40:45.000 The deficit is actually increasing at a higher rate than it did in the last years of Obama. 0.77
00:40:50.000 So this talk about Donald Trump being some sort of deficit hawk is just ridiculous.
00:40:54.000 And when he finally says that this reduces taxes for our people, tariffs are literally a tax.
00:40:59.000 It does not reduce taxes on Americans to make them pay more for products.
00:41:03.000 Tariffs are literally a tax on the American people.
00:41:05.000 So none of this makes any sense at all.
00:41:07.000 And again, it betrays what the president actually thinks.
00:41:09.000 Now, there are people who say, well, this is going to come out in Trump's favor because the fact that he speaks so warmly of tariffs means that other countries are going to be afraid that he will use them and then they will lower their own tariffs.
00:41:19.000 OK, well, if they come out that way, then great.
00:41:21.000 But I don't think that that's part of Trump's strategy.
00:41:23.000 I also don't think that that's necessary in order to get other countries to lower their tariffs.
00:41:27.000 In fact, one of the best ways to get other countries to lower their tariffs is to lower your own tariffs.
00:41:31.000 Because when you lower your own tariffs, what you're actually doing is you are making it easier for your own companies to produce advanced products with the importation of cheaper products from abroad.
00:41:40.000 So let's say we lower our tariffs against foreign steel.
00:41:42.000 Yes, it hurts the domestic steel industry, but it sure as hell helps the American car industry.
00:41:47.000 The American car industry becomes a global leader because suddenly it's a lot cheaper to produce that car.
00:41:52.000 When you import cheap products into the United States, I now save money that I can use to invest in workers here at The Daily Wire.
00:41:58.000 Right?
00:41:58.000 That sort of thing is how economics works.
00:42:01.000 The fact that President Trump is tweeting about all of this, it's just not particularly, it's not good stuff.
00:42:06.000 Again, Mr. President,
00:42:08.000 If you would just go to a basement for two years and turn off your phone and watch just replays of Shark Week all the time, you would be at 55% of the approval ratings.
00:42:17.000 You would win re-election easily.
00:42:19.000 What I don't like is the fact that all of this is happening and it's obvious it's having an impact on down-ballot races.
00:42:24.000 If Congress goes the wrong way in 2018 and we hear the revisionist history about how it's the fault of the media, or about how it had nothing to do with Trump, or about how it was Democrat lies, or all the rest of the stuff.
00:42:34.000 Listen, there are a few factors that are always consistent in American politics.
00:42:37.000 The media are the left and Democrats lie.
00:42:39.000 All of this is true. 0.96
00:42:40.000 But, the one factor that has changed, and that is undermining a lot of popularity for Republicans in swing districts, is the fact that the president creates this feeling of chaos, and then he tweets out silly things at a ridiculous rate. 0.86
00:42:51.000 That needs to stop.
00:42:52.000 If you really want the president to do well, you should be rooting for him to stop all of this.
00:42:55.000 Okay, time for some things I like, and some things I hate, and then we'll do a Federalist Paper.
00:42:58.000 So, things that I like.
00:43:00.000 So, I've been very critical of President Trump today, but one of the things that makes President Trump very popular, obviously,
00:43:07.000 Is the fact that he has an innate sense of nationalistic patriotism.
00:43:12.000 And that was on full display yesterday.
00:43:13.000 The motorcade was passing a bunch of firefighters and he decided to get out of the motorcade and just go say thank you to the firefighters, which is pretty awesome.
00:43:20.000 Mr. President, thank you.
00:43:28.000 When do you want us to stand?
00:43:31.000 Just like you are, you're good, you're good.
00:43:37.000 Trump is a terrific retail politician, and he does have a gut-level loyalty to cops and firefighters and soldiers, and that is a far cry from the former president of the United States, Barack Obama, who is constantly ripping on police officers particularly.
00:43:51.000 He was okay with fighters.
00:43:51.000 He wasn't great with soldiers either.
00:43:53.000 Trump has an innate level of love for these guys, and it comes across.
00:43:57.000 That's why he stopped the car, and that is really good for him, obviously.
00:44:01.000 Good for him!
00:44:01.000 I mean, that's, I think, how all of our politicians should behave when it comes to cops, firefighters, and soldiers.
00:44:07.000 Okay, time for some things that I hate.
00:44:12.000 So over the weekend on Water's World on Fox News, a show in which I've appeared, there's a guy named Terrence Williams, black guy, and he was talking about Sarah Jean.
00:44:20.000 Sarah Jean, who we discussed last week and a little bit earlier on the show, is of course this newest member of the New York Times editorial board.
00:44:26.000 And she is egregious, right? 0.97
00:44:28.000 She talks incessantly about how white people are ruining the world. 1.00
00:44:32.000 She is a racist against white folks. 1.00
00:44:34.000 It's very difficult to read her tweets and not come away with that impression. 1.00
00:44:37.000 It's not one isolated tweet.
00:44:38.000 It is legitimately dozens and dozens and dozens of them.
00:44:41.000 And Terrence Williams goes on Jesse Waters' show and he launches into what can only be described as a racist attack on Asians, which is just great. 1.00
00:44:48.000 I'm glad that we've decided to do this now.
00:44:50.000 So they're saying, oh yeah, some people said some racist stuff to her. 0.55
00:44:54.000 So then she said racist stuff back to imitate them. 0.52
00:44:57.000 Does that even make any sense?
00:44:59.000 Oh my, that don't make no sense.
00:45:02.000 I don't know.
00:45:02.000 No, no, no, no.
00:45:04.000 There's something wrong with them fortune cookies that Ling Ling is eating.
00:45:09.000 That she's eating.
00:45:09.000 It's not wrong with her.
00:45:10.000 Terrence, I think you now got yourself in trouble.
00:45:15.000 Okay, so what's funny about this, the only thing that's funny about this at all, because the joke is not funny, the joke's terrible.
00:45:20.000 The only thing that is funny about this at all is that the left got really offended at this after spending all of last week explaining that racism by people of color is not a thing.
00:45:31.000 That black people cannot be racist.
00:45:33.000 But I guess black people can be racist against Asians, but only under certain circumstances. 0.92
00:45:37.000 This is the problem with the intersectional hierarchy. 0.89
00:45:39.000 When you suggest that we can judge by the color of your skin whether you are capable of bad behavior or not, first of all, it's unbelievably paternalistic.
00:45:48.000 Second of all, it's incredibly insulting to black folks and Asian folks and people of every race to suggest that bad behavior cannot be attributed to individual choices.
00:45:58.000 It can instead be attributed
00:46:00.000 To whether you are a member of a victimized minority group.
00:46:04.000 I will say that there is something ironic about the left getting very, very upset about Terrence Williams saying this sort of stuff, where they would be fully fine with Sarah Zhang saying the same thing about white folks.
00:46:12.000 She's sitting on the New York Times editorial board.
00:46:15.000 I don't think Terrence Williams' invitation is in the mail anytime soon.
00:46:18.000 Okay, other things that I hate.
00:46:20.000 So Jeremy Corbyn, who's legitimately just an awful human being, he has now apologized for the hurt caused by the Labor Party's anti-Semitism in Britain, the Labor Party.
00:46:29.000 is a far-left anti-semitic party that has basically embraced Hamas and Hezbollah.
00:46:33.000 Jeremy Corbyn has explicitly done so.
00:46:35.000 He was caught on video in 2010 showing him at a pro-Palestinian rally and referring to Hamas terrorists as his friends and comparing the destruction in Gaza to that of Stalingrad and Leningrad during World War II.
00:46:45.000 And here he is pretending that the Labour Party is not anti-semitic.
00:46:49.000 I'm sorry for the hurt that's been caused to many Jewish people.
00:46:52.000 We have been too slow in processing disciplinary cases of mostly online anti-Semitic abuse by party members.
00:47:00.000 We're acting to speed this process up.
00:47:03.000 People who hold anti-Semitic views have no place in the Labour Party.
00:47:08.000 People who hold anti-Semitic views have no place in the Labour Party except in their top leadership because Jeremy Corbyn is in fact a brutal anti-Semite and the fact that he is considered not so is just a demonstration that if you're a leftist you can get away with legitimately anything on planet Earth.
00:47:22.000 It truly is an incredible, incredible thing.
00:47:24.000 Okay, time for a quick Federalist paper.
00:47:27.000 Every week, we go through a Federalist paper.
00:47:28.000 We are all the way up to Federalist number 40.
00:47:30.000 So, in this Federalist paper, James Madison is still attempting to defend the fact that the Constitutional Convention went beyond its original mandate to alter the Articles of Confederation.
00:47:38.000 So, if you remember your history, there was something called the Articles of Confederation.
00:47:42.000 That was the first attempt to form an American government.
00:47:44.000 It was too weak because the centralized government didn't actually have the power to tax, relieve, or gather an army, or protect the country.
00:47:50.000 And so, there was an Articles of Convention meeting, an Articles of Confederation convention, rather,
00:47:56.000 In which people were supposed to get together and change the Articles of Confederation.
00:48:01.000 Instead, they went beyond that and just scrapped the entire thing.
00:48:04.000 And here's Madison suggesting why that was okay.
00:48:06.000 He says,
00:48:19.000 So this sounds a lot like the ends justify the means, the argument that Madison is making here, which is, you sent us here to do one thing, we decided to do another thing, the product's good, so deal with it.
00:48:28.000 I don't like this logic very much from James Madison.
00:48:30.000 I think that when you are sent for a particular purpose, that you ought to fulfill that particular purpose.
00:48:34.000 They are delegates, they are not there to completely surpass that.
00:48:37.000 However, this is the difference between a republic and a democracy.
00:48:42.000 In a democracy, the people get to vote on every specific policy.
00:48:44.000 In a republic,
00:48:45.000 You appoint people to do what they see fit, essentially, and then there's a referendum on what they get to do.
00:48:50.000 So, what is the final level of approval for the Constitution?
00:48:53.000 It's not that they didn't usurp and move beyond their mandate.
00:48:56.000 They did usurp and move beyond their mandate.
00:48:58.000 But the final judgment is the American people deciding whether something is good or not.
00:49:01.000 And this is why
00:49:02.000 You have to have everybody, when it comes to the Constitution itself, after the establishment of the Constitution, every branch has to feel an independent need to justify its own behavior along constitutional lines, and the American people have to hold our representatives accountable along those same lines, rather than just suggesting that whatever they decide to do is totally fine.
00:49:22.000 You have to constantly be holding yourself to a higher standard.
00:49:24.000 I don't think they did, actually, when they formed the Constitution of the United States.
00:49:28.000 In this case, maybe the ends did justify the means, but as a general rule of thumb, I think that the anti-federalists who argued this were probably on better footing than James Madison was.
00:49:35.000 Okay, we'll be back here tomorrow with all the latest.
00:49:37.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:49:38.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:49:43.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villareal, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay.
00:49:49.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
00:49:53.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.
00:49:54.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.
00:49:56.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.
00:49:58.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Ford Publishing production.
00:50:01.000 Copyright Ford Publishing 2018.