The Ben Shapiro Show - Are They About To Arrest Trump?

00:00:00.000 Donald Trump tells the world he'll be arrested on Tuesday and calls for mass protests in the streets.

00:00:04.000 The Biden family's Chinese payoff racket begins to see the light of day.

00:00:07.000 And the risk of financial meltdown isn't nearly over yet.

00:00:10.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:10.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:12.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.

00:00:20.000 Protect your online privacy today at expressvpn.com slash Ben.

00:00:24.000 Alrighty, well, Donald Trump lit the fuse.

00:00:26.000 He lit that rocket.

00:00:27.000 And now we are going to explore whether, in fact, Donald Trump will be arrested tomorrow.

00:00:32.000 So, Donald Trump, over the weekend, he announced on Truth Social that he was about to be arrested imminently.

00:00:37.000 He put out a statement that said, quote, now illegal leaks from a corrupt and highly political Manhattan district attorney's office, which has allowed new records to be set in violent crime and whose leader is funded by George Soros, so far all true, indicate that with no crime being able to be proven and based on an old and fully debunked by numerous other prosecutors fairy tale, the far and away leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States of America will be arrested on Tuesday of next week.

00:01:01.000 Protest, take our nation back.

00:01:03.000 Okay, so he's announcing, we have no other information that he's gonna be arrested on Tuesday, but he's announcing that there's a leak that is saying that he's gonna be arrested on Tuesday.

00:01:13.000 And then he continued by saying, Biden wants to pretend he has nothing to do with the Manhattan DA's assault on Democracy One.

00:01:18.000 In fact, he has stuffed the DA's office with the Department of Injustice people, including one top DOJ operative from D.C.

00:01:24.000 who's actually running the Horseface Witch Hunt.

00:01:26.000 Horseface is his name for Stormy Daniels.

00:01:29.000 Bragg is a Soros racist in reverse who's taking his orders from DC.

00:01:33.000 I beat them twice, doing much better the second time.

00:01:35.000 And despite their disinformation campaign, they don't want to run against Trump or my great record.

00:01:38.000 So his theory apparently is that not only is he going to be arrested, the reason he's going to be arrested is the Democrats can stop him from running.

00:01:45.000 We'll get to the actual political implications of a possible arrest itself, but we have to begin with the information.

00:01:51.000 Trump is the only person so far, including the DA, who's come out and said that he's going to be arrested on Tuesday.

00:01:57.000 Now, there was speculation late last week that there is a possibility that as a grand jury investigation continues in New York, the possibility of an indictment was growing.

00:02:06.000 However, There has been no actual leak from the DA's office to the public about the possibility of Trump being arrested, which suggests that somebody from the DA's office must have called Trump and asked him to turn himself in.

00:02:17.000 But even that is sort of up in the air.

00:02:19.000 At this point, we just don't know what we don't know.

00:02:22.000 And as it turns out, There are still witnesses who have to testify before that New York grand jury.

00:02:28.000 So the highest likelihood at this point, just from a pure procedural standpoint, is that Donald Trump heard a rumor from a friend of a friend, and that friend of a friend said, you're going to be arrested on Tuesday.

00:02:38.000 And Trump, not having any sort of filter, just went directly to Truth Social and put that out there.

00:02:43.000 But we have no other corroborative information that he will, in fact, be arrested on Tuesday.

00:02:46.000 Now, that's not to say he won't be arrested.

00:02:47.000 He could certainly be arrested on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, the following week, right?

00:02:51.000 Anytime that could happen.

00:02:53.000 And again, Alvin Bragg in New York, the DA there, who is in fact Soros elected.

00:02:58.000 He's a person who's funded by George Soros, a very left-wing prosecutor.

00:03:01.000 He's sort of implied that an indictment is on the table for Trump in the near future.

00:03:07.000 But this set the entire world ablaze, obviously, because when the former president of the United States and the current frontrunner in the Republican nominating race announces that he is likely to be arrested by a hardcore Democrat prosecutor in New York over a crime that was allegedly committed Back in 2016, and you may have checked your calendar recently, it is now 2023.

00:03:24.000 And the statute of limitations on a misdemeanor in the state of New York, on a New York state misdemeanor, is two years, which would have ended this thing in 2018.

00:03:33.000 And the statute of limitations on a New York felony is five years, which would have ended this thing in 2021.

00:03:38.000 And the only way to extend beyond that statute of limitations is to somehow hook Trump's behavior from 2016 into a federal campaign finance felony.

00:03:46.000 That would be the only theory under which you could do this sort of thing.

00:03:49.000 It starts to look really dicey in the first place, and it also does look politically motivated because we've had too many prosecutors who've come out and they've said that we are going to get Trump.

00:03:58.000 We had Letitia James, when she took office as Attorney General of New York, officially say, like in her opening statement, we're going to get Trump. 0.71

00:04:03.000 We're going to go after him, which by the way is not how you go after crime.

00:04:06.000 The way that you typically go after crime is you find a crime and then you prosecute the person who committed the crime.

00:04:10.000 You don't find a person you would like to prosecute, and then you figure out which crime they have committed.

00:04:14.000 But it seems like there are a lot of prosecutors out there who have done this.

00:04:17.000 Now, Trump has opened himself up on a wide variety of scores.

00:04:21.000 By using what would be at best dicey behavior.

00:04:24.000 But that two things can be true at once.

00:04:25.000 That dicey behavior can be dicey and also not criminal as we've seen multiple times in the past.

00:04:29.000 And we'll get to legal predicate for the kind of charge that Alvin Bragg would be trying to bring against Trump.

00:04:34.000 And we'll show that that legal predicate really does not exist.

00:04:37.000 There'd be a novel legal theory if carried to fruition.

00:04:40.000 So according to the Associated Press, even as Trump's lawyer and spokesperson said there had been no communication from prosecutors, Trump declared in a post on a social media platform he expects to be taken into custody on Tuesday.

00:04:48.000 Again, this is why I say I think Trump is just kind of Speaking off the cuff, as per his usual arrangement, I don't think this is a planned statement.

00:04:54.000 I don't think there was a leak directly from the New York DA's office to Trump.

00:04:58.000 It sounds like this went through a process of telephone and finally Trump got the information that he was going to be arrested on Tuesday and he put that out there.

00:05:04.000 But as I say, there's still process to take place.

00:05:07.000 Business Insider is reporting.

00:05:09.000 That a possible Donald Trump hush money indictment is on hold until a final witness even testifies before a Manhattan grand jury on Monday afternoon.

00:05:16.000 A source with knowledge of the investigation told Insider Saturday night there is at least one more witness that spoke on a condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge details of the grand jury proceedings.

00:05:25.000 Well, if there's still a witness, that means the grand jury has not even voted yet.

00:05:28.000 On whether they believe that an indictment would be justified or necessary.

00:05:31.000 Which means that it seems weird that Trump, before the grand jury has even decided, would be saying, I'm going to get arrested on Tuesday.

00:05:38.000 Probably somebody told him, the soonest you could be arrested is on Tuesday, and they're already talking about an arrest.

00:05:43.000 The source declined to identify the witness, whose testimony will cap a two-month grand jury presentation by prosecutors under District Attorney Alvin Brad.

00:05:49.000 A separate source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the witness is not Allen Weisselberg, that's Trump's former CFO.

00:05:56.000 The star witness for the grand jury so far has been former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen.

00:06:01.000 He expected to be the final grand jury witness when he testified on Monday and Wednesday of last week.

00:06:08.000 So, bottom line is that Trump's timing may be off.

00:06:10.000 Now, that doesn't undercut the fact that if he is indeed arrested, it's going to be an absolute bombshell in the middle of American politics, the presidential race, and law enforcement generally.

00:06:21.000 We'll get to more on that in just one second.

00:06:22.000 First, let's talk about the fact that there are a lot of people out there that you just cannot trust.

00:06:26.000 I'm talking about big tech.

00:06:27.000 I'm talking about big government.

00:06:28.000 You know what all these places have in common?

00:06:29.000 They would love your data.

00:06:31.000 Love it!

00:06:32.000 They make money off your data.

00:06:33.000 In fact, they need your data in order to monetize themselves.

00:06:35.000 That's why these big Free tech services?

00:06:37.000 They're not really free.

00:06:38.000 They're grabbing your data.

00:06:39.000 They're repackaging the data.

00:06:40.000 They're selling the data to advertisers.

00:06:41.000 They're making that data available to the government.

00:06:43.000 This is why I use VPN and you should as well.

00:06:45.000 It is no secret that the big tech monopoly is manipulating us, whether it's through algorithmic changes, demonetization, or shadow bans.

00:06:51.000 This is why the left considers Elon Musk a threat to freedom because he might break that monopoly.

00:06:54.000 Well, you can break the monopoly as well by using ExpressVPN.

00:06:58.000 If you've ever wondered how those free-to-access tech giants make their money, the answer is they track everything.

00:07:01.000 Don't let them do it.

00:07:02.000 ExpressVPN is an app that anonymizes your online presence, making it much more difficult for big tech companies to track and sell your data.

00:07:08.000 They also encrypt 100% of your network data and protect you from cybercriminals.

00:07:12.000 I use ExpressVPN on all my devices.

00:07:14.000 If, like me, you believe your online activity is nobody else's business, get the VPN I trust.

00:07:18.000 ExpressVPN.com slash Ben.

00:07:20.000 Again, that's E-X-P-R-E-S-S VPN.com slash Ben.

00:07:23.000 An extra three months for free.

00:07:25.000 ExpressVPN.com slash Ben.

00:07:27.000 Okay, so, again, Trump announces that he is likely to be arrested on Tuesday, and then he put out another post saying, quote, It's time!

00:07:33.000 These are all capital letters.

00:07:34.000 It's time!

00:07:35.000 Three exclamation points.

00:07:36.000 We just can't allow this anymore.

00:07:37.000 They're killing our nation.

00:07:38.000 As we sit back and watch, we must save America.

00:07:40.000 Protest, protest, protest. 0.71

00:07:43.000 And this, of course, led the entire media to immediately jump into, he's going to start another insurrection!

00:07:47.000 It's an insurrection!

00:07:48.000 First of all, there's nothing illegal about calling for people to protest.

00:07:51.000 If there were, then the entire Black Lives Matter movement would have never got off the ground in June of 2020. 0.98

00:07:56.000 Democrats love protests until they are protests of things that they don't particularly like, at which point it becomes a threat to democracy.

00:08:01.000 Trump saying protest does not mean that he is calling for a violent insurrection against anybody.

00:08:06.000 You know how I know?

00:08:06.000 Because there's an actual crime in the United States called incitement.

00:08:09.000 You can be prosecuted for it.

00:08:10.000 If you say to your neighbor, you should go out and you should commit an act of violence against Bob, and then he goes out and commits an act of violence against Bob, then you will be prosecuted for incitement.

00:08:20.000 It is not incitement to say protest, protest, protest, even in all capital letters, even if it's Donald Trump, even if there are lots of exclamation points.

00:08:28.000 So let's go through a little bit of the actual case here with regard to what's happened.

00:08:33.000 First of all, Michael Cohen, who would be the chief witness in all of this, and who himself has been, I believe, convicted of perjury.

00:08:40.000 He lied when he was talking about his taxes and all of this, and he pled guilty to campaign finance fraud.

00:08:48.000 As we'll talk about that has implications for Trump's actual case because those two cases are one and the same with regard to Stormy Daniels. But he was also convicted for hiding money from the IRS and all the rest. Michael Cohen says Trump isn't doing this because the DA leaked, he's doing this because he's essentially leaking the fact that he's going to be arrested. Okay, whatever. Here's Michael Cohen. This untruth social post that was put out by Donald, knowing Donald the way that I do, I don't see a reason that Donald would have put out the statement

00:09:17.000 unless he has or his team have been contacted by the district attorney's office and advised accordingly.

00:09:25.000 It's not Donald to turn around and to come up with something for just because he's bored at Mar-a-Lardo sitting there on a Saturday morning, hey, let's stir this all up.

00:09:38.000 And I'll tell you something else about when I read that post.

00:09:43.000 It's eerily similar to the battle cry that he put out just prior to the January 6th insurrection.

00:09:51.000 Okay, that sort of stuff is super tiresome.

00:09:53.000 Super tiresome.

00:09:54.000 And the reason that it's super tiresome, of course, is because saying that you want people to protest is not the same thing as saying that you want them to commit acts of violence.

00:10:00.000 I will say, every time I hear Michael Cohen, I can't help but think of the Donald Trump tweet, maybe my favorite Donald Trump tweet of all time.

00:10:06.000 There's a long list.

00:10:06.000 I mean, Donald Trump's Twitter feed is just lit.

00:10:08.000 But Donald Trump, August 22nd, 2018, quote, If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest you don't retain the services of Michael Cain.

00:10:20.000 One of my favorite tweets of all time.

00:10:21.000 Of course, you know, Donald Trump has a habit of not hiring the best people.

00:10:24.000 I mean, let's just put it out there that half the people who he's hired, he's either fired because he thought they were incompetent or have ended up, you know, being prosecuted.

00:10:34.000 In any case, Michael Cohen, as it turns out, was not a good lawyer, and this is what is going to lie at the heart of this particular case, is what did Trump know, and when did he know it, and what was going through his head when he authorized a payment from Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels.

00:10:48.000 So, to recap this rather salacious saga, the story here is that way back when, Donald Trump likely stooped Stormy Daniels, who is a former foreign actress, in 2006.

00:11:03.000 All the way back to 2006, this is 10 years before Donald Trump was running for president, and he was at some sort of golf event, and he hit on Stormy Daniels, and then he essentially invited her to his hotel room, implying that he would cast her on The Apprentice, and then he had sex with her.

00:11:22.000 And she waited for like years on end for this to, because Donald Trump was not exactly known as, you know, Captain Monogamy.

00:11:30.000 This has never been Donald Trump's brand.

00:11:31.000 Donald Trump's brand has never been that he is a particularly holy man when it comes to his wedding vows.

00:11:37.000 And so the, there, there's really no, no, there, there, there was, there was no actual story there with regard to Stormy Daniels screwing Donald Trump, because after all, Donald Trump for several decades screwed anything that moved.

00:11:48.000 And then he married half of those people.

00:11:49.000 So in any case, that was not a story.

00:11:52.000 It became a story in 2015 when Donald Trump started running for president.

00:11:54.000 When that happened, Stormy Daniels saw a paycheck. 1.00

00:11:56.000 And at that point, she was like, okay, I've got a story to tell.

00:12:00.000 She, of course, is not the only person who said that she had a story to tell during the time.

00:12:03.000 There's also Karen McDougal, who was a former Playboy Playmate, who had also allegedly had some sort of affair with Trump.

00:12:08.000 And she also started retailing her story.

00:12:11.000 And all of this got very much tied up with both the campaign and with monetary payoffs.

00:12:16.000 Even the New York Times recognizes, by the way, that any of Trump's conduct with regard to authorizing Michael Cohen to pay Stormy Daniels, even that would not be illegal.

00:12:24.000 It would be salacious and kind of gross, but it wouldn't be an actual crime.

00:12:30.000 I mean, this is the New York Times, not me.

00:12:32.000 The New York Times, which hates Donald Trump and would love nothing better than to see the guy perp walk.

00:12:36.000 They would love to see him with a picture with the numbers in front of the police screen, the whole deal.

00:12:41.000 Even the New York Times is like, yeah, this case is not really amazing.

00:12:44.000 Quote, it would not be a simple case.

00:12:46.000 Prosecutors are expected to use a legal theory that has not been assessed in New York courts, raising the possibility a judge could throw out or limit the charges.

00:12:52.000 The episode has already been examined by both the Federal Election Commission and federal prosecutors in New York.

00:12:57.000 Neither took action against Mr. Trump.

00:12:58.000 That includes Cyrus Vance, who is very much motivated to attack Trump.

00:13:03.000 Trump, for his part, denies ever having had sex with Stormy Daniels and said he did nothing wrong.

00:13:07.000 Now, again, that's exactly what you predict from Trump.

00:13:09.000 That doesn't mean he didn't.

00:13:11.000 But the notion that he committed a crime is very much up for debate.

00:13:14.000 And if we're talking about beyond a reasonable doubt for a conviction, there's a lot of reasonable doubt in this particular case with regard to the criminal violation that would have occurred.

00:13:22.000 And again, it's the weakness of the case that dictates that there must be something political at play here.

00:13:26.000 If this were a super strong case, you'd say, oh, well, you know, they have to prosecute.

00:13:28.000 It's a strong case.

00:13:29.000 It's a very, very, very weak case, which means that it is innately political.

00:13:34.000 And we'll get to that in a moment.

00:13:35.000 First, everybody here, everybody in my audience, you all know that the thing that is basically keeping me alive at this point is black rifle coffee every single morning because my kids wake me up way too early after I've gone to bed too late.

00:13:45.000 And then I have to get up, I have to prep for the show, get ready for the day.

00:13:48.000 Black rifle coffee is the thing that allows that to happen.

00:13:51.000 Black Rifle Coffee is fueling Americans before they go out and do epic things with their lives.

00:13:55.000 Their ready-to-drink cans are crafted for convenience without losing quality.

00:13:58.000 If you want a Spartan-level caffeine kick, try Ready-to-Drink 300, made with 300 milligrams of caffeine per can and an electrifying blend of MCT oil and amino acids that will supercharge your day.

00:14:07.000 Ready to drink 300 Pax Aceria's Caffeine Punch.

00:14:09.000 Backed by high quality ingredients, it comes in a bunch of delicious flavors.

00:14:12.000 Caramel vanilla, rich mocha, and more.

00:14:14.000 Each unique flavor combined with a large dose of wake the hell up.

00:14:17.000 Whether you need a boost before you hit the gym, or a caffeine jolt to carry you through your shift, just grab a can and go.

00:14:22.000 Head on over to BlackRifleCoffee.com.

00:14:24.000 Use promo code Shapiro.

00:14:25.000 Check out for 10% off your order.

00:14:26.000 That's BlackRifleCoffee.com.

00:14:28.000 Use promo code Shapiro for 10% off.

00:14:30.000 You can also find Black Rifle Coffee in grocery and convenience stores near you.

00:14:33.000 It's America's best coffee.

00:14:34.000 Go check them out right now.

00:14:35.000 BlackRifleCoffee.com.

00:14:37.000 Use promo code Shapiro to get 10% off your order.

00:14:40.000 Okay, so, let's get into the legal case.

00:14:42.000 So, Trump, apparently, the campaign happens, and now, Stormy Daniels decides this is her moment.

00:14:50.000 This is her moment.

00:14:51.000 Now, since 2000, Trump had been flirting with running for president.

00:14:55.000 He thought about it in 2011.

00:14:56.000 He thought about it in 2000.

00:14:59.000 He thought about it over and over and over again.

00:15:02.000 So in 2011, when Trump was talking about running for president, you remember he actually flirted pretty strongly with it in 2011-2012.

00:15:08.000 Daniels began working with an agent to see if she could sell the story of their liaison, because, hey, make a buck while you can.

00:15:15.000 And they negotiated, according to the New York Times, a $15,000 deal with Life & Style, a celebrity magazine, telling its reporters that Daniels believed Trump's offer to make her a contestant had been a lie.

00:15:25.000 The reporter asked her, just to impress you, to try to sleep with you? 1.00

00:15:27.000 Yeah, said Ms.

00:15:28.000 Daniels, and I guess it worked.

00:15:29.000 Oh, you mean a powerful man offered the possibility of a career boost and you went for it?

00:15:35.000 Wow.

00:15:36.000 Shocking.

00:15:38.000 When the magazine contacted the Trump Organization for comment, Michael Cohen, who was Trump's attorney at the time and now a convicted perjurer, returned the call.

00:15:45.000 A lawyer who had joined the company just four years earlier, Cohen had become Trump's fixer.

00:15:50.000 Trump dropped out of the race.

00:15:51.000 He continued hosting The Apprentice.

00:15:53.000 That October, Daniel's story actually surfaced briefly because they tried to leak it to a gossip blog called The Dirty.

00:15:58.000 A couple of media outlets followed up and then offered payment because after Trump was no longer running for president, no one frankly cared.

00:16:05.000 A couple of media outlets followed up and then offered payment, and Daniels actually at the time denied the story.

00:16:10.000 And then in 2015, of course, Trump crops up again in the political eye, and Daniels once again is like, hey, I can make some moolah off that one time that I schtup the president to be.

00:16:20.000 So she tried to sell the story again in spring 2016, knowing that Trump was in the headlines, this time for more than $200,000.

00:16:26.000 All of the publications that she approached passed, including the National Enquirer, at about the same time.

00:16:30.000 Karen McDougal, former Playboy Playmate, also began thinking, how do I make a buck off the fact that Donald Trump slept with me in 2006?

00:16:38.000 He had a busy year in 2006.

00:16:39.000 I believe he married Melania in 2005, and then, according to McCarran McDougal and Stormy Daniels, in 2006, he had sex with both of them.

00:16:47.000 So, it was a busy year, it was 2006.

00:16:49.000 Midterm elections, Iraq War, beginning of the Sunni insurgency, the Shia insurgency, and Donald Trump nailing pretty much everything.

00:16:58.000 In 2016, with her modeling career flagging, McDougal hired Mr. Davidson, the same lawyer who'd helped Stormy Daniels remove the 2011 blog post, and then they approached the National Enquirer, The National Enquirer essentially tried to buy up these stories in order to silence them because the person who ran the National Enquirer was good friends with Donald Trump.

00:17:16.000 So the people, according to the New York Times, surrounding Stormy Daniels immediately realized that Trump's new vulnerability made her more of a threat and gave her story value.

00:17:24.000 And Davidson, the Los Angeles lawyer, was also friendly with Stormy Daniels' agent, Gina Rodriguez, and with the Enquirer's editor.

00:17:30.000 On the day after the Access Hollywood tape, the famous, grab him by the bleep, Tape emerged.

00:17:35.000 These two lawyers texted about the damage it had done to Trump's campaign, and then they asked for a pitch.

00:17:39.000 These lawyers asked Stormy Daniels' agent to send another pitch for the National Enquirer at the time.

00:17:44.000 Three days after the Access Hollywood tape, and here we get into the actual legal issue, Michael Cohen agreed to pay $130,000 to Stormy Daniels in a deal that threatened severe financial penalties for Daniels, essentially an NDA.

00:17:56.000 They were paying her for an NDA.

00:17:59.000 Cohen delayed paying.

00:18:00.000 Apparently he said he was trying to figure out where to get the money while Trump campaigned.

00:18:04.000 So according to Cohen, Trump had approved the payment and delegated to him and the Trump Organization's chief financial officer the task of arranging it.

00:18:09.000 They considered options for funneling the money through the company, but they didn't settle on a solution.

00:18:14.000 Stormy Daniels started to think, hey, maybe the current presidential candidate is waiting until after the election in order to pay me off because if the election is over and he loses, that story no longer has any value at all.

00:18:26.000 And so instead, Daniel's lawyer canceled the deal and the porn actress began shopping the story. 1.00

00:18:30.000 Again, Cohen finally agreed to make the payment himself.

00:18:33.000 He spoke briefly by phone with Trump twice and then transferred out $130,000.

00:18:37.000 From his home equity line of credit into the accounts of a Delaware Shell company.

00:18:41.000 And Cohen, again, ends up being charged and pleading guilty to campaign finance violations.

00:18:47.000 The idea being that he gave a contribution to the Trump campaign by paying off Stormy Daniels by himself, but didn't report it as a campaign contribution.

00:18:54.000 And in the original filing with regard to his campaign finance violations in 2018, the suggestion was made in the filings that Trump had essentially incentivized Cohen to do that and therefore could have been implicated in campaign finance problems.

00:19:07.000 So why in 2018 wasn't Trump actually, why exactly wasn't he arrested at the time?

00:19:14.000 Well, there are a few problems.

00:19:17.000 Problem number one is that it's totally unclear whether Trump would have actually been able to be convicted on that charge, given the fact that he had multiple reasons to want Stormy Daniels' story not to come out.

00:19:27.000 One could have been the election, so he could theoretically say this was a campaign expenditure, it should have gone through his campaign arm.

00:19:33.000 The second is, it wasn't a campaign expenditure, and so if he'd used the campaign hour, that would have been campaign finance fraud, right?

00:19:40.000 The reason that he wanted to shut down Storm Daniels' story is because he didn't want Melania finding out, because it's embarrassing Melania, right?

00:19:44.000 That's the so-called Melania defense that people have been talking about.

00:19:48.000 So again, the violation here is just unclear on a wide variety of issues.

00:19:53.000 Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation, he says if the state charges are based on a supposed violation of federal campaign finance law, the Manhattan DA is way off base.

00:20:03.000 The misdemeanor would be falsification of business records by the Trump organization.

00:20:06.000 That Trump sent 130 grand to Michael Cohen for legal services, but the legal services were actually just to pay off the Stormy Daniels.

00:20:13.000 That's a misdemeanor.

00:20:14.000 The statute of limitations has run.

00:20:16.000 Also, you don't charge a former president of the United States on that basis.

00:20:18.000 It's way too politically fraud.

00:20:20.000 If you're going to try to wrap that into some sort of felony, it would have to be a federal felony, like a finance felony on the federal level.

00:20:26.000 And as we'll talk about in a second, that is an extremely weak case.

00:20:31.000 Also, speaking of extremely weak cases, the case that the federal government knows what it is doing financially continues to weaken.

00:20:36.000 We'll get to that a little bit later on, but this means that you have to think about what you do to protect your money right now.

00:20:42.000 Well, the thing I'm doing is diversifying.

00:20:44.000 Hard assets are a great way to diversify against the possibility of inflation and uncertainty in the markets.

00:20:50.000 You can hedge against inflation the way that most people have historically by owning gold, whether that's physical gold and silver in your safe at home or through an IRA in precious metals where you can hold real gold and silver in a tax shelter retirement account.

00:21:01.000 I've bought Birch Gold before.

00:21:02.000 I have it as part of my diversified portfolio.

00:21:04.000 It's a smart thing to do.

00:21:06.000 Buy gold today, get a free safe to store it in.

00:21:09.000 On qualifying purchases from Birchgold now through March 31st, they will ship a free safe directly to your door.

00:21:09.000 That is correct.

00:21:15.000 Just text Ben to 989898, get your free info kit on gold, claim eligibility for your free safe, and then talk to one of their precious metals specialists.

00:21:21.000 Again, that's Ben to 989898 today.

00:21:25.000 Go check them out right now.

00:21:26.000 Text Ben to 989898, get your free info kit on gold, and claim eligibility for that free safe and diversify the smart way with my friends over at Birchgold.

00:21:33.000 So what exactly would the legal case be?

00:21:36.000 Well, Again, as Spakovsky points out, a settlement payment of a nuisance claim is not a federal campaign expense.

00:21:42.000 So if you're just paying settlements to a bunch of ladies who you banged at one point, that's ugly, but it's not actually a federal campaign expense.

00:21:50.000 And the state DA has no authority to prosecute a federal campaign finance violation in any event.

00:21:54.000 So they would have to say falsification of New York State Records Act in order to cover up a federal campaign finance violation.

00:22:03.000 And Sapkowski, who used to work at the Federal Elections Commission, he says, I used to work over there.

00:22:08.000 And there's a reason they let this case go.

00:22:09.000 He said the federal agencies with jurisdictions did not consider it a violation.

00:22:14.000 In 2018, Von Spakovsky wrote the payments to Daniels seem to be a nuisance settlement, which celebrities often make.

00:22:19.000 And again, Trump himself maintains that he never had sex with Stormy Daniels.

00:22:23.000 And so that's actually a fairly low amount.

00:22:25.000 I mean, if you're looking at the possibility of a presidential race and you have to silence this lady because the presidential is happening like three weeks from today, $130,000 for that is not actually a very large amount of money.

00:22:36.000 Reason Magazine points out also that the theory here is really weak.

00:22:40.000 Quote, the theory underlying that charge was that Cohen contributed the Hutch money at Trump's behest for the principal purpose of influencing the election, as opposed to avoiding personal embarrassment for Trump or sparing Melania Trump's feelings.

00:22:50.000 As the former FEC chairman Bradley Smith noted at the time, that interpretation was open to question.

00:22:53.000 He wrote, quote, the best interpretation of the law is that it simply is not a campaign expense to pay blackmail for things that happened years before one's candidacy, and thus nothing that Cohen, or in this case Trump, did is of campaign finance crime.

00:23:04.000 And the reason that Cohen pled guilty, presumably, is because he pled guilty really to the other charges and he got a much lowered sentence so that he would then testify against Trump.

00:23:12.000 Smith said, at a minimum, it's unclear whether paying blackmail to a mistress is quote, for the purpose of influencing an election and so must be paid with campaign funds or a personal use and so prohibited from being paid with campaign funds.

00:23:22.000 So the question as to whether this is actually going to end with a conviction is a very, very strong question.

00:23:29.000 Especially because, again, we have predicate for this sort of attempted prosecution, and it has in the past failed.

00:23:35.000 So, for example, back in 2012, you'll recall there was a man named Senator John Edwards.

00:23:40.000 Senator John Edwards ran for president in 2008, and he flamed out.

00:23:45.000 Well, during that 2008 bid for the White House, you'll recall that he was actually stooping his camera woman.

00:23:50.000 And then, apparently, He solicited nearly a million bucks from his wealthy backers to finance the cover-up of the illicit affair and his illegitimate child during that bid.

00:24:01.000 So first of all...

00:24:03.000 You should notice the discrepancy in the accounts, right?

00:24:05.000 I mean, if Stormy Daniels was selling her story, and it was a legit story, maybe it goes for a hundred more.

00:24:11.000 That does give some credibility, the idea that Trump is paying off a nuisance claim.

00:24:14.000 $130,000 for a man like Donald Trump is not a lot of money, so maybe he sees this as a nuisance.

00:24:18.000 I'm not going higher than $130,000.

00:24:19.000 Remember, in a case where John Edwards actually did shit up his camera woman and she bore a child by him, they were looking for a million dollars.

00:24:28.000 In any case, He was found not guilty on count three of a six-part indictment.

00:24:33.000 That count pertained to whether Edwards illegally received several hundred thousand dollars in donations from a wealthy heiress to cover up the affair in 2008.

00:24:39.000 So the legal theory there was that the reason that he did that was to cover it up during the 2008 presidential campaign in the hopes that that would somehow not sink him in the 2008 presidential campaign.

00:24:49.000 But the jury deadlocked on that.

00:24:50.000 They said, well, maybe the reason that he covered it up is because it was really embarrassing to him on just a sort of generalized public level, given the fact that his wife was dying of cancer at the time.

00:24:59.000 So, there's predicate for an attempted prosecution and a failure of that prosecution.

00:25:03.000 There's also been cases, obviously in American history, of sitting presidents literally paying off people for sexual peccadilloes, or sexual harassment or assault, as the case may be.

00:25:13.000 You'll remember that Bill Clinton signed a settlement with Paula Jones for $850,000 in November of 1998.

00:25:24.000 So is that a campaign finance related expense?

00:25:26.000 I mean, you could say that it probably was.

00:25:27.000 I mean, obviously, this is a person who was the President of the United States.

00:25:31.000 And whether or not you're running or whether you're not running, I mean, that obviously has to do with your job as President of the United States.

00:25:35.000 With that said, he wasn't running for re-election.

00:25:38.000 I guess you could make a distinction there.

00:25:39.000 Legally speaking, but you have predicate for people paying off these sorts of issues and it not being seen as a legal violation, just being seen as sort of gross.

00:25:48.000 So, this raises the question of what here is happening politically.

00:25:51.000 Because again, the case here is incredibly weak.

00:25:53.000 Even CNN's Elliott Williams, legal analyst on CNN, right?

00:25:56.000 Even he says this is a super weak case.

00:26:00.000 This had been an almost dormant case.

00:26:02.000 I mean, Cy Vance, a previous DA, didn't really move forward with it.

00:26:07.000 And even Alvin Bragg didn't move forward with it until recently.

00:26:11.000 So a couple things.

00:26:12.000 One, the facts are old.

00:26:14.000 They're six or seven years old.

00:26:15.000 And the star witness here in the form of Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former attorney, has credibility issues, has been convicted of crimes.

00:26:21.000 And so to your point, Abby, as far as the strength of the case, it's certainly not the kind of slam dunk that many people would wish that it were.

00:26:29.000 I mean, that obviously is true, and everybody now acknowledges that.

00:26:32.000 So this raises the question as to what exactly is happening here, and what is happening here is wish fulfillment.

00:26:36.000 What's happening here on the part of many people on the left is wish fulfillment.

00:26:39.000 There are really only two possible rationales for doing this.

00:26:42.000 One is Alvin Bragg wants his name in the headlines.

00:26:44.000 The first prosecutor who goes after Donald Trump becomes a celebrity figure across the United States.

00:26:48.000 They finally get the picture that they've been wanting since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, really since he was nominated, which is Donald Trump being frog-marched somewhere.

00:26:56.000 Or a mugshot of Donald Trump.

00:26:57.000 That is the thing that they are looking for.

00:26:59.000 And this is also why they are spinning up talk that if he is arrested, that he will be denied bail because he posted on his profile that people ought to protest.

00:27:07.000 The UK Daily Mail is already spinning up that narrative.

00:27:09.000 They say a former federal prosecutor warned on Saturday that former President Trump's social media posts sharing details of his expected arrest could see him denied bail.

00:27:17.000 Based on what?

00:27:18.000 So, Glenn Kirshner, MSNBC legal analyst, has compared the all-caps rant to his post leading up to the Capitol riot on January 6th, 2021, and said it could affect the terms of his release.

00:27:27.000 He speculated a judge could interpret Trump's post as an attempt to incite a crowd to riot.

00:27:32.000 He said, I would slap a government exhibit sticker on this post and I would introduce it at his criminal trial.

00:27:36.000 Okay, now, I understand that y'all want him to languish in jail.

00:27:39.000 He's getting bail.

00:27:39.000 And you're not gonna put, what, is he a flight risk?

00:27:43.000 You really think he's gonna, like, lead an armed revolt against the DA in Manhattan?

00:27:48.000 So much wish fulfillment happening right here.

00:27:50.000 They just want, they want the headline, and that's all they care about is the headline.

00:27:54.000 Because again, this case is way too weak to go to trial on.

00:27:56.000 Unless you just assume that there's a left-wing jury and the left-wing jury is going to convict Trump of jaywalking.

00:28:01.000 And no matter what happens, reasonable doubt no longer matters because Trump has to be got, so you go get him.

00:28:08.000 By the way, the dead giveaway here that this is not about the criminal violation is the fact that Alvin Bragg, the DA who is going after Donald Trump, is one of the softest DAs in all of America.

00:28:18.000 He announced in January of 2022, he released a memo detailing his new charging bail plea and sentencing policies.

00:28:25.000 Among the crimes that Bragg said his office would not prosecute, marijuana misdemeanors, including selling more than three ounces, not paying public transportation fare, trespassing except a fourth-degree stalking charge, resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration in certain cases, and prostitution.

00:28:39.000 So he's not enforcing any of that in the city of New York.

00:28:42.000 He announced he wasn't going to in January 2022.

00:28:43.000 New York has been a crime-ridden hellhole for the past several years.

00:28:48.000 This guy was elected, As the DA and he immediately said he's not going to prosecute crimes, but he's making sure that he definitely goes after Donald Trump for activities that originally took place in 2006 and then a payoff that happened in 2016.

00:29:02.000 And the year is currently 2023.

00:29:03.000 Yeah, he just he's basically just a Harvey Dent type seeking justice, no matter where the where the road leads before it turns into two phase.

00:29:10.000 Clearly, that's where this is.

00:29:12.000 He's like an Atticus Finch-style lawyer, Alvin Bragg.

00:29:15.000 Or, alternatively, he's really, really looking for a headline.

00:29:19.000 And of course, never one to let the possibility of a headline pass him by, he then leaked a memo from his office.

00:29:24.000 So I doubt that he leaked the possible Trump arrest to Trump.

00:29:28.000 I really doubt that's what happened.

00:29:29.000 Again, as I said earlier, I think what probably happened is Trump heard through the grapevine that an arrest was imminent, and so he went on Truth Social and decided to beat everybody to the punch.

00:29:36.000 Alvin Bragg did leak something to the press over the weekend and the thing that he leaked to the press is a statement in which he told all of his law enforcement officers they're doing a spectacular job because he is just a servant of the law he is.

00:29:47.000 Quote, our law enforcement partners will ensure that any specific or credible threats against this office will be fully investigated and the proper safeguards are in place so all 1,600 of us have a secure work environment.

00:29:57.000 In the meantime, as with all of our investigations, we will continue to apply the law evenly and fairly and speak openly only when appropriate.

00:30:03.000 We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York.

00:30:07.000 Well, mostly the rule of law has been threatened in New York by Alvin Bragg and by Democrats who have decided not to enforce the law in the city of New York.

00:30:15.000 But this moment was going to happen.

00:30:19.000 Again, that gun had been placed above Chekhov's Mantle for the entire first act here.

00:30:25.000 If we are now in act two of Trump the movie, the gun has to be taken off the mantle and used.

00:30:31.000 The possibility of some sort of prosecution of Trump had to come to fruition.

00:30:33.000 Democrats needed it.

00:30:35.000 I think Trump probably needed it, is the truth.

00:30:37.000 I mean, in terms of his campaign, his campaign has been fairly lackluster so far, but you want to talk about a shot in the arm for Donald Trump's campaign.

00:30:44.000 Have him arrested on a bunch of spurious garbage charges.

00:30:47.000 Nothing is going to enliven the Republican base in favor of Donald Trump, again, like the feeling that he is being targeted, not because of something that he has done.

00:30:53.000 But he's being targeted because they hate his guts and they hate his guts because they really hate your guts, which was, again, his 2016 campaign.

00:31:00.000 So we'll get to the political fallout from all of this momentarily.

00:31:02.000 First, let's talk about the fact it's difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

00:31:05.000 You know, you're a busy person.

00:31:07.000 I'm a busy person.

00:31:08.000 I gotta tell you, that combined with the fact that I hate vegetables with the fiery passion of a thousand suns means I don't often get the nutrients that I need, which is why I rely on balance of nature.

00:31:16.000 Balance of Nature fruits and veggies are the best way to make sure you are getting essential nutritional ingredients every single day.

00:31:21.000 Their capsules are packed with 100% whole food that you can take at any time.

00:31:25.000 Balance of Nature uses a cold vacuum process that preserves those natural phytonutrients in 16 whole fruits and 15 whole vegetables and encapsulates them for easy consumption.

00:31:33.000 Balance of Nature sent a bunch of their product down to the studio for my team to try.

00:31:36.000 We love them.

00:31:36.000 I was really excited to find out that the product is certified kosher, which means I can use it and it makes me healthier.

00:31:41.000 Go to balanceofnature.com right now.

00:31:43.000 Use promo code SHAPIRO for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer.

00:31:47.000 That's balanceofnature.com.

00:31:49.000 Promo code SHAPIRO for 35% off your first preferred order.

00:31:52.000 Keep yourself healthier because That body that you have, that's the only one that you're gonna get.

00:31:55.000 So head on over to balanceofnature.com, use promo code SHAPIRO, 35% off your first order, and get healthier today with balanceofnature.com.

00:32:03.000 Promo code SHAPIRO for 35% off.

00:32:05.000 Also, the facts that are hardest to face are often the facts about ourselves.

00:32:08.000 It's much easier to accept yourself the way you are.

00:32:11.000 But if you do that, then you're never going to change.

00:32:13.000 And your life is just going to continue to be what it is right now.

00:32:16.000 If you want to change, then you actually need to embrace change.

00:32:19.000 Jordan Peterson talks about this in his new five-part series, Vision and Destiny on DailyWire+.

00:32:23.000 Here's a clip talking about starting small.

00:32:25.000 You're good just the way you are.

00:32:27.000 You're perfect just the way you are.

00:32:29.000 You should accept yourself just the way you are.

00:32:31.000 It's like, well, Okay, so what does that say about who I should become?

00:32:37.000 Is that just now off the table because I'm already good enough in every way?

00:32:41.000 So am I done or something?

00:32:43.000 What about who I should become?

00:32:44.000 And then, well, how should I feel good about myself when I don't?

00:32:49.000 Because I'm not getting along with myself.

00:32:52.000 I'm anxious and hopeless and nihilistic and depressed and I'm not getting along with other people.

00:32:58.000 So how is it that that's all somehow something I should feel good about without being deluded?

00:33:04.000 And these are complicated questions because you don't want to beat yourself with a stick.

00:33:10.000 Which might be the opposite of that as well.

00:33:12.000 Feel bad about yourself.

00:33:13.000 It's like, no!

00:33:14.000 Be judicious and merciful with yourself.

00:33:17.000 And think that you need to accept yourself in some way the way a mother accepts a child.

00:33:25.000 But the maternal spirit is not the only spirit that governs the love that a child requires properly.

00:33:34.000 You have the paternal spirit of encouragement as well.

00:33:37.000 Which is, well, We need to shelter and protect you and to provide for your security the way you are, but you could be a lot better, and should be, and I have faith that you could be.

00:33:49.000 It's excellent stuff.

00:33:51.000 Jordan is really attuned to the fact that if you want to change, you have to embrace the fact that you're not perfect the way that you are.

00:33:56.000 The fifth and final episode of Vision and Destiny is out now exclusively for DailyWirePlus members.

00:34:00.000 Join now at dailywire.com slash subscribe to watch Vision and Destiny.

00:34:04.000 So obviously this is very political on the part of people on the left who again would love nothing better than to see Donald Trump go to jail for a very long time.

00:34:11.000 It's also political on the part of some people on the right who are calling for other Republicans to comment on an arrest and an indictment that hasn't actually happened yet.

00:34:19.000 So the proper response at this point from Republicans is Nothing.

00:34:23.000 I mean, the proper response is it would be absurd to prosecute Donald Trump from what we know on anything remotely like these charges.

00:34:30.000 Also, he hasn't been arrested yet.

00:34:32.000 And so let's all move on with our lives.

00:34:34.000 Kevin McCarthy did, in fact, tweet out something like that.

00:34:36.000 He said, Here we go again.

00:34:37.000 An outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President Trump.

00:34:43.000 I'm directing relevant committees to immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections.

00:34:49.000 All right, that's perfectly legit from the Speaker of the House.

00:34:52.000 Again, he is sitting in Congress right now, and he's the Speaker of the House.

00:34:56.000 Meanwhile, Mike Pence, who is the former Vice President to Donald Trump, and running pretty hard against Trump for the presidential nomination at this point.

00:35:03.000 I mean, he's made very clear his disapproval of Trump on a wide variety of scores.

00:35:06.000 Even Pence is like, yeah, no, this is nonsense.

00:35:10.000 The idea of indicting a former president of the United States is deeply troubling to me as it is to tens of millions of Americans.

00:35:17.000 And particularly happening in what appears to be a politically charged environment in New York where the Attorney General and other elected officials literally campaigned Okay, that is a proper answer from Mike Pence.

00:35:29.000 There's an entire article in the New York Times, however, Trump allies pressured DeSantis to weigh in on an expected indictment.

00:35:33.000 going to be to represent. No one is above the law. I'm confident President Trump can take care of himself. My focus is going to continue to be on the issues that are affecting the American people.

00:35:45.000 Okay, that is a proper answer from Mike Pence. There's an entire article in the New York Times, however, Trump allies pressure DeSantis to weigh in on an expected indictment. Why?

00:35:53.000 I have a question.

00:35:55.000 Why?

00:35:55.000 I mean, first of all, Donald Trump's out there calling Ron DeSantis meatball Ron and talking up Charlie Crist and and apparently his people are investigating Casey DeSantis and all this and they're like, but why won't he defend Donald Trump?

00:36:05.000 OK, so first of all, like, give me a break.

00:36:07.000 Politics is politics.

00:36:08.000 Can we stop pretending that this is a patty cake convention?

00:36:10.000 It's just absurd.

00:36:11.000 But beyond that, why?

00:36:12.000 Has any other sitting governor commented on this?

00:36:15.000 Like a single one?

00:36:16.000 DeSantis isn't in the race yet.

00:36:18.000 When DeSantis becomes a presidential candidate, presumably he will be forced to answer questions about all of this sort of stuff.

00:36:23.000 But the fact that Trump's team is immediately turning to, why won't Ron DeSantis do something?

00:36:27.000 What in the world?

00:36:28.000 Is he the DA of Manhattan?

00:36:30.000 Did I miss the part where he is the governor of New York?

00:36:33.000 Did I miss the part where he's an elected federal official?

00:36:35.000 He is not.

00:36:37.000 There's an entire article in the New York Times about this, though.

00:36:39.000 Because, again, it's like, Jason Miller, the former president's senior advisor, said on Twitter the Trump team was taking note of DeSantis' radio silence about the likely indictment.

00:36:47.000 I'm sorry, that's ridiculous.

00:36:48.000 He's the governor of a state.

00:36:50.000 Name another governor who's commented so far.

00:36:52.000 Can you?

00:36:52.000 You cannot.

00:36:53.000 Because it doesn't exist.

00:36:55.000 Like, what Trump knows in his bones, and what his team knows, is that this indictment, if it does happen, really good for him politically.

00:37:01.000 Really good for him politically.

00:37:02.000 Because again, it recalibrates the race. 0.65

00:37:04.000 The entire, as I've said before, the entire basis of Donald Trump's 2016 election was very simple.

00:37:09.000 They hate me because they hate you.

00:37:11.000 The reason they're coming after me, I was their buddy.

00:37:13.000 Hillary Clinton came to my wedding.

00:37:15.000 Like, I was friends with all these people.

00:37:16.000 Until the moment I declared that I was on your side.

00:37:18.000 And at that moment, they began to target me and they never stopped targeting me.

00:37:21.000 Not only during the election cycle, but also during my presidency.

00:37:24.000 And by the way, he was right.

00:37:25.000 They did target him throughout his presidency.

00:37:27.000 You had members of the FBI who were targeting him with nonsense like the Steele dossier.

00:37:30.000 You had people like James Comey, who were essentially bootstrapping into existence entire Russian collusion investigations based on nonsense and then leaking them to the press.

00:37:40.000 You had all sorts of garbage that was just being dumped on Trump day in and day out because he was a Republican and because he didn't stand for the same principles that the New York Times wanted him to stand for.

00:37:49.000 And that was a pretty good campaign.

00:37:51.000 And then in 2020, Donald Trump ran a very, very poor campaign.

00:37:54.000 He ran a poor campaign on COVID.

00:37:56.000 He ran a poor campaign with regard to the riots.

00:37:58.000 It was just a fragmentary campaign.

00:38:00.000 And he lost.

00:38:01.000 And then his entire campaign became, I didn't actually lose.

00:38:05.000 Right?

00:38:05.000 And you all have to stand out there and take the bullet for me.

00:38:07.000 Well, here is the thing.

00:38:09.000 When he gets arrested and indicted.

00:38:12.000 He's not asking anybody to take the bullet for him.

00:38:14.000 At that point, everybody immediately reverts back to teams.

00:38:16.000 And everybody says, well, the reason you're going after him is because this is obviously a BS case and you want him off the playing field.

00:38:22.000 And so it's actually quite good for Trump, politically speaking, to be indicted.

00:38:24.000 And everyone knows this.

00:38:25.000 This is not any sort of secret in politics.

00:38:27.000 You think his poll numbers among Republicans in a primary go up or down after he's indicted?

00:38:31.000 Obviously they go up.

00:38:32.000 A lot of people immediately revert to, if the Democrats hate that guy enough that they are trying to arrest him, then probably we need to back him.

00:38:40.000 That is just going to be the natural consequence of this.

00:38:42.000 And so the notion that Trump is going to pay any sort of severe political price for being indicted, I think is an absolute lie.

00:38:48.000 Does that mean that Trump wants to be that?

00:38:49.000 No, I don't think anybody wants to be indicted.

00:38:51.000 But to pretend that it's not going to have an impact on the race is silly.

00:38:53.000 And again, that is the reason why there are fundraising emails that went out over the weekend for Donald Trump predicated on the indictment.

00:38:59.000 Just from a political point of view, it's not a terrible thing for Donald Trump to be indicted if you are Team Trump and you want him nominated in 2024.

00:39:06.000 That, again, is why the focus is now turned to what are all the Republicans saying about Donald Trump, as though their world has to revolve around whatever legal problems Donald Trump is having today.

00:39:15.000 Now, again, there is something to the idea that Republicans over time, and as they are called upon to do, will actually, once he's indicted, I promise you, Ron DeSantis and every other Republican is going to speak up about it because it will be the number one issue in the country.

00:39:26.000 But you can't do that based on him simply putting out a truth social with no actual verified indictment or arrest at this point.

00:39:32.000 Meanwhile for the left, again, this is orgasmic fantasyland for the left.

00:39:36.000 They've been waiting for years for this.

00:39:37.000 You have Rachel Maddow, who's now attempting to spin up and bootstrap into existence the possibility of an actual armed revolt led by Donald Trump over this indictment. 0.96

00:39:46.000 Here's Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

00:39:49.000 Is this good for Trump politically?

00:39:52.000 Because he is, right now, a declared candidate for president.

00:39:58.000 I mean, I think that he's banking on it being something that helps him, but he is playing with a fire that he doesn't know how to contain and that nobody knows how to contain, right?

00:39:58.000 Yes.

00:40:08.000 I mean, I think it is a little unnerving that his first political campaign appearance for his 2024 run is in Waco.

00:40:17.000 again, doesn't have to be the end of the world for him and could potentially be a positive for him.

00:40:22.000 But if he's asking for a militant, racially, racially tinged, violent response from his followers, that's something that won't be good for him. She's breathless about this.

00:40:35.000 I mean, honestly, they're breathless about this.

00:40:36.000 This is what they want.

00:40:37.000 Because again, the entire Democratic pitch since 2020 has been, Republicans are about to end democracy.

00:40:43.000 So, you know what looks a lot like a threat to democracy?

00:40:45.000 When rogue prosecutors start indicting the leader of the opposition party.

00:40:49.000 That starts to look a lot like a threat to democracy.

00:40:51.000 And so, the best thing to do is projection.

00:40:54.000 Well, he's going to threaten democracy.

00:40:56.000 We're arresting him for no apparent reason, and we're going to try and put him in jail, and we're all going to celebrate in the streets.

00:41:01.000 If he says protest, that is a threat to democracy, man.

00:41:03.000 That guy is trying to lead a racially-tinged armed rebellion.

00:41:06.000 Based on what?

00:41:07.000 Protest, protest, protest?

00:41:08.000 Three exclamation points on truth social?

00:41:11.000 Sure, guys.

00:41:11.000 Again, it is all just wish-casting at the highest level.

00:41:15.000 Same thing from CNN's Ron Brownstein.

00:41:17.000 If you think this is something they dread, they don't.

00:41:19.000 This is something they would love nothing better than.

00:41:21.000 If this materialized, they'd be over the moon.

00:41:25.000 And your reaction to Trump's claim that he will be arrested Tuesday, his calls for protests, and by the way, the Manhattan DA's office still not confirming that there is any imminent arrest or indictment that is scheduled for Tuesday.

00:41:39.000 Obviously, the larger point is the one Fred that you mentioned.

00:41:42.000 You know, if you are the most sympathetic observer possible to Donald Trump, and you do double backflips, you can find some credence in his argument that on January 6, he did not know that his language would lead to violence.

00:41:56.000 But January 6 has now happened.

00:41:58.000 He knows the effect of the language that he used that day and how it led to violence.

00:42:03.000 And here he is coming very close to that language Again, it makes it very hard to avoid the conclusion that he is willing to use the threat of violence as part of his political strategy.

00:42:16.000 Okay, by the way, this is also a wonderful way for them to backfill an entire rationale for arresting him in the first place.

00:42:24.000 The man is, I mean, it's just, it's completely circular.

00:42:26.000 He's so dangerous that we have to arrest him.

00:42:28.000 And then if he protests his arrest, then that's unbelievably dangerous, which is why we have to arrest him.

00:42:33.000 It's incredibly circular.

00:42:35.000 So you can see what the left is doing right here.

00:42:37.000 All the incentives are aligned, in other words, for this to happen.

00:42:40.000 Chekhov's gun has to be used.

00:42:41.000 Do I think that Trump is going to get arrested and indicted?

00:42:43.000 I do.

00:42:43.000 I think at some point somebody's going to arrest him and indict him because I don't think that they can withhold themselves from doing it.

00:42:47.000 I just don't think they can stop themselves.

00:42:50.000 And so they will.

00:42:52.000 And the fallout from that?

00:42:52.000 Well, we have yet to see that.

00:42:53.000 Meanwhile, speaking of people who probably should be arrested, more details are now coming out about the Biden family and the payoffs they received from China.

00:43:02.000 The FBI has been investigating Hunter Biden for apparently the last 200 years.

00:43:06.000 They launched their investigation into Hunter Biden and his corruption.

00:43:09.000 And his drug problems and all that stuff back in like 2018.

00:43:12.000 Again, it's now 2023.

00:43:13.000 So I don't know why it takes the FBI years and years and years to come up with anything.

00:43:19.000 But I mean, we now have some fairly significant details about exactly how the money flowed inside the Biden family.

00:43:26.000 The Biden family has been capitalizing off the Biden name for a very long time.

00:43:29.000 The only question is whether Joe himself received any money.

00:43:31.000 That really is the only question because every single other member of his family, his brothers, his kids, they were receiving money off the Biden name from foreign sources.

00:43:40.000 Last week, in a development noticed only by the right but completely ignored by the left, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability issued a memorandum revealing new evidence resulting from an investigation into the Biden family's influence peddling and business schemes, subpoenaed financial records, Show that from 2015 to 2017, Biden family members Hunter Biden, James Biden, Haley Biden, and an unknown Biden and their companies collectively received $1.3 million in payments from accounts related to Rob Walker, a Biden family associate.

00:44:05.000 Notably, on March 1, 2017, less than two months after VP Joe Biden left public office, State Energy HK Limited, a Chinese company, wired $3 million to Rob Walker's company.

00:44:13.000 The next day, the company wired $1 million to a company associated with James Giller, another Biden family associate.

00:44:19.000 Afterwards, the Biden family received approximately a million bucks in payments over a three-month period in different bank accounts.

00:44:24.000 From the bank records, it appears the Biden family received approximately one-third of the money obtained from the China Wire.

00:44:30.000 And apparently it went to Hunter and James, and also to Haley Biden, that would be the widow of Beau Biden and the person with whom Hunter Biden then had a sexual affair, and also an unknown Biden.

00:44:42.000 If ever we get the full details as to how the money flowed, I would honestly, I'd be a little surprised if none of the money ever flowed to Joe, considering he's lived high on the hog for decades at this point on a government salary.

00:44:53.000 It's pretty impressive.

00:44:55.000 But, again, this sort of stuff will be largely ignored, and there will be much attention paid to Hunter Biden suing a laptop repair shop owner, citing an invasion of privacy.

00:45:03.000 Now, Hunter Biden has filed a sweeping countersuit, according to the Washington Post, against the computer repair shop owner, who said that Hunter dropped his laptop off and never claimed it, a legal action that escalates the battle over how provocative data and images of the President's son were obtained nearly four years ago.

00:45:15.000 Now, I thought that these were fake.

00:45:17.000 I thought it was a Russian plant, right?

00:45:19.000 I mean, I was informed of that back in October of 2020, is that this was definitely a Russian opt thing.

00:45:25.000 Or that fake images were placed on Hunter Biden's computer.

00:45:28.000 Now we're learning that Hunter Biden is upset that it was an invasion of privacy.

00:45:31.000 We can't have it both ways.

00:45:32.000 Either it was fake and it's not an invasion of privacy, it's fraud, or it's real and it's an invasion of privacy.

00:45:39.000 The answer is it's neither.

00:45:40.000 It's both real and not an invasion of privacy because it turns out that when you, in a cocaine-addled stupor, drop off your laptop at a repair shop and then leave it there for the next five years or whatever it was, and then the repair shop owner turns it over to somebody, at a certain point, it's no longer your property.

00:45:55.000 If you leave your car in the impound lot for four years, it's not going to be there when you get back.

00:46:00.000 In the counterclaim filed on Friday morning in U.S.

00:46:02.000 District Court in Delaware, Biden and his attorneys say John Paul MacIsaac had no legal right to copy and distribute private information.

00:46:07.000 Again, now they're admitting that it's all real.

00:46:09.000 They accuse him and others of six counts of invasion of privacy, including conspiracy to obtain and distribute the data.

00:46:15.000 The lawsuit could draw further attention to a sordid chapter in Hunter Biden's life.

00:46:19.000 Has there been a non-sordid chapter in Hunter Biden's life that we haven't heard about yet?

00:46:23.000 He's the smartest person that Joe Biden knows.

00:46:26.000 Again, there be demons here.

00:46:30.000 And as the investigation continues, I would, again, be kind of shocked if nothing emerges about Joe.

00:46:36.000 Even CNN's Aaron Burnett was like, yeah, none of this looks fantastic for the Biden family.

00:46:40.000 On a certain level, just as a layperson, you hear this, and it doesn't sound good.

00:46:44.000 There's a guy whose name is John Robinson Walker.

00:46:47.000 He gets $3 million from a Chinese-based company and proceeds to wire it out to a bunch of people named Biden.

00:46:52.000 One of whom is Hunter Biden.

00:46:53.000 Another one is a company that belongs to the president's brother, James Biden.

00:46:57.000 And another amount of money to Beau Biden's widow, Hallie.

00:47:01.000 So again, from a layperson, that doesn't look good.

00:47:04.000 Meanwhile, we have been told that the global economy is on solid footing.

00:47:07.000 Everything is going to be just fine.

00:47:08.000 That is not true.

00:47:10.000 That is not true.

00:47:11.000 The entire global economy was based on inflated currency and overweening spending for the past several years, and the bill comes due eventually.

00:47:18.000 IMF International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Ken Rogoff said as much, said the global economy is about to hit the skids over the weekend.

00:47:24.000 highly prescient articles that you wrote. This year alone, actually, the looming financial crisis for Project Syndicate very much sticks in my mind, though you didn't mention Silicon Valley Bank, so I'll deduct a point in all seriousness. How worried are you?

00:47:41.000 Well I mean, I think the global economy is about to go through the wringer because interest rates have gone up and there was this euphoria a few weeks ago that maybe nothing's going to happen, but I think we're going to get some kind of global recession.

00:47:59.000 Well, yes, because as it turns out, when you raise the interest rates in order to quash inflation, you are going to get lack of liquidity in the markets.

00:48:07.000 Lack of liquidity in the markets is going to have some significant downstream effects.

00:48:10.000 One of those downstream effects is actually the big get bigger.

00:48:12.000 This is the part that's hilarious, is that we reconstructed the entire financial system supposedly in 2007-2008 so that we didn't have too big to fail.

00:48:19.000 And now, the too big to fails are eating up everybody else.

00:48:22.000 So over the weekend, UBS Group AG agreed to take over Credit Suisse for more than $3 billion, pushed into the biggest banking deal in a year by the regulators.

00:48:31.000 The governments were actually like, we need you to pick up Credit Suisse because they look kind of ugly on the balance sheet and so we need you to eat them.

00:48:36.000 The deal between the twin pillars of Swiss finance is the first mega-merger of systemically important global banks since 2008.

00:48:42.000 The Swiss government said it would provide more than $9 billion to backstop some losses that UBS may incur by taking over Credit Suisse.

00:48:47.000 So basically, it is a bailout.

00:48:49.000 It's just a bailout that's funneled through UBS.

00:48:51.000 So essentially, instead of just bailing out Credit Suisse directly and saying, we're going to backstop you and you guys just continue along your merry way, they said, UBS, you pick up some of the liability, we'll pick up $9 billion of the liability and we'll save Credit Suisse by eating it.

00:49:04.000 The Swiss National Bank also provided more than $100 billion of liquidity to UBS to help facilitate the deal.

00:49:11.000 So this is a government-sponsored deal in actual reality.

00:49:15.000 Basically the Swiss government The Swiss National Bank stepped in, facilitated the deal, and forced a merger, forced Credit Suisse into UBS.

00:49:24.000 Swiss authorities were under pressure to make the deal happen before the Asian markets opened for the week because they were afraid that the stock price on Credit Suisse was going to continue to plummet.

00:49:32.000 The urgency on the part of regulators was prompted by an increasingly dire outlook at Credit Suisse.

00:49:36.000 The bank faced as much as $10 billion in customer outflows a day last week, according to a person familiar with the matter.

00:49:41.000 So it looked like a run on the bank over at Credit Suisse.

00:49:44.000 And so they were forced to do another one of these bailouts.

00:49:46.000 Meanwhile, in the United States, there are serious questions as to how far the federal regulators are actually going to be backing a lot of the regional banks.

00:49:53.000 And Janet Yellen made a big boo-boo last week when the Treasury Secretary admitted that only certain systemically important banks would have depositors backstopped.

00:50:01.000 Well, that means that there's going to be a run on all the other banks.

00:50:03.000 If you're not one of the banks that is now backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, you're going to look at your money and be like, uh, I'm not sure that that is secure.

00:50:09.000 Jenny Ellen just said that if it's in this bank, it's secure.

00:50:11.000 But if it's in that bank, not so secure.

00:50:13.000 Well, that is going to create runs on all the other banks.

00:50:16.000 Again, genius level stuff from the people who run our economy.

00:50:19.000 Meanwhile, First Citizens is evaluating an offer for SVB.

00:50:23.000 At least one of their suitors is making a serious consideration for the collapsed lender.

00:50:26.000 Reuters reported earlier this week that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has asked banks interested in acquiring SVB and Signature Bank to submit all of their bids by March 17th.

00:50:35.000 Now, all of that could have been avoided in the first place if they hadn't actually stopped All these other banks from bidding on it in the first place.

00:50:40.000 Instead, the FDIC stepped in.

00:50:41.000 This is just how stupid the FDIC is.

00:50:43.000 They stopped all of these banks from stepping in, filling in the uninsured deposit holders.

00:50:50.000 The unsecured deposit holders.

00:50:51.000 And instead of allowing another bank to buy it up, they stopped the banks from buying it up.

00:50:55.000 They stepped in themselves, backstopping $7 to $8 trillion in unsecured deposits across the American landscape, but only apparently at selected banks.

00:51:03.000 And now they're saying we should sell off these defunct banks to the new... You know what would have been great is if you had just allowed one of the big banks to eat one of the smaller banks.

00:51:11.000 Or even done what the Swiss National Bank just did and actually helped facilitate that deal in order to reapply some sort of surety to the system.

00:51:18.000 But you didn't.

00:51:20.000 Just geniuses everywhere in charge.

00:51:22.000 And now we're told, I love this, now we are being told, of course, that obviously the Fed had spotted big problems at SVB before the collapse.

00:51:29.000 This is the New York Times.

00:51:30.000 Well, weird that they didn't do anything about it.

00:51:33.000 According to the New York Times, Silicon Valley Bank's risky practices were on the Federal Reserve's radar for more than a year, an awareness that proved insufficient to stop the bank's demise.

00:51:41.000 The Fed repeatedly warned the bank it had problems, according to a person familiar with the matter.

00:51:44.000 In 2021, a Fed review of the growing bank found serious weaknesses in how it was handling key risks.

00:51:50.000 Supervisors at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which oversaw SVB, issued six citations.

00:51:55.000 The bank did not fix its vulnerabilities.

00:51:57.000 By July 2022, SVB was in full supervisory review, getting a more careful look, and was ultimately rated deficient for governance and controls, and was placed under a set of restrictions that prevented it from growing through more acquisition.

00:52:08.000 It became clear to the Fed the firm was using bad models to determine how its business would fare as the central bank raised rates.

00:52:14.000 By early 2023, Silicon Valley Bank was in what Fed calls a horizontal review and assessment meant to gauge the strength of risk management, and they found that they did not have good risk management.

00:52:22.000 And still, they were unable to do anything.

00:52:25.000 This is why all the call for more regulation.

00:52:27.000 What if we had more government involvement?

00:52:28.000 Well, I mean, you guys did a crap job the first several times, so I'm wondering as to why exactly we should trust you this time.

00:52:34.000 And again, as I mentioned, if you're a mid-sized bank that actually has not gotten that unlimited FDIC backstop, you're freaking out right now.

00:52:42.000 Which is why over the weekend, according to Axios, the mid-sized bank coalition of America sent a letter to regulators arguing that a temporary suspension of the FDIC's deposit insurance limit is necessary to ensure that smaller banks can navigate the current banking crisis.

00:52:53.000 Because otherwise, what you're going to see is a bunch of the non-specials fail.

00:52:58.000 And those are going to get gobbled up by the big guys.

00:53:01.000 Amazing...

00:53:02.000 These are the people we're supposed to trust.

00:53:04.000 We're supposed to trust them with everything.

00:53:06.000 We're supposed to trust them with the banking system.

00:53:07.000 We're supposed to trust them with inflation.

00:53:09.000 We're supposed to trust them with the interest rate.

00:53:10.000 All of it.

00:53:10.000 We're supposed to trust them.

00:53:12.000 Is there a way they haven't failed us at this point?

00:53:13.000 Like, name the ways that the experts in charge have not failed us at this point.

00:53:17.000 Okay, time for a couple things I like and then a couple of things that I hate.

00:53:21.000 So, things that I like.

00:53:22.000 Over the weekend, I Got a subscription to a service called BritBox because I realized that there's a lot of really good British TV.

00:53:29.000 I've viewed pretty much all the good American TV I think there is.

00:53:32.000 And so British TV.

00:53:33.000 There was something that came up on Amazon Prime called Time.

00:53:37.000 It was with Sean Bean and with another actor who I think is one of the most underrated actors.

00:53:44.000 Working Day, Stephen Graham.

00:53:46.000 You'll recognize him from Boardwalk Empire.

00:53:48.000 He played Al Capone in Boardwalk Empire.

00:53:50.000 And this is a series called Time.

00:53:51.000 It won a bunch of awards.

00:53:53.000 Over in Britain.

00:53:55.000 It aired, I believe, on BBC.

00:53:58.000 And it is all about Sean being in prison.

00:54:01.000 It's a prison show.

00:54:01.000 It's a really first-rate show.

00:54:03.000 Here's a little bit of the trailer.

00:54:05.000 Have you been in prison before?

00:54:07.000 No.

00:54:08.000 So it sounds like everything, eh?

00:54:10.000 We're in here as punishment, Sam.

00:54:12.000 Not for it.

00:54:17.000 I'm your personal officer.

00:54:18.000 Any problems you come to me, right?

00:54:20.000 So your lads are not with prison boss?

00:54:23.000 Was that a threat?

00:54:24.000 PLEASE GET IN HERE! 0.98

00:54:26.000 It's a really, really good show.

00:54:30.000 Sean Bean won some awards for it.

00:54:31.000 And it's a show where Sean Bean doesn't die in the first 15 minutes of the movie, which is typically he dies in the first 15 minutes of the movie, even though he's a really, really good actor.

00:54:38.000 So that is definitely worth the watch.

00:54:40.000 Okay.

00:54:41.000 Other things that I like today.

00:54:42.000 So this is just an amazing story.

00:54:44.000 A CNN crew over the weekend was robbed while covering street crime in San Francisco.

00:54:52.000 Oh, the irony.

00:54:53.000 Oh, the irony.

00:54:55.000 So, CNN crew is trying to cover the issue of street crime, and a reporter named Kyung La tweeted out, Again, Jason Keillor and I, I believe it's Jason Keillor, sorry, Jason Kroverik, a CNN producer and I, were at City Hall in San Francisco to do an interview for CNN.

00:55:10.000 We had security to watch our rental car plus crew car.

00:55:13.000 Thieves did this in under four seconds.

00:55:15.000 Security stopped the jerks from stealing other bags, but seriously, this is ridiculous.

00:55:20.000 Apparently the security tried to grab the crux, but ended up with an image of the license plate to the vehicle they drove often.

00:55:25.000 And she wrote, San Francisco is a beautiful city.

00:55:27.000 This is our third day here.

00:55:28.000 I've loved my time here.

00:55:29.000 If you do visit the city, know that even with hired security watching your car, it is not enough.

00:55:34.000 So just amazing stuff.

00:55:36.000 Well done, San Francisco.

00:55:37.000 As always, you've done a tremendous.

00:55:38.000 But I assume that if Donald Trump had done anything in the city of San Francisco, the DAs would be looking into prosecuting him.

00:55:44.000 This is where you start to lose the American people, folks, is when your law enforcement resources are not dedicated to making the lives of people in your cities better.

00:55:52.000 They're dedicated to getting the political opponents of people who will make the DA more famous.

00:55:55.000 At that point, a lot of people start to tune out.

00:55:57.000 That's precisely what you're watching happening with Donald Trump.

00:56:01.000 Street crime is Worse than it's been in a long time in places like New York and San Francisco.

00:56:05.000 And yet it seems like the resources are being devoted not to those issues, but to ancillary issues that light up Twitter, but don't make anybody's life actually better.

00:56:13.000 Okay, time for some things that I hate.

00:56:15.000 Okay, so over the weekend, the San Jose Sharks, who are the worst team in the Western Conference in the NHL, apparently they are bad at both hockey and also biology.

00:56:28.000 And they decided that they were going to tweet out The San Jose Sharks, first of all, they changed their logo to the trans flag, essentially.

00:56:37.000 It's a blue, pink, and white shark.

00:56:41.000 And the hockey sticks that are crossed below the shark logo now have the Pride Progress flag on them.

00:56:47.000 And they decided they were just going to tweet out a bunch of intersectional garbage about gender.

00:56:52.000 Quote, worldwide, says the San Jose Sharks.

00:56:56.000 And I need another update from Gushers on Black Lives Matter. 0.83

00:56:58.000 That was my favorite.

00:56:59.000 It's during Black Lives Matter when every corporation felt the necessity to speak up about systemic racism in the United States.

00:57:04.000 And Gushers, you know, like the candy that you give to your kids in their lunch bag?

00:57:08.000 Gushers was like, we also will speak up about Black Lives.

00:57:10.000 It's like, you are a candy.

00:57:12.000 You need to stop that.

00:57:14.000 Anyway, San Jose Sharks, they tweeted out, Worldwide, gender diversity is seen far differently than it is in the Western world, or as you may know it.

00:57:21.000 Most of us are familiar with the male, female, and transgender labels, but in other cultures, the existence of the third gender, or even fourth and fifth genders, is common.

00:57:27.000 Uh, it's not.

00:57:29.000 I mean, let me just put it this way.

00:57:30.000 It's really, really uncommon across the world.

00:57:33.000 In fact, you have to find, like, very, very random cultures in extremely small places that humor anything remotely like what they are talking about.

00:57:40.000 And also, very often when they're talking about a third gender, they're talking about intersex people, which is not the same thing as saying that a man can be a woman or a woman can be a man.

00:57:48.000 So the San Jose Shark says, the Mux gender is a respected third gender in Zapotec cultures in Oaxaca, Mexico, that has existed for centuries.

00:57:56.000 Wow, I mean, that's a culture we've all heard of and has had massive cultural influence across the world.

00:58:01.000 Yeah, probably they got it right.

00:58:03.000 Guna'a are those who are born as men but who identify as women and are attracted to men. 0.56

00:58:08.000 The Ngui'i are those who are born as men and are attracted to other men. 1.00

00:58:13.000 This is the San Jose Sharks, a hockey team.

00:58:15.000 Source, book, Living in Modern America by Sarah Salaam and Inter-American Development Bank.

00:58:21.000 I have a question.

00:58:22.000 What does this have to do with anything?

00:58:25.000 When did the woke employee get a hold of the Twitter account?

00:58:27.000 And then they started tweeting out pictures of men dressed as women in Mexico, for example.

00:58:33.000 Wow.

00:58:34.000 Well, you've convinced all of us that men and women don't exist and that, wow, that dude with the hairy arms is really a woman.

00:58:41.000 You've convinced us.

00:58:42.000 Again, the claim of the trans movement is not that there is a third gender.

00:58:45.000 You'll recognize.

00:58:46.000 The claim of the trans movement is that a man is a woman and a woman is a man.

00:58:50.000 Remember, trans women are women. 0.83

00:58:52.000 Trans men are men. 1.00

00:58:53.000 So they're actually making a distinct claim, believe it or not.

00:58:56.000 They're saying there's a third gender of people.

00:58:58.000 But trans doesn't say there's a third gender of people.

00:59:01.000 The trans activists say that there can be any gender you want.

00:59:04.000 There are thousands of genders, not a third gender.

00:59:07.000 But even beyond that, they're arguing that if you identify as a member of the opposite sex, you are in fact a member of the opposite sex.

00:59:13.000 They tweeted out the... Okay, I'm gonna need to call a friend.

00:59:16.000 This is a very long word that I am totally gonna botch, so I'm gonna need to phone a friend here.

00:59:21.000 How is this pronounced?

00:59:25.000 Yeah, no, I need that again.

00:59:28.000 Okay, good enough.

00:59:29.000 That's as good as it's gonna get.

00:59:30.000 Uh, yeah.

00:59:30.000 zip up Nina Busket zip up Nina Busket zip up.

00:59:36.000 OK, Nina Busket zip up. 1.00

00:59:38.000 OK, good enough.

00:59:39.000 That's as good as it's going to get.

00:59:41.000 Yeah.

00:59:42.000 So they tweet out the Nina Busket zip up.

00:59:46.000 We're honored as a third gender in the North Pagan tribe of the Blackfoot competitor Confederacy in northern Montana and southern Alberta, Canada.

00:59:53.000 Well then, I mean, if the Nina Upacapsa were honored that way, then obviously that means that mainstream Western culture is just wrong.

01:00:03.000 And so is, by the way, virtually all cultures all over Earth for all of time.

01:00:07.000 And so is all of mammalian biology, that there are only two sexes, and that sex is dichotomous.

01:00:11.000 Thank you, San Jose Sharks.

01:00:13.000 Thank you.

01:00:14.000 Now, I just have to wonder, who is running the show at some of these places?

01:00:18.000 Because, let's face it, I mean, if you actually look at the demographic breakdown per league, I've talked about this before, sports leagues have different fanbases.

01:00:25.000 The NBA's fanbase is disproportionately black and left-wing, in terms of its politics and its demographic breakdown.

01:00:31.000 The NHL fanbase is disproportionately white and right-wing.

01:00:34.000 The NASCAR fanbase is disproportionately white and right-wing.

01:00:38.000 The NFL is pretty evenly spread.

01:00:41.000 Just this is not a statement about good, bad or indifferent.

01:00:44.000 That's just that's the way it is.

01:00:46.000 Who is the NHL trying to appeal to here?

01:00:48.000 Who is like who is in the NHL audience?

01:00:51.000 Who's like, man, I need to know what the San Jose Sharks think about the Nina.

01:00:56.000 I need to I need it right now.

01:00:57.000 I need to know.

01:00:59.000 There is a bubble.

01:01:00.000 The people who run these teams are in that bubble because in corporate America, everybody exists in a bubble that is far away from the regular Americans and far away from their own audience.

01:01:08.000 They don't even know what they're talking about.

01:01:09.000 Okay.

01:01:10.000 One other thing that I hate today.

01:01:11.000 So this is just a spectacular clip.

01:01:13.000 So Robin DiAngelo, who's one of the great grifters of all time, she's the author of what is, I think, factually speaking, the worst book ever written, White Fragility.

01:01:21.000 It is an awful, awful piece of garbage.

01:01:24.000 If you want to see my full take on white fragility, I did a YouTube video, probably a year ago, in which I went through white fragility in detail. 0.96

01:01:30.000 It's like a 35-minute breakdown, breaking down what is truly one of the most awful books ever put into the English language.

01:01:36.000 And she was doing another one of these Maoist struggle sessions, talking about how white people are terrible and also they carry the burden of having to fix all of Earth. 0.92

01:01:44.000 So, shockingly, white people are both terrible and also should have all the power. 0.95

01:01:48.000 Which is a very weird thing.

01:01:49.000 And she drops this one.

01:01:52.000 She basically says that black people should hang out with black people.

01:01:55.000 So here's what she has to say.

01:01:58.000 I'm a big believer in affinity space and affinity work.

01:02:02.000 And I think people of color need to get away from white people and have some community with each other.

01:02:10.000 And I'll let that go and maybe see if anyone else wants to pick it up.

01:02:15.000 Um, so she wants there to be a separate black space from the white space. 0.99

01:02:21.000 Fascinating.

01:02:22.000 Fascinating.

01:02:23.000 I just want to play that one more time because then I want to contrast that with another thing that was said by a famous person recently that got that person's career ended.

01:02:29.000 So here she is again.

01:02:31.000 And then I'm a big believer in affinity space and affinity work.

01:02:35.000 And I think people of color need to get away from white people and have some community with each other.

01:02:43.000 And I'll let that go and maybe see if anyone else wants to pick it up.

01:02:47.000 I think people of color need to get away from white people and have a space just for themselves, right? 1.00

01:02:53.000 Now, imagine that she had said, I think white people need to get away from people of color and have a space just for themselves.

01:02:58.000 Well, you don't have to imagine, Scott Adams said exactly that, and it ended his career.

01:03:02.000 Here is his direct quote, right?

01:03:04.000 Here's the quote with the races reversed, the way that Robin DiAngelo would.

01:03:08.000 You tell me if you can spot a distinction between Scott Adams, if he'd been talking about black people getting away from white people, and what Robin DiAngelo just said.

01:03:14.000 Quote, if nearly half of whites are not okay with black people, according to this poll, according, not according to me, according to this poll, that's a hate group.

01:03:19.000 I don't want to have anything to do with them.

01:03:21.000 I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to black people is to get the hell away from white people. 0.88

01:03:26.000 Just get the F away, because there's no fixing this.

01:03:29.000 That's if Scott Adams had been talking about black people getting away from white people, and it is indistinguishable from what Robin DiAngelo is saying, except she says the word affinity groups a lot.

01:03:37.000 The term affinity groups.

01:03:39.000 Again, racism is just fine depending on who it is directed against.

01:03:44.000 That is the rule of the day when it comes to the left.

01:03:46.000 Alrighty guys, the rest of the show continues right now.

01:03:48.000 You're not going to want to miss it.

01:03:49.000 We'll be getting into the latest with regard to Russia, Ukraine, China, and we'll be getting into the mailbag.

01:03:52.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

01:03:54.000 Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - June 08, 2023

Are They About To Arrest Trump?

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript