The Ben Shapiro Show

00:00:00.000 So, are we going to go to nuclear war with North Korea?

00:00:02.000 Who knows?

00:00:02.000 It's on Twitter.

00:00:03.000 Plus, President Trump is threatening the fake news again, and Steve Bannon completely loses his mind for the 97th time that I personally know about.

00:00:11.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:12.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:18.000 So many magical things happening.

00:00:20.000 I know.

00:00:20.000 We're right back here.

00:00:21.000 It's the second show of the year.

00:00:22.000 And already, President Trump is in top form.

00:00:25.000 Last night, he went on Twitter and issued some all-time great tweets.

00:00:28.000 And we will go through them.

00:00:29.000 And they are all-time great, guys.

00:00:31.000 They're spectacular.

00:00:32.000 But first...

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00:01:37.000 Okay, so.

00:01:59.000 President Trump goes off on North Korea, but I don't want to start there today.

00:02:01.000 I want to save that for a few minutes from now, because it's just so glorious.

00:02:05.000 First, I want to discuss my old boss Steve Bannon, who apparently has lost whatever was left of his marbles.

00:02:10.000 After he left the White House, Steve has been trotting around, globetrotting, going to hot spots like Alabama, so that he could talk with people about the glories of Roy Moore, sticking his reporters from Breitbart News on unsuspecting

00:02:22.000 I don't know what's going through Bannon's head at this point, except that he's basically lost all connection with the White House, as far as I know.

00:02:28.000 He's lost all connection with his money in the Mercer family, as far as I know.

00:02:46.000 And that means that he is sort of adrift in the world.

00:02:48.000 The reason that this is important is because when the media say today that a new controversy has arisen because of Steve Bannon, or that Steve Bannon has the secret sauce, he knows all of the evils inside the Trump administration, when they say that he has started a new controversy, understand, Steve Bannon is desperate for relevance.

00:03:04.000 Steve Bannon is not a major player on the American political scene anymore, despite the media's wishes for him to be so.

00:03:10.000 And so whatever he has to say about what's going on with regard to Trump-Russia collusion, you got to take it with a grain of salt.

00:03:15.000 Now maybe it'll turn out that there's a smoking gun.

00:03:18.000 Maybe it'll turn out there was some fire there and there was actual collusion.

00:03:20.000 So far I have seen nothing of the sort.

00:03:22.000 So far it seems like this is a lot of overblown rhetoric and maybe some stupidity from people like Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.

00:03:31.000 But I really have seen nothing so far that suggests in any significant way

00:03:36.000 That Trump-Russia campaign collusion was a thing.

00:03:39.000 Well, the media are jumping on Bannon's comments today because Bannon suggests the opposite.

00:03:43.000 So, on Wednesday, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who apparently, upon leaving the White House, the phone bill to the New York Times has gone down dramatically because Steve was good friends with some of the folks over there.

00:03:54.000 He tore into his former boss, President Trump, the man who made him famous, as well as Trump's son, Donald Jr., his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as well.

00:04:01.000 So basically, all of his enemies inside the administration, namely all of the Trump kids, he ripped into, and then he knocked Trump as well.

00:04:07.000 And then, because Steve is just an unguided missile, he also backhandedly swiped his own publication, Breitbart News, which was the part I found kind of hilarious.

00:04:15.000 So here is what he said.

00:04:15.000 He spoke with author Michael Wolff for Wolff's new book.

00:04:19.000 That book has now been reported by The Guardian, the UK Guardian, which is a far-left newspaper, which shows you, you know, Steve has a real tendency to talk to The American Prospect and The Guardian and The New York Times, you know, all the fake news media that he used to decry.

00:04:31.000 Bannon told Wolf that Robert Mueller's investigation would, quote, crack Don Jr.

00:04:35.000 like an egg on national TV.

00:04:38.000 He only speaks in metaphors from a Martin Scorsese film, as I think it was Josh Hammer pointed out, or Stephen Miller.

00:04:45.000 The fact is that everything that he says is a dramatic line from a bad film, everything Bannon says.

00:04:51.000 So Bannon says that they will crack Don Jr.

00:04:53.000 like an egg on national TV, which would be weird because that's a crime.

00:04:56.000 He then stated that Donald Jr.'

00:04:58.000 's campaign meeting with a lawyer associated with the Russian government, you remember Don Jr.

00:05:02.000 back during the campaign had a meeting with a Russian lawyer named Veselnitskaya,

00:05:06.000 And she came to Trump Tower and she met with some members of the campaign.

00:05:10.000 The members of the campaign basically blew her off, blew Don Jr.

00:05:13.000 off.

00:05:14.000 And despite his willingness to hear information about Hillary Clinton, no information actually exchanged hands as far as we know.

00:05:20.000 And Trump himself was not personally involved as far as we know.

00:05:23.000 In any case, here's what Bannon said.

00:05:24.000 He said Donald Jr.'

00:05:25.000 's campaign meeting with that lawyer was, quote, treasonous or unpatriotic or bad bleep.

00:05:31.000 And it added that Trump Jr.

00:05:32.000 and associates should have called the FBI immediately.

00:05:34.000 Now, this is weird.

00:05:35.000 You might say to yourself, wait, Steve Bannon, weren't you part of the campaign?

00:05:39.000 If you had known about this, shouldn't you have called the FBI?

00:05:42.000 Well, Steve Bannon joined the campaign in August.

00:05:43.000 This happened in July.

00:05:44.000 So he wasn't there for several months, I guess, or at least a couple of months before any of this, when any of this was happening.

00:05:52.000 Which means he has no special inside information.

00:05:54.000 But if he'd found out about it, shouldn't he have called the FBI?

00:05:57.000 But he didn't.

00:05:58.000 And then he went on 60 Minutes while he was working for the White House.

00:06:00.000 You remember when we had Bannon on the cover of Time magazine?

00:06:04.000 And he called the Russia investigation a farce and a waste of time.

00:06:06.000 Remember he said this on 60 Minutes.

00:06:08.000 And everybody said, look at Steve Bannon out there defending his boss.

00:06:10.000 Well now he says that his boss is a traitor.

00:06:12.000 That the Trump campaign was treasonous.

00:06:15.000 So just as soon as Steve Bannon becomes an irrelevant lord of nothing, just as Steve Bannon's massive power devolves into just the bag of hot gas that he is, then all of a sudden, he's back out front saying that Trump is guilty of treason.

00:06:29.000 And so the media have jumped on this with both feet.

00:06:30.000 Ah, Steve Bannon must know he was there.

00:06:32.000 Steve Bannon didn't know anything.

00:06:34.000 He didn't know anything.

00:06:34.000 The only reason Steve Bannon was on the campaign is because the Mercer money was behind him.

00:06:38.000 That's the only reason Kellyanne Conway was on the campaign.

00:06:40.000 I know I was there, okay?

00:06:41.000 The only reason that Steve Bannon was in the White House is because of the Mercer money.

00:06:44.000 He was immediately shelved in a tiny office off the Oval Office with a whiteboard filled with Trump promises that Trump had not yet fulfilled and that Bannon would leak about to the New York Times every so often.

00:06:55.000 In any case,

00:06:56.000 It doesn't stop there.

00:06:57.000 If you're a Trump fan, you should be pissed at Steve Bannon today, because Steve Bannon just made trouble for Trump in the middle of Trump actually trying to push some good policy.

00:07:04.000 So Bannon went on to tell Wolf that such a meeting should have occurred, quote, and information should then have been dumped down to Breitbart or something like that, or maybe some other more legitimate publication.

00:07:18.000 So a few things about this are hilarious.

00:07:20.000 Number one, if you just said that it was a treasonous meeting, how does it make it not treasonous if your lawyers are in New Hampshire with them?

00:07:25.000 It's still treason, so I'm confused about that.

00:07:28.000 But my favorite thing by far in this interview is where Bannon says that the information from the Russians should have been dumped down to Breitbart.

00:07:35.000 First of all, implying that Breitbart was basically a vehicle for the Trump administration and the Trump campaign, which it was.

00:07:41.000 And that they should have acted illegally, or at least colluded with the Russians, that Trump should have used Breitbart as basically a go-between with the Russian government, which is an incredible admission.

00:07:49.000 And then finally, the admission that maybe they should have dumped that information to some other more legitimate publication.

00:07:54.000 So there's Bannon, who is the chairman of Breitbart News, calling his own publication illegitimate.

00:07:58.000 So well done, Steve.

00:07:59.000 Just, remember, this guy's Darth Vader.

00:08:01.000 Remember, he's the great genius.

00:08:02.000 He's the great, the great, unbreakable, brilliant honey badger who was behind the Trump campaign.

00:08:08.000 Uh-huh.

00:08:09.000 Or is it possible he's just a doof?

00:08:11.000 Is it just possible he's a loud-mouthed doof and the media treat him as something special because they hate Trump and so they want to make it seem like Bannon's the real power behind the throne?

00:08:19.000 He didn't stop there.

00:08:20.000 He says about Jared Kushner, quote,

00:08:24.000 Okay, well first of all, we knew that already because Kushner was interviewed and they requested bank records.

00:08:31.000 So thanks for the revelation, Steve.

00:08:32.000 He says, Again, everything he says is from a bad movie trailer.

00:08:54.000 Every single thing Steve Bannon has ever said is from a bad movie trailer.

00:08:57.000 It's just spectacular.

00:08:59.000 And what's so great about this is that Bannon just blew himself up with the people who made him famous.

00:09:05.000 Now, I understand that Bannon thinks he's going to go to war with Javanka, right?

00:09:07.000 With Jared and Ivanka.

00:09:08.000 That's his thing.

00:09:08.000 He's going to go to war with Jared and Ivanka, right?

00:09:11.000 But no one cares about that.

00:09:12.000 No one cares about Steve Bannon's little petty internecine fights.

00:09:15.000 The only thing people care about, at least where I come from in the conservative movement, is whether Trump gets things done or not.

00:09:20.000 Whether Trump is winning or not for the policies that we like.

00:09:23.000 I don't care whether Trump even personally wins.

00:09:25.000 I care whether he does policy that I like.

00:09:27.000 Yeah, but Steve Bannon is out there making trouble for Trump, and now the media are going to jump all over him, of course, and they're going to try to turn this into a big story, because they've been building up Bannon as something he is not for a long time.

00:09:37.000 I have been saying consistently for well over a year now, Steve Bannon is not a powerful figure.

00:09:42.000 Steve Bannon doesn't know anything.

00:09:43.000 Steve Bannon is a leech on the ass of power who wrote Michelle Bachmann's name to Sarah Palin, to Andrew Breitbart, who died, to Donald Trump, to the Mercer family.

00:09:52.000 Okay, that's all that happened here.

00:09:54.000 That's all that happened here.

00:09:55.000 But the media will jump on this.

00:09:56.000 So ignore all the media bloviating about how Trump has abandoned, he has the inside scoop.

00:10:00.000 He just doesn't.

00:10:02.000 Okay, moving on.

00:10:03.000 Now we can finally talk about President Trump's magnificent set of tweets last night.

00:10:08.000 Magnificent.

00:10:10.000 Okay, so I don't know whether Trump just has, you know, John Adams once said about Alexander Hamilton, that Alexander Hamilton had a, had an, a,

00:10:20.000 What was it?

00:10:24.000 Okay, I am not joking.

00:10:26.000 That's something that John Adams actually said about Alexander Hamilton.

00:10:29.000 I don't know whether Trump just builds up Twitter secretions and then he has to let them off on Twitter.

00:10:35.000 I don't know, he just, he builds up steam and then he has to let it all off on Twitter.

00:10:40.000 I'm not sure what the story is there.

00:10:41.000 But whatever the story is, it's spectacular.

00:10:44.000 Okay?

00:10:45.000 Whatever the story is, it is magical.

00:10:48.000 Last night, Donald Trump takes to Twitter, and nothing prompts this.

00:10:52.000 It wasn't like Kim Jong-un did anything, or like he tweeted at him, or any of that sort of thing.

00:10:58.000 Instead, Donald Trump tweeted this thing, and I will read it to you in just a second.

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00:12:27.000 Okay, so.

00:12:29.000 Here is this, this is just spectacular.

00:12:30.000 So Trump tweets this out.

00:12:50.000 Amazeballs.

00:12:52.000 Okay, just amazing.

00:12:53.000 Donald Trump likes big buttons and he cannot lie.

00:12:57.000 That is just, that is glorious.

00:13:03.000 What can you say except we're all going to die?

00:13:06.000 So are we actually all going to die?

00:13:07.000 So the media treated it as though we are all going to die.

00:13:09.000 The media treated this as though it is the end of the world as we know it and they don't feel fine.

00:13:14.000 A lot of pop culture references today.

00:13:18.000 Basically went crazy over this.

00:13:19.000 So an MSNBC analyst, because this actually poses for analysis on MSNBC.

00:13:26.000 His name is Anand Giridharadas, which is the name for you, and he says that Trump's sexual insecurities are threatening to destroy the planet.

00:13:34.000 So Donald Trump is very obsessed with his genital size, and therefore he's tweeting this out, and then we're all going to die.

00:13:40.000 So he's in All In With Chris Hayes, talking about, again, the show's called All In With Chris Hayes, and he's talking about sexual insecurity on national TV.

00:13:47.000 Anyway, here is the MSNBC analyst, the famed MSNBC analyst, Anand Giridharadas.

00:13:52.000 Perhaps never have we seen a man whose profound sexual and masculine insecurities are literally threatening to annihilate the planet.

00:14:01.000 I mean, the way he's literally capitalizing in that tweet is nuclear button.

00:14:06.000 I mean, any psychiatrist or psychologist would have a field day with that, but we all live in a world that could literally be ended in terms of a habitable planet.

00:14:18.000 No.

00:14:19.000 No, it won't.

00:14:21.000 No.

00:14:22.000 It's just—oh, come on!

00:14:23.000 Really?

00:14:24.000 Okay, the truth is, no one takes Trump seriously about this stuff.

00:14:29.000 No one cares.

00:14:30.000 Trump says a lot of crap.

00:14:31.000 No one is—like, really, is anybody at this point going, yes, we're really all going to die?

00:14:35.000 Ross Dudehead, I thought, had a great point on Twitter last night.

00:14:37.000 If people actually thought that everyone was going to die, don't you think there'd be millions of people in the streets protesting Trump's Twitter feed?

00:14:42.000 And don't you think that there would be some people going, guys, this would be crazy, right?

00:14:47.000 Wouldn't there be anybody who's like, oh my god, build a, wouldn't all of my sponsors who sell survival gear be just doing unbelievably well because of these tweets?

00:14:58.000 They're doing unbelievably well because they sponsor with me, but wouldn't they be doing unbelievably well because of the tweets?

00:15:04.000 Wouldn't that be what's going on?

00:15:05.000 No, none of that's happening because no one takes this seriously.

00:15:08.000 The reality is that if Trump's tweets are going to have any impact on foreign policy, it's not going to be because of stuff like this.

00:15:13.000 Okay, Jimmy Kimmel, though, he also goes crazy over this.

00:15:17.000 So Pope Jimmy, as Mary Catherine Hamm has termed him, he comes out.

00:15:20.000 He did not have his son on his hip for this one, but he did say that this is just insane.

00:15:26.000 Two maniacs arguing over who has the bigger button.

00:15:29.000 He took some time off.

00:15:31.000 He almost seems like a new man.

00:15:32.000 He's very positive.

00:15:33.000 Tonight, just minutes ago, he tweeted, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un just stated that the nuclear button is on his desk at all times.

00:15:40.000 Will someone from his depleted and food-starved regime please inform him that I, too, have a nuclear button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his.

00:15:50.000 And my button works.

00:15:53.000 That's right.

00:15:54.000 Happy New Year, everybody!

00:16:02.000 We have two maniacs with nuclear warheads bragging about who has the bigger button.

00:16:08.000 OK, so I love this.

00:16:09.000 First of all, I wish that I had pulled the clip of Willy Wonka saying, button, button, who's got the button?

00:16:13.000 Because it would be so perfect here.

00:16:14.000 But in any case, Jimmy Kimmel saying, oh, it's too maniac.

00:16:17.000 But everyone's laughing, right?

00:16:18.000 That's the point.

00:16:19.000 People immediately start laughing when they hear that tweet.

00:16:21.000 They don't go, oh my god, we're all going to die.

00:16:23.000 They go, that's kind of funny.

00:16:25.000 Because you know what?

00:16:26.000 It's kind of funny.

00:16:27.000 It is, OK?

00:16:28.000 Like Trump saying, I have a bigger.

00:16:29.000 First of all, that button on his desk, it just brings him Diet Coke, guys.

00:16:32.000 Okay, that button is not for the nukes.

00:16:35.000 The phone is for the nukes.

00:16:35.000 The button is just for the Diet Coke.

00:16:37.000 So we can hope that he doesn't switch the phone and the button.

00:16:39.000 We hope that he doesn't pick up the phone and order himself two Diet Cokes and people take that as a code.

00:16:45.000 But at the same time, come on.

00:16:47.000 This idea that we're all going to die?

00:16:49.000 Now, is it stable behavior?

00:16:51.000 Is it the kind of behavior that we would wish to see from a president?

00:16:53.000 Would you expect this from Abraham Lincoln?

00:16:56.000 Abraham Lincoln just would tweet out, Silly Jefferson Davis, I have an enormous army on your doorstep.

00:17:02.000 It's long, beautiful, and hard.

00:17:05.000 Is that really what you would expect from Abraham Lincoln?

00:17:07.000 Probably not.

00:17:08.000 Probably not from Honest Abe.

00:17:09.000 It's not what we're used to in the Oval Office.

00:17:11.000 Jake Tapper goes after Trump over this yesterday.

00:17:15.000 This is the President of the United States issuing a threat to use nuclear weapons and then turning around and glibly chastising the media.

00:17:22.000 These tweets coming on the same day that President Trump also suggested that a former Hillary Clinton aide who has been charged with no crime should be jailed.

00:17:31.000 And said the former FBI director, who is a witness in the investigation into the Trump campaign, should be investigated himself.

00:17:39.000 And also said that his own Justice Department is part of a conspiracy known as the quote, deep state.

00:17:45.000 None of this normal, none of this acceptable, none of this frankly stable behavior.

00:17:50.000 Okay, so this is just, like, is that true?

00:17:54.000 Yeah, it's kind of true.

00:17:55.000 I mean, like, is this something you would expect from the president?

00:17:57.000 But this idea that we're all going to die because of it is just not true.

00:18:00.000 OK, the reality is that if you are going to actually have a situation in which the president of the United States is a threat on foreign policy, it would not be because of this, right?

00:18:09.000 Ronald Reagan, back in 1984, I believe, during his reelection campaign, he was caught on a live mic saying, the bombing of the Soviet Union begins in five minutes.

00:18:17.000 Right?

00:18:18.000 And everybody laughed.

00:18:19.000 Actually, the Soviets took it seriously enough they actually put their bombers on alert, because people took Reagan seriously.

00:18:23.000 Did North Korea put its bombers on alert?

00:18:26.000 No, North Korea did nothing, because no one's taking Trump seriously on this.

00:18:29.000 If there were to be any danger from Trump's Twitter feed, it's if Trump would start signaling friendliness or apathy toward a regime he should not.

00:18:35.000 So for example, let's say that Vladimir Putin were to amass a bunch of troops on the border of Estonia or Latvia, and Trump were to say,

00:18:41.000 Well, I don't care about those places.

00:18:43.000 I don't even know how to spell them.

00:18:44.000 Right?

00:18:45.000 Then, you would say, OK, well now we're on the brink of war, right?

00:18:47.000 Because Putin's just going to walk right across that border knowing Trump's not going to do anything.

00:18:50.000 Because even when Trump bluffs with force, there's a good shot that the force is never going to come.

00:18:54.000 So if he actually says he doesn't care about something, he probably really doesn't care about something.

00:18:58.000 But as far as him making militaristic threats, like that's what, why do you think Trump wanted the job?

00:19:03.000 It's just so he could say this kind of stuff.

00:19:05.000 It's just so he could, like, Trump does have some deep insecurity, right?

00:19:08.000 There's no question he has some deep insecurity, but no one's taking this seriously anymore, which is why I tweeted out last night that I think that President Trump should simultaneously launch nuclear weapons in North Korea during the State of the Union Address, in which he is railing about fake news, and fire Robert Mueller at the same time, and then the next day he should start tweeting about why no one is talking about the stock market gains.

00:19:27.000 That seems like I think the best move for President Trump at this point.

00:19:32.000 Okay, so moving on, I want to talk a little bit more about another tweet that President Trump sent out.

00:19:39.000 And it is real, and it is spectacular.

00:19:42.000 It is quite grand.

00:19:43.000 But first,

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00:20:48.000 Okay, so that wasn't the only great Trump tweet that was sent out yesterday.

00:20:51.000 Here is another fantastic Trump tweet that was sent out yesterday.

00:20:55.000 So, Trump tweets out, quote,

00:20:57.000 I will be announcing, all capitals, the most dishonest and corrupt media awards of the year on Monday at 5 o'clock.

00:21:05.000 Subjects will cover dishonesty and bad reporting in various categories from the fake news media.

00:21:11.000 Stay tuned!

00:21:12.000 First of all, I continue to enjoy his capitalization habits.

00:21:16.000 I don't know what to say about them.

00:21:20.000 I've been reading a lot of philosophy lately, and very often you'll see philosophers use terms that they've coined.

00:21:25.000 You'll see the noumenal and the phenomenal in Kant.

00:21:28.000 And sometimes, in certain editions, they will actually capitalize those terms, because they're new terms that are being introduced.

00:21:33.000 In contracts, we do the same thing in contract law.

00:21:35.000 Whenever we introduce a new term in parentheses, we put all caps what the term means, right?

00:21:40.000 We capitalize it.

00:21:41.000 But apparently Trump thinks he coined the terms dishonesty and bad reporting from the fake news media.

00:21:46.000 And what I'm hoping is that President Trump actually says that he wants to deliver a nationally televised address and deliver his diatribe against the fake news media on all three networks.

00:21:58.000 That would be pretty spectacular.

00:21:59.000 And I'll admit, I'm going to tune in on Monday at 5 o'clock.

00:22:02.000 Is he going to do it on Twitter?

00:22:03.000 Is it going to be an actual reality show?

00:22:05.000 Are there going to be awards presenters?

00:22:06.000 Is it going to be like Kim Kardashian walks out?

00:22:09.000 Who's going to actually be the emcee?

00:22:11.000 Is he going to emcee it himself?

00:22:12.000 Or is he going to be the guy who just comes out and opens up the envelopes?

00:22:15.000 I am very curious as to how this is going to go.

00:22:17.000 Is it going to be Ted Nugent and Sarah Palin in the Oval Office actually making this happen?

00:22:20.000 Or will it be the Mooch?

00:22:22.000 I root for the mooch.

00:22:23.000 On behalf of Marshall, one of the producers here, I root for the mooch.

00:22:27.000 And I would try to get Marshall front row seats for the mooch.

00:22:29.000 But in any case, President Trump going after the fake news media as well.

00:22:33.000 Again, I don't know what's driving these tweets, but I can safely say that it's nothing supremely rational.

00:22:39.000 He also tweeted about his accomplishments last night, and this one was pretty good.

00:22:42.000 He really had fun on Twitter last night, and I like that the president has fun with things.

00:22:45.000 He tweeted out, President Trump has something now he didn't have a year ago.

00:22:49.000 That is a set of accomplishments that nobody can deny.

00:22:51.000 The accomplishments are there.

00:22:52.000 Look at his record.

00:22:53.000 He has had a very significant first year.

00:22:56.000 And then he quotes it from the Lou Dobbs show, David Assman and Ed Rollins.

00:22:59.000 So I do love that he is now giving citations.

00:23:02.000 So that's exciting.

00:23:04.000 Also, a few days ago, the President of the United States suggested

00:23:08.000 That he did not, in fact, watch a lot of TV.

00:23:12.000 That's not true.

00:23:13.000 He watches a lot of TV.

00:23:15.000 So here is Trump on, Daniel Dale, who is a reporter, I believe, for, is he for ABC or Axios?

00:23:22.000 In any case, he tweets out, he tweeted out Trump's schedule yesterday.

00:23:26.000 11.03 p.m.

00:23:28.000 Live tweets, Fox Business.

00:23:30.000 8.16 p.m.

00:23:30.000 Urges people to watch Fox Show.

00:23:32.000 7.49 a.m., I assume these are all a.m., or I guess,

00:23:37.000 Is this the last 24 hours?

00:23:38.000 Okay.

00:23:56.000 That also actually, I think I missed a couple.

00:23:58.000 I think the Trump actually left a couple of other Fox segments as well.

00:24:02.000 I mean, at least Fox knows who their P1s are, right?

00:24:05.000 In radio you call them the P1s, the people who listen to your entire show.

00:24:08.000 At least, I mean, they know who they are programming to.

00:24:12.000 So, you know, the President of the United States,

00:24:16.000 I can't say he's a deeply busy man.

00:24:18.000 Now, the good news about this, I guess, if you're on the left, is that he's not busy doing other things.

00:24:22.000 Like, he could be busy paring back regulations.

00:24:24.000 And if you're on the right, he could be busy doing other things like, I guess, mouthing off.

00:24:28.000 But he is mouthing off, so I guess it's not all great.

00:24:30.000 Here is the problem that I'm having.

00:24:32.000 A more broad problem.

00:24:32.000 Now, I've been joking about this a lot because, let's face it, it's

00:24:35.000 Freaking hilarious.

00:24:36.000 I mean, it's just funny.

00:24:37.000 It's just funny, okay?

00:24:38.000 If you can't enjoy this, then take a chill pill, because it is one of the more enjoyable things in life, is watching the President of the United States, who seems as though the music from Benny Hill should be running under the administration continuously.

00:24:52.000 Here is the problem, the actual problem.

00:24:53.000 The actual problem is

00:24:55.000 I am now invested in President Trump's policies.

00:24:58.000 I like his policies.

00:24:59.000 Over the last six weeks, I've gotten a lot of good policy.

00:25:01.000 In the middle of these tweet storms that I've been talking about, he tweeted that perhaps he should cut aid to the Palestinian Authority, which he should.

00:25:07.000 It's a terrorist entity.

00:25:08.000 In the middle of all of this, he was saying things that are true about the Middle East and Iran.

00:25:11.000 He was tweeting out that the United States was going to support the protesters in Iran.

00:25:15.000 All of this is true and good and important.

00:25:19.000 Now, if the President of the United States had, let's say the President of the United States had been pushing nationalist populist banditism, an agenda that I didn't like.

00:25:28.000 Let's say he was pushing a bunch of policy that I thought was bad.

00:25:31.000 And then he was doing all of this stuff that was stupid.

00:25:33.000 I would say, well, it's not great the President of the United States is doing all that stuff, but what he's really doing is he's maligning an agenda that is not my own.

00:25:39.000 He's hitting an agenda that I am not particularly fond of.

00:25:43.000 So the impact on that agenda, it makes less of a difference to me.

00:25:47.000 If he sinks his own infrastructure bill, I'm not going to shed any tears over that.

00:25:52.000 But if the President of the United States is pushing policies that I like a lot, right, as he's been doing for the last six weeks, now there's the significant possibility that in 2018, if he loses the House, or if he loses the Senate, or if things really go to hell in a handbasket and he loses in 2020, that it's not just going to be seen as a repudiation of him personally and his Twitter habits,

00:26:11.000 It's not just going to be seen as a repudiation of the president of the United States as a human being.

00:26:18.000 It will instead be seen as a repudiation of his policies.

00:26:22.000 My business partner, Jeremy Boring, god-king of The Daily Wire, Jeremy has been saying this for years about Herbert Hoover.

00:26:27.000 What he said about Herbert Hoover is that if you actually look back at Herbert Hoover's record, the president who preceded FDR, his record was very much along the lines of FDR's record.

00:26:35.000 I don't know.

00:26:52.000 Posed himself as a real conservative, as a guy who wanted small government, less government interventionism.

00:26:58.000 And so Hooverism became synonymous with conservatism, and it smeared conservatism for a generation, a full generation.

00:27:04.000 Didn't matter that Herbert Hoover wasn't actually conservative.

00:27:07.000 His toxicity smeared conservatism, even though his own policies had not been conservative.

00:27:11.000 This is what I fear from Trump.

00:27:13.000 And in some ways worse, because he's actually implementing policies that I like.

00:27:17.000 I don't have to go through the litany again, but in the last month, in the last six weeks, he has announced the move of the capital of the embassy to Jerusalem in Israel.

00:27:26.000 He has gotten his major tax cut, which will not be reversed.

00:27:30.000 He's nominated a bunch more appellate court judges yesterday.

00:27:33.000 Don Willett joined the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is a fantastic pick.

00:27:37.000 Don Willett is terrific.

00:27:38.000 He has cut regulations at record rates.

00:27:40.000 He has prevented the establishment of new national monuments and is paring back on some of the old ones because there's too much federal land in the West.

00:27:49.000 The President of the United States has supported the protesters in Iran.

00:27:51.000 All of this is good stuff.

00:27:52.000 But if the President makes himself toxic and therefore makes his agenda toxic, then you do have a much more serious problem on your hands.

00:27:59.000 And that

00:28:00.000 is not good, okay?

00:28:01.000 That's not a good thing.

00:28:02.000 That's something that has to stop.

00:28:03.000 And so I encourage the president to go on break and just enjoy himself.

00:28:07.000 Instead, he went around to Twitter and said things, and that's not good.

00:28:14.000 Again, I just want the president to be successful for the country, and I don't think that these tweets are particularly helpful in that.

00:28:20.000 Now, with that said, the president of the United States did tweet something about the deep state yesterday that is not completely inaccurate.

00:28:26.000 So here's what he tweeted yesterday.

00:28:27.000 He tweeted, quote,

00:28:29.000 Crooked Hillary Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin, has been accused of disregarding basic security protocols.

00:28:35.000 She put classified passwords into the hands of foreign agents.

00:28:39.000 Remember, sailors, pictures on submarine?

00:28:41.000 Jail.

00:28:41.000 Deep State Justice Department must finally act.

00:28:44.000 Also on Comey and others.

00:28:45.000 So what he's suggesting here is that Hillary Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin, should go to jail because she actually put a bunch of passwords, like government passwords, on her Yahoo email.

00:28:52.000 And that Yahoo was then hacked.

00:28:55.000 And what Trump says is that he's comparing this to another case

00:28:59.000 of a woman who was jailed.

00:29:01.000 She was in the U.S.

00:29:02.000 Navy and she was jailed for taking pictures on some Marines and then putting them on social media.

00:29:07.000 And this was considered a security breach and she did time in jail.

00:29:10.000 And he again is suggesting that the Justice Department is the deep state.

00:29:14.000 Well, the President of the United States is the head of the Justice Department.

00:29:16.000 He can instruct them to investigate Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin anytime he wants.

00:29:20.000 He has not done that.

00:29:21.000 Instead, he prefers to mouth off about it.

00:29:23.000 But is it true that the Justice Department has acted in heretofore bizarre ways and did so while it was under the auspices of the Obama administration and has continued to act in, I would say, slightly less weird ways with Jeff Sessions, but the Comey investigation, Robert Mueller's investigation has acted in strange ways?

00:29:40.000 I think that that's unquestionable.

00:29:42.000 And in just a second, I want to tell you about the situation with Trump, Russia, and Hillary, because there's an op-ed in the New York Times that is quite telling.

00:29:50.000 But first, Jeffrey Toobin on CNN went off over the deep state.

00:29:54.000 Here's what he had to say about Trump ripping the so-called deep state again.

00:29:58.000 Well, I think it's pretty reprehensible to use that phraseology in any event.

00:30:04.000 I guess who that refers to are long-serving civil servants, career civil servants, who are patriots and dedicated to the country.

00:30:14.000 I'd point out that when you take the oath of office as a civil servant, you swear to uphold the Constitution.

00:30:23.000 It doesn't say anything about pledging loyalty to this president or any other.

00:30:28.000 And if not doing so is what constitutes being part of the Deep State, I think that's... That's actually James Clapper.

00:30:35.000 But James Clapper, you know, talking about the Deep State, this is the problem, right?

00:30:38.000 When James Clapper says that Trump is wrong about the Deep State, who is going to trust James Clapper about that?

00:30:42.000 Because James Clapper was a motivated part of the so-called Deep State.

00:30:46.000 When people say Deep State, I think they're thinking of something more conspiratorial than it is.

00:30:49.000 It's just Obama holdovers who have a political agenda.

00:30:52.000 And there's no question that there are people in positions of power who do have that agenda.

00:30:56.000 Again, it was The Daily Caller that reported that Abedin forwarded her State Department passwords to Yahoo before it was hacked by foreign agents.

00:31:02.000 Luke Rozziak, who does some really good investigative reporting over there, he's the one who reported on this yesterday.

00:31:07.000 He said that Huba Abedin regularly forwarded work emails to her personal

00:31:12.000 I think so.

00:31:32.000 I just think that it's not smart of him to tweet it out.

00:31:34.000 There are plenty of people who can ask those questions for him.

00:31:36.000 Well, in just a second, I want to discuss an op-ed from Fusion GPS that a lot of people are apparently suggesting puts an end to all of the blowback on the Mueller team for corruption.

00:31:48.000 But it doesn't.

00:31:48.000 I'll explain why in just a second.

00:31:49.000 First, I want to say thank you to our new sponsors over at Wondery.

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00:32:57.000 Okay, so...

00:32:59.000 There's an op-ed in the New York Times that the left is trotting out as evidence that the right is conspiratorial in its views of the Mueller investigation.

00:33:06.000 So, to recap, as I said yesterday, the right has suggested that there's a serious problem with the FBI investigation into Trump-Russia collusion.

00:33:13.000 The serious problem is that the Fusion GPS dossier that was allegedly used as the basis for FBI attempting to get FISA warrants on Trump administration officials was commissioned by Democrats and was full of crap.

00:33:24.000 Basically, there were Democrats inside the DOJ and the FBI.

00:33:28.000 They were politically motivated.

00:33:30.000 They got a hold of this dossier from Fusion GPS, which is a Democratic-funded OPPO research group, basically.

00:33:36.000 And then they used that as an excuse to go after Trump.

00:33:39.000 That's the allegation from Republicans.

00:33:41.000 The co-founders of Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson and Peter Frisch, one of whom pled the fifth in front of Congress.

00:33:48.000 They have an op-ed today talking about how Fusion GPS has nothing to do with it, we did nothing wrong, and the FBI investigation has nothing to do with Fusion GPS, et cetera.

00:33:56.000 So here's what they write.

00:33:57.000 They say, a generation ago, Republicans sought to protect President Richard Nixon by urging the Senate Watergate Committee to look at supposed wrongdoing by Democrats in previous elections.

00:34:05.000 The committee chairman, Sam Ervin, a Democrat, said that would be, quote, as foolish as the man who went bear hunting and stopped to chase rabbits.

00:34:11.000 Amid a growing criminal inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Congressional Republicans are again chasing rabbits we know because we are their favorite quarry.

00:34:19.000 In the years since the publication of the so-called Steele dossier, the collection of intelligence reports we commissioned about Donald Trump's ties to Russia, the President has repeatedly attacked us on Twitter.

00:34:27.000 His allies in Congress have dug through our bank records and sought to tarnish our firm to punish us for highlighting his links to Russia.

00:34:33.000 Conservative news outlets and even our former employer, The Wall Street Journal, have spun a succession of mendacious conspiracy theories about our motives and backers.

00:34:40.000 We are happy to correct the record.

00:34:41.000 In fact, we already have.

00:34:43.000 Three congressional committees have heard over 21 hours of testimony from our firm Fusion GPS.

00:34:47.000 Again, they're neglecting to mention several members of Fusion GPS pled the fifth.

00:34:51.000 They say we walked investigators through our year-long effort to decipher Mr. Trump's complex business past, of which the Steele dossier is but one chapter, and we handed over our relevant bank records while drawing the line at a fishing expedition for the records of companies we work for that have nothing to do with the Trump case.

00:35:05.000 Well...

00:35:06.000 They don't really get to decide where they draw the line in a subpoena situation.

00:35:11.000 One of the questions is, who funds you?

00:35:12.000 Who bankrolls you?

00:35:14.000 Well, I'd like to see them release full transcripts because I'd like to see what was said.

00:35:17.000 I would also like to find out who pled the fifth and why.

00:35:26.000 They say, we don't believe the Steele dossier was the trigger for the FBI's investigation into Russian meddling.

00:35:31.000 As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp.

00:35:43.000 There are some problems with this particular claim.

00:35:46.000 The dossier corroborated reports from other sources.

00:35:50.000 They only started monitoring George Papadopoulos apparently after this dossier came out, is my understanding of the timeline.

00:35:55.000 So I'm not understanding how they could corroborate reports that had already been issued unless those were basically just reported leads or rumors.

00:36:02.000 And the intelligence committees have known for months that credible allegations of collusion between the Trump camp and Russia were pouring in from independent sources during the campaign.

00:36:09.000 Yet lawmakers in the thrall of the president continue to wage a cynical campaign to portray us as the unwitting victims of Kremlin disinformation.

00:36:16.000 And then they say that they suggested investigators look into bank records of Deutsche Bank and others funding Trump's business.

00:36:21.000 Congress appeared uninterested in our tip.

00:36:24.000 We told Congress that we found widespread evidence that Mr. Trump and his organization had worked with a wide array of dubious Russians.

00:36:31.000 Okay, all of that is being investigated by Mueller, but I'm just confused in general by this claim that the dossier had nothing to do with the original launch of the wiretap on Carter Page, because there is nothing about George Papadopoulos that suggests that you actually have to launch a wiretap against Carter Page.

00:36:47.000 That's what the FISA warrant was for.

00:36:48.000 Carter Page was apparently only mentioned in the Fusion GPS dossier.

00:36:53.000 So, again, there's something fishy here.

00:36:55.000 I'm not sure that all of this washes for me.

00:36:58.000 Well, meanwhile...

00:37:00.000 Congressional investigators are saying they found written evidence of criminality in the Clinton probe.

00:37:05.000 So according to The Hill, Republicans on congressional committees conducting their own investigations have obtained highly redacted documents from the FBI that show the agency did suspect that laws were broken.

00:37:14.000 Lawmakers say in numerous passages the FBI stated the sheer volume of classified information that flowed to and from the former Secretary of State's unsecured private server was proof of criminality.

00:37:23.000 There was also an admission of false statements by a key witness.

00:37:26.000 The name of the witness was redacted.

00:37:27.000 Congressional investigators say it was an employee from the computer firm that maintained Clinton's server after she left the State Department in 2013.

00:37:34.000 So, in other words, the FBI shut down a fully plausible investigation into Hillary Clinton, but launched a really sketchy investigation into Trump-Russia.

00:37:43.000 Again, the only indictments that have come down right now are from Mike Flynn on obstructing justice by lying to the FBI during the transition, and George Papadopoulos, who apparently lied to the FBI about

00:37:55.000 That's about all that we have so far from the Mueller investigation.

00:38:08.000 Trump is trying to push forward his agenda.

00:38:10.000 And that agenda has been slightly hampered by the news that Orrin Hatch is out, the senator from Utah, who was widely seen as the only barrier between Mitt Romney and the Senate seat in Utah.

00:38:20.000 He has decided that he is going to step out of the Senate.

00:38:22.000 He is 1,000 years old, I believe.

00:38:24.000 He may be 1,001.

00:38:25.000 He's actually 83.

00:38:28.000 And Orrin Hatch has been in the Senate for 41 years, so significantly longer than I have been alive, he has actually been in the Senate.

00:38:34.000 And Hatch is leaving, and he also has said that he

00:38:38.000 He's fine with Mitt Romney taking over for him.

00:38:41.000 Romney, who is 70, changed his Twitter profile to highlight the fact that he is located in Holiday, Utah.

00:38:50.000 So it looks like Romney is likely to run.

00:38:53.000 A lot of people in the Trump camp are not happy about this.

00:38:55.000 They think that Romney will be a thorn in Trump's side in the same way that Jeff Flake was sort of a thorn in Trump's side.

00:39:01.000 Again, I think that Romney will likely vote a lot of the right way on all of this, but I'm confused as to

00:39:09.000 You know, I don't know why Romney is necessarily the logical pick.

00:39:12.000 I think he'll make a fine senator from Utah.

00:39:14.000 I don't see any serious problems there.

00:39:16.000 Although, you know, we'll have to go back and rehash his record.

00:39:18.000 The guy did invent Obamacare.

00:39:20.000 So making him into the greatest Obamacare opponent.

00:39:22.000 There's always this revisionist history that goes on after campaigns.

00:39:24.000 In 2012, I did not vote for Mitt Romney in the primaries, nor did I endorse him in the primaries, specifically because I didn't think he was quite as conservative as he was pledging to be.

00:39:33.000 So I was pretty clear about my doubts about Romney then.

00:39:35.000 I think a lot of the passion about Romney now is driven by the fact that he is seen as a counterweight to Trump.

00:39:40.000 In reality, will he be that?

00:39:42.000 He'll say some stuff, but will he actually be that?

00:39:44.000 Not in any way different than Jeff Flake has been, which is to say, not much.

00:39:48.000 What else is on the Republican agenda for 2018?

00:39:49.000 Well, now they're talking about welfare reform.

00:39:51.000 So I think Trump is on a different page than some of the members of Congress.

00:39:54.000 Trump is talking about immigration, per se.

00:39:56.000 Steve Scalise, who is the House Majority Whip, he is saying we're going to tackle welfare reform next.

00:40:01.000 Again, this would be a greatly necessary change.

00:40:03.000 This would be useful.

00:40:05.000 Well, there's a lot that we're going to be doing in 2018, and it starts where we left off.

00:40:09.000 Tax reform is working incredibly well.

00:40:12.000 We're seeing our economy take off.

00:40:14.000 The next big thing you're going to see is a need for workers.

00:40:16.000 And I think the best thing we can do is to go and reform those welfare programs that are trapping people in a failed welfare state.

00:40:24.000 Let's actually put some work requirements in place so that we can get people back to work, rebuild the middle class.

00:40:31.000 OK, so this is a useful piece of information.

00:40:33.000 Trump is also pushing along an agenda with regard to DACA.

00:40:36.000 So yesterday I mentioned that Trump didn't seem to have any clear strategy on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

00:40:42.000 And that's a problem, right?

00:40:43.000 It seems like he's saying that he's going to reinstate DACA if Democrats don't reach a deal with him.

00:40:48.000 Which would not be a loss for Democrats.

00:40:50.000 It would look like Trump backed down.

00:40:51.000 It would look like he backed down.

00:40:52.000 His base would be angry at him.

00:40:53.000 So I'm not sure how that's even close to a negotiation strategy.

00:40:56.000 But there are members of Trump administration now who are saying that Trump is not going to sign into law any deal for the Dreamers unless it also includes an end to chain migration.

00:41:04.000 And what's fascinating is there's sort of a rift that's broken out among Republicans about whether Trump should go for border funding for the wall or whether he should go for an end to chain migration.

00:41:13.000 If you have to pick one, you have to go with chain migration.

00:41:16.000 Chain migration is significantly more of a problem in terms of immigration and illegal immigration than is the border wall itself.

00:41:22.000 We can always staff up ICE.

00:41:24.000 There is border wall in some places already.

00:41:28.000 I'm in favor of a border wall.

00:41:29.000 I've always been in favor of a border barrier.

00:41:30.000 No question.

00:41:31.000 But if you have to choose, chain migration is a much greater threat to America's immigration system than is the border wall, because that's basically a legal policy that says that if you come in and you get in, you now get to bring all of your extended family.

00:41:42.000 It turns into Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose from Dr. Seuss.

00:41:45.000 You get to bring in everybody on your horns, and that's a huge mistake.

00:41:49.000 The latest terror attack that we saw in the United States was perpetrated by somebody who got in basically through chain migration.

00:41:56.000 So that's not a... If they're going to go for something, let them go for chain migration.

00:42:00.000 I think that's the right move.

00:42:02.000 Again, the American immigration system changed radically in 1965 and it was designed instead of

00:42:09.000 It was designed instead to be based on empathy for people from various parts of the globe that might be more downtrodden coming from places that were less European in origin, places that had typically less of a history of Western civilization.

00:42:25.000 And that changed how immigration was done.

00:42:27.000 The chain migration system combined with that shift in the places where people come from means that a higher percentage of people are coming from countries that are not used to all of the things that make Western civilization, Western civilization.

00:42:38.000 So I hope that Trump can push that.

00:42:40.000 It's one of the reasons why, please, Mr. President, stop with the Twitter distractions.

00:42:44.000 Stop.

00:42:45.000 It's just not useful in any real way.

00:42:49.000 Okay, so in just a second, I'm going to do some things I like and some things that I hate.

00:42:53.000 But first, we're going to have to say goodbye to you over on Facebook and YouTube.

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00:44:12.000 We're good.

00:44:17.000 Okay, time for some things I like and then some things I hate.

00:44:19.000 So, things I like.

00:44:20.000 The President of the United States, I mentioned this, amid his tweets yesterday, amid the crazy tweets, there was a very good tweet, okay?

00:44:29.000 And the tweet that he put out was with regard to Pakistan and then with regard to the Palestinians.

00:44:34.000 Here, it was two tweets.

00:44:35.000 He tweeted, quote, It's not only Pakistan we pay billions of dollars to for nothing, right?

00:44:39.000 He cut off military aid to Pakistan, which is a good move, but also many other countries as well.

00:44:43.000 As an example, we pay the Palestinians.

00:44:45.000 Hundreds of millions of dollars a year and get no appreciation or respect.

00:44:48.000 They don't even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel.

00:44:51.000 We've taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel for that would have had to pay more.

00:44:56.000 But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?

00:45:01.000 This is a good question.

00:45:02.000 We never should have been making these massive future payments to them at all, because they are a terrorist group.

00:45:06.000 The Palestinian Authority is a terrorist group in a terrorist coalition with Islamic Jihad, in a terrorist coalition with Hamas.

00:45:14.000 The idea that we pay them money, taxpayer money, my money, is totally insane.

00:45:18.000 By the way, he did not take Jerusalem off the table for Israel.

00:45:22.000 Right?

00:45:22.000 He just said we're not going to pressure Israel on Jerusalem, which is not quite the same thing.

00:45:25.000 The U.S.

00:45:25.000 has budgeted $251 million in aid for the West Bank, the Judean Samaria, and the Gaza Strip in 2018.

00:45:31.000 That means money for Hamas.

00:45:33.000 We should cut off that aid immediately now.

00:45:35.000 We should have done it years ago.

00:45:36.000 And good for Trump for doing it.

00:45:38.000 Hopefully he will actually follow up on that.

00:45:40.000 Okay.

00:45:40.000 Other things that I like.

00:45:41.000 So...

00:45:43.000 There's a book that I read over the weekend, and it's kind of interesting.

00:45:47.000 It's a book by a guy named Albert J. Nock.

00:45:49.000 This was written in, I think, 1934.

00:45:50.000 The book is called Our Enemy, the State.

00:45:52.000 Now, there are a lot of people who are sort of anarcho-capitalists who are big fans of this book, because the basic premise of the book is that there's a difference between government and the state.

00:46:00.000 The state is this instrument of power that is used in order to harness wealth for a particular few.

00:46:07.000 I obviously agree with that general premise.

00:46:09.000 Where I think he goes off the rails, he uses a very

00:46:12.000 I disagree with him on some of this analysis, but I think that he makes a good case for the idea that

00:46:36.000 The sort of German progressive style state has taken over America's perception, American's perception of what the state should do.

00:46:42.000 And we need to rethink that.

00:46:44.000 The government should basically be returned to as far of a local system as possible.

00:46:47.000 It's really interesting.

00:46:48.000 When I was growing up, I was a big fan of John Adams.

00:46:50.000 I still am a fan of John Adams.

00:46:52.000 As I get older, I tend to be more friendly to Jeffersonian philosophy with regard to devolution of authority to local government.

00:46:59.000 John Adams obviously was in favor of more centralization of function in the federal government.

00:47:04.000 That Jefferson was precisely the reverse, but Jefferson also was happy to use the federal government to do the Louisiana Purchase, an unconstitutional move that he felt would enrich the country.

00:47:15.000 So Nock is not completely incorrect when he says that it's pretty easy for people who view themselves as small government advocates to become advocates of big government when it's useful for them to become part of the state apparatus.

00:47:25.000 The book is called Our Enemy, The State, and it is worth a read.

00:47:28.000 Again, it's more of an anarchist book than it is—an anarchist book than it is a conservative book, per se.

00:47:33.000 But it was apparently formative for William F. Buckley, among others.

00:47:37.000 Okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.

00:47:44.000 OK, so we'll do one quick thing that I hate.

00:47:47.000 Well, a couple of quick things that I hate, I suppose.

00:47:49.000 OK, so there's a New York Times op-ed today from a woman named Kashana Cowley all about how Erica Garner, her death on Saturday is the fault of the American system or some such.

00:48:00.000 So, Erica Garner, you'll recall, is the daughter of Eric Garner.

00:48:02.000 Eric Garner is the guy who died after he was put in a suppression hold by the New York City Police Department for selling loosies, which were cigarettes that were not licensed.

00:48:12.000 Because the cigarette taxes are so high, there are people undercutting them on the black market.

00:48:16.000 And he died.

00:48:16.000 He had a heart attack.

00:48:17.000 So, here is what this woman, Kaushana Kali, writes in the New York Times.

00:48:21.000 She says,

00:48:39.000 That's right.

00:48:57.000 That leads to a heart disease, right?

00:48:59.000 Erica Garner had two kids.

00:49:01.000 If both she and her dad had been alive this holiday season, they would have almost certainly spent it together.

00:49:04.000 He was a family man, she said about him.

00:49:05.000 It's all very sad, obviously.

00:49:07.000 But here's where she starts to go off the rails this columnist.

00:49:09.000 She says,

00:49:14.000 I don't know about millions.

00:49:15.000 I'd have to actually look up the statistics.

00:49:16.000 I don't think that

00:49:30.000 Certainly millions of people were not lynched during that period.

00:49:33.000 That's a wild exaggeration in terms of lynching itself.

00:49:36.000 In terms of black family members who died, I mean, I assume that that's millions.

00:49:39.000 Black defendants often receive far longer sentences than similarly situated white defendants.

00:49:43.000 So the idea here is that black families are being destroyed by the constant ongoing oppression.

00:49:47.000 This was true during slavery, not as true during Jim Crow, because even under Jim Crow, families could live together.

00:49:52.000 I mean, once you are free to marry, then it is your responsibility to stay with your kids.

00:49:57.000 The fact is that the black single motherhood rate in 1960 was 20%.

00:50:01.000 Today it's 70%.

00:50:02.000 How is that the fault of American government, per se, other than a welfare system that incentivizes men not to stick around and incentivizes women not to get married before having babies?

00:50:11.000 It's difficult for me to imagine how you can blame slavery for an elevation, a 350% elevation in the black single motherhood rate since the advent of the civil rights movement, essentially.

00:50:22.000 It's a very weird contention.

00:50:23.000 But the idea here is that it's all the fault of the system, that black families are disproportionately affected by child protection systems.

00:50:30.000 I haven't seen the evidence for that.

00:50:33.000 She concludes by suggesting, if there is no sin in killing Eric Garner, no crime, then black families like the Garners can be destroyed without anyone having to answer for it.

00:50:40.000 Now, we can go over the Garner case again, but the idea that most black families are being destroyed by the system is just not true.

00:50:46.000 Most black families

00:50:48.000 are not in place in the first place in the sense of a mother and father who are married having kids.

00:50:52.000 Most black families are not made like that.

00:50:54.000 It's not like they're married couples and then they're being broken up by the state as it was the case during slavery.

00:50:58.000 That's not what's happening here.

00:50:59.000 And to pretend otherwise is just to be non-factual.

00:51:02.000 Speaking of non-factual, there are a lot of people who are talking this week about the new statistics out from New York City where murders are down again and the crime levels are really low, and they're suggesting that this is because of the end of Stop and Frisk.

00:51:13.000 That Stop and Frisk, it turns out, didn't do anything.

00:51:16.000 I find the evidence on this strangely weird.

00:51:18.000 You can't use New York City as the only evidence of proactive policing.

00:51:22.000 Proactive policing has stopped in places like Ferguson and Baltimore.

00:51:25.000 The crime rate has risen dramatically.

00:51:26.000 Proactive policing has stopped in Los Angeles and Detroit.

00:51:28.000 The crime rate has risen dramatically.

00:51:30.000 In New York City, one of the reasons the crime rate has not risen dramatically is because stop-and-frisk was so

00:51:40.000 I mean, New York City coined this stuff.

00:51:44.000 And now you're seeing the kind of trailing effect.

00:51:47.000 Heather MacDonald has a very good piece.

00:51:48.000 You should go over and check it out at City Journal, all about what's happened demographically in the city of New York.

00:51:52.000 And what she basically says is that the areas that were responsible for super high crime in New York have largely become gentrified as a result of good policing.

00:51:59.000 And so you're now seeing the evolutionary overhang of good crime policies.

00:52:04.000 And if you continue to have bad crime policies eventually, then you will see a breakdown again.

00:52:08.000 But you won't see it in those gentrified areas.

00:52:10.000 You'll see it in areas that are not as gentrified.

00:52:12.000 Okay.

00:52:13.000 Quick final thing, we'll deconstruct the culture very briefly.

00:52:16.000 So, Justin Timberlake has a new video out.

00:52:19.000 As you know, I love Justin Timberlake.

00:52:21.000 I don't know anything about Justin Timberlake.

00:52:24.000 Except that he grabs Janet Jackson's boob occasionally.

00:52:27.000 In any case, Justin Timberlake has cut a new video.

00:52:30.000 The part that I find noteworthy about this is that the left is going crazy about this music video and I really don't see why.

00:52:35.000 So here it is.

00:52:37.000 It's produced by Pharrell.

00:52:38.000 And his wife, Jessica Biel, is there in a voiceover.

00:52:42.000 So here is the trailer for his album, Man of the Woods.

00:52:50.000 This album is really inspired by my son, my wife, my family, but more so than any other album I've ever written, where I'm from.

00:52:58.000 And it's personal.

00:53:08.000 Justin Timberlake loves nature, man.

00:53:13.000 It's a river.

00:53:14.000 It's fire.

00:53:15.000 There's like mountains, trees, campfires, wheat, corn.

00:53:22.000 We're the best at corn.

00:53:23.000 Okay, so in any case...

00:53:25.000 And the reason that this is noteworthy is because, first of all, Justin Timberlake is from Tennessee.

00:53:29.000 He is from Tennessee.

00:53:30.000 So people treat him like, oh, look at this city boy going and acting like he likes all the nature and such.

00:53:36.000 He is from Memphis, Tennessee.

00:53:39.000 He grew up in Shelby Forest, which is a small community between Memphis and Millington.

00:53:42.000 I know this because of Dr. Wikipedia.

00:53:44.000 So this idea that he has no connection with the country is just silly.

00:53:49.000 But there are a bunch of people who are pissed about it.

00:53:51.000 There's an article in an outlet called The Outline where they say Justin Timberlake is rebranding as a white man because he's embracing his authentic roots.

00:54:01.000 Rebranding as a white man?

00:54:02.000 Was he ever black?

00:54:02.000 Did I miss that part?

00:54:04.000 Because I'm pretty aware that everybody knew that he was white for his entire life because he's white.

00:54:10.000 But is it rebranding as a white man to go back to where you're from?

00:54:12.000 I mean, he's from Memphis.

00:54:13.000 I just, I don't understand this.

00:54:14.000 But again, the race baiting is so thorough here that if you are, if you're a guy who wears a cowboy hat, you want to talk about kind of cultural, cultural discrimination.

00:54:23.000 If you're a guy, a white guy who wears a cowboy hat or boots in a place with a bush,

00:54:28.000 Then all of a sudden you are considered a hick who hates black people.

00:54:30.000 I mean, that's basically what the outline is trying to say here.

00:54:32.000 This is literally what they say.

00:54:33.000 I have to read this because it's insane.

00:54:35.000 They say, What now?

00:54:35.000 Like, huh?

00:54:36.000 It says, There's something very familiar about this pivot in Timberlake's style.

00:54:57.000 White colonialist fantasy?

00:54:59.000 He's literally standing on a rock.

00:55:01.000 I don't see his slaves.

00:55:03.000 I don't see him fighting with Native Americans.

00:55:06.000 Pocahontas is nowhere to be found.

00:55:08.000 But the insane race consciousness here?

00:55:11.000 is just beyond.

00:55:12.000 So what they're saying is that Timberlake has a long history with hip-hop and R&B, genres invented and dominated by black people.

00:55:18.000 And to be clear, without African-Americans there would be no rock or country music as we know it either.

00:55:22.000 But I digress.

00:55:23.000 So he moved from quote-unquote black culture, but now he's pandering to white America.

00:55:29.000 Or maybe he just wants to do an album about where he's from.

00:55:31.000 Is that possible?

00:55:33.000 Okay, what if I just like jazz?

00:55:35.000 I like jazz, not because it was invented by black people, but because classic jazz is great stuff.

00:55:39.000 What if I like country music?

00:55:41.000 Because I'm Jewish, I have no connection, I have no root connection to any of these musics, probably more to jazz than I do to country music.

00:55:48.000 But this notion that everything has to be broken down by sort of cultural stereotype, it just demonstrates the intersectional stupidity of so many people who are commentators on our culture.

00:55:58.000 I don't see what Justin Timberlake is doing wrong by standing in a jacket in a forest.

00:56:03.000 The forests belong to us all.

00:56:06.000 Okay, enough.

00:56:07.000 Enough.

00:56:07.000 Okay, so, we will be back here tomorrow with much, much more, because there's always news breaking, and I assume President Trump will have access to his Twitter, so we'll have a lot to talk about.

00:56:16.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:56:16.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:56:21.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Mathis Glover.

00:56:24.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:56:25.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:56:27.000 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:56:29.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:56:31.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Cormina.

00:56:32.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:56:34.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:56:37.000 Copyright Forward Publishing 2017.

Can Somebody Please Steal Trump’s Phone? | Ep. 445

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