The Ben Shapiro Show - Carry On, My Wayward Son | The Ben Shapiro Show Ep. 338

00:00:00.000 On Wednesday morning, President Trump tweeted out his most important defense to accusations about Donald Trump Jr.

00:00:05.000 attempting to collude with the Russian government.

00:00:11.000 Look what Hillary Clinton may have gotten away with. 1.00

00:00:13.000 Disgraceful.

00:00:14.000 This has become the all-purpose alibi for Republican malfeasance.

00:00:18.000 Some call it whataboutism.

00:00:19.000 What about Hillary Clinton?

00:00:20.000 What about the media?

00:00:21.000 What about Bill Clinton or Teddy Kennedy?

00:00:22.000 There's a raging debate on the right about the nature of this defense.

00:00:25.000 Is it just excuse-making for bad behavior?

00:00:27.000 Or is it a legitimate reminder that politics is a dirty game and that we don't choose the rules of engagement?

00:00:32.000 This morning, Byron York of the Washington Examiner explained, Another word for whataboutism is precedent.

00:00:37.000 This seems kind of inadequate.

00:00:39.000 Whataboutism actually takes three basic forms, some of them useful, some of them counterproductive.

00:00:43.000 Let's run through them.

00:00:44.000 First,

00:00:45.000 Reminders of leftist dishonesty.

00:00:47.000 When Trump tweets out that Hillary Clinton may have gotten away with bad behavior, he's at least partially reminding the media and the Democrats that they were fine with Hillary's bad behavior.

00:00:55.000 When conservatives spent much of yesterday reminding the media that Barack Obama pledged flexibility to the Russians in exchange for them backing off their aggression in the final days of the 2012 election, they were doing so in order to point out the media's obvious leftist bias.

00:01:07.000 That's important and it's worthwhile, but it should be made explicit.

00:01:10.000 Second, whataboutism can be a reminder of proportionality.

00:01:13.000 Sometimes, whataboutism takes the form of reminding people that something isn't that big a deal.

00:01:18.000 Seemingly, the entire left went ballistic this week when it first heard about a House rule that forbade bear arms in the Capitol.

00:01:23.000 The right promptly recommended, reminded the left, that this rule existed under Nancy Pelosi, too.

00:01:28.000 It wasn't a big deal then, it's not a big deal now.

00:01:31.000 Third, moral relativism.

00:01:33.000 Now this is the dangerous form of whataboutism.

00:01:35.000 It's also the most common.

00:01:37.000 This is the actual message underlying Trump's tweet.

00:01:41.000 This ignores two crucial facts.

00:01:43.000 First, Hillary did not get away with it. 1.00

00:01:46.000 She lost the election.

00:01:47.000 It's why she's not in the White House. 0.97

00:01:48.000 Second,

00:01:49.000 Wrong is wrong.

00:01:50.000 The right now engages in a fantasy whereby the left's dishonesty somehow justifies conservative dishonesty.

00:01:55.000 Hey, if Hillary's corrupt, what's the big problem with the Trump campaign soliciting information from the Russian government? 0.99

00:02:01.000 In this case, whataboutism is itself dishonesty.

00:02:04.000 It's pretending to care about the sins of the left,

00:02:06.000 In order to justify the sins of the right. 0.96

00:02:08.000 It actually throws into sharp relief the hypocrisy of the right.

00:02:10.000 We complained endlessly and justifiably about Loretta Lynch meeting secretly with Bill Clinton, but we're fine with Donald Trump Jr.

00:02:15.000 meeting secretly with Natalia Veselnitskaya and we're supposed to believe everything he says about it.

00:02:20.000 We ripped President Obama's flexibility hot mic moment, but we're fine with President Trump saying that America has killed people just like Putin.

00:02:26.000 We correctly targeted Clinton over Chinagate, but now we're happy to use Chinagate as an excuse to avoid talking about Russiagate.

00:02:31.000 This isn't conservative.

00:02:32.000 It's not even moral.

00:02:34.000 Kindergartners learn that, but he did it too, isn't an excuse for bad behavior.

00:02:39.000 We should know this stuff.

00:02:41.000 The right often embraces this form of whataboutism because many people believe that fighting the left requires tossing out morality of means in favor of morality of ends.

00:02:49.000 Fight fire with fire.

00:02:51.000 Since that was the animating principle behind a lot of conservative support for the Trump campaign, this form of whataboutism has also become the most common form.

00:02:57.000 Many on the right say this isn't actually moral relativism.

00:03:00.000 Relativism implies there's no moral answer to any given question, whereas situational morality says there is a moral answer, but it changes based on the fact pattern.

00:03:08.000 Therefore, it might normally be wrong to collude with Russia, for example, but it's a moral imperative to do so to stop Hillary Clinton, after all.

00:03:14.000 Well, we had to side with Stalin to defeat Hitler. 0.53

00:03:16.000 We might have to side with Putin to stop ISIS.

00:03:18.000 The problem is that this invites an obvious temptation.

00:03:20.000 If you can turn the other side into Hitler, you can make excuses for siding with Stalin.

00:03:24.000 In the game of politics, few are willing to honestly assess the moral quality of their opposition and the rules of engagement.

00:03:31.000 It's far more politically profitable to define all political enemies as Nazis, 0.96

00:03:34.000 And then suggest it's okay to punch them. 0.72

00:03:36.000 This is just as true for the left as it is for the right. 0.73

00:03:38.000 Far more true for the left, actually.

00:03:40.000 It's always easier to win if you side with Stalin, even if you could win without siding with Stalin.

00:03:44.000 The temptation, therefore, is to demonize the other side so you can side with Stalin even if you don't need to.

00:03:49.000 We ought to be careful about how we use Whataboutism.

00:03:52.000 The goal should be to reinforce moral standards, not to undermine them.

00:03:56.000 But that goal seems to be receding into the distance as we use Whataboutism as a club directed at destroying principle rather than a shield for defending it.

00:04:03.000 I'm Ben Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:04:09.000 Okay, we are going to fully analyze everything having to do with Trump Jr.

00:04:13.000 and his treason and the Russians.

00:04:14.000 We're gonna get to all of that.

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00:04:31.000 Okay, so I'm gonna tell you about everything Trump Jr.

00:04:33.000 related.

00:04:34.000 We're gonna go through the tape.

00:04:35.000 We're gonna talk about Democrats.

00:04:36.000 Completely losing their minds over this as they have lost their mind over everything so far We'll go through all of that.

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00:05:57.000 Okay, so, last night, Donald Trump Jr.

00:06:00.000 appears on Sean Hannity's program.

00:06:03.000 And there are five big questions about the Donald Trump Jr.

00:06:06.000 meeting with the Russians story.

00:06:07.000 So as you recall, yesterday, these blockbuster emails are released by Donald Trump Jr.

00:06:12.000 on Twitter.

00:06:13.000 And he wasn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart, okay?

00:06:14.000 Trump said, my son is so, he's unbelievable, transparency, unbelievably.

00:06:19.000 You can see through him, he's like a glass of water.

00:06:21.000 You can see right through him.

00:06:23.000 Unbelievable people.

00:06:24.000 Okay, but it turns out the reason that he revealed the emails was because eight minutes later the New York Times ran a story on the email, so he knew the New York Times was going to reveal the story, so he threw the emails out there.

00:06:33.000 The problem is that the email said explicitly that Rob Goldstone, who is that weirdo who we played on the show yesterday, this publicist weirdo who talks about Andy's Arby or whatever it is, that guy brokered a meeting between Trump Jr.

00:06:48.000 and a Russian-connected lawyer whom he said was a Russian government lawyer

00:06:52.000 And he also said, this is part of Russia's effort to support Mr. Trump.

00:06:56.000 This is a direct quote from the email, quote, part of Russia and its government support for Mr. Trump.

00:07:00.000 So, the left immediately jumped to, this is the collusion.

00:07:03.000 The collusion has happened.

00:07:05.000 Collusion has occurred.

00:07:06.000 Trump Jr.

00:07:06.000 saw this, and he said he loved it, and then he brought in Manafort, and he brought in Kushner, and this is where the collusion began.

00:07:12.000 The evil planning in the back rooms to decide how to militarize all of Hillary Clinton's seized emails from WikiLeaks, and John Podesta's seized emails from WikiLeaks.

00:07:22.000 Okay.

00:07:23.000 That is not what actually the email showed.

00:07:25.000 What the email showed was attempted collusion.

00:07:27.000 Okay, first of all, no.

00:07:28.000 Collusion is a term of art.

00:07:30.000 It is not a term of law.

00:07:31.000 Collusion is not a crime.

00:07:32.000 There's no crime called collusion.

00:07:34.000 There's a crime called conspiracy to commit a crime, but there is no crime called collusion.

00:07:38.000 Okay, not when it comes to this kind of stuff.

00:07:40.000 So when people say collusion and you go, ooh, he'll end up behind bars.

00:07:43.000 No, no.

00:07:44.000 You actually have to commit a crime under statute in order for you to end up behind bars.

00:07:48.000 So

00:07:48.000 It can still be bad.

00:07:49.000 It can still be wrong.

00:07:50.000 It can still be a political problem.

00:07:51.000 It can still be an impeachment problem for President Trump if the Democrats ever, God forbid, got control of the House of Representatives.

00:07:57.000 But it is not actual legal crime.

00:08:00.000 This is not legal crime.

00:08:01.000 So we can put that to the side.

00:08:03.000 But what the Democrats were saying is that this was the beginning of actual collusion.

00:08:07.000 This is where they started coordinating.

00:08:09.000 Okay, well there's no proof that actual coordination actually happened, because all of the people in the meeting came out and said, that was worthless.

00:08:15.000 The lady didn't even have any information. 1.00

00:08:17.000 There are a couple of threats that exist, even if the information was worthless.

00:08:20.000 Threat number one was that this was sort of the opener.

00:08:23.000 That the Russian government now knew that the Trump campaign was willing to hear more stuff, and so maybe there'll be collusion down the road, but we haven't found any evidence of that.

00:08:30.000 Threat number two is that now that there's been this meeting, they can hold that over Trump's head.

00:08:35.000 Right?

00:08:35.000 They could—the Russians could hold this over Trump's head, and they could say, anytime we want, we can drop the information that you were quasi-colluding with us, or trying to collude with us, and destroy your presidency.

00:08:44.000 But now the information's been dropped, so the threat is a little bit gone, unless there are more shoes to drop.

00:08:49.000 But there are some outstanding questions that I want to go through about this particular meeting.

00:08:53.000 And I think they actually do require answers now, because they are things that Trump is going to be asked, and the Trump administration are going to be asked.

00:09:00.000 So, number one, did any information actually pass hand?

00:09:03.000 So, everybody at the meeting, as I say, Kushner, Paul Manafort, the then-campaign manager, Trump Jr., Vesel Nitskaya,

00:09:13.000 Natasha, Natalia, whatever her name is.

00:09:15.000 All of them say...

00:09:17.000 No information changed hands.

00:09:18.000 The problem is, you wouldn't expect them to say differently.

00:09:21.000 Who in that meeting is going to say, yeah, they gave us a bunch of information about Hillary Clinton, then we used it?

00:09:25.000 No one's going to say that, right?

00:09:26.000 Veselnitskaya would have to then admit that she was basically an agent of the Russian government, and the other three people in the room would actually be in danger of prosecution if the information was illegally obtained.

00:09:35.000 So none of them are actually going to say it, and they all have a little bit of a history of dishonesty with this particular matter.

00:09:40.000 Manafort has been a Kremlin stooge for years.

00:09:45.000 I mean, like going back to 2012, there's a guy who approached me about working with Manafort and was basically posing him as a stooge of the Ukrainian government at the time.

00:09:55.000 So this is not any sort of great shock.

00:09:57.000 At that time, the Ukrainian government was in league with Vladimir Putin.

00:10:00.000 Trump Jr.

00:10:01.000 had fibbed about the meeting.

00:10:01.000 He said it didn't take place.

00:10:02.000 Then he said it did take place, but we talked adoption.

00:10:04.000 And then finally he admitted what the meeting was about.

00:10:07.000 Kushner did not put on his forms that this meeting ever took place.

00:10:10.000 So maybe that was oversight, maybe it was dishonesty, but it at least calls trust into question.

00:10:14.000 And we have no idea who this Veselnutskaya lady is, right? 0.99

00:10:16.000 I mean, she says she's not a Russian agent, but there's evidence to suggest that she is a Russian what they call a cutout, which is to say somebody who works for the Russian government but has plausible deniability.

00:10:24.000 So we just don't know if any information was passed in this meeting.

00:10:27.000 And the reason that I say this is because

00:10:38.000 Did you tell your father anything about this?

00:10:40.000 No.

00:10:41.000 It was such a nothing.

00:10:44.000 There was nothing to tell.

00:10:44.000 I mean, I wouldn't have even remembered it until you start scouring through the stuff.

00:10:48.000 It was literally just a wasted 20 minutes, which was a shame.

00:10:52.000 Okay, so it's a wasted 20 minutes.

00:10:53.000 Now, this is believable, right?

00:10:55.000 I mean, like, he looks like he's telling the truth here, but I will just remind you that Hillary Clinton said this about Loretta Lynch's meeting with Bill Clinton.

00:11:03.000 They talked about grandkids, which is very much on our minds these days.

00:11:11.000 Okay, so I'm not suggesting that Donald Trump Jr.

00:11:25.000 is definitely lying, because I don't know whether he's lying or not.

00:11:28.000 What I will say is that if Hillary Clinton had done the exact same thing, we would have said, there's no way she's telling the truth, right?

00:11:33.000 Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch don't get together in a room.

00:11:36.000 In the middle of the campaign to talk about grandkids, right?

00:11:38.000 We all said this.

00:11:39.000 This is complete nonsense.

00:11:40.000 And it turns out that it did compromise the investigation in such a way that James Comey felt the necessity to actually get himself involved in the investigation where he had no place.

00:11:49.000 If we're gonna hold the standard that we don't know what happens behind closed doors and we have to be suspicious, my feeling is that we have to be pretty consistent about this.

00:11:56.000 So that's question number one.

00:11:57.000 Did any information actually change hands?

00:11:58.000 Because that

00:12:00.000 So, on Saturday, and I know, listen, I'm trying to give you the most honest take I can here, so as I say, no crime was committed.

00:12:11.000 It's not clear to me that Donald Trump Jr.

00:12:13.000 did anything, you know,

00:12:16.000 Legally, well, I don't think he did anything wrong.

00:12:18.000 Legally wrong, anyway.

00:12:19.000 It's not treason, as the left is proclaiming, but to pretend that this is a big nothing burger is being dishonest, I think.

00:12:24.000 And when people say it's a nothing burger, it's because they're not actually taking an even quasi-objective look at this.

00:12:29.000 Okay, so, on Saturday, Donald Trump Jr.

00:12:31.000 released a statement about this particular meeting, and here's what he said.

00:12:35.000 He said, quote, It was a short introductory meeting.

00:12:37.000 I asked Jared and Paul to stop by.

00:12:39.000 We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago.

00:12:45.000 And was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time, and there was no follow-up.

00:12:50.000 I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand.

00:12:54.000 So, all of this is technically true, right?

00:12:57.000 All of that's technically true, but it misses the two main points, which is the meeting was specifically held to pass on dirt about Hillary Clinton, and second, Trump Jr.

00:13:03.000 fully expected that he was going to be meeting a Russian government lawyer.

00:13:06.000 He didn't know her name, but it said right in the email that this is going to be a Russian government lawyer.

00:13:10.000 So, the problem is, the New York Times is reporting that the White House pre-approved Trump Jr.'

00:13:14.000 's statement on Saturday, which looks more like a cover-up than it does like an attempt to be transparent.

00:13:19.000 If Trump Jr.

00:13:19.000 had just released the statement, that'd be one thing, but for the White House to approve a statement that it knew was false and was going to be debunked within 72 hours, not a good look for the White House.

00:13:28.000 Okay, and then there's the biggest question of all, which is, did Trump himself know about the meeting?

00:13:34.000 And everybody at the meeting says no.

00:13:37.000 You know, Trump Jr.

00:13:38.000 says no.

00:13:40.000 It's a little hard for me to believe that Trump was completely out of the loop, given the fact that, again, all of his top campaign officials were in a room with this lady for half an hour, two days after he had secured the nomination.

00:13:49.000 But it's possible.

00:13:50.000 It's possible they had this meeting and they didn't tell him.

00:13:52.000 It's possible that they wanted to shield him, actually.

00:13:54.000 They wanted to have the preliminary meeting, and then if it had turned into something, maybe they'd go talk with Trump.

00:13:58.000 The left is trotting out this video, just so you know.

00:14:00.000 They're trotting out this video.

00:14:02.000 On June 7th, that's when Donald Trump Jr.

00:14:04.000 confirmed the meeting with the Russian official, Sor, supposedly.

00:14:08.000 I am going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week and we're going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons.

00:14:15.000 I think you're going to find it very informative and very, very interesting.

00:14:35.000 Okay, so there are a lot of people saying he never gave this speech, right?

00:14:38.000 Everybody, I remember when he said this, everybody was expecting him to give this big barn burner of a speech where he tore down Hillary Clinton, he never gave it, so people were suggesting that maybe what happened here is that Jared and Trump Jr.

00:14:48.000 called him up and said,

00:14:50.000 We're going to get some information, and you're going to want to hear this information.

00:14:54.000 And Trump got out in front of himself.

00:14:55.000 That's definitely a possibility, but that's correlation, not causation.

00:14:58.000 Again, no proof that Trump knew about what was going on here.

00:15:01.000 Okay, this brings into question, this is the fourth question about this, and that is, why did Trump fire Comey?

00:15:05.000 So, my theory, my working theory, it's still my working theory, is that Trump fired Comey because he knows that he's innocent.

00:15:11.000 And he's ticked off that James Comey wouldn't say that he was innocent, even though privately James Comey was saying he wasn't under investigation.

00:15:17.000 Because of this email, there's another plausible theory that's now gaining ground, because the counter-theory to that was Trump fired Comey because he was getting too close.

00:15:24.000 I never believed that because there was no there there.

00:15:27.000 It's hard to believe that Trump was going to fire him over a big nothing.

00:15:30.000 Right?

00:15:30.000 Maybe he fired him because he was mad, but to fire him for getting close to something that doesn't exist seems weird.

00:15:35.000 But because of Trump Jr.'

00:15:37.000 's involvement now, it's possible that, you know, Trump tried to fire Comey because maybe he was trying to protect Donald Jr.

00:15:42.000 This is the theory the left is trying to put forward now.

00:15:44.000 Do I believe that theory?

00:15:45.000 No, I don't think there's enough evidence for that theory at all, but I'm just informing you of what the left's theory with regard to Comey would be.

00:15:51.000 Like, why was it so innocent?

00:15:52.000 Why was it so urgent?

00:15:54.000 That Trump wanted Comey to announce that he wasn't under FBI investigation, except that maybe he was scared that it was going to get close to Donald Jr.

00:16:00.000 Okay, final question, and this one is the most interesting, I think, is who leaked the news of this meeting in the first place?

00:16:07.000 So, this meeting only had four people in it, right?

00:16:09.000 It had the Russian, and then it had three of Trump's campaign officials, all of whom are still working for Trump.

00:16:14.000 So, Manafort isn't, but he has no interest in revealing this meeting because it cuts against

00:16:18.000 His attempts to distance himself from his Russian connections.

00:16:21.000 So, who actually leaked the news of the meeting to the New York Times?

00:16:25.000 Apparently they've been working on this for months.

00:16:28.000 What exactly drove all of this?

00:16:30.000 The most obvious source is obviously Corey Lewandowski.

00:16:32.000 So Corey Lewandowski was technically still the campaign manager at the time.

00:16:35.000 He wasn't fired until June 20th.

00:16:37.000 And he hates Manafort, because Manafort took his place.

00:16:39.000 He feels like Manafort ousted him.

00:16:41.000 He does not like Kushner, because he thinks that Ivanka ousted him.

00:16:44.000 And he's not a huge fan of Donald Jr., from what I understand, because Donald Jr.

00:16:48.000 was present at his firing.

00:16:49.000 So Lewandowski has a lot of interest in revealing all of this stuff.

00:16:53.000 To hurt the other three, and then Trump was talking about flirting with Lewandowski, bringing him in, bringing him back.

00:16:58.000 That'd be some pretty hard-nosed ball from Corey Lewandowski leaking news of this meeting that could definitely damage Trump.

00:17:03.000 Lewandowski has, of course, denied knowing anything about the meeting, but he was the campaign manager at that time, right?

00:17:08.000 This is two weeks before he was fired.

00:17:10.000 He was campaign manager at the time, so it's quite possible he was even copied on the emails.

00:17:14.000 Here's the bottom line.

00:17:15.000 This whole thing opens a can of worms the Trump administration did not want open.

00:17:19.000 It's going to be very difficult to close that can of worms.

00:17:22.000 Particularly when the credibility for Don Jr.

00:17:24.000 has been so shot on this particular meeting.

00:17:27.000 Now, do I think that this is all a distraction from Trump's legislative agenda?

00:17:30.000 Absolutely.

00:17:31.000 Do I think the media are overselling it?

00:17:33.000 Yeah, I do.

00:17:33.000 Because instead of treating this as the first step, or treating this as a case of we now have motive but we don't have means or opportunity yet, the media is treating this as the smoking gun, right?

00:17:42.000 This is the be-all end-all.

00:17:43.000 And it is bad.

00:17:44.000 I mean, I'm not going to pretend it's not bad, but

00:17:46.000 It is not everything the media is cracking it up to be.

00:17:48.000 Now, I want to go through what Trump Jr.

00:17:50.000 actually had to say about this in just a second, but before I do that, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at the USCCA.

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00:19:18.000 DefendMyFamilyNow.com.

00:19:21.000 You can check that out.

00:19:22.000 Right now and again USCCA is just a fantastic group.

00:19:25.000 You should definitely be involved with them Okay, so let's go through what Trump jr.

00:19:28.000 Actually said so he's on Hannity Hannity is is the friendly press outlet that the Trump administration goes to When they have a problem because they know they're not gonna get a lot of hard balls, which is fine I mean Obama did the same thing with CNN and MSNBC for legitimately years.

00:19:41.000 So Trump jr.

00:19:43.000 Said that he would have done some things differently, which seems like the understatement of the century.

00:19:46.000 I

00:19:49.000 Like I said, in retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently.

00:19:52.000 Again, this is before the Russia-mania.

00:19:54.000 This is before they were building it up in the press.

00:19:56.000 For me, this was opposition research.

00:19:58.000 They had something, you know, maybe concrete evidence to all the stories I'd been hearing about, but they were probably under-reported for, you know, years, not just during the campaign.

00:20:06.000 So, I think I wanted to hear it out, but really, it went nowhere, and it was apparent that that wasn't what the meeting was actually about.

00:20:12.000 Okay, so basically, here he is just Joe Bluth, right?

00:20:16.000 Joe Bluth from Arrested Development.

00:20:20.000 I've made a huge mistake.

00:20:28.000 There are a lot of comparisons being made between Joe Bluth and Don Jr.

00:20:32.000 Last night, he would have done some things differently.

00:20:34.000 Yeah, that would have been good.

00:20:35.000 I mean, first of all, if you're going to engage in this sort of subterfuge, then perhaps you shouldn't put it in open emails.

00:20:41.000 That seems like not a good way to do it.

00:20:43.000 Trump Jr.

00:20:43.000 then says, if there had been anything illegal, I would have gone to the authorities right away.

00:20:48.000 I said it earlier, a hundred percent I would bring it to the proper authorities.

00:20:51.000 There's nothing that I would do to ever endanger this country.

00:20:53.000 I think the reason we fought so hard during this campaign, whether it was my father and the work that he put into it, whether it was the rest of our family and the efforts that we put into it, and you know those efforts well, it's because we'd do anything for this country, so we're never going to put that in jeopardy, ever.

00:21:07.000 I'm your older brother, Mike, and I was stepped over!

00:21:10.000 That's the way Pop wanted it.

00:21:11.000 It ain't the way I wanted it!

00:21:12.000 I can handle things!

00:21:13.000 I'm smart!

00:21:13.000 Not like everybody says!

00:21:15.000 Like, dumb! 0.99

00:21:15.000 I'm smart, and I want respect! 0.99

00:21:39.000 So yeah, it hasn't been a good 24 hours for Don Jr.

00:21:44.000 So now I want to go to what the Democrats are saying about all of this, because what the Democrats are saying about all of this is full-scale nutty.

00:21:50.000 So as I say, I think that there's a little more nuance than the Democrats are saying.

00:21:53.000 Number one, it is attempted collusion, okay?

00:21:55.000 I'm talking about whether that's moral or not in a second, whether that's okay or not in a few minutes, because that is the lurking question underneath all of this, is how far is the right willing to go

00:22:14.000 to defeat Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.

00:22:16.000 Is that okay?

00:22:17.000 Is it okay to work with the Russian government to take down Hillary Clinton?

00:22:20.000 Because I'm already starting to see the shades of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men.

00:22:26.000 You're damn right I ordered the code red.

00:22:28.000 You know, that's, like, we're almost there.

00:22:30.000 We're almost to the point where there are a bunch of people on the right who are basically saying, okay, so fine, so there was collusion.

00:22:35.000 What do I care?

00:22:35.000 He won, didn't he?

00:22:36.000 We'll talk about that in just a second.

00:22:38.000 But the Democrats are, of course, doing what they always do, which is blowing this way out of proportion

00:22:43.000 It's one of the reasons why Americans can't take all of this super seriously because they're not waiting for the evidence.

00:22:48.000 So Tim Kaine, as you recall, the vice presidential candidate, one of the most quickly forgotten vice presidential candidates in human history, actually.

00:22:55.000 You recall that he ran against Hillary, he ran with Hillary Clinton, and it was basically Hillary Clinton and this bag of white paint.

00:23:03.000 And so that was the bag of white paint being Tim Kaine.

00:23:05.000 Here is Tim Kaine talking about how this is treason!

00:23:09.000 Treason!

00:23:10.000 You think this is treason?

00:23:13.000 The investigation, it's not, nothing is proven yet, but we're now beyond obstruction of justice in terms of what's being investigated.

00:23:20.000 This is moving into perjury, false statements, and even potentially treason.

00:23:26.000 Okay, into treason.

00:23:27.000 Here's the constitutional definition of treason.

00:23:30.000 Article 3, Section 3.

00:23:42.000 We're on confession in open court.

00:23:44.000 No, we're not actually going to send Don Jr.

00:23:47.000 to the electric chair over having a meeting in Trump Tower with a lawyer who had no information as far as we know.

00:23:56.000 So that's just awesome.

00:23:59.000 So yes, the Democrats are of course making mockeries of themselves because they cannot take a win.

00:24:04.000 They cannot just sit there and take a win. 0.98

00:24:05.000 They of course have to blow it out of proportion and make asses of themselves. 0.97

00:24:08.000 We'll talk more about that. 0.92

00:24:10.000 Joe Scarborough saying that he is leaving the Republican Party.

00:24:13.000 Aww.

00:24:13.000 But for that, you're going to have to go over to dailywire.com and become a subscriber.

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00:25:23.000 We are the largest conservative podcast in the nation.

00:25:33.000 So, now is of course a perfect time for the right-to-virtue signal.

00:25:37.000 So, there are a bunch of people on the right who have decided that now is the time to virtue signal.

00:25:40.000 See, we told you so about Trump.

00:25:42.000 Okay, listen, I'm one of the people who is very, to put it mildly, I was rather Trump-skeptical during the election cycle, if you recall all the way back then.

00:25:49.000 But I don't think this is an I-told-you-so moment.

00:25:51.000 I don't think this isn't a, you know, I'll be people who voted for Trump, you are so wrong to see what he's doing now.

00:25:56.000 No, I think everybody who voted for Trump basically knew what they were getting, and what they were getting was a guy who was this, right?

00:26:01.000 I don't think this is a huge, enormous shock.

00:26:04.000 I think that, you know, this is basically you bought what you paid for, and maybe it was better than Hillary Clinton, but it comes along with some baggage, and you have to recognize that.

00:26:14.000 One of the great ironies is Joe Scarborough over on MSNBC.

00:26:17.000 He says that he is done with the Republican Party.

00:26:19.000 He's leaving.

00:26:19.000 He and Mika, they've had it.

00:26:21.000 They're leaving. 0.98

00:26:21.000 Mika was never a member of the Republican Party, but he's on with Stephen Colbert, one of the great schmucks in Showtime. 0.98

00:26:26.000 And here is Joe Scarborough, who apparently decided to copy the hairstyle of Andrew Garfield from any number of movies, and or to simply get out of the shower, rub his hair with a towel,

00:26:41.000 What do you think is happening with your own party?

00:26:44.000 I think it's inexplicable.

00:26:45.000 Is it inexplicable Joseph A. Scarborough?

00:26:46.000 Is it truly inexplicable Josephina H. Scarborough?

00:26:47.000 Is it?

00:27:10.000 You spent the entire election cycle pumping up Donald Trump.

00:27:13.000 You spent the election cycle talking about how the American people just didn't get the appeal of Donald Trump.

00:27:17.000 You had him on your show every morning.

00:27:19.000 You had him call in.

00:27:20.000 You sat in a room with him during the primary results coming in.

00:27:23.000 And you chortled with him.

00:27:24.000 And now you turn around and, oh, he's so mean because he was mean to Mika's face.

00:27:29.000 Oh, okay.

00:27:29.000 So, as I say, everyone knew what they were getting.

00:27:33.000 There are very few surprises in politics.

00:27:35.000 If you are surprised by anything that is currently going on with the Trump White House, let me suggest that you were blinding yourself to reality before you did any of this stuff.

00:27:42.000 And the same is true for Joe Scarborough.

00:27:44.000 But I thought Donald Trump was my best friend.

00:27:46.000 He wasn't your best friend, dude.

00:27:48.000 Okay, I thought that the Republicans were all gonna turn on him.

00:27:51.000 Really, you didn't.

00:27:52.000 But here's Joe Scarborough, a three-term congressperson who's made a fortune being an iconoclast, and here he is talking about how he's gonna leave the Republican Party.

00:28:01.000 Maybe he'll start his own party, the Joe and Mika Wedding Party. 0.73

00:28:05.000 It'll be awesome.

00:28:06.000 Trump has elected president that my party has betrayed their core values.

00:28:11.000 Time and time and time again, they turn the other way.

00:28:15.000 And they're doing the same thing now.

00:28:17.000 And it's actually disgusting.

00:28:18.000 And you have to ask yourself, what exactly is the Republican Party willing to do?

00:28:24.000 How far are they willing to go?

00:28:26.000 How much of this country and our values are they willing to sell out?

00:28:30.000 But aren't you a Republican?

00:28:33.000 I am a Republican, but I'm not going to be a Republican anymore.

00:28:37.000 I've got to become an independent.

00:28:40.000 Yay! 0.99

00:28:41.000 And the crowd goes nuts.

00:28:42.000 So thank you for that virtue signaling, Joe Scarborough.

00:28:44.000 You're not going to stand inside the Republican Party and fight for the soul of it, if you really think all these things.

00:28:48.000 You're not going to try and correct the mistakes.

00:28:50.000 You're not going to try and win people over to your side.

00:28:52.000 You're going to leave the Republican Party altogether.

00:28:54.000 And this is what the left wants, right?

00:28:55.000 What the left actually wants, what they are calling for, is for everyone

00:28:59.000 Who doesn't like the stuff that they are seeing from Trump, right?

00:29:01.000 And I don't like the stuff I'm seeing from Trump Jr.

00:29:03.000 I don't like a lot.

00:29:03.000 I mean, I think I've been pretty clear about when I think Trump is good and when he's bad, right?

00:29:06.000 We've done good Trump, bad Trump for nigh on two years at this point.

00:29:10.000 So I've been pretty clear about this.

00:29:11.000 My goal is to make Trump a better president at this point.

00:29:14.000 My goal is to make the conservative movement a better conservative movement at this point.

00:29:18.000 It isn't to leave and dump all over the movement because I have to signal to everybody what a swell guy I am.

00:29:24.000 The left keeps saying, well, if you really want to resist Trump, why don't you resist his agenda? 0.99

00:29:28.000 Well, when his agenda is wrong, I will resist it, but if you think that I'm going to want to raise taxes and increase Medicaid spending because I think that Trump is sometimes a jerk, and I think Trump may sometimes be corrupt, if you think that that, like, I just want to know, when was the last time a Democrat left Bill Clinton's agenda behind because Bill Clinton was a sleazy scumbag? 0.98

00:29:48.000 Like, when was the last time the Democrats decided, you know what, I can't take all these lies from Obama, I'm becoming a Republican. 0.97

00:29:54.000 That's not what people do.

00:29:56.000 Okay, so this is just a way to please that crowd over at Stephen Colbert.

00:29:59.000 So, virtue signaling from people like Joe Scarborough.

00:30:01.000 So, how is the right responding to all of this?

00:30:03.000 There are really four approaches on the right to all of this.

00:30:07.000 Approach number one is to focus on the legality.

00:30:09.000 People saying, listen, this is not illegal, okay?

00:30:12.000 No matter what you say, this is not illegal.

00:30:15.000 So, Jeffrey Toobin, who's not even on the right, he is a lefty, legal commentator on CNN, he makes the point and he is correct.

00:30:22.000 This is not illegal activity by Donald Trump Jr.

00:30:24.000 as far as we know.

00:30:25.000 How serious is this, these emails, from a legal perspective?

00:30:29.000 It's certainly very, very serious, but it's also important to say, you know, there is a long way to go, and these emails in and of themselves are not proof of any crimes.

00:30:40.000 Two things to think about.

00:30:41.000 One is, it is a crime for campaign officials to solicit anything of value from a foreign government.

00:30:49.000 So the question is, was anything solicited here of value?

00:30:53.000 We're good to go.

00:31:10.000 to uh... when he filled out his form applying for a security clearance if he intentionally left it off that's a crime it's not a crime if he simply forgot or made a mistake this meeting though certainly seems pretty dramatic even in the context of a dramatic campaign the idea that he simply forgot about it strikes me as probably a little hard to believe.

00:31:33.000 Okay fine, so he's going after Jared but Donald Trump Jr.

00:31:36.000 didn't break any laws as far as we know even Jeffrey Toobin's admitting that so

00:31:40.000 This defense that it's not illegal is correct.

00:31:43.000 I point out once again, illegal does not mean moral, okay?

00:31:46.000 So if it's not illegal, that doesn't mean that he did something good, and it also doesn't mean he didn't do something that could get his dad impeached.

00:31:52.000 So Democrats were gonna try to impeach Trump no matter what, but this does not help.

00:31:55.000 Okay, approach number two is the what about is what I talked about at the top of the show, and that is the what about Obama, right?

00:32:01.000 What about Obama?

00:32:01.000 And here's Ted Cruz talking about President Obama and why it is the media are ignoring all this stuff.

00:32:08.000 I think that we have had eight years of Barack Obama showing nothing but appeasement towards Russia.

00:32:16.000 Okay, and that is 100% true.

00:32:18.000 The question is, the question is, what kind of whataboutism are we going to engage in? 0.94

00:32:23.000 So I think that it is fair to say to the media, you guys are hypocrites, right? 0.94

00:32:27.000 Your over-the-top coverage of this just demonstrates how leftist you are. 0.93

00:32:29.000 So the critique is not of Hillary so much as it is of the media coverage, right?

00:32:33.000 Why is the media coverage so over-the-top about Trump, but when it comes to

00:32:37.000 When it comes to Hillary Clinton, they were willing to brush all this stuff under the table. 0.98

00:32:40.000 When it comes to Obama, they were willing to brush all this stuff under the table.

00:32:42.000 That is an effective form of whataboutism.

00:32:44.000 What is not an effective form is, Donald Trump Jr.

00:32:47.000 did something bad, but Hillary also did stuff that was bad, and that wasn't a big deal, so why should this be a big deal?

00:32:52.000 Right?

00:32:52.000 That is the kindergarten version that when your kid comes home and it turns out that they did something bad, they say, well, Billy did it too.

00:32:58.000 And you say, well, I don't care what Billy did.

00:32:59.000 Why does that make any difference?

00:33:01.000 You know, that's like, this is stuff that we learned when we were in kindergarten, but we now have to relearn it in politics.

00:33:06.000 Okay, so that is approach number two, is what about the Democrats? 0.95

00:33:09.000 Okay, the Democrats are terrible. 0.92

00:33:10.000 Now, is this good? 0.96

00:33:12.000 Right, that's still a question that has to be asked, and we have to decide that for ourselves.

00:33:16.000 Is it something good?

00:33:16.000 I'm gonna get to that in a second.

00:33:18.000 Approach number three is, can we talk about the real issues?

00:33:21.000 Right, that is, this isn't that big a deal, right, the proportionality argument.

00:33:24.000 This isn't that huge a deal.

00:33:26.000 Okay, so they took a meeting.

00:33:27.000 What's the big deal?

00:33:28.000 Hillary Clinton did it about Ukraine.

00:33:30.000 No one complained about that.

00:33:31.000 Now there's one distinction, which is that the Ukrainian government is not adversarial to the United States the way the Russian government is.

00:33:37.000 And the Russian government was indeed trying to intervene in the election, even in ways the Ukrainian government was not.

00:33:42.000 But this is not a bad line.

00:33:45.000 So Sebastian Gorka, who's a White House foreign policy advisor, he says, why aren't we talking about, like, a huge news story that happened yesterday, which is the defeat of ISIS in Mosul?

00:33:54.000 Don't you think it's time the American people were served by the media justly, and you get to national security issues like Mosul?

00:34:01.000 We're going to get to Mosul in one minute.

00:34:03.000 When?

00:34:04.000 He's right.

00:34:05.000 When?

00:34:05.000 And the answer is never.

00:34:06.000 They're never going to get to Mosul.

00:34:07.000 So this, I think, is a good approach.

00:34:09.000 I think Republicans should be saying to the media, why don't you cover this stuff?

00:34:11.000 They should also be saying to Trump, dude, just ignore all of this.

00:34:15.000 Say Mueller's investigating.

00:34:16.000 It'll take its course.

00:34:18.000 I've been singing the same tune on this for months now.

00:34:20.000 All Trump has to say is,

00:34:22.000 Sit on it.

00:34:23.000 It'll take its course.

00:34:25.000 It's being investigated.

00:34:26.000 Don't worry about it.

00:34:27.000 We'll get to it.

00:34:28.000 Now, look at all this magnificent stuff I'm doing.

00:34:30.000 Instead, what Trump does is he unleashes a tweet storm about the investigation, and then, at the end, he tacks on, and why don't you focus on Mosul?

00:34:37.000 It doesn't work that way.

00:34:38.000 He's the president.

00:34:39.000 He gets to help set the agenda.

00:34:41.000 If he is hiding in the White House for the past three days, he hasn't done any public events, instead of out there on the trail talking about Mosul, how are we supposed to know about Mosul?

00:34:48.000 He is right.

00:34:48.000 The media is adversarial to Trump.

00:34:50.000 They want to destroy Trump.

00:34:51.000 Hannity's destroy Trump media meme is not wrong, okay?

00:34:54.000 I think Sean's wrong on some stuff.

00:34:55.000 I don't think he's wrong on this.

00:34:56.000 I think the media do want to destroy Trump.

00:34:58.000 But it is Trump's responsibility to fight back using the best tools at his disposal.

00:35:03.000 And that is not, okay, I'm going to go out and I'm going to argue with Bob Mueller

00:35:07.000 It's... I'm going to go out and I'm going to talk about Mosul incessantly.

00:35:09.000 I'm going to provide a counter-narrative.

00:35:11.000 And the counter-narrative is, we are doing things.

00:35:13.000 Things are getting done.

00:35:15.000 And the media won't talk about them because they'd prefer to distract you over here.

00:35:18.000 Right?

00:35:18.000 This is, I think, the best line that Republicans can use on this.

00:35:21.000 And also, we're going to be as transparent as we can be.

00:35:23.000 Okay.

00:35:23.000 Then there is the final approach.

00:35:25.000 And this is the most morally perilous approach.

00:35:26.000 Okay?

00:35:26.000 This is an approach taken...

00:35:28.000 My good friend John Nolte.

00:35:29.000 Now we published Nolte over at Daily Wire.

00:35:31.000 One of the reasons I like publishing Nolte, even though we have almost polar opposite opinions on these issues, is because Nolte is very clear about what he wants, right?

00:35:40.000 Nolte does not try to hide the ball.

00:35:41.000 John is an honest guy.

00:35:43.000 He's honest enough to acknowledge what his argument is and the ramifications of that argument.

00:35:46.000 So I want to read to you from

00:35:48.000 Nolte's piece today on this on this story So he says the worst the Donald Trump jr. 0.68

00:35:53.000 Scandal gets the more I know Republican voters chose the right guy to run against Hillary Clinton in 2016 at first It looked as though the meeting in the question was something over to over something touchy-feely like adoption upon hearing that my first thought was wait You've just secured the nomination and the first thing you do is pull the campaign manager and Donald whisperer into a meeting about adoption Are you insane?

00:36:11.000 No kidding, I was furious.

00:36:12.000 Hey, when the future of the country is at stake, and you are up against the unholy trinity of the Clinton machine, the entire mainstream media complex, and their butthurt allies in NeverTrump, there is no time to waste.

00:36:21.000 But then the truth came out.

00:36:22.000 We learned that the meeting was set up in the hopes of receiving information from the Russian government that would ensure Hillary Clinton never, ever, ever became president, and my faith in the epic badassery of Team Trump was restored, maybe even bolstered.

00:36:33.000 This is why I love John.

00:36:34.000 I love John because John just says what he thinks, right?

00:36:38.000 He's not going to try and hide it.

00:36:39.000 So a lot of people on the right will deny that this is what they think, but what John says is actually indicative of a large percentage of what Republicans think.

00:36:45.000 He says, Trump world is populated with people who will do anything, anything to win, and as long as it remains legal, those are my kind of Republicans.

00:36:51.000 Oh, grow up.

00:36:52.000 Seriously, y'all.

00:36:53.000 Grow the hell up.

00:36:54.000 I understand there are a lot of people who listen to the show who agree with this perspective.

00:36:57.000 The reason I disagree with this perspective is because I think that it does walk into dicey moral territory, and I'm sorry to bring up things like principles and morality in the context of this, but I thought that politics was about upholding principle.

00:37:08.000 Now, you can say my chief principle is beating Hillary Clinton, but there are still rules of engagement.

00:37:13.000 So, for example, I assume that John would not be in favor of somebody walking into Hillary Clinton's office and shooting her to stop her from becoming president.

00:37:20.000 Even if she's the existential threat John thinks she was to the country, I'm fairly certain that John is not in favor of the use of violence.

00:37:27.000 My guess is that there would be other things that John would not be in favor of, like if you were going to set Hillary Clinton up in some sort of sexual peccadillo sting, you're going to entice her into something.

00:37:36.000 John might find that abhorrent.

00:37:37.000 Maybe not, maybe not.

00:37:38.000 But I think that we need to know what the rules of engagement are because otherwise we're going to get into some pretty dicey territory.

00:37:44.000 However evil you say your opponent is,

00:37:47.000 However destructive you say your opponent is, that helps justify whatever action you take.

00:37:51.000 What makes a person immoral is when your means are not geared to your end.

00:37:55.000 So, someone cuts you off in traffic, you get out of your car, and you beat them to death with a baseball bat.

00:37:59.000 This makes you an immoral, evil person because the consequence did not meet the bad act, right?

00:38:05.000 Someone cut you off in traffic does not merit being beaten to death with a baseball bat. 0.98

00:38:08.000 Now, someone attempts to kill your child, that merits you beating them to death with a baseball bat, right?

00:38:13.000 So the same act can be moral or immoral based on what it is done in response to.

00:38:19.000 The problem is that in politics we are now reaching the point where the most political benefit can be gained if you say, my political enemy is Hitler. 0.69

00:38:28.000 My political enemy is the worst person ever.

00:38:30.000 But that also means that you're going to be using outsized modes of defeating that person, right?

00:38:36.000 You're willing to now cooperate with one of the worst people on planet Earth, Vladimir Putin, in order to stop who you perceive to be the worst person on planet Earth, Hillary Clinton, right?

00:38:43.000 Vladimir Putin is less threatening to you and less threatening to the world than Hillary Clinton, so Hillary Clinton must be stopped.

00:38:48.000 That justifies anything and everything up to and including Russia, Russian involvement.

00:38:53.000 Now, let's say, for example, and this is obviously not true, let's say that there was a situation where

00:38:58.000 ISIS had some sort of damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

00:39:01.000 They knew that she had chipped guns to them or something.

00:39:03.000 And they went to the Trump campaign and they said, here's the information on Hillary Clinton.

00:39:07.000 Would people on the right go along with that?

00:39:09.000 Well, it depends how bad they think Hillary Clinton is. 1.00

00:39:11.000 Because maybe the means are okay in order to stop Hillary Clinton.

00:39:14.000 Here's my view of Hillary Clinton.

00:39:15.000 Hillary Clinton was a uniquely damaging figure in American public life. 1.00

00:39:19.000 Hillary Clinton was a uniquely dangerous character. 1.00

00:39:22.000 It's why I found her so unpalatable that I would not vote for either her or Donald Trump.

00:39:26.000 There was not a point in the campaign where I talked up Hillary Clinton.

00:39:30.000 None.

00:39:30.000 I thought Hillary Clinton would be a disaster for the country.

00:39:33.000 I did not think Hillary Clinton, however, was Vladimir Putin, which means that the methods I was willing to use were restricted to things like truth, and not cooperating with Russia, and engaging in certain means that were dedicated toward defeating her.

00:39:46.000 Here's the truth.

00:39:47.000 The easiest way to defeat Hillary Clinton was to side with Russia. 1.00

00:39:49.000 The easiest way to defeat Hillary Clinton might have been to shoot her. 1.00

00:39:51.000 But I wasn't in favor of any of those things because I think that's immoral. 0.59

00:39:55.000 In politics, the easiest way to defeat somebody is to have no rules.

00:39:58.000 This is why so many people on the right like Trump.

00:40:01.000 But having no rules can be immoral if you are miscalibrating the threat of your opponent.

00:40:07.000 Hillary Clinton is still an American.

00:40:08.000 Hillary Clinton may be a bad, bad person. 1.00

00:40:10.000 She may believe bad, bad things.

00:40:12.000 She may want to do bad, bad things. 1.00

00:40:14.000 But I still don't think that justifies cooperating with an enemy of the United States in Russia in order to take Hillary Clinton down.

00:40:19.000 Nor do I think it's necessary.

00:40:21.000 Nor do I think it's necessary.

00:40:22.000 I think Donald Trump very well could have taken down Hillary Clinton without Russia.

00:40:25.000 How do I know that?

00:40:26.000 Because I think that's what he did.

00:40:28.000 I think that Donald Trump defeated her without colluding with Russia.

00:40:31.000 So this bizarre perception by people that Donald Trump didn't collude with Russia, but if he tried to, that's awesome because it just shows how far he was willing to go.

00:40:39.000 He didn't need to do that.

00:40:40.000 Okay, that's like saying, I want to stop people from cutting me off in traffic. 0.98

00:40:44.000 I beat him to death with a baseball bat.

00:40:45.000 I didn't have to beat him to death with a baseball bat. 0.99

00:40:47.000 I probably could have just yelled at him or flipped him off or maybe honked my horn, but I beat him to death with a baseball bat. 0.96

00:40:52.000 And you know what? 0.96

00:40:52.000 What makes me so cool is even if I didn't beat him to death with a baseball bat, I was willing to beat him to death with a baseball bat. 0.96

00:40:58.000 No, the means have to be calibrated to the ends, and you also have to honestly judge us. 0.86

00:41:03.000 Listen, me saying that I think Hillary Clinton is not Vladimir Putin is not talking up Hillary Clinton, but it shows how ridiculous our political discourse has become.

00:41:10.000 That if I say something like that, people on my own side will say that this is me being soft on Hillary.

00:41:16.000 I don't think that Hillary Clinton has to be Hitler in order to think that Hillary Clinton is a bad human being who never should have been within a thousand feet of the White House. 1.00

00:41:24.000 And so that's, you know, so I think that we have to be very careful about this because our own mortal souls are in danger.

00:41:30.000 And if you think that that's not at risk, if you think that we can be as bad as anybody else, if we can just use any means, then I ask where you draw the line.

00:41:38.000 Because you're asking the left to draw some lines, so I would ask for you to draw some moral lines yourself.

00:41:42.000 Okay.

00:41:43.000 Time for things I like, and then things I hate, and we'll do a little bit of Bible talk.

00:41:46.000 But before we get to that, I first want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Upside.com.

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00:41:51.000 I travel for business a lot.

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00:42:16.000 And by bundling that, they are getting you the lowest possible rate.

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00:42:25.000 You get an Amazon gift card every time you buy a trip.

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00:42:38.000 So you go on, use your company's credit card for your business trip, and then you personally get the Amazon gift card, which, as I say, the average gift card that you get from working with Upside is $150.

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00:43:16.000 So, uh, since we mentioned Job Bluth, I just have to say Arrested Development, have I ever recommended Arrested Development on the show before?

00:43:22.000 Arrested Development is the funniest series that ever was filmed.

00:43:24.000 Arrested Development is absolutely hilarious.

00:43:27.000 Um, you have to have a very quirky sense of humor to get it.

00:43:29.000 Job is maybe the best character, uh, on the show.

00:43:31.000 Job is the, the, uh, the, kind of, there are three brothers, uh, there is, uh, Michael and the, is it Michael?

00:43:39.000 Is that his name?

00:43:39.000 Uh, and then Job, uh, and then, um,

00:43:44.000 Buster, that's right.

00:43:45.000 And it's been probably a couple years since I've watched the show.

00:43:49.000 The cast is phenomenal, hilarious, it's full of references that you'll end up using with your friends.

00:43:55.000 Here is a clip from the opening episode of Arrested Development, when you first meet Job Bluth.

00:44:00.000 Job stands for George, and then his middle initial is O, so it's G-O-B Bluth, but he's called Job, which of course is a play on the fact that everything bad in the world happens to Job in the course of the show.

00:44:11.000 So here's Joe Bluth.

00:44:14.000 This is Michael's oldest brother, or Jobe.

00:44:17.000 This is the magic trick, huh?

00:44:19.000 Illusion, Michael. 1.00

00:44:20.000 The trick is something a whore does for money. 1.00

00:44:22.000 And there are kids standing right next to him in case he can't see him. 1.00

00:44:27.000 Or cocaine.

00:44:28.000 Jobe recently started the Alliance of Magicians, an organization that blackballs any performer who reveals a magician's secret.

00:44:35.000 Hello, I'm Joe Bluth.

00:44:38.000 As a magician, I can make a lot of things disappear.

00:44:42.000 There are some things I can't make disappear.

00:44:44.000 No, not that candy ball machine.

00:44:47.000 The Aztec Tomb!

00:44:50.000 A tomb?

00:44:50.000 Or a box.

00:44:51.000 Boxes.

00:44:52.000 He's performing an old age home.

00:44:53.000 Oh yes, well, excellent.

00:44:55.000 Let's get you in the box! 1.00

00:44:57.000 There's a panel, just flip it around, curl up behind it, don't make any noise, alright?

00:45:05.000 Or has it the Aztec gods put a curse on any man who does?

00:45:12.000 He's gone!

00:45:14.000 George Michael was off from school for two weeks and was enjoying spending time with his uncle.

00:45:19.000 I'm intercepting some telepathic energy that's telling me it's the Eight of Diamonds.

00:45:25.000 That's amazingly close.

00:45:27.000 Gee, I got it wrong.

00:45:29.000 Well, I guess you won the shirt off my back.

00:45:32.000 Okay, that's amazing.

00:45:33.000 It's his Queen of Diamonds on his chest.

00:45:34.000 It's the Queen of Diamonds.

00:45:36.000 No, no, no.

00:45:37.000 Well, I hadn't... I mean, if that had been the actual card, I'm pretty sure I'd be almost too blown away.

00:45:44.000 This show's just amazing.

00:45:45.000 It's a hilarious show.

00:45:46.000 You should go check it out.

00:45:48.000 The Netflix did a fifth season, so there were four original seasons, and then it was not, three?

00:45:53.000 Okay, so the fourth is the Netflix season.

00:45:55.000 The original three seasons are great.

00:45:56.000 I can't speak for the fourth season.

00:45:57.000 I watched the first two episodes.

00:45:58.000 They didn't hold up.

00:45:59.000 I'll have to watch the rest of the season and tell you if it holds up, but it is just, like, it's a hysterically funny show.

00:46:05.000 Okay, time for a thing that I hate.

00:46:12.000 So Joan Walsh, who used to be the editor over at Salon.com, she was on the MSNBC's and she said that Ivanka, who, as you recall, took Papa Trump's place at the G20, she sat in his seat, and people were like, wait a second, we didn't elect Trump so we get Ivanka in that seat.

00:46:28.000 That's a decent criticism.

00:46:29.000 But Joan Walsh makes a not-so-decent criticism. 0.99

00:46:32.000 Here is her criticism of Ivanka Trump, which is legitimately the stupidest criticism of all time. 0.99

00:46:37.000 It's a pink dress with big, big bows on the elbows. 0.99

00:46:41.000 There's something incredibly ornamental.

00:46:43.000 That's not a dress that's made for work. 0.90

00:46:46.000 That's not a dress that's made to go out in the world and make a difference.

00:46:49.000 That is a dress that is designed to show off your girliness. 1.00

00:46:53.000 And, you know, God bless her, show it off!

00:46:55.000 But don't then tell us that you're crusading for an equal place for women at the table, because you're not. 1.00

00:47:01.000 So you can't be a feminist and be girly at the same time? 1.00

00:47:04.000 You can be a feminist and be girly. 1.00

00:47:06.000 We all have our girly days, but I think showing up, taking your father's seat in a pink dress with big bows on the sleeves is really an interesting message.

00:47:15.000 Really?

00:47:15.000 Okay, maybe Joan Walsh should force Ivanka Trump to wear, I don't know, like a red cloak and maybe like a bonnet, right?

00:47:22.000 And then she can like walk around in that and Joan can call her Of Joan and then she can be known as Of Joan.

00:47:28.000 That would just be Ivanka Trump's name.

00:47:30.000 Okay, this is how insane the feminist movement has become. 1.00

00:47:32.000 So a woman so powerful that she sat in for the President of the United States at an international conference 1.00

00:47:40.000 She is not powerful because she has bows on her sleeve. 0.99

00:47:42.000 And this is your lead critique, Joan Walsh.

00:47:44.000 And then you wonder why we think feminists are a joke? 1.00

00:47:47.000 We think feminists are a joke because of people like you. 1.00

00:47:49.000 Because that's ridiculous. 1.00

00:47:50.000 Okay? 0.99

00:47:51.000 That is insane.

00:47:52.000 Women can look pretty and also be feminists at the same time. 1.00

00:47:55.000 My wife does it every single day. 1.00

00:47:56.000 She's super smokin' hot, and she wears pretty clothes a lot, and she is a doctor, as I have mentioned one bajillion times on this program.

00:48:03.000 She is fully capable of being a feminist and dressing like a beautiful woman. 1.00

00:48:08.000 This idea that you have to dress like a hag in order to be a feminist is not going to forward the feminist cause very much. 1.00

00:48:13.000 Boy oh boy, Joan Walsh. 0.95

00:48:14.000 Woo! 0.99

00:48:14.000 Okay, finally, I am going to do a quick, quick Bible talk. 0.99

00:48:18.000 So, this week is the Jewish portion of Pinchas from the Torah.

00:48:23.000 There's a, as I say every week now, there's an associated portion from the prophets and the writings that we read every week as well.

00:48:30.000 This one happens to be from the book of Jeremiah.

00:48:33.000 And this, of course, is one of the more famous verses from the book of Jeremiah.

00:48:37.000 And it says,

00:48:38.000 It says, when I had not yet formed you in the womb, I knew you.

00:48:42.000 And when you had not yet emerged from the womb, I had appointed you a prophet to the nations I made you.

00:48:47.000 This is, of course, used by the pro-life movement to point out that your existence as a human being predates your emergence from the womb.

00:48:54.000 Of course, that is true.

00:48:56.000 The idea is that God provides you value from the very, very beginning.

00:49:00.000 And God knows you as a human being from the very, very beginning.

00:49:04.000 And you are predestined to have a certain skill set.

00:49:07.000 But as we see all throughout Tanakh, as we see all throughout the Torah, and the Prophets, and the Writings, and the New Testament as well, just because God has foreordained a particular job for you doesn't mean that you're necessarily going to fulfill it.

00:49:19.000 So there are two points to be made here.

00:49:20.000 One is that God knows you and He knows you well enough to know what He expects of you.

00:49:23.000 That's what it means.

00:49:24.000 When it says, When I had not yet formed you in the womb, I knew you.

00:49:27.000 I knew what to expect of you because I'm the one who created you.

00:49:30.000 And I appointed you and you had a responsibility.

00:49:32.000 I made you a prophet to the nations.

00:49:34.000 But we still have the choice whether to fulfill that responsibility ourselves.

00:49:37.000 This is where that moral choice comes in.

00:49:39.000 Because the fact is that Jeremiah could have decided not to fulfill that plan, and he would have been sinning against God in doing so, right?

00:49:44.000 This is the story of Jonah.

00:49:45.000 When Jonah refuses to take God's message at face value and he tries to run away from God, he's unable to escape it.

00:49:52.000 But he does have the choice to attempt to avoid it.

00:49:54.000 We all have that choice, but that's a choice that we should not make because God knows us even better than we know ourselves.

00:49:59.000 Okay, so we'll be back here tomorrow with all of the latest.

00:50:02.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:50:02.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

The Ben Shapiro Show - July 12, 2017

Carry On, My Wayward Son | The Ben Shapiro Show Ep. 338

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