The Ben Shapiro Show - Cohen Of Shame | Ep. 726

00:00:00.000 Michael Cohen heads to the Hill to testify against President Trump.

00:00:03.000 Controversy continues over Trump's national emergency declaration and Trump's in Vietnam to meet with the North Koreans.

00:00:08.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:09.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:10.000 Well, it's a big morning, and I understand that there are people who are watching the Cohen testimony live, but we're breaking it down for you here because he already pre-released all of his testimony.

00:00:23.000 I don't think there's going to be a lot new beyond his testimony that he has already released, so we're going to get through all of that this morning.

00:00:29.000 We are also going to get into the possibility of nuclear war between India and Pakistan, which is like the third biggest story of the day.

00:00:35.000 We can get to all of that in just one second.

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00:01:40.000 All right, the big news of the morning, of course.

00:01:42.000 Michael Cohen heads to the Hill.

00:01:44.000 Now, this is his only public testimony.

00:01:45.000 He testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee Yesterday, that was behind closed doors.

00:01:51.000 And then there is the the Senate committee that he's going to speak to tomorrow that is also behind closed doors.

00:01:57.000 Today is the only public testimony that Michael Cohen will be giving.

00:02:01.000 Suffice it to say, Republicans are very unhappy with Michael Cohen.

00:02:04.000 Democrats basically have stopped visiting Pornhub for the day because the Cohen testimony is on live on C-SPAN.

00:02:09.000 So there's plenty to watch if you are a Democrat.

00:02:12.000 We're going to go through Michael Cohen's testimony right now.

00:02:15.000 So he released, he pre-released his written testimony.

00:02:17.000 This is normal in congressional hearings.

00:02:19.000 You release a written version of the testimony that is given to members of the committee so they can prepare Their questions.

00:02:25.000 I would not expect that the questions are going to elicit much in the way of new information.

00:02:29.000 Basically Republicans are going to try to impeach the witness and Democrats are going to try to build up his credibility.

00:02:34.000 That's essentially how the day is going to go on the Hill.

00:02:37.000 But here is what Michael Cohen testified.

00:02:39.000 He began by asking the committee to ensure that his family be protected from presidential threats and that the committee be sensitive to the questions pertaining to ongoing investigations.

00:02:48.000 The reason he says this is because over the last several weeks, the president of the United States has tweeted out stuff about Michael Cohen's father-in-law.

00:02:56.000 And then last night, Matt Gaetz, who is a Republican from Florida, tweeted something out that is quite wild.

00:03:01.000 He tweeted out, Do your wife and father-in-law know about your girlfriends?

00:03:16.000 Maybe tonight would be a good time for a chat.

00:03:18.000 I wonder if she'll remain faithful when you're in prison. 0.88

00:03:20.000 She's about to learn a lot.

00:03:21.000 And then, weirdly enough, Matt Getz went and actually got Frank Pantangeli's brother to sit behind Michael Cohen in the witness hearing.

00:03:30.000 This is not a good look.

00:03:32.000 It's actually a violation of law.

00:03:33.000 You are not allowed to threaten a witness.

00:03:35.000 It's pretty obvious this is called threatening a witness.

00:03:37.000 Here was Matt Getzman doing the same thing on the House floor.

00:03:41.000 I guess tomorrow we will find out if there is anyone that Michael Cohen hasn't lied to.

00:03:46.000 We already know he lied to Congress.

00:03:48.000 We already know he lied to law enforcement, lied to the IRS, lied to three banks, and he's going to prison for his lies.

00:03:53.000 And so I guess it will be relevant for us to determine, like, Does he lie to his own family?

00:03:59.000 Does he lie to his financiers?

00:04:01.000 Does he lie to his financiers who are members of his family?

00:04:04.000 And it'll be one heck of an inquiry for us, because this is someone who has tangled such a web of lies that he is not to be believed, and I think it is entirely appropriate.

00:04:14.000 For any member of this body to challenge the truthfulness and veracity and character for the people who have a history of lying and have a future that undoubtedly contains nothing but lies.

00:04:25.000 I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but it's very weird to go after Michael Cohen's personal life with regard to his girlfriends while defending the President of the United States, who literally has slept with everything.

00:04:36.000 Okay, that's, that's, that's...

00:04:38.000 The reason that we're having a hearing today is because President Trump shtooped a porn star back in 2006 and then tried to pay her off with $130,000 via Michael Cohen.

00:04:46.000 Like, this is a very weird line of attack.

00:04:48.000 Nancy Pelosi then, of course, got up and warned Matt Gaetz and suggested that the Ethics Committee could be looking into all of this.

00:04:54.000 She said, I encourage all members to be mindful that comments made on social media or in the press can adversely affect the ability of House committees to obtain the truthful and complete information necessary to fulfill their duties.

00:05:04.000 OK, so that was the lead up to Michael Cohen's testimony this morning.

00:05:08.000 And it's not a good look.

00:05:09.000 OK, that's not something Republicans should be engaged in.

00:05:11.000 Not only that, I mean, it's disgusting, frankly, to be threatening witnesses with, by the way, nudge nudge, you may have girlfriends and your wife doesn't know about like, come on, come on.

00:05:21.000 Here's the truth.

00:05:22.000 It is not very difficult to impeach Michael Cohen as a witness. 0.94

00:05:25.000 He's a convicted perjurer.

00:05:26.000 He pled guilty to perjuring himself before Congress.

00:05:29.000 If you want to cast doubt on his accounts, all you have to do is say, right, last time you were here, you were lying to us and you're going to jail over it.

00:05:37.000 So I'm going to go with no on everything you say, unless you've got some corroborating evidence.

00:05:41.000 OK, in any case, Michael Cohen goes before the committee and he talks about President Trump.

00:05:46.000 Now, most of what he had to say is just simple gossip.

00:05:48.000 Most of it doesn't go to actual crime.

00:05:51.000 It's essentially juicy stuff that makes people feel the way they've already felt about Trump.

00:05:55.000 So if you're a big Trump fan, you're going to dismiss most of this as bitter grapes from Michael Cohen, as sour grapes from Michael Cohen.

00:06:01.000 That he essentially is just digging up everything bad he can say about Trump so that he can rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the media and in the eyes of the left.

00:06:09.000 So he can get that strange new respect that James Comey and former FBI acting director Andrew McCabe have gotten from the left.

00:06:16.000 And so if you're a Republican, that's basically where you're going to go with this.

00:06:19.000 If you're a Democrat, you're going to say, right, this is what I always knew about Trump. 1.00

00:06:22.000 I always knew he was a racist and a liar and a cheat. 0.99

00:06:25.000 Now, if you're somebody like me and you tend to believe that the president has some fundamental lacks of character, because he does. 0.98

00:06:32.000 If you're somebody who looks at this as objectively as possible, There are three baskets into which Cohen's testimony falls.

00:06:39.000 One is legal problems, like legal impeachable problems for the president.

00:06:44.000 There's not much in the way of that in this testimony.

00:06:45.000 We'll get to that.

00:06:47.000 Basket number two is stuff that is upsetting, but not impeachable.

00:06:51.000 And basket number three is stuff that is just funny as hell.

00:06:53.000 Okay, and really, there are those three categories in this testimony.

00:06:58.000 All three are here.

00:06:59.000 So let's go through Michael Cohen's testimony.

00:07:01.000 We're going to do it in shorter fashion, so you don't actually have to listen to Michael Cohen's interminable recitation of his own testimony, because number one, I read faster than he does, and number two, I cut out all the self-congratulatory nonsense.

00:07:11.000 So Michael Cohen led off by saying that many people doubt and attack his credibility.

00:07:15.000 He says, it is for this reason I have incorporated into this opening statement documents that are irrefutable and demonstrate that the information you will hear is truthful and accurate.

00:07:23.000 That is true about some of the things he says.

00:07:25.000 It is not true about others of the things he says.

00:07:27.000 So his most damning claims about President Trump, the only one that is really backbanging documentary evidence, is stuff we already knew, like President Trump signing checks to Michael Cohen to essentially reimburse him for paying off Stormy Daniels in the middle of the election cycle.

00:07:42.000 That stuff has some documentary evidence, but we knew that already.

00:07:45.000 The most damning claims, the stuff where he suggests that Trump knew about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, which we'll get to in a second, or the stuff where he suggests that Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting, there's no documentation of that whatsoever.

00:07:55.000 Not only that, but the language Trump even used, according to Michael Cohen's own recitation of the facts, is substantially vague enough that it makes it very difficult to believe that Trump was actively involved, for example, in Russian collusion.

00:08:08.000 In any case, Cohen says, never in a million years did I imagine when I accepted a job in 2007 to work for President Trump that he would one day run for president, launch a campaign on a platform of hate and intolerance, and actually win.

00:08:19.000 Now, this is Cohen's pitch for, guys, you really should love me.

00:08:22.000 Like, please love me.

00:08:23.000 This is his pitch to Elijah Cummings and the Democratic members of the House.

00:08:27.000 Love me. 0.99

00:08:28.000 I said the president's a racist and that he's hateful and intolerant. 0.99

00:08:32.000 Love me! 0.97

00:08:33.000 Well, if you thought all this stuff, dude, then why were you on his campaign as one of his leads on TV?

00:08:40.000 I love all the people who leave and then they're like, oh yeah, it was hate and intolerance.

00:08:43.000 That was the real problem here with Trump.

00:08:46.000 You were fine with it for years.

00:08:48.000 Like, you were fine with it for a long, long time, dude.

00:08:51.000 Like, all the way through the campaign and then beyond the campaign.

00:08:54.000 He says, I regret the day I said yes to Mr. Trump.

00:08:56.000 I regret all the help and support I gave him along the way.

00:08:58.000 He said he's ashamed of his own failings.

00:09:01.000 He says, I'm ashamed of my weakness and misplaced loyalty.

00:09:03.000 I'm ashamed I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump's illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience.

00:09:08.000 I am ashamed, says Michael Cohen, because I know what Mr. Trump is. 1.00

00:09:11.000 He is a racist. 1.00

00:09:12.000 He is a conman. 1.00

00:09:13.000 He is a cheat. 1.00

00:09:15.000 That, of course, is going to be the punchline and that will be the headline in the New York Times. 1.00

00:09:19.000 Trump's personal attorney colon Trump racist conman cheat. 0.97

00:09:24.000 That's going to be the line and he knows it. 0.91

00:09:26.000 He says, Michael Cohen says, that Trump was a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National Committee emails.

00:09:34.000 Now...

00:09:35.000 The implication here is that it would be illegal for Trump to know about it.

00:09:38.000 Now, there are two claims that are being made.

00:09:40.000 One, he knew that Roger Stone was talking to Assange about the WikiLeaks drop.

00:09:44.000 Two, the claim made by Democrats is that Trump was actually helping coordinate with WikiLeaks, i.e.

00:09:49.000 the Russian government, the drop of the emails.

00:09:52.000 Nothing, nothing in Cohen's account backs claim number two.

00:09:55.000 So there's evidence for claim number one, namely his testimony, that Stone had told Trump that WikiLeaks was going to drop the emails.

00:10:01.000 There is nothing to claim number two, which is that Trump was then telling WikiLeaks when and where to release the emails.

00:10:07.000 As we'll get to, this may be yucky, but it is not, in fact, illegal, and in fact, it really isn't even atypical in American politics.

00:10:15.000 Cohen says, A copy of a check Mr. Trump wrote from his personal bank account after he became president to reimburse me for the hush money payments I made to cover up his affair with an adult film star and prevent damage to his campaign.

00:10:28.000 Copies of financial statements for 2011 to 2013 that he gave to such institutions as Deutsche Bank.

00:10:33.000 A copy of an article with Mr. Trump's handwriting on it that reported on the auction of a portrait of himself.

00:10:39.000 He arranged for the bidder ahead of time and then reimbursed the bidder from the account of his non-profit charitable foundation, with the picture now hanging in one of his country clubs.

00:10:46.000 He's under investigation by the New York AG for the misuse of Trump Foundation funds, which is why the Trump Foundation has been temporarily shuttered.

00:10:54.000 Copies of letters, says Cohen, I wrote at Mr. Trump's direction that threatened his high school, colleges, and the college board not to release his grades or SAT scores.

00:11:01.000 Okay, that's just hilarious.

00:11:03.000 Like, I'm sorry, like, that part, remember, there are the three baskets.

00:11:05.000 Illegal, bad, hilarious.

00:11:08.000 That last one kind of falls into hilarious.

00:11:10.000 Like, Trump was so insecure that he had Michael Cohen sending letters to Wharton saying, don't release my grades, guys.

00:11:16.000 Like, don't do it.

00:11:18.000 But writing into his college to suggest that he may not release his SAT scores, wrote into Fordham and said, don't release my SAT score.

00:11:28.000 Don't do it.

00:11:29.000 I'm so brilliant.

00:11:29.000 I think it would just embarrass others if they knew what my SAT scores were.

00:11:35.000 Come on, that's funny stuff.

00:11:36.000 Okay, I'm gonna get to more of Michael Cohen's testimony, why it's important, why it's not important, in just one second.

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00:12:49.000 Okay, so, Michael Cohen's testimony continues.

00:12:52.000 He talks about how these are steps along the way, a pathway of redemption to him.

00:12:56.000 No, these are the first steps toward a book proposal that he will presumably write after he leaves jail.

00:13:00.000 And then he talks about why he lied to Congress.

00:13:03.000 He says that he lied to Congress about Trump negotiating the Moscow Tower deal.

00:13:07.000 Now, here is the most important line of the entire testimony, and the one that will be most likely to be ignored.

00:13:11.000 Quote, Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress.

00:13:15.000 That's not how he operates.

00:13:18.000 Well, if he didn't tell you to lie to Congress, and you don't have evidence of him instructing you to commit perjury or obstruction of justice, you got nothing.

00:13:26.000 So this is why when we talk about the basket of legal problems for Trump, Cohen didn't say anything with regard to Russia or perjury that actually implicates Trump.

00:13:36.000 And that's a problem for Democrats.

00:13:37.000 They're going to focus in on all the bad stuff Trump has said and done over the course of his career.

00:13:41.000 And let's face it.

00:13:42.000 Is anyone surprised by any of these things by the revelation that Trump stops women and then pays them off by the revelation that Trump says politically incorrect and or racist things in private?

00:13:51.000 Like, is anybody shocked by any of these things, really?

00:13:54.000 But even if those are true, right, which we don't know because the only person testifying is now a convicted perjurer.

00:14:01.000 But.

00:14:02.000 If Trump did not instruct Cohen to lie to Congress, then he is not responsible for Cohen's perjury.

00:14:07.000 Cohen says, Okay, well, it is true that Trump lied over and over and over about Russia, ongoing business, and all of that.

00:14:23.000 Not perjury.

00:14:25.000 Not a crime.

00:14:26.000 Candidates lie to the American people all the time.

00:14:28.000 Doesn't mean it's good.

00:14:29.000 As I have said 1,000 times in this segment alone, President Trump is a man with a deep lack of character.

00:14:34.000 That is obvious.

00:14:35.000 He is not a good man, President Trump.

00:14:38.000 He may do some good things that you like.

00:14:40.000 He may do some good things that I like.

00:14:41.000 You may be happy that he's president.

00:14:43.000 I'm happy Hillary Clinton is not president.

00:14:44.000 There are a lot of things to like about President Trump, but it is difficult to claim that he is an honest good man because I don't think that that's the case, frankly.

00:14:52.000 Is that criminal?

00:14:53.000 Is it criminal to not be an honest good man?

00:14:55.000 If it were, half the presidents who have ever been president would have been in jail.

00:14:59.000 Because, come on.

00:15:00.000 We're going to get to more of Michael Cohen's testimony here in one second.

00:15:02.000 So, Michael Cohen continues.

00:15:04.000 He says there are at least a half dozen times between the Iowa caucus in January 2016 and the end of June when Trump would ask me, how's it going in Russia, referring to the Moscow Tower project.

00:15:12.000 You need to know that Mr. Trump's personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it.

00:15:20.000 To be clear, Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it.

00:15:25.000 He lied about it because he never expected to win the election.

00:15:27.000 Okay, this is another really important line from Michael Cohen.

00:15:31.000 Trump lied about this stuff because he never expected to win the election.

00:15:33.000 So, the going democratic theory was that Trump made a deal with Russia for a quid pro quo.

00:15:39.000 You say yes to my Moscow Tower deal, and when I win election, I will give you X, Y, and Z. But if Trump never expected to win election, what's the quid pro quo?

00:15:49.000 What is the illegal quid pro quo?

00:15:51.000 Is it that he said nice things about Vladimir Putin?

00:15:53.000 Because it's not illegal. 0.92

00:15:54.000 It may be dumb, but it's not illegal to say nice things about Vladimir Putin. 0.84

00:15:58.000 So if the idea is Russian collusion and Trump didn't expect to win, what's the illegal pro quo? 0.88

00:16:05.000 The answer is, there wasn't one, so far as we can tell from any of the evidence that Michael Cohen is releasing.

00:16:10.000 Cohen says, Trump also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project.

00:16:16.000 And so I lied about it, too, because Mr. Trump had made clear to me, through his personal statements to me that we both knew were false, and through his lies to the country, that he wanted me to lie.

00:16:23.000 Okay, that's plausible.

00:16:24.000 It is plausible that Trump wanted him to lie.

00:16:26.000 But if he did not instruct you to lie or threaten you with consequences for telling the truth, then that is not obstruction of justice or subordination of perjury.

00:16:36.000 Over the past two years, says Michael Cohen, I've been smeared as a rat by the President of the United States.

00:16:40.000 The truth is much different.

00:16:41.000 Let me take a brief moment to introduce myself.

00:16:42.000 And that's when Michael Cohen lays out his whole life.

00:16:45.000 And he talks about how wonderful a guy he is.

00:16:47.000 He says he's always tried to live a life of loyalty, friendship, generosity, and compassion.

00:16:52.000 And then he drops what I think was the most disgusting line of his testimony.

00:16:54.000 He says, my father survived the Holocaust thanks to the compassion and selfless acts of others.

00:16:58.000 He was helped by many who put themselves in harm's way to do what they knew was right.

00:17:02.000 That is why my first instinct has always been to help those in need.

00:17:07.000 Dude, do not compare yourself to people who helped save people from the Holocaust.

00:17:10.000 Like, come on.

00:17:13.000 Like, don't even go there. 1.00

00:17:15.000 You are a gross, greasy fixer for a real estate swindler for years. 0.99

00:17:23.000 Don't, like, come. 1.00

00:17:25.000 Come the hell on. 1.00

00:17:26.000 And this is where Michael Cohen's testimony begins to break down for me, frankly, is that we all know that he's a convicted liar. 0.98

00:17:33.000 We know that he's willing to cheat and cut corners. 0.60

00:17:35.000 We know all that stuff.

00:17:37.000 But if he wants us to believe that he is now completely contrite and he's coming clean because he wants to unburden himself, then leading off with, I'm just like the people who tried to, like, my instincts were shaped by my father's Holocaust survivorship.

00:17:50.000 Give me a break.

00:17:53.000 So Michael Cohen then continues, he says, So what exactly did he know about Mr. Trump that was absolutely wrong?

00:17:56.000 at times, at times, oh, at times.

00:17:58.000 It is even more painful to admit that many times I ignored my conscience and acted loyal to a man when I should not have.

00:18:04.000 Sitting here today, it seems unbelievable.

00:18:05.000 I was so mesmerized by Donald Trump that I was willing to do things for him I knew were absolutely wrong.

00:18:10.000 So what exactly did he know about Mr. Trump that was absolutely wrong?

00:18:14.000 So he says that President Trump is an enigma.

00:18:17.000 He says he's complicated.

00:18:19.000 He says he has both good and bad qualities, but his bad far outweighs his good.

00:18:22.000 This is the National Enquirer portion of the testimony, the part where it's bad but gossipy.

00:18:27.000 It's, as I said, three buckets.

00:18:28.000 Illegal, bad, hilarious.

00:18:31.000 This is the stuff that falls into the bad category for President Trump because it will make headlines and it's difficult to refute these claims.

00:18:37.000 Why?

00:18:37.000 Because it's a he-said-he-said situation.

00:18:39.000 Michael Cohen will claim that Trump said something.

00:18:41.000 Trump will claim Trump did not say something.

00:18:43.000 People who like President Trump will believe Trump.

00:18:45.000 People who hate Trump will believe Cohen.

00:18:47.000 It's that easy.

00:18:48.000 So, Cohen says, Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great.

00:18:53.000 He had no desire or intention to lead this nation, only to market himself and to build his wealth and power.

00:18:58.000 Trump would often say the campaign was going to be the greatest infomercial in political history.

00:19:03.000 Do I believe this is true?

00:19:04.000 Yeah, probably.

00:19:05.000 He never expected to win the primary.

00:19:07.000 He never expected to win the general.

00:19:08.000 The campaign was a marketing opportunity.

00:19:10.000 Again, I think that's probably true as well.

00:19:12.000 Is any of that illegal?

00:19:13.000 No.

00:19:13.000 Is it bad?

00:19:14.000 Meh.

00:19:15.000 I think everybody sort of acknowledged this at the time.

00:19:18.000 There are true believers in President Trump who believe that everything the man does, he does for honorable reasons.

00:19:23.000 And then there are people who believe that Trump is a self-motivated actor and has been throughout his career.

00:19:27.000 But does that change what he's done as president?

00:19:29.000 Does it mean that it's bad that he's president?

00:19:31.000 No.

00:19:32.000 Cohen then continues, he says, I knew early on in my work for Mr. Trump, he would direct me to lie to further his business interests.

00:19:39.000 I'm ashamed to say that when it was for a real estate mogul in the private sector, I considered it trivial.

00:19:43.000 As president, I consider it significant and dangerous.

00:19:46.000 He says that people lied on his behalf, et cetera, et cetera.

00:19:50.000 And then he says that Trump knew about the release of the hacked DNC emails.

00:19:53.000 Now, this is the bucket that should be illegal, but here's the problem.

00:19:56.000 He doesn't actually allege illegal activity.

00:19:59.000 Cohen says, As I stated earlier, Mr. Trump knew from Roger Stone in advance about the WikiLeaks drop of emails.

00:20:04.000 In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump's office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone.

00:20:11.000 Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone.

00:20:14.000 Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that within a couple of days there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton's campaign.

00:20:24.000 Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of, Wouldn't that be great?

00:20:29.000 Not illegal.

00:20:30.000 Not illegal.

00:20:31.000 If somebody got on the phone with you and they said, your political opponent's about to be hit with a wave of bad news, no matter where it comes from, and you say, wouldn't that be terrific?

00:20:39.000 Not illegal.

00:20:40.000 And by the way, pretty demonstrative of the fact that Trump was not openly coordinating with Roger Stone or Julian Assange or WikiLeaks or the Russian government.

00:20:49.000 Wouldn't that be great is an expression of surprise.

00:20:51.000 As in like, that would be kind of awesome if they dropped a bunch of oppo on Hillary, wouldn't it? 1.00

00:20:56.000 Nothing illegal, frankly, not even anything that bad there.

00:20:59.000 Like, what's he supposed to do at that point?

00:21:01.000 Notify the FBI that he thinks that Julian Assange is going to release WikiLeaks emails?

00:21:08.000 Again, like, it's gonna be released two days from now.

00:21:10.000 I guess he could notify the FBI, but it's not coordination.

00:21:13.000 It's not coordination.

00:21:14.000 Knowing about something, and not doing anything about it, and not coordinating about it, if somebody says to you, two days from now, two days from now, somebody's gonna do something bad to your business opponent, and you're like, oh, well, that'd be kinda fun.

00:21:28.000 Does it make you great?

00:21:29.000 No.

00:21:30.000 Does it make you kind of bad?

00:21:31.000 A little.

00:21:32.000 Is that illegal?

00:21:33.000 That does not fall into the illegal basket. 0.97

00:21:35.000 Then Cohen says that Trump is a racist. 0.99

00:21:38.000 So Cohen says, Mr. Trump is a racist. 1.00

00:21:40.000 The country has seen Mr. Trump court white supremacists and bigots. 0.99

00:21:43.000 You have heard him call poorer countries bleepholes. 0.71

00:21:45.000 Well, as far as him courting white supremacists and bigots, I was very, very critical of President Trump in 2016 for winking and nodding at the alt-right.

00:21:54.000 In fact, one of the reasons I didn't vote for Trump in 2016 was that interview that he did with Jake Tapper where he suddenly forgot what the KKK was and who David Duke was five minutes before the Louisiana primary.

00:22:03.000 So, I have been very critical.

00:22:05.000 I ripped President Trump a new one after Charlottesville.

00:22:08.000 So, I am warm to the idea that President Trump has been too soft on groups of people that he finds benefit him politically, even if they happen to be gross.

00:22:17.000 But Cohen using the bleep holes example as evidence of racism, I never really bought that argument.

00:22:24.000 If you say that a particular area of the world, like a particular country, is a bad place to live because it is run poorly, that does not make it racist.

00:22:33.000 Like, I think LA, frankly, is kind of a bleephole, and I live here.

00:22:36.000 And that has nothing to do with the race of the people who run the city.

00:22:40.000 Mayor Garcetti is a half-Jewish, half-Italian guy, I think?

00:22:44.000 In private, says Michael Cohen, he's even worse.

00:22:46.000 And here's where we get to the stuff that is bad for Trump.

00:22:48.000 It doesn't fall into illegal and it doesn't fall into funny.

00:22:50.000 It's just bad.

00:22:51.000 He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn't a bleephole.

00:22:55.000 This is when Barack Obama was president of the United States.

00:22:57.000 This is what Michael Cohen says. 0.87

00:22:59.000 While we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way. 1.00

00:23:04.000 And he told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid. 1.00

00:23:07.000 And yet I continued to work for him. 1.00

00:23:10.000 Which does raise the question why you continue to work for him, but nonetheless, nonetheless, those are bad allegations for President Trump.

00:23:15.000 Those will make a lot of headlines, and there is no way for Trump to refute that other than by saying, I didn't say that.

00:23:21.000 So, that's gonna be a he said, he said, put that in the bad category for Trump, as opposed to the illegal or the hilarious category.

00:23:27.000 Then there is more not great stuff for Trump, but it's not really, it kind of falls into the hilarious just because we already knew this about Trump. 0.57

00:23:34.000 So, he says, Cohen says, Mr. Trump is a cheat.

00:23:38.000 As previously stated, I'm giving the committee today three years of President Trump's financial statements from 2011 to 2013, which he gave to Deutsche Bank to inquire about a loan to buy the Buffalo Bills and to Forbes.

00:23:48.000 It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.

00:23:58.000 And then it talks about how he inflated and deflated his assets for public purposes again.

00:24:02.000 That's mostly hilarious because, again, it's like a cheap tactic, and we all know that Trump has been doing this for years.

00:24:08.000 Trump has been saying he's worth $10 billion for years.

00:24:10.000 It is absolutely untrue.

00:24:12.000 And he does that routinely.

00:24:14.000 And then he probably properly reports his income to the government.

00:24:17.000 If not, then the IRS could simply go after him, presumably, and audit him.

00:24:21.000 He says he's under audit right now.

00:24:23.000 Mr. Trump, then we get to something that is in the bad category and maybe the illegal category.

00:24:28.000 That is his use of a private charity to benefit himself, self-dealing via charity.

00:24:34.000 Mr. Trump directed me to find a straw bidder to purchase a portrait of him that was being auctioned at an Art Hamptons event.

00:24:39.000 The objective was to ensure that his portrait, which was going to be auctioned last, would go for the highest price of any portrait that afternoon.

00:24:45.000 The portrait was purchased by the Fakebidder for $60,000.

00:24:47.000 Mr. Trump directed the Trump Foundation, which is supposed to be a charitable organization, to repay the Fakebidder despite keeping the art for himself.

00:24:54.000 Okay, so that one actually falls into all three categories.

00:24:57.000 It may be illegal to sign a check from your foundation to buy a portrait that you then exhibit in your own private holdings.

00:25:05.000 In your country club, right?

00:25:08.000 That may be illegal.

00:25:09.000 It's also bad in the sense that you shouldn't use charities that way, so it doesn't look very good.

00:25:12.000 It's also hilarious in the fact that Trump is such an egotist that he wanted to make sure that the portrait of him was the highest bid item of the evening.

00:25:20.000 Like, who does that?

00:25:22.000 Legitimately, who does that?

00:25:23.000 It's like me going on eBay and finding somebody who's auctioning off one of my books and then me jacking up the bidding simply so that I can say that it bid for like $1,000. 0.97

00:25:30.000 It's so silly and so ridiculous. 0.99

00:25:35.000 And then Cohen suggests that Trump is a con man. 0.99

00:25:37.000 And this is where he gets to the Stormy Daniels stuff.

00:25:39.000 He says, I'm giving the committee today a copy of the $130,000 wire transfer from me to Stormy Daniels' attorney during the closing days of the presidential campaign that was demanded by Ms.

00:25:50.000 Clifford, that's Stormy Daniels, to maintain her silence about her affair with Mr. Trump. 1.00

00:25:54.000 Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a home equity line of credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign.

00:26:02.000 I did that too, without bothering to consider whether that was improper, much less whether it was the right thing to do, or how it would impact me, my family, or the public.

00:26:10.000 So, a couple of things here.

00:26:11.000 Now this is an actual allegation of illegal activity.

00:26:14.000 He's suggesting that Trump knew campaign law, and that Trump was explicitly telling him to avoid campaign disclosures by using his home equity line of credit so that nothing could be traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign.

00:26:26.000 And those words negatively impact his campaign are also important because if he had just told Michael Cohen to pay off this lady, having nothing to do with the campaign, it can't be considered a campaign expenditure.

00:26:37.000 Now, as I said yesterday on the program, it may still not be considered a campaign expenditure because are you actually allowed to use campaign funds to pay off your girlfriends?

00:26:45.000 John Edwards' case suggests maybe not, but in any case, this is at least a legal allegation.

00:26:50.000 Like, this actually has some legal importance.

00:26:53.000 As Exhibit 5 to my testimony shows, says Cohen, I'm providing a copy of a $35,000 check Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on August 1st, 2017 when he was President of the United States pursuant to the cover-up, which was the basis of my guilty plea to reimburse me for the illegal hush money I paid on his behalf.

00:27:10.000 Again, the idea here is that President Trump was doing all of this to avoid campaign finance law.

00:27:16.000 Maybe that's true.

00:27:16.000 Maybe that's not.

00:27:17.000 The SDNY is probably going to prosecute that.

00:27:20.000 But it's a shaky legal theory.

00:27:22.000 It may hold up.

00:27:23.000 Is it scummy behavior?

00:27:24.000 Yeah.

00:27:24.000 Is it bad behavior?

00:27:25.000 Yeah.

00:27:25.000 Is it anything shocking from President Trump, who presumably was paying off women for years?

00:27:29.000 I mean, I'd be shocked if this is the only time Trump paid off a woman.

00:27:33.000 In fact, we know it's not.

00:27:33.000 He did to Karen McDougal, too.

00:27:35.000 I'd be shocked if Trump only paid off women during the campaign. 0.99

00:27:38.000 That doesn't hold with what we know about Trump, who is apparently using the National Enquirer as a go-between to buy off stories as early as 2011.

00:27:45.000 Because he did it to Stormy Daniels, I believe, in 2011.

00:27:49.000 And then, Cohen says that Trump is a con man.

00:27:50.000 Here we get to the hilarious category.

00:27:52.000 He says, I'm talking about a man who declares himself brilliant, but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges, and the college board to never release his grades or SAT scores.

00:28:00.000 I will admit, when I watched Cohen testify about this, I laughed out loud.

00:28:04.000 That is hi-larious.

00:28:07.000 Because, again, it just goes to the fact that Trump is a massive egotist.

00:28:10.000 And he writes a letter to Fordham going, If you release my grades, I will come after you so hard it'll be unbelievable.

00:28:17.000 You won't know it hit you.

00:28:18.000 You won't know.

00:28:19.000 At all.

00:28:20.000 He went after Wharton.

00:28:21.000 He went after his high school.

00:28:22.000 I mean, honestly, now I want to know what his SAT scores were.

00:28:25.000 If you're threatening people not to release your SAT scores, I'm going to go with it wasn't a 1600.

00:28:28.000 Maybe it's just me.

00:28:30.000 But if I had a 1600 on the SATs, by the way, I believe I got a 1420 on the SATs.

00:28:36.000 I was also 14 at the time.

00:28:37.000 But in any case, I'm just putting that out there.

00:28:40.000 So, you know, I'm not threatening the SAT board to not release my SAT scores.

00:28:44.000 The president of the United States threatening people not to release his SAT scores is just fantastic.

00:28:50.000 And then Cohen points out that at the time Trump was talking about Obama and ripping him for not releasing his grades and calling Obama a terrible student, which is just, again, Trump has no shame.

00:29:00.000 And that is obvious.

00:29:00.000 So this one goes in the hilarious category.

00:29:02.000 OK, and then he says, then he gets to the main point here.

00:29:07.000 Questions have been raised about whether I know of direct evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia.

00:29:11.000 I do not.

00:29:13.000 So why are we here?

00:29:16.000 Why are you here to testify, sir?

00:29:18.000 You say that you can provide no evidence that the president actually colluded with Russia, no evidence that the president actively worked with Wikileaks.

00:29:26.000 You're saying the same stuff we already know from SDNY about all the campaign finance stuff.

00:29:29.000 So what are you doing here?

00:29:31.000 And the answer, of course, is that Democrats want headlines so they can distract from their own incompetence and garbage legislation.

00:29:38.000 Cohen shifts the headlines. 0.80

00:29:40.000 Look, that's their political job. 0.87

00:29:41.000 This is what you do when you're a member of a partisan party.

00:29:44.000 You make sure that you humiliate the president of the other party as much as possible.

00:29:48.000 So I'm not going to blame Democrats for doing what Democrats do.

00:29:51.000 It's like blaming the sun for rising in the morning.

00:29:53.000 None of this is a shock.

00:29:54.000 But if Cohen has nothing about the Russian collusion stuff, why are we here? 1.00

00:29:59.000 Why are we listening to you, you convicted perjurer, former scumbag? 1.00

00:30:04.000 What are we doing here? 0.99

00:30:06.000 Basically, all Cohen can testify to is that he read all over the media that in the summer of 2017, there had been a meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016.

00:30:13.000 This is the famous Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr.

00:30:16.000 and a cutout lawyer for the Russians.

00:30:20.000 And that there had been lead up to the meeting about dirt on Hillary Clinton.

00:30:24.000 And Cohen says, something clicked in my mind.

00:30:26.000 I remember being in the room with Mr. Trump, probably in early June 2016, so he can't even date it.

00:30:30.000 Really?

00:30:30.000 When something peculiar happened, Don Jr. came into the room and walked behind his father's desk, which in itself was unusual.

00:30:35.000 People just didn't walk behind Trump's desk to talk to him.

00:30:38.000 Really?

00:30:39.000 I recall Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear and saying, the meeting is all set.

00:30:45.000 I remember Mr. Trump saying, OK, good.

00:30:47.000 Let me know.

00:30:47.000 And then he says, well, that was clearly about the Trump Tower meeting.

00:30:50.000 Is it?

00:30:51.000 Or are you making a bunch of suppositions?

00:30:53.000 I mean, that is some flimsy legal nonsense.

00:30:55.000 So, again, is any of this stuff particularly damning for Trump, like more damning than anything we knew before?

00:31:02.000 No, it really isn't.

00:31:04.000 Is it going to generate a bunch of bad headlines for President Trump?

00:31:07.000 Of course.

00:31:08.000 Is the RNC handling this about the worst way they possibly can?

00:31:11.000 Yeah.

00:31:11.000 So we'll get to that in just one second.

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00:31:42.000 Later on in the day, we're going to be having on Representative Andy Biggs, member of the Freedom Caucus, to talk about the resolution to block President Trump's emergency declaration.

00:31:50.000 We're having on Representative Ted Yoho.

00:31:52.000 He's a member of the House Committee on Foreign Relations.

00:31:54.000 He's here to talk about the crisis in Venezuela and the North Korean summit, so a lot to get to a little bit later on in the day.

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00:32:09.000 It was terrific.

00:32:10.000 Here's a little bit of what it sounds like.

00:32:12.000 Hi, I'm Congressman Dan Crenshaw.

00:32:13.000 I'm here on The Ben Shapiro Show, where we talked about my personal history, my future in politics, campaign finance, the climate, just about everything.

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00:32:48.000 So as I say, nothing that Cohen says in the end is going to be severely damaging to Trump.

00:32:59.000 None of it is great for Trump because when people get up in public and say bad things about you, that's never wonderful for Trump.

00:33:05.000 That's never great for Trump.

00:33:07.000 But it is also true that the RNC has handled this in the worst possible way.

00:33:11.000 The RNC has become quite Trumpy.

00:33:13.000 The problem is that strategic punchback would be good. 0.59

00:33:16.000 All you have to say about Michael Cohen is the guy is a convicted perjurer who is self-interested in all of his testimony.

00:33:21.000 He now has an incentive to make things up about Trump.

00:33:23.000 He has an incentive to remember every bad thing in the worst possible light for President Trump because that's how he's getting a plea deal.

00:33:30.000 That's all you have to say.

00:33:32.000 Instead, the RNC actually cut a commercial saying, have fun in prison to Michael Cohen, which is just delightful.

00:33:39.000 He's going to do everything that he promised.

00:33:46.000 He's going to bring success and he's going to make America great.

00:33:51.000 Principled.

00:33:52.000 Donald Trump speaks from the heart. 0.91

00:33:54.000 Empathetic, kind. 0.97

00:33:57.000 He's going to stay true to who he is.

00:33:59.000 He's going to be an amazing president.

00:34:02.000 Humble, honest, and genuine.

00:34:04.000 Mr. Trump's memory is fantastic, and I've never come across a situation where Mr. Trump has said something that's not accurate.

00:34:13.000 All Donald Trump wants to do is make this country great.

00:34:16.000 I'm sorry, the RNC's incompetent.

00:34:17.000 That is such a self-own. 0.85

00:34:19.000 So you cut an entire commercial about this guy, you say he's a liar, saying nice things about Trump? 0.97

00:34:25.000 That is your proof that he is a liar? 0.79

00:34:27.000 Guys, do better.

00:34:30.000 I mean, hello?

00:34:34.000 Pretty amazing.

00:34:35.000 By the way, Cohen has also testified that he would not call anything regarding President Trump and Russia actual collusion.

00:34:42.000 Why are we here?

00:34:43.000 What are we talking about?

00:34:44.000 What are we talking about?

00:34:46.000 Also, Republicans are doing a good job.

00:34:48.000 Representative Jim Jordan, who was on the program last week, we talked a little bit about Michael Cohen appearing before the House Oversight Committee.

00:34:53.000 He pointed out that Michael Cohen is not just a liar with regard to President Trump or the Trump Tower meeting, that Michael Cohen is indeed a very bad man.

00:35:00.000 I mean, he's going to jail not only because of his activities with regard to President Trump or lying to Congress, he's going to jail because he was involved in a taxi medallion fraud scheme. 0.98

00:35:09.000 I mean, the guy is a gross human. 0.99

00:35:12.000 He's a bad human. 0.97

00:35:13.000 Now, again, none of that means that Trump is clean, but it does mean that if you're going to find a witness to go after President Trump, Democrats, you may want to do better than that. 0.97

00:35:22.000 It's it's really yuck.

00:35:26.000 Yuck.

00:35:26.000 OK, so with all of that said, controversy continues to rage over President Trump's visit to North Korea, the president of the United States in Vietnam right now.

00:35:36.000 And apparently he is watching all of this from afar.

00:35:39.000 We'll get to that in just one second.

00:35:41.000 The president is in Vietnam.

00:35:44.000 It is unclear that anything of worth is going to happen in Vietnam.

00:35:48.000 I'm highly doubtful that anything of worth will happen.

00:35:51.000 Apparently he's staying up all night to watch Cohen's testimony, which again, the fact that that's been leaked is not great for the president.

00:35:56.000 you actually do not want it known that you are so bothered about what Michael Cohen is going to say that you're staying up all night watching it.

00:36:02.000 The proper response is, why would I care what Michael Cohen has to say? 1.00

00:36:06.000 Dude's a liar. 1.00

00:36:06.000 He's going to jail for perjury. 1.00

00:36:08.000 So I'm not losing one wink of sleep over Michael Cohen.

00:36:11.000 Nonetheless, the president apparently is watching that from afar.

00:36:14.000 I would not expect big things from the Vietnam contingent, from the Vietnam meetings that are happening right now, simply because North Korea has lied often, continuously, all the time about making a deal with the United States, and they never have really done so. all the time about making a deal with the United Right now, according to CNN, President Trump departed dinner with North Korea.

00:36:36.000 Korea's Kim Jong-un at the Metropole Hotel.

00:36:38.000 Trump left the hotel one hour and 42 minutes after the dinner began.

00:36:41.000 The two are supposed to meet tomorrow for extended bilateral meetings before President Trump departs in the evening for Washington.

00:36:47.000 Also, there will be a Trump press conference per Trump this evening.

00:36:50.000 They are waiting on the official schedule with the timing.

00:36:53.000 Meanwhile, hilariously enough, the prospect of nuclear war is like tertiary in the news.

00:36:59.000 It's the third thing in the news.

00:37:00.000 There's a massive possibility of an escalation of conflict between Pakistan and India to nuclear armed powers, According to FoxNews.com, tension between two of the world's nuclear powers were raised dramatically on Wednesday after Pakistan's Air Force said it shot down two Indian warplanes that crossed the disputed Kashmir border and captured each of the aircraft's pilots.

00:37:19.000 And there's actual video.

00:37:21.000 of people on the ground in Pakistan beating up one of the Indian pilots, which does not seem like it complies with the Geneva Conventions.

00:37:27.000 Police officials in Indian-occupied Kashmir told Reuters that two Indian pilots and a civilian on the ground died when the planes crashed.

00:37:34.000 The officials did not confirm the planes were shot down by Pakistani forces.

00:37:37.000 One of the pilots, named as Wing Commander Abhinandan Vartaman, was subsequently shown in a video.

00:37:43.000 India's government said it objected to Pakistan's vulgar display.

00:37:46.000 He was seen in two videos, one where he appeared blindfolded and bloodied.

00:37:50.000 And then a second one showing him in custody with the blindfolds removed, appearing visibly more relaxed, even complimenting his captors on a fantastic cup of tea.

00:37:57.000 Ravish Kumar is a spokesperson for India's Ministry of External Affairs, also claims an Indian plane shot down a Pakistani jet fighter, although Pakistan denied any of its jets had been hit, and photographic evidence had yet to emerge.

00:38:08.000 Obviously, this is just another example of tensions being raised.

00:38:11.000 Are we in real danger of nuclear war here?

00:38:14.000 Highly, highly doubtful, given the fact that These tensions are raised on a fairly regular basis.

00:38:19.000 With that said, is that a bit of a big story?

00:38:21.000 Yeah, it's a bit of a big story.

00:38:22.000 In smaller news, apparently AOC is very upset today.

00:38:26.000 Why?

00:38:27.000 Because someone took a photograph of one of her staffers eating a hamburger.

00:38:30.000 So, somebody actually took a picture of her sitting with one of her staffers and pointed out that her staffer is eating hamburgers. 0.98

00:38:38.000 And Ocasio-Cortez, of course, has said that her staffers should not, in fact, eat hamburgers.

00:38:42.000 That people should not eat hamburgers.

00:38:44.000 It's a very bad thing to eat hamburgers.

00:38:47.000 AOC then fought back by saying, She said, tonight a dude was creepily and obviously taking a picture of me while pretending he wasn't and I had to break his imaginary fourth wall and say, hi, I'm a person.

00:38:59.000 This is weird.

00:38:59.000 Okay, so just to get this straight, the media who will dutifully repeat her talking point?

00:39:05.000 Dutifully repeat that talking point.

00:39:07.000 These are the same people who are fine with Ted Cruz and his wife being attacked in a restaurant by a bunch of protesters.

00:39:11.000 But if you take a picture of her chief of staff eating a giant hamburger, like a day after AOC says we shouldn't eat hamburgers, then that is very bad.

00:39:19.000 That's how we know that things are bad.

00:39:20.000 We know that things are bad because someone took a picture of AOC.

00:39:23.000 Very, very terrible stuff.

00:39:25.000 So, that is the latest from AOC.

00:39:27.000 Also, a hilarious story from AOC.

00:39:30.000 The Washington Examiner is saying that AOC, who is bragging about raising her lowest wage at the office to $52,000 a year, actually did this because it allowed members of her staff to avoid financial disclosures.

00:39:42.000 According to the Washington Examiner, AOC's decision to cap her office salaries at 80 grand will let her chief of staff and senior employees avoid public transparency laws that would require them to reveal outside income gifts and stock trading activity.

00:39:54.000 The New York Democrat announced last week she would institute a living wage in her office, paying staff members a minimum of $52,000 a year and a maximum of $80,000 a year.

00:40:03.000 Under federal law, congressional employees who earn more than $126,000 a year, which includes most chiefs of staff, must submit public financial disclosure forms that detail outside income they earn, stock investments, debt, gifts, or paid trips.

00:40:15.000 They are given by outside sources.

00:40:17.000 Of course, her chief of staff is a guy named Sycat Chakrabarty, and he would be shielded from public disclosure laws because he's not going to be paid enough.

00:40:24.000 So, is that the real reason that she's doing all of this?

00:40:27.000 Who the hell knows?

00:40:28.000 But it is sort of weird that the average salary for a chief of staff in the House was $147,000 in 2015, but Ocasio-Cortez is going to cap her senior staff salaries at $80,000, and now they'll be able to earn outside income without publicly revealing the amount or the source.

00:40:44.000 So good stuff from the very non-swampy, very fresh-faced AOC.

00:40:49.000 By the way, you wonder why the Democrats are so eager to push on Michael Cohen and push Michael Cohen to the top of the news?

00:40:55.000 Maybe it's because they can't stop their own congresspeople from saying inane things.

00:40:59.000 For example, Representative Mary Gay Scanlon said yesterday, said yesterday in committee hearing, that the border agents for the United States are akin to Nazi collaborators.

00:41:10.000 I've been struck a couple times by the denial of humanity of many of these families and children.

00:41:18.000 When the issue is framed as an invasion by aliens, and when we refer to children as UACs, it's easier to pretend they're not human or worthy of compassion.

00:41:31.000 This hearing is a recognition and an insistence on that humanity.

00:41:38.000 A recognition that the Flores decision also addressed, and a recognition that just following orders is no more an excuse today than it was back in Germany.

00:41:48.000 Don't worry, Democrats are not extreme at all.

00:41:50.000 They're just comparing ICE agents to Nazi collaborators.

00:41:53.000 Yeah, they're not extreme at all.

00:41:54.000 I wonder why they're getting Michael Cohen to testify.

00:41:56.000 That wasn't the only crazy statement yesterday, by the way.

00:41:58.000 There's another Democratic congressman who suggested that, I believe this is Hank Thompson, who suggested that the only way to prevent all gun violence is to take away every gun.

00:42:08.000 Every day, 170 felons and 50 domestic abusers are stopped from buying a gun at licensed dealers because of the background check.

00:42:19.000 It works.

00:42:20.000 We know it works.

00:42:21.000 There's a lot of evidence out there that clarifies the fact that it works.

00:42:27.000 And as far as anybody who says, well, this bill wouldn't have solved this incident, The only thing that will solve everyone is to do away with guns.

00:42:39.000 So are you telling me that the critics of my bill want to do away with all guns?

00:42:43.000 Um, okay, so this is wild stuff.

00:42:46.000 That's Mike Thompson, by the way, a representative from California.

00:42:49.000 Okay, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.

00:42:52.000 So, things that I like.

00:42:53.000 Last night, I went to a private screening for a movie called We Die Young.

00:42:57.000 Now, it's not a perfect movie.

00:42:59.000 It's coming out video-on-demand on Friday.

00:43:01.000 It is also available in select theaters across the country.

00:43:04.000 It's worth the watch.

00:43:05.000 The reason it's worth the watch is because it is an actual take on MS-13.

00:43:08.000 So you've heard President Trump talk about the dangers of MS-13, what they do, how brutal they are.

00:43:13.000 The depiction of MS-13 in this movie is excellent.

00:43:16.000 And the movie's called We Die Young, and it's Jean-Claude Van Damme, but it's Van Damme playing kind of a different part.

00:43:20.000 It's not Van Damme kicking people in the face.

00:43:22.000 Van Damme plays an ex-Marine who was wounded in combat, and now he has to help out a couple of kids who are being victimized by the MS-13 cartel.

00:43:33.000 Some of the performances in this are really fantastic.

00:43:35.000 David Castellanada, who plays the leader of the MS-13 gang, is really terrific.

00:43:39.000 It's worth a watch, so if you're looking for something to do on a Friday night, and you want a realistic take on MS-13, go check out We Die Young.

00:43:46.000 Definitely worth the watch.

00:43:47.000 Go give it a look.

00:43:48.000 Okay, other things that I like.

00:43:49.000 So, Meghan McCain is the only sane thing left about The View.

00:43:53.000 Since they'll never have me on.

00:43:54.000 And Meghan McCain, yesterday, went on an absolute tear against her co-hosts, talking about how Democrats refuse to vote in favor of federally penalizing infanticide, leaving babies to die who are born after botched abortions.

00:44:08.000 Here is Meghan McCain just dumping on her fellow hosts, rightfully so. 1.00

00:44:12.000 If Democrats want to win an election going forward, are you going to be the party of late-term abortion, the party of infanticide? 0.57

00:44:20.000 Let me finish, please.

00:44:21.000 Is this the platform you're going to have?

00:44:23.000 Because when you're talking about children and you're talking about being pro-life, this is well out of the mainstream of where Americans are at.

00:44:29.000 So you think a baby born from an abortion should be put down like a dog or a cat?

00:44:35.000 This is why I need to push back on it.

00:44:38.000 This is why I need to put it back.

00:44:39.000 It's infanticide.

00:44:40.000 The doctors who would not provide medical care for an aborted child who survived.

00:44:44.000 That doctor should be punished.

00:44:46.000 Okay, and you keep hearing people trying to make excuses for not voting for the bill.

00:44:50.000 There is no excuse for not voting for the bill.

00:44:51.000 Yesterday on the radio version of the program, the additional two hours we do later in the day that you can get only if you subscribe, Senator Ben Sasse stopped by from Nebraska.

00:45:00.000 He's one of the co-sponsors of this bill.

00:45:01.000 He explained what the bill does.

00:45:03.000 The bill does not in any way violate a woman's quote-unquote right to choose.

00:45:07.000 It doesn't even have to do with abortion.

00:45:09.000 It says if a baby is born after an attempted abortion, you have to transfer the baby to the hospital and give it the same care you would give any other infant, and it penalizes doctors who fail to do so or who leave the baby on the table to die.

00:45:20.000 That's all the bill does, and Democrats opposed it, which is insane.

00:45:23.000 It is fully insane, and there's no excuse for it, and trying to paint it as a pro-choice issue is beyond crazy.

00:45:29.000 Okay, so, good for Meghan McCain. 0.93

00:45:30.000 Time for a couple of things that I hate.

00:45:36.000 OK, so thing that I hate, number one, the Hollywood Reporter is that you knew this was coming.

00:45:40.000 You knew it was just a matter of time until the left openly started defending Jussie Smollett.

00:45:45.000 The reason that you knew this is because they were already on the verge of doing this when it came out that it was a hoax, that the whole thing was a hoax.

00:45:52.000 Now, as I say, If you want to hear my fuller take on this, I was on Dr. Phil's show that is airing today with Andy Ngo of Quillette, as well as Sally Cohen, who's a left contributor for CNN, I believe.

00:46:06.000 And we talked about hate crime hoaxes and we sort of went through all of the various issues surrounding hate crime hoaxes and hate crimes more generally.

00:46:14.000 Well, the Hollywood Reporter is now headlining Hollywood Hoax, and then their suggestion is, I kid you not, that the reason that Jussie Smollett was doing all of this is because he was famous.

00:46:27.000 Like, this is their actual contention.

00:46:28.000 They are trying to suggest that being famous causes you, that fame causes you, to actually participate in race crime hoaxes.

00:46:38.000 That's on their cover.

00:46:39.000 It says, Jussie Smollett says he's the victim of a heinous hate crime, but career pressure and addictive fame may have driven him to do all of this.

00:46:49.000 It's... what?

00:46:51.000 So, being super famous, it says, Jussie Smollett says, he's the victim of a heinous hate crime, but career pressure and addictive fame may have driven the Empire Star to do something desperate.

00:46:59.000 Really?

00:46:59.000 Addictive fame?

00:47:00.000 So, I've achieved a certain level of notoriety.

00:47:02.000 I know I wake up every morning and I think, you know what I should probably do?

00:47:05.000 Claim a hate crime.

00:47:06.000 Just out of nowhere, just do it.

00:47:08.000 I'm a Jew, I could probably get away with it, right? 1.00

00:47:10.000 Like, I could probably just go out there and be like, you know, I was walking down the street, two o'clock in the morning, coming back from my kosher hot dog stand, and I was beat up by a couple of people who were screaming at me, you damn Jew. 0.99

00:47:24.000 Every morning I have to convince myself it's a bad idea because I'm famous. 0.99

00:47:27.000 It's the fame that makes me do it.

00:47:29.000 It's the addictions of fame that make me hoax hate.

00:47:31.000 What?

00:47:32.000 What?

00:47:33.000 So now he's a victim.

00:47:34.000 He's a victim of his own fame. 1.00

00:47:35.000 What absolute sheer garbage. 0.99

00:47:37.000 That wasn't even the worst take on Jussie Smollett. 0.98

00:47:39.000 The other one is still from The Hollywood Reporter, but it comes courtesy of Ellen Page, who is really, who has acted vilely with regard to this stuff.

00:47:46.000 I mean, really acted vilely.

00:47:47.000 Went on national television, blamed Mike Pence for a fake hate crime, and then suggested that Mike Pence's perspective on the sinfulness of homosexuality is responsible for vast swathes of hate crimes happening across the country.

00:48:00.000 So she has an entire column today that is called hate violence is not a hoax.

00:48:04.000 So in other words, I got the hate crime hoax wrong, but the general point, which is that hate crimes occurred, that's not wrong. 0.95

00:48:10.000 You'll see this is something that folks on the left want.

00:48:12.000 That's not the story.

00:48:13.000 We all acknowledge that there are such things as hate crimes, although they are exceedingly rare.

00:48:17.000 The number of actual federal hate crimes prosecuted in 27 and 2018 by the federal government is 50.

00:48:22.000 This is a country of 337 million people. 0.99

00:48:26.000 Can we stop pretending that around every corner lurks a MAGA-HEADED RACIST seeking to beat up a gay black guy? 1.00

00:48:32.000 Like, it's just not true. 1.00

00:48:33.000 This is an insanely tolerant, wonderful country, and I'm speaking as a Jew who hires security to go from place to place because I get death threats, okay?

00:48:41.000 So, I am saying this is a wonderful, incredible, tolerant country.

00:48:46.000 You know why?

00:48:46.000 Because it is.

00:48:48.000 And this notion that, well, you know, it was, at least, at least Jussie Smollett was a pathway to conversation.

00:48:52.000 At least, what Jussie Smollett shows is not that Americans don't take hate crimes seriously enough.

00:48:57.000 It's that we take hate crimes so seriously, we are even willing to grant credibility to some of the flimsiest, garbagiest stories ever told by people like Jussie Smollett.

00:49:04.000 That's how seriously we take hate crimes.

00:49:06.000 Is that the mark of a country that is deeply evil?

00:49:09.000 And deeply terrible?

00:49:10.000 And deeply hateful?

00:49:11.000 I really don't think so.

00:49:12.000 I really don't think so.

00:49:13.000 Okay, so, as I say, tune in later today.

00:49:16.000 We have two more hours.

00:49:17.000 We'll be covering more of Michael Cohen's testimony, I am sure.

00:49:20.000 Plus, go check out Dr. Phil today, because I think there was some spicy stuff in that episode.

00:49:24.000 And we'll either see you here later today if you subscribe, or we'll see you here tomorrow.

00:49:27.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:49:28.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:49:33.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villarreal.

00:49:36.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:49:38.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:49:39.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.

00:49:41.000 And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:49:43.000 Edited by Adam Sajovic.

00:49:45.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Karamina.

00:49:46.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:49:48.000 Production assistant, Nick Sheehan.

00:49:49.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.

The Ben Shapiro Show - February 27, 2019

Cohen Of Shame | Ep. 726

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