The Ben Shapiro Show - Daily Wire And Gina Carano Team Up To Fight The Death Star | Ep. 1194

00:00:00.000 Daily Wire has an enormous and exciting announcement to make.

00:00:03.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:03.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:05.000 Today's show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.

00:00:13.000 Don't let big tech track what you do.

00:00:14.000 Anonymize your web browsing at expressvpn.com.

00:00:18.000 Speaking of which, the reality is those big tech companies, why would you trust them with your data?

00:00:22.000 Like, why?

00:00:23.000 It is very obvious that they would prefer to shut down some information from the side of the political aisle they do not like, and then they monetize the data that you give them.

00:00:30.000 So why just give them your data?

00:00:31.000 Instead, shield your data because it is your data.

00:00:33.000 If you've ever wondered, How free to access social media companies make all their money?

00:00:36.000 Well, they track your searches, video history, everything you click on, and then they sell your valuable data.

00:00:41.000 When you use ExpressVPN, you anonymize much of your online presence by hiding that IP address.

00:00:45.000 That makes your activity more difficult to trace and sell to advertisers.

00:00:48.000 What's more, ExpressVPN encrypts 100% of your data to protect you from eavesdroppers on your network.

00:00:53.000 In the ExpressVPN app, it could not be easier to use.

00:00:56.000 You just tap one button on your phone or computer and you are protected.

00:00:59.000 Take back your online privacy with the VPN I trust at expressvpn.com slash ben.

00:01:04.000 By visiting my link, you'll get an extra three months of ExpressVPN service for free on a one-year package.

00:01:09.000 Again, that's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash ben.

00:01:13.000 Expressvpn.com slash ben.

00:01:15.000 To protect your data today, go check them out and make sure that you have protected your data.

00:01:18.000 Expressvpn.com slash ben.

00:01:21.000 Okay, so I promised a huge announcement.

00:01:23.000 So here is the announcement and we want you to join us in moving this way.

00:01:28.000 So here's the deal.

00:01:29.000 Disney decided that they were going to drop the actress Gina Carano.

00:01:32.000 They decided they were going to drop her from The Mandalorian because she's conservative. 0.95

00:01:36.000 It is that simple.

00:01:37.000 It is not because she did anything that is truly terribly offensive to anybody.

00:01:40.000 It's not because she made a comparison to Nazi Germany. 0.92

00:01:43.000 Because, let's be frank about this, people on the left make comparisons to Hitler and Nazi Germany all the damn time. 0.90

00:01:48.000 It is perfectly clear that they were looking for an excuse to can her because she is conservative.

00:01:52.000 In fact, The Hollywood Reporter said yesterday that they were looking to can her for months because she is conservative.

00:01:59.000 According to The Hollywood Reporter, on Wednesday, the hashtag FireGinaCarano was trending, following an Instagram post from the outspoken conservative actor and former mixed martial artist that was met with severe backlash.

00:02:10.000 The post has since been deleted, but screenshots were widely shared by users on social media who called for her firing from the hit Disney Plus Star Wars show.

00:02:18.000 According to a source with knowledge of Lucasfilm's thinking, they told The Hollywood Reporter they have been looking for a reason to fire her for two months.

00:02:24.000 Today was the final straw.

00:02:25.000 Why?

00:02:26.000 Well, because after the election, she tweeted that voter fraud should be combated with voter ID, which is a mainstream conservative position, and because she had tweeted that people are essentially wearing masks over their eyes because they don't want to see the truth, which, again, fairly mainstream conservative position.

00:02:41.000 Well, the other day she put up an Instagram post, the main point of which was that liberals needed to see that if they treated conservatives as an other, that has a dangerous ending.

00:02:50.000 Now, as I said on the show, not a big fan of Holocaust analogies generally, but the general point she was making here was certainly not anti-Semitic in any way.

00:02:59.000 Certainly not anti-semitic in any way.

00:03:01.000 In fact, she was saying, to avoid the evils of the future, you have to stop acting evil in the present.

00:03:05.000 That was the main point.

00:03:07.000 Don't act like people who are going to cancel your neighbors because you don't know where that's going to end.

00:03:11.000 So Disney Plus canceled her.

00:03:12.000 Disney decided to cancel her.

00:03:14.000 Now again, it has nothing to do with the quote-unquote inappropriateness of the Holocaust analogy.

00:03:19.000 The star of The Mandalorian, Pedro Pascal, tweeted out in 2018, Comparing America's treatment of migrant children to the Holocaust.

00:03:28.000 He did so using a picture that was not of migrant children at the American border.

00:03:33.000 It was a picture of Palestinian children from 2010 at some sort of water and food bank.

00:03:40.000 And he said, hashtag, this is America.

00:03:42.000 And then he said, Germany 1944, it's a picture of Jewish children in the Holocaust.

00:03:47.000 America 2018, the picture isn't even from America and it wasn't in 2018.

00:03:50.000 Nothing.

00:03:51.000 Well, because Pedro Pascal has the correct woke point of view.

00:03:51.000 Nothing.

00:03:51.000 Why?

00:03:55.000 It's that simple.

00:03:56.000 So, according to Hollywood Reporter, Lucasfilm, Disney, they've been looking to dump her for months because she's outspokenly conservative.

00:04:03.000 They found an excuse and they dumped her. 1.00

00:04:06.000 Well, here's the thing. 0.98

00:04:08.000 We here at the Daily Wire do not stand for this kind of bull****. 0.91

00:04:11.000 We do not stand for this. 0.88

00:04:12.000 And so, yesterday, in the immediate aftermath of the decision by Disney and Lucasfilm to dump Gina, I called Gina.

00:04:22.000 And we talked.

00:04:23.000 And we decided that Daily Wire's next film will be starring and produced by Gina Carano.

00:04:29.000 We could not be more excited to work with Gina.

00:04:32.000 Gina just sent us a quote.

00:04:33.000 Here is what she said.

00:04:34.000 The Daily Wire is helping to make one of my dreams to develop and produce my own film come true.

00:04:39.000 I cried out and my prayer was answered.

00:04:41.000 I'm sending out a direct message of hope to everyone living in fear of cancellation by the totalitarian mob.

00:04:45.000 I've only just begun using my voice, which is now more free than ever before.

00:04:48.000 I hope it inspires others to do the same.

00:04:50.000 They can't cancel us if we don't let them.

00:04:52.000 And that's exactly right.

00:04:54.000 They cannot cancel us if we band together.

00:04:56.000 They cannot cancel us if we don't let them.

00:05:01.000 Here's the deal.

00:05:02.000 The establishment monolith is the Death Star.

00:05:05.000 And we're the folks with the single fighter X-Wing.

00:05:09.000 Right, the single-seater X-Wing.

00:05:10.000 That's us.

00:05:11.000 They're not vulnerable to major attack from the outside, but they are vulnerable to their own cancel culture, which allows us to build X-Wings to take them on.

00:05:18.000 And we need your help.

00:05:19.000 We need your help.

00:05:19.000 This stuff is expensive.

00:05:20.000 We need your help because we want to produce this film with Gina.

00:05:23.000 Also, Bonfire Legend and our friend Dallas Sonier is going to be co-producing the film.

00:05:27.000 We're excited about that.

00:05:28.000 He worked with us on Run, Hide, Fight, which is excellent.

00:05:30.000 We need your help.

00:05:31.000 We need your membership.

00:05:33.000 Okay, and so we have for today and for the next couple of days a subscription code for you.

00:05:37.000 Subscription code GINA.

00:05:38.000 G-I-N-A. 1.00

00:05:39.000 Subscription code GINA.

00:05:41.000 You get 25% off your Daily Wire annual subscription.

00:05:44.000 Go check it out right now and join us because what we are doing here is not just providing you an entertainment alternative.

00:05:49.000 That's not the mere goal.

00:05:50.000 Okay?

00:05:50.000 We don't just want to provide you an entertainment alternative.

00:05:52.000 We want to provide a safe haven for conservatives to say what they feel.

00:05:56.000 For all Americans to say what they feel.

00:05:58.000 And not have to live in fear of the cancel culture coming for them. 0.99

00:06:01.000 Because as Gina says right there, they can't cancel you if you don't let them.

00:06:05.000 But we all have to band together here.

00:06:06.000 We have to be part of the same team.

00:06:08.000 And we have to put our money where our mouths- We here at Daily Wire, we're putting our money where our mouths are.

00:06:12.000 Hey, we need your help.

00:06:13.000 We want your membership.

00:06:14.000 We want you to join us.

00:06:14.000 We want you to join Gina.

00:06:15.000 I could not be more excited to work with Gina Carano, who certainly could beat me up 87 times over. 1.00

00:06:22.000 I could not be more excited to bring her on board and work with her here at The Daily Wire.

00:06:27.000 We can't wait to keep you updated on the film and what it's going to be.

00:06:32.000 And we're working with her to develop the film.

00:06:33.000 She is integrally involved in the process.

00:06:37.000 We wouldn't have had this opportunity were it not for the cancel culture that is the left.

00:06:40.000 We would not have had this opportunity were it not for the authoritarian left mob controlling authoritarian left companies that seek to cancel out dissent and destroy it.

00:06:50.000 And again, this should not be a right-left point.

00:06:52.000 This is an authoritarian left versus everybody else point.

00:06:55.000 Jonathan Chait over at New York Magazine, a man with whom I disagree strenuously, he said, this is no different from McCarthyism.

00:07:00.000 That is exactly correct.

00:07:01.000 It is no different from McCarthyism. 0.75

00:07:03.000 And we are not going to be canceled.

00:07:04.000 We are not going to allow Gina's cancellation.

00:07:05.000 We're not going to allow your cancellation.

00:07:07.000 We stand with you, and we're asking you to stand with us.

00:07:10.000 We're asking for you to join, become a member.

00:07:12.000 You get all sorts of benefits.

00:07:13.000 You get to hang out with us.

00:07:14.000 You're gonna get to hang out with Gina, too.

00:07:15.000 She's gonna be doing all accesses with you. 1.00

00:07:18.000 You're gonna get to do all of that stuff when you become a member.

00:07:21.000 Again, promo code Gina, 25% off.

00:07:23.000 And when you become a member, we are building the alternative.

00:07:25.000 We are doing it in real time, because these folks cannot be allowed to control the debate.

00:07:30.000 They cannot be allowed to control the Overton window.

00:07:32.000 They cannot be allowed to control what people can and cannot say within the realm of mainstream ideology.

00:07:38.000 They cannot be allowed to do this.

00:07:41.000 This is the same Hollywood that tolerated Harvey Weinstein for decades.

00:07:44.000 This is the same Disney that's tolerating Joss Whedon right now, and there are open allegations of sexual harassment against Joss Whedon.

00:07:51.000 But when it comes to Gina Carano, she could not be allowed to work on The Mandalorian, this very highly successful show.

00:07:57.000 They canceled a spinoff for her that they'd been planning in November because it turns out that she was an outspoken Republican.

00:08:04.000 Gina's not standing for it, and good for her. 1.00

00:08:06.000 Good for her.

00:08:07.000 Gina's doing something heroic by stepping outside the Hollywood system and doing something with us, and we are so glad and so excited to be helping her pursue that vision and pursue that dream.

00:08:16.000 And we're just asking for your help.

00:08:18.000 I keep appealing for that, but really, it takes all of us to stand together here because these things are expensive.

00:08:24.000 Disney spends billions of dollars making its entertainment content.

00:08:28.000 If we want to compete with them, we have to build the X-Wing.

00:08:31.000 And that comes from people like Gina stepping out and taking the hit. 1.00

00:08:35.000 It comes from folks over at Daily Wire stepping up and trying to back her.

00:08:38.000 And it comes really from you because we are just essentially a vessel for you.

00:08:43.000 So once more, it's a great deal.

00:08:44.000 You get all sorts of great stuff.

00:08:46.000 You have all sorts of great stuff coming.

00:08:47.000 I have brand new content on my own personally coming to you that I can't wait to show you.

00:08:51.000 Really great stuff.

00:08:51.000 Candace Owens is coming next month.

00:08:53.000 You get all of our all-access stuff.

00:08:54.000 You get a second hour of the show.

00:08:55.000 You get the tumblers.

00:08:56.000 The whole deal.

00:08:58.000 Use promo code GINA right now and you get 25% off.

00:09:01.000 But mostly, we are so excited to be going up against this monolith.

00:09:06.000 This is the first time that somebody has been able to have the option to stand up against the monolith and still have a career.

00:09:12.000 We are making that possible because you're making that possible.

00:09:14.000 Because you're the folks who are watching the content.

00:09:17.000 Because you're the folks who are eager to see us step into an arena of competition with folks who really hate your point of view.

00:09:24.000 Who really despise what it is that you stand for and your values.

00:09:28.000 So instead of giving them your money, why not instead help us out in fighting the sort of value system that they're promulgating, which is not just a liberal value system.

00:09:36.000 Far from it.

00:09:37.000 It's not classically liberal in any way.

00:09:38.000 It's not even open-minded.

00:09:40.000 It is an authoritarian left crammed down mindset.

00:09:43.000 So again, you can sense I'm really pumped up about this because I am supremely pumped up about it.

00:09:47.000 I'm really excited.

00:09:48.000 It is a massive opportunity for us.

00:09:50.000 It's a massive opportunity for conservatives to fight back.

00:09:53.000 It's a massive opportunity for the entire conservative movement to say, enough!

00:09:56.000 You control all the institutions.

00:09:57.000 You know what?

00:09:58.000 We're building our own.

00:09:59.000 We're building our own and we're supporting our own.

00:10:02.000 Good for Gina. 1.00

00:10:02.000 Gina stood up. 1.00

00:10:03.000 She took the hit.

00:10:04.000 And now let's stand by her.

00:10:06.000 Let's stand by her.

00:10:07.000 So again, I am extremely, extremely excited about all of this.

00:10:12.000 So that is the big announcement for today.

00:10:14.000 Head on over to dailywire.com.

00:10:16.000 Use the promo code Gina for 25% off your annual membership over at Daily Wire.

00:10:22.000 The big breaking news of the day is not this impeachment thing.

00:10:25.000 We all know where the impeachment thing is going.

00:10:27.000 The Republicans are gonna vote to acquit.

00:10:28.000 Today represents the beginning of Team Trump's rebuttal to the Democratic case.

00:10:33.000 It's only supposed to last about four hours, and it's basically gonna be, you didn't meet the legal level of incitement, and if you think that's incitement, you have a bunch of Democrats to show you.

00:10:41.000 So we'll get to that in a little bit.

00:10:43.000 Instead, why don't we talk about the fact that somebody probably committed a criminal act, and the media treated this person as an absolute hero for months and months and months at a time.

00:10:53.000 This person won an Emmy.

00:10:54.000 This person was considered the best governor in America by folks on the left.

00:10:57.000 And we knew early on that this was untrue.

00:11:00.000 We knew very, very early on that Andrew Cuomo was covering up nursing home deaths.

00:11:03.000 As early as May of 2020, there were reports that Andrew Cuomo was covering up nursing home deaths by changing the metrics by which he counted nursing home deaths.

00:11:11.000 We talked about it on the show at the time.

00:11:13.000 See, here's the thing.

00:11:14.000 There are a lot of people who got COVID in nursing homes but died in hospitals.

00:11:18.000 Andrew Cuomo did not count those as nursing home deaths because that would have made clear how bad his COVID policy was.

00:11:23.000 Instead, he suggested that these were deaths in hospitals as opposed to deaths at nursing homes, which is really silly because a lot of people die in hospitals.

00:11:30.000 It is a place where sick people go.

00:11:32.000 So, Andrew Cuomo covered this up.

00:11:33.000 We have known this for a very long time.

00:11:35.000 And then, a couple of weeks ago, finally, Letitia James, the Attorney General of the State of New York, she came out and said, oh yeah, by the way, he covered that up.

00:11:42.000 And now, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's aide, one of his top aides, is now privately apologizing to Democratic lawmakers for withholding the state's nursing home death toll from COVID-19.

00:11:51.000 Apparently, she told them, quote, we froze out of fear that the true numbers would be used against us by federal prosecutors.

00:11:58.000 Which would be a crime if you are covering up evidence of bad policy and bad decision-making in order to avoid the tender embrace of federal prosecutors?

00:12:07.000 That looks a lot like obstruction, does it not?

00:12:09.000 According to the New York Post, the stunning admission of a cover-up was made by Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa during a video conference call with state Democratic leaders in which she said the Cuomo administration had rebuffed a legislative request for the tally in August because, quote, right around the same time, Trump turns this into a giant political football, according to an audio recording of the two-hour-plus meeting.

00:12:27.000 He starts tweeting that we killed everyone in nursing homes.

00:12:29.000 He starts going after New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy.

00:12:32.000 He starts going after California Governor Gavin Newsom.

00:12:34.000 He starts going after Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

00:12:37.000 In addition to attacking Cuomo's fellow Democratic Governor, DeRosa said, Trump directs the Department of Justice to do an investigation into us.

00:12:42.000 And basically, we froze, she told the lawmakers on the call.

00:12:46.000 So in other words, because Trump was saying a true thing about their treatment of the nursing homes and because the DOJ was investigating, they just lied about it.

00:12:53.000 They covered up the stats.

00:12:55.000 Now remember, the media treated this guy not just with kid gloves, but with full-on massage oils.

00:13:01.000 And they didn't just treat Cuomo as though he was doing a decent job trying to muscle his way through the pandemic.

00:13:06.000 They treated him as the greatest governor.

00:13:08.000 He wrote an entire book on what an amazing leader he had been during COVID.

00:13:12.000 Chris, his brother, interviewed him nearly nightly on CNN to give him the propaganda hour.

00:13:18.000 You remember that famous picture of Chris Cuomo holding up a giant nasal swab to make fun of his brother's nostril size while they did the Smothers Brothers comedy hour over there on CNN?

00:13:28.000 It turns out that not only was Cuomo covering up the data, they were covering up the data specifically with an eye toward federal prosecutors, which is really, really bad stuff.

00:13:35.000 And again, we knew that he was covering this up for months.

00:13:37.000 So where were the media in all this?

00:13:39.000 Where were your establishment media in all this? 1.00

00:13:41.000 They were too busy kissing the guy's ass. 1.00

00:13:44.000 And that's the reality of the situation. 1.00

00:13:45.000 The same way that a month before the election, the mainstream media decided simply was not worth covering the Hunter Biden story.

00:13:51.000 And then one month after the election, oh, look at that.

00:13:53.000 He's under federal prosecution.

00:13:55.000 Who could have uncovered that information?

00:13:57.000 You guys, if you actually did your job.

00:13:59.000 I mean, this story is not just about Cuomo.

00:14:01.000 It is about the malpractice, and it is malpractice, by the journalistic establishment, which ignored a story that everyone on the right was reporting on, but it just didn't surface.

00:14:10.000 It didn't break into the mainstream.

00:14:11.000 There's a reason for that.

00:14:12.000 It's because the mainstream did not want it to break into the mainstream.

00:14:15.000 They were looking for a foil to Donald Trump.

00:14:17.000 Andrew Cuomo is loud.

00:14:18.000 Andrew Cuomo is from New York. 0.99

00:14:19.000 And Andrew Cuomo doesn't like Trump, and so he was a perfect foil, except for the fact that he was garbage at his job. 0.98

00:14:24.000 And not just garbage at his job, he was covering up his own terrible activity that ended with the deaths of thousands and thousands of seniors who probably didn't need to die. 0.91

00:14:32.000 And the reason I say they didn't need to die is because you know who didn't do this? 0.98

00:14:35.000 You know who didn't ship COVID-positive seniors back into nursing homes? 0.99

00:14:39.000 Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida, who is simultaneously receiving the hate and scorn of the entire establishment media.

00:14:45.000 We had a story every single day about how Florida was the center of death, how Florida was going to be the place where everyone died.

00:14:51.000 Florida is, by a long shot, the oldest state in America.

00:14:54.000 It is a hugely old state.

00:14:56.000 25% of the population of the state of Florida is over the age of 65.

00:14:58.000 You know where Florida ranks in terms of deaths per million?

00:15:02.000 Right in the middle of the pack, like number 26.

00:15:03.000 You know where New York ranks?

00:15:05.000 Number 2.

00:15:05.000 You know where New Jersey ranks?

00:15:07.000 Number 1.

00:15:08.000 Okay, so the entire media, which was committed to the idea that Andrew Cuomo was an amazing governor, they knew full well he wasn't an amazing governor.

00:15:14.000 They knew full well that he had botched this thing from here to Sunday.

00:15:17.000 But it didn't matter to them, because they were too busy covering for him.

00:15:20.000 And Cuomo knew this.

00:15:21.000 He knew he could get away with the lie.

00:15:23.000 Only now are the media reporting on it, because now it's safe to report on it.

00:15:26.000 And this is the pattern for your establishment media.

00:15:28.000 It is not just a matter of, will they report on the story?

00:15:31.000 It's, when do they report on the story?

00:15:33.000 If they report on the story a year after it happened, when it is now politically convenient, For people to know that Andrew Cuomo is a terrible governor?

00:15:40.000 Then that is politically motivated.

00:15:42.000 If they're reporting on Hunter Biden a month after the election, but shutting it completely down in the month before the election, that makes a difference.

00:15:48.000 If, as we are going to see in a second, they're reporting on the predations of the Lincoln Project, which people knew about for a year, but only a couple of months after the inauguration, well, that is politically motivated.

00:16:00.000 The New York Post reports that De Rosa, who is Cuomo's aide, said, we were then in a position where we weren't sure if what we were going to give to the DOJ or what we give to you guys, what we were saying, was gonna be used against us.

00:16:11.000 Well, we weren't sure if there was gonna be an investigation.

00:16:13.000 That played a very large role in this.

00:16:16.000 After dropping that bombshell in which he essentially admitted to covering up a crime potentially, right, the obstruction is the crime in that particular case, De Rosa asked for, quote, a little bit of appreciation of the context and offered what appeared to be the Cuomo administration's first apology, Remember, when Janice Dean talked about this from Fox News, Andrew Cuomo made fun of her, even though she'd had a parent who died in a nursing home.

00:16:40.000 Instead of a mea culpa to the grieving family members of more than 13,000 dead seniors or the critics who say the health department spread COVID-19 in the care facilities with a March 25th health department directive that nursing homes admit infected patients, DeRosa tried to make amends with the fellow Democrats because of the political inconvenience it caused them.

00:16:57.000 Okay, when people say that it's political partisanship on the right, just let it be known.

00:17:00.000 Political partisanship is all the way down on both sides.

00:17:03.000 Okay, and this is a perfect example of it.

00:17:05.000 The only people receiving apologies today from the Cuomo administration are Democratic lawmakers in the state.

00:17:10.000 Not all the old people's families who died in nursing homes.

00:17:13.000 Not those people.

00:17:15.000 Not all the people in the media who were reporting on this months ago and being mocked by the Cuomo administration.

00:17:20.000 No, the Democratic lawmakers, because it made it awkward for them.

00:17:23.000 You know, it's a bad thing.

00:17:24.000 We'll get to more of this in just one second.

00:17:26.000 First, it is the shortest month of the year, meaning that you have slightly less time to check off your February to-do list.

00:17:30.000 Well, good news for you.

00:17:32.000 You can do it quickly, you can do it easily when it comes to life insurance.

00:17:35.000 You can compare life insurance rates and save 50% or more in the process when you head on over to policygenius.com.

00:17:40.000 That means more cash to put toward the things you care about, whatever that may be.

00:17:43.000 Plus, there's absolutely no hassle.

00:17:45.000 Their licensed experts work for you, not the insurance companies, so they can offer unbiased advice when you need it.

00:17:49.000 Here's how it works.

00:17:50.000 First, head on over to PolicyGenius.com.

00:17:52.000 In minutes, you can work out how much coverage you need and compare quotes from top insurers to find your best price.

00:17:56.000 PolicyGenius will compare policies starting at as little as a buck a day.

00:17:59.000 You might even be eligible to skip that in-person medical exam.

00:18:02.000 Once you apply, the PolicyGenius team handles all the paperwork and the red tape.

00:18:05.000 If you hit any speed bumps during the application process, they'll take care of everything soup to nuts.

00:18:09.000 That kind of service has earned PolicyGenius a five-star rating across over 1,600 reviews on Trustpilot and Google.

00:18:15.000 So, if you are worried that March is just around the corner and you've barely gotten anything done, Take a deep breath.

00:18:20.000 PolicyGenius is gonna help you make the most of the month in minutes.

00:18:23.000 Save 50% or more by comparing quotes.

00:18:25.000 Feel great knowing your loved ones would be taken care of if, God forbid, anything were to happen to you.

00:18:28.000 Go to policygenius.com to get started.

00:18:30.000 It's what responsible people do.

00:18:31.000 Get the life insurance you need at policygenius.com.

00:18:35.000 Okay, so the top aide to Andrew Cuomo de Rosa, she said, we do apologize.

00:18:40.000 I do understand the position you were put in.

00:18:42.000 I know it's not fair.

00:18:43.000 It was not our intention to put you in that political position with the Republicans.

00:18:47.000 Political position with the Republicans.

00:18:48.000 Yeah, that's the chief concern.

00:18:49.000 When thousands of seniors die for no reason other than bad policy.

00:18:53.000 Clearly, the person who deserves the apology is Democrats that life was made a little more politically awkward for.

00:18:59.000 Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried, Democrat of Manhattan, immediately rejected DeRosa's expression of remorse.

00:19:04.000 He said, I don't have enough time today to explain all the reasons why I don't give that any credit at all.

00:19:08.000 He had demanded the death toll data back in August.

00:19:11.000 State Senate Aging Committee Chairwoman Rachel May, Democrat of Syracuse, also ripped into DeRosa, saying her former opponent had launched another broadside earlier in the day.

00:19:18.000 She said, The issue for me, the biggest issue of all, is feeling like I needed to defend, or at least not attack, an administration that was appearing to be covering something up.

00:19:25.000 And in a pandemic, when you want the public to trust the public health officials, and there's a clear feeling they're not coming and being forthcoming with you, that is really hard and it remains difficult.

00:19:33.000 Assemblyman Ron Kim, Democrat of Queens.

00:19:35.000 Remember, these are all Democrats talking about Cuomo and his team.

00:19:39.000 So, I have a question.

00:19:40.000 Here's the question.

00:19:40.000 Joe Biden is now in the White House.

00:19:41.000 The federal DOJ is now under his control.

00:19:42.000 to dodge having any incriminating evidence that might put the administration or the health department in further trouble with the DOJ.

00:19:49.000 That's how I understand the reasoning of why they were unable to share in real time the data.

00:19:53.000 They had to first make sure the state was protected against federal investigation.

00:19:57.000 So I have a question.

00:19:59.000 Here's the question.

00:20:00.000 Joe Biden is now in the White House.

00:20:02.000 The federal DOJ is now under his control.

00:20:04.000 Will his new attorney general Merrick Garland go after the Cuomo administration?

00:20:08.000 It seems to me they should.

00:20:10.000 It seems to me an investigation is warranted if they were purposefully covering up material relevant to the state, material that the legislature had requested specifically in order to avoid federal investigation.

00:20:22.000 That looks a lot like obstruction.

00:20:23.000 It really does.

00:20:24.000 Okay, so is there going to be an investigation from the Biden administration?

00:20:29.000 My goodness.

00:20:29.000 The brazen nature of this is really astonishing.

00:20:31.000 It appeared the DOJ was no longer focused on New York's nursing home deaths.

00:20:34.000 She said, all signs point to they are not looking at this.

00:20:37.000 They've dropped it.

00:20:38.000 They never formally opened an investigation.

00:20:40.000 They sent a letter asking a number of questions, and then we satisfy those questions.

00:20:42.000 It appears they're gone.

00:20:43.000 My goodness, the brazen nature of this is really astonishing. 0.99

00:20:48.000 I mean, that is truly brazen crap. 0.97

00:20:50.000 OK, meanwhile, the Lincoln Project is now completely falling apart. 0.96

00:20:55.000 So, again, in the world of journalistic timing, this is yet another example of the journalistic establishment completely refusing to do its job for months on end because the people who they were covering up for were politically useful to Democrats. 0.56

00:21:07.000 The Lincoln Project was a bunch of grifters. 0.97

00:21:08.000 It was a bunch of grifters from the beginning.

00:21:10.000 There's a bunch of people who are making money from Democrats who believed that the Lincoln Project was going to do serious damage in the election.

00:21:17.000 They did not.

00:21:18.000 The Lincoln Project had virtually no impact on the election.

00:21:20.000 The Lincoln Project was basically just a super PAC to enrich the people who ran the super PAC.

00:21:24.000 It was run, or co-founded at least, by a guy who was using his position of power to sexually reach out to young, apparently underage men.

00:21:36.000 Okay, and people knew.

00:21:38.000 This was not like a giant shock.

00:21:40.000 The Lincoln Project, they were paying, the heads of it were paying themselves millions and millions of dollars and raising a bunch of money off of sucker Democrats who believed that these quote-unquote Republicans, by the way, it ain't Republicans who opposed Susan Collins in Maine.

00:21:52.000 Whenever you think of Trump, These people were opposing Susan Collins in Maine.

00:21:56.000 They were campaigning for Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff in Georgia.

00:21:59.000 These people are not Republicans.

00:22:01.000 They're just Democrats masquerading as Republicans so that a bunch of Democrats can feel good that here are some Republicans we've turned.

00:22:06.000 Well, it turns out now the Lincoln Project was a giant scam.

00:22:09.000 Shocker.

00:22:09.000 Like many of us were saying.

00:22:11.000 According to New York Magazine, John Weaver used his power to get jobs for young men he allegedly harassed.

00:22:17.000 His colleagues were warned.

00:22:19.000 John Weaver, of course, the co-founder of the Lincoln Project.

00:22:21.000 Now everybody at the Lincoln Project is like, who?

00:22:24.000 John Weaver?

00:22:24.000 Who?

00:22:25.000 Some of them co-wrote op-eds with John Weaver and they're like, never heard of the guy.

00:22:28.000 Never heard of him.

00:22:29.000 He's getting disappeared like somebody who's a top aide for Stalin in some of the old pictures where you see Stalin with his arm around somebody and then next picture you see Stalin just with his arm and there's nobody there.

00:22:38.000 That's what's happening to John Weaver right now.

00:22:41.000 According to New York Magazine, quote, Alex Johnson was a senior at the University of Texas at Austin.

00:22:47.000 Pursuing a career in politics when he first heard from John Weaver, the legendary Republican operative living nearby.

00:22:52.000 It started with a direct message on Twitter.

00:22:57.000 Johnson told Intelligencer, his New York magazine, but then, you know, his intentions became clear.

00:23:01.000 Weaver, who worked on both of Senator John McCain's presidential campaigns, started by discussing politics or college football before asking Johnson about his dating life and sexual interests.

00:23:09.000 Weaver wrote in December 2018, I want to see you, Weaver wrote four days later.

00:23:16.000 The pattern continued into 2020, when Weaver reached out to Johnson about working for a new political action committee he had co-founded, the Lincoln Project.

00:23:23.000 We've restarted the group with some of the biggest names in Republican politics to defeat Donald Trump.

00:23:27.000 Joining him was Steve Schmidt, a Karl Rove protege, during George W. Bush's re-election campaign, known for his no-holds-barred style of attack, who later worked on McCain's 2008 campaign.

00:23:36.000 Joining them was another McCain veteran, Reid Galen, and Republican strategist Rick Wilson.

00:23:40.000 Other co-founders included Republican super lawyer George Conway, as well as veteran Republican political operatives Mike Madrid, Ron Steslow, and Jennifer Horne.

00:23:48.000 Now, Jennifer Horne is gonna become relevant to another Lincoln Project story that is breaking in just one moment.

00:23:53.000 We'll get to more of the Lincoln Project's scandalous activities, which we can now report on them.

00:23:58.000 Right now it's okay, because we're past the election.

00:23:59.000 We'll get to that in just one second.

00:24:01.000 First, let us talk about the fact that a lot of people are trafficking on your front door right now.

00:24:04.000 There's a lot of people moving through that front door.

00:24:06.000 There are a lot of people who are dropping off packages, you're ordering from the grocery store, you got the mail coming.

00:24:11.000 And you gotta keep an eye on your kids.

00:24:13.000 This is why you need Ring.com.

00:24:14.000 So much happens at our front door, that one thing that definitely, that has not changed these days.

00:24:18.000 At my house, I'm getting more groceries, Amazon packages, all the rest.

00:24:21.000 Well, that's why it is the perfect time to upgrade your doorstep the way I have with a Ring video doorbell.

00:24:26.000 With Ring, you can see and speak to whomever is at your door from anywhere, right on your phone.

00:24:30.000 You're never gonna miss a visitor, whether it's your neighbor, your dinner, your groceries.

00:24:33.000 You can keep those packages and deliveries safe.

00:24:35.000 With motion detection, you'll get notified even if they don't ring the doorbell.

00:24:38.000 If someone stops by with something going on, Ring will let you know.

00:24:41.000 I love having that Ring video doorbell.

00:24:43.000 My wife and I, we gotta keep track of three kids. 0.99

00:24:45.000 The young squishy baby is now moving at rapid pace.

00:24:48.000 We only have two eyes.

00:24:50.000 Each of us has two eyes, and each of us can only keep an eye on one of them sometimes.

00:24:53.000 Well, how are we gonna find our kids?

00:24:54.000 Ring gives us the tools to make sure that happens.

00:24:57.000 Right now, get that special offer on the Ring Welcome Kit at ring.com slash Ben.

00:25:02.000 It comes with the Ring Video Doorbell 3 and the Chime Pro.

00:25:04.000 It's the perfect way to upgrade your front door and start that Ring experience.

00:25:07.000 Head on over to ring.com slash pen again.

00:25:09.000 That is ring.com slash pen.

00:25:11.000 When we moved, the first thing my wife said was, let's get the Ring devices on the house. 1.00

00:25:14.000 We have.

00:25:14.000 It's made our life easier and better.

00:25:16.000 Made us feel safer.

00:25:17.000 Ring.com slash pen for a special offer on the Ring Welcome Kit.

00:25:20.000 Okay, so the New York Magazine continues.

00:25:23.000 It didn't take long for the Lincoln Project to become a haven for never-Trump Republicans and capture the political world's attention with its brutal television ads against the president. 0.55

00:25:30.000 Actually, it was just a sort of media masturbation crew.

00:25:34.000 It was basically, all these guys would appear on MSNBC, MSNBC would pump the ads.

00:25:38.000 Democrats would love the ads. 0.51

00:25:39.000 Republicans wouldn't watch the ads.

00:25:41.000 Democrats would send money to these guys. 0.95

00:25:43.000 These guys would go back on MSNBC.

00:25:44.000 It was a beautiful grift.

00:25:46.000 The buzz led to big business, which raised more than $87 million in the 2020 election cycle, according to the FEC.

00:25:53.000 Much of the money was paid to firms run by Lincoln Project's co-founders, including nearly $25 million to Summit Strategic Communications, a firm run by Reid Galen.

00:26:01.000 More than $20 million was paid to Tusk Digital, run by Cesslo, which employed people who worked as contractors at the Lincoln Project.

00:26:09.000 So that was John Weaver, co-founder of the Lincoln Project.

00:26:11.000 Yep, good stuff happening.

00:26:11.000 on April 23rd, suggesting he come be an intern.

00:26:13.000 15 minutes later, he added, on your walk, think about worshiping a big bleep. 0.99

00:26:18.000 Bleep is a word for the male genitalia, and having yours worshipped, and you rimmed it till you beg. 0.99

00:26:22.000 So that was John Weaver, co-founder of the Lincoln Project. 0.98

00:26:26.000 Yep, good stuff happening, just like Abraham Lincoln would do.

00:26:30.000 Solicit dudes while raising a bajillion dollars to spend on useless television ads that you can put in your own pocket.

00:26:37.000 Just like Abraham Lincoln, guys.

00:26:39.000 The Lincoln Project.

00:26:41.000 Weaver also made phone calls to Johnson. 0.68

00:26:43.000 Once, he said, Weaver called to ask him his thoughts on the Lincoln Project and its ads, then quickly segued into what felt like an attempt at phone sex.

00:26:50.000 Johnson said he rarely answered Weaver's calls after that, but despite his discomfort with the Lincoln Project's co-founder, he took the internship there, started in July 2020, working remotely from his home in Texas.

00:27:00.000 Weaver continued harassing Johnson at the Lincoln Project.

00:27:02.000 Are you top?

00:27:03.000 Bottom?

00:27:03.000 Versa?

00:27:04.000 He wrote in one message shortly after Johnson started.

00:27:07.000 His messages never stop, said Johnson.

00:27:08.000 And I would play along just to be nice because, I mean, I know he's important.

00:27:11.000 He has the strings.

00:27:12.000 We operate in the same kind of political culture of being never-Trumpers.

00:27:15.000 Johnson said he didn't tell Lincoln Project Management about Weaver fearing retribution.

00:27:19.000 Well, Johnson didn't know about it then.

00:27:21.000 The Lincoln Project had already been told that Weaver was preying on young men in and outside the company.

00:27:26.000 On June 17th, a person working at the Lincoln Project sent an email to co-founder Seslow that reported 10 allegations of Weaver's harassing men, including at least one employee at the Lincoln Project.

00:27:35.000 Three people independently described the contents of the email to Intelligencer and said it warned Weaver could be using his position at the company to make promises of career advancement to prey on young men.

00:27:46.000 The complaint called Weaver's predatory behavior an immediate threat to the company that if it became public, could render a death blow to the Lincoln Project's reputation. 0.85

00:27:53.000 In the meantime, the Lincoln Project itself was attacking Trump as a sexual predator.

00:27:57.000 Steslow raised the email with the co-founder of Galen and corporate counsel Matthew Sanderson, but Weaver's harassment continued.

00:28:02.000 Okay, so they then said, oh, well, it was just chatter.

00:28:06.000 It was just chatter.

00:28:06.000 But it turns out that Weaver had been sending messages that ranged from provocative to sexually explicit to 21 men going back through the years, including to one recipient who was 14 years old.

00:28:17.000 14.

00:28:17.000 That's not a young man.

00:28:19.000 A 14-year-old is a boy.

00:28:21.000 That's pedophilia now.

00:28:23.000 No, none worked at the Lincoln Project.

00:28:24.000 Four former members of the Lincoln Project called on the company to free them to speak about Weaver.

00:28:28.000 So here's the hilarious thing.

00:28:29.000 So the Lincoln Project was very angry at Trump for having these non-disclosure agreements, right?

00:28:33.000 There are a bunch of women who said, I want to talk freely about Trump, but he's got these NDAs and I can't violate the NDAs.

00:28:37.000 And the Lincoln Project was like, he should release them from the NDAs.

00:28:41.000 It turns out, half their employees can't speak freely about this stuff because of, wait for it, NDAs.

00:28:48.000 Apparently these four former members of the Lincoln Project said, quote, Lincoln Project contractors and employees are calling on the organization to release anyone with knowledge of harassment or who has been harassed by John Weaver from their non-disclosure agreements so they can speak freely about what happened to them or what they know about what happened to others.

00:29:04.000 Johnson said, I really wanted to believe everyone that they didn't know the extent of it.

00:29:07.000 They made it seem like this was out of the blue.

00:29:09.000 It seems like they were just lying.

00:29:10.000 They weren't being truthful to me.

00:29:13.000 Johnson was not alone among the interns who say they were harassed by Weaver.

00:29:15.000 One of them was Charlie Stephens, a 19-year-old rising sophomore at LSU.

00:29:19.000 Weaver asked him if he or any of his peers might be interested in an internship to help kick the bleep out of Trump and against Senate Republican incumbents.

00:29:26.000 Stephens said he was interested.

00:29:28.000 Weaver responded he'd be perfect.

00:29:29.000 A week later, Stephens told Weaver he formally applied to the role.

00:29:32.000 You are an effing stud, Weaver said.

00:29:34.000 When Stephens demurred, saying he was quite the compliment, Weaver responded, take it. 0.95

00:29:37.000 Hell, you may very well be.

00:29:40.000 Hmm.

00:29:41.000 Solid stuff here.

00:29:41.000 Okay, so it turns out that the Lincoln Project, being filled with terrible people or grifters, didn't stop there.

00:29:47.000 It didn't stop there.

00:29:49.000 It turns out that not only are they not releasing people from their NDAs, but now the Lincoln Project last night, in order to defend against itself, decided to publish screenshots of private Twitter direct messages belonging to one of its co-founders, Jennifer Horne.

00:30:01.000 Remember, I mentioned her earlier.

00:30:04.000 Warren left the Lincoln Project last week amid the John Weaver scandal, and she has been spatting with the anti-Trump group ever since her departure, according to Fox News.

00:30:11.000 But the Lincoln Project escalated tensions on Thursday night with tweets that appeared to be an exchange she had with 19th News correspondent Amanda Becker.

00:30:20.000 So this is illegal.

00:30:22.000 So somehow, they got a hold of private messages between an ex-employee and a reporter, and then they pushed those out on Twitter.

00:30:32.000 They don't have access to her DMs.

00:30:34.000 She did not give them to her, to the Lincoln Project.

00:30:37.000 The Lincoln Project began a lengthy thread earlier this evening.

00:30:40.000 We became aware that Amanda Becker of 19th News was preparing to publish a smear job on the Lincoln Project with the help of Jennifer Horne.

00:30:47.000 You hear a lot of talk about hit jobs in journalism.

00:30:49.000 Rarely do you get to see their origin story in joy.

00:30:52.000 And meanwhile, George Conway is sitting at home, and he's a lawyer, and he's looking at this and going, um, guys?

00:30:58.000 You're violating federal law.

00:31:00.000 You can't do that.

00:31:01.000 You can't take DMs from people.

00:31:02.000 You know, like, there is nothing that allows me to hack into somebody else's emails and then release those to the public.

00:31:09.000 That is a federal crime.

00:31:10.000 So how exactly did they get a hold of these DMs in the first place?

00:31:13.000 Horn said, I didn't give consent for this stuff to be put up.

00:31:18.000 So, this raises a few questions.

00:31:20.000 One, it seems like a crime was just committed.

00:31:22.000 Two, Twitter has not barred the Lincoln Project, as far as I'm aware, from its service.

00:31:27.000 This will become relevant in just one second when we get to Project Veritas, which they did bar from their service.

00:31:31.000 Remember, they barred the New York Post for publishing quote-unquote, hacked materials, even though there was no evidence that the materials on Hunter Biden were hacked.

00:31:38.000 They came from a laptop in Delaware that Hunter Biden had left at a repair shop, apparently.

00:31:43.000 So there was no evidence that it was hacked material.

00:31:45.000 Twitter took down the story and took down the New York Post account.

00:31:47.000 The Lincoln Project apparently is posting material that is not its own.

00:31:51.000 The Lincoln Project has not yet been suspended.

00:31:54.000 From Twitter, there is a shock.

00:31:57.000 According to Fox News, it is unclear how the Lincoln Project obtained screenshots of Horn's private messages or how, if it did, the group gained access to Horn's Twitter account.

00:32:05.000 Tablet magazine associate editor Noah Bloom tweeted, this is legitimately outrageous.

00:32:08.000 New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said, it's hardly the most important thing happening today amid impeachment, tens of millions of doses of COVID vaccine becoming available, changes coming to Medicaid work requirements, but can't say I've ever seen something like what just happened involving Horn's account. Yeah, my favorite is that we have to make sure that we downplay what's happening with the Lincoln Project, because what it really demonstrates is that the media were engaged in malfeasance for a year, for a solid year.

00:32:32.000 So there's a lot of other important stuff happening today.

00:32:34.000 Blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:32:34.000 And also, here is a group that we promoted for a year and fostered, receiving tens of millions of dollars while its co-founder was harassing young men.

00:32:44.000 And also, it turns out they just committed a federal crime.

00:32:46.000 But you know what, guys?

00:32:47.000 It's like, I should mention it, but it's not really, like, super important in the vast scheme of things.

00:32:52.000 Really, really well done.

00:32:55.000 Apparently, the reporter also said that did not come from me.

00:32:59.000 So, well done, Lincoln Project.

00:33:01.000 We're gonna get to Twitter's standards for removing stuff in just one second because, once again, inconsistency being the hobgoblin of large minds, apparently.

00:33:10.000 Here we go, we'll get to that in one second.

00:33:11.000 First, let's talk about your sleep quality.

00:33:13.000 So I will admit to you that last night was not a great night of sleep.

00:33:15.000 My baby woke me up at 3 a.m.

00:33:18.000 But in those intermittent moments when I actually could lie down upon my mattress, I was a happy camper.

00:33:22.000 Why?

00:33:23.000 Because I have a Helix Sleep mattress.

00:33:25.000 Helix Sleep.

00:33:25.000 It's a mattress personalized just for me.

00:33:28.000 They've got a quiz that takes just two minutes to complete, matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattresses for you.

00:33:34.000 Why would you buy a mattress made for somebody else?

00:33:36.000 With Helix, you get the mattress that you know will be perfect for the way you sleep.

00:33:38.000 My wife and I took that two-minute sleep quiz, and they sent us a mattress that was made just for us.

00:33:42.000 I tend to sleep hot.

00:33:43.000 This mattress is super breathable.

00:33:44.000 I tend to like firm mattresses, and this one just meets all specifications.

00:33:47.000 Everybody is unique.

00:33:48.000 Helix knows that.

00:33:49.000 They have several different mattress models to choose from.

00:33:50.000 They've got soft, medium, firm mattresses.

00:33:52.000 Mattress is great for cooling you down if you sleep hot.

00:33:55.000 Even a Helix Plus mattress for plus-size folks.

00:33:57.000 We've been getting unboxing videos from a lot of our users, and they are just awesome.

00:34:00.000 Head on over to HelixSleep.com slash Ben.

00:34:02.000 Take their two-minute sleep quiz.

00:34:04.000 They will match you to a customized mattress that'll give you the best sleep of your life.

00:34:07.000 They've got a 10-year warranty.

00:34:08.000 You get to try it out for 100 nights risk-free.

00:34:10.000 They'll even pick it up for you if you don't love it, but you absolutely will.

00:34:13.000 Helix is offering up to 200 bucks off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners at HelixSleep.com slash Ben.

00:34:18.000 That is a great deal.

00:34:19.000 Right now, check them out.

00:34:20.000 HelixSleep.com slash Ben.

00:34:22.000 You will sleep Okay, so, as I say, when we speak of inconsistency, so Twitter has apparently not banned the Lincoln Project yet, right, for putting out DMs that do not belong to them, right?

00:34:29.000 Who did they ban?

00:34:30.000 Okay, so as I say, when we speak of inconsistency, so Twitter has apparently not banned the Lincoln Project yet, right, for putting out DMs that do not belong to them, right?

00:34:42.000 Who did they ban?

00:34:43.000 Well, they banned Project Veritas.

00:34:46.000 So that is not a shock.

00:34:47.000 I mean, it's pretty frightening, by the way, that social media will just now ban people.

00:34:51.000 And it's pretty explicitly based on political content.

00:34:54.000 They'll ban the New York Post account saying that they don't allow people to publish hacked materials based on non-hacked materials when it comes to the Hunter Biden story.

00:35:03.000 They won't suspend or ban the Lincoln Project for pushing out what apparently are hacked materials in violation of federal law.

00:35:12.000 They will ban Project Veritas.

00:35:14.000 According to the New York Post, Twitter on Thursday yanked the accounts of conservative activist group Project Veritas over repeated violations of the company's rules on sharing other people's private information after they posted leaked footage of communications between Facebook executives.

00:35:27.000 By the way, I really do enjoy that this is how the standards now work on Twitter.

00:35:30.000 So if you just report on what happened in the conversation, like the New York Times does routinely, Anonymous Source reports that Facebook executives were talking about X. That's every Kevin Roos column and every Kara Swisher column at the New York Times.

00:35:41.000 Every single one is that.

00:35:43.000 Every one of them is.

00:35:44.000 Facebook executives were talking about this on an internal Slack channel.

00:35:48.000 Is that hacked material?

00:35:50.000 No, that's just called reporting.

00:35:52.000 Project Veritas gets a hold of some of this material and puts it out there, and Twitter's like, nope, can't have that.

00:35:57.000 Not gonna do that.

00:35:59.000 A Twitter spokesperson said the Project Veritas account was permanently suspended for breaching its private information policy.

00:36:05.000 The ban came after the group had posted leaked clips on Wednesday from a meeting with Facebook executives where they discussed development of censorship tools.

00:36:12.000 Vice President of Integrity Guy Rosen can be seen explaining, quote, we have a system that is able to freeze commenting on threads.

00:36:17.000 In cases where our systems are detecting, there may be a thread that has hate speech or violence sort of in the comments. In a second video posted by Project Veritas, one of the staffers is seen confronting Rosen about his remarks outside his home as he returned from a jog, quote, when you talk about freezing comments containing hate speech, what do you mean by that?

00:36:33.000 How do you define hate speech?

00:36:34.000 Is it just speech you hate?

00:36:37.000 The numbers on the exec's home address were visible in the clip, but the street name was not.

00:36:40.000 License plates on surrounding cars are blurred.

00:36:43.000 Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe was also temporarily locked on Thursday for violating the policy.

00:36:48.000 O'Keefe told The Wrap he was wrestling with whether to delete the tweets flagged by Twitter in order to regain access to his personal account.

00:36:53.000 So what I'm trying to understand is, what about what we did is, quote, posting private information. Reporters with microphones and cameras engage in reporting activities on the streets all the time in residential communities. I'm trying to understand what Twitter considers violating the rules against posting private information. Does Twitter consider reporting information the public has a right to know private information?

00:37:11.000 This is quite the Rubicon we're crossing if Twitter wants to ban this particular piece of information.

00:37:16.000 O'Keefe said Twitter claimed the video published private information.

00:37:19.000 That's false.

00:37:19.000 He said Twitter invited Project Veritas 2, and we did appeal that decision with Twitter.

00:37:23.000 In an apparent act of retaliation for daring to question their authority, Twitter responded to our appeal by suspending our account, continuing to tell us that Project Veritas could delete the tweet and have our account reinstated.

00:37:33.000 Okay, so here's the thing.

00:37:35.000 Again, these rules only apply to one side of the political aisle.

00:37:40.000 We have people who released, without consent, calls of like Melania Trump and her friend, right?

00:37:46.000 Even in two-party consent areas, this sort of stuff will not be banned by Twitter, presumably.

00:37:53.000 If there was an internal discussion, a daily wire, revealed by the New York Times, and they just put out the tape, do you think Twitter would ban them?

00:37:59.000 I have serious doubts.

00:38:00.000 Very, very serious doubts.

00:38:01.000 But this is how it works in social media.

00:38:04.000 The left is in control of the levers of information, and it is dangerous.

00:38:07.000 They're not using them in fulsome ways yet, but they are using them to quash dissemination of information they don't like.

00:38:12.000 It's one of the reasons I've been telling you, you need to come subscribe at Daily Wire, you need to go to your favorite conservative outlets, and you need to subscribe now.

00:38:19.000 Because these folks in charge of the levers of information are not trustworthy.

00:38:22.000 They are not.

00:38:24.000 They cannot be trusted.

00:38:26.000 When I said that we're all Gina Carano yesterday, that's because we're all Gina Carano.

00:38:29.000 We are all living at the mercy of a bunch of people who control the means of distribution and the means of informational dissemination.

00:38:36.000 And that is dangerous, dangerous stuff.

00:38:37.000 And by the way, they're not gonna be shy in the future about using this sort of stuff.

00:38:42.000 In fact, I love this.

00:38:44.000 The same people who presumably are cheering the banning of James O'Keefe's Project Veritas from Twitter, those same people are now very angry that there are apps that exist that protect privacy.

00:38:56.000 So Poynter, which is a supposed, it's responsible for PolitiFact.

00:39:03.000 The Poynter Center is a journalistic center, supposedly.

00:39:06.000 They published a piece yesterday, and it's talking about Clubhouse.

00:39:09.000 So Clubhouse is a new app where basically you have private calls with multiple people, and there's no tape that is capable of being taken of it, and there's no record that is kept of it, right?

00:39:19.000 You know, like a phone call.

00:39:20.000 And Poynter is very angry at this.

00:39:22.000 Poynter is suggesting that what needs to happen is that we need to be able to record those phone calls and we need to be able to archive those phone calls because there are prominent people who use Clubhouse.

00:39:31.000 So we can't have private conversations, says Poynter.

00:39:34.000 It's amazing.

00:39:35.000 I'd love to see them stick up for James O'Keefe then.

00:39:38.000 Here is what Poynter had to say.

00:39:40.000 And this is according to Christina Tartaguila and Harrison Montas.

00:39:45.000 They say there's a new social media platform trending worldwide.

00:39:47.000 It's called Clubhouse.

00:39:48.000 It brings together people like Tesla's Elon Musk and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.

00:39:51.000 For the moment, it seems to be beyond the reach of the broader fact-checking community.

00:39:55.000 But this should change soon.

00:39:57.000 I joined Clubhouse this week.

00:39:58.000 It was only possible because I own an iPhone.

00:40:00.000 The hot new service only runs on iOS.

00:40:02.000 To be accepted, I also had to deploy an invitation code.

00:40:04.000 Downloading the app isn't enough.

00:40:06.000 To be a Clubhouse user, you must know the right people.

00:40:08.000 As reported by tech websites and popular newspapers, Clubhouse aims to be the most exclusive social media platform ever launched.

00:40:13.000 It offers users the opportunity to enter different chat rooms and clubs and share live audio feeds, not text or images, with thousands of other people.

00:40:20.000 Rooms are divided by topic.

00:40:21.000 You can even schedule your participation by scrolling through which discussions will be up in the next hours.

00:40:26.000 As a fact checker working on the pandemic, I was eager to see if popular misinformation tropes, such as anti-vax content, had already landed at Clubhouse.

00:40:33.000 Even though the platform's guidelines clearly say that users, quote, may not spread false information, I thought I'd try to find some.

00:40:39.000 Okay, so I joined the club called All Things COVID after typing vaccines into the app's search bar.

00:40:45.000 I found scholars from Johns Hopkins University, respected epidemiologists, physicians, and more.

00:40:51.000 I moved on to search for misinformation and disinformation about politics.

00:40:54.000 I typed in Donald Trump.

00:40:55.000 There were no clubs dedicated to the former U.S.

00:40:57.000 President.

00:40:57.000 The same was true of Jair Bolsonaro.

00:41:00.000 This reporter said no COVID-19 falsehoods, no political disinformation.

00:41:04.000 This is a weird platform.

00:41:05.000 And yes, it is.

00:41:06.000 But not exactly for those reasons.

00:41:07.000 As noted by Forbes, Clubhouse's design inherently excludes people with certain disabilities.

00:41:12.000 There is more.

00:41:13.000 Olivia Smith, writing for Grit Daily, warned that on Clubhouse there's no path to accountability because the app doesn't keep old posts or audio files and doesn't allow users to record conversations.

00:41:23.000 Smith said there's no way to prove someone said anything controversial at all.

00:41:27.000 The lack of features will surely produce barriers for fact-checkers.

00:41:29.000 It will not only be hard to choose what club to join, but Clubhouse also requires fact-checkers listen to hours and hours of conversations before selecting what claims should be assessed.

00:41:38.000 This is the best part.

00:41:40.000 Remember, this is a group dedicated to upholding journalistic integrity.

00:41:44.000 Get ready for this.

00:41:45.000 You ready?

00:41:45.000 With the myriad of other platforms fact-checkers are forced to contend with, would it be best for them to ignore Clubhouse for now?

00:41:50.000 Facebook didn't.

00:41:51.000 According to the New York Times, it's already building a product to compete with Clubhouse.

00:41:54.000 Neither did the Chinese government.

00:41:56.000 On Monday, after a rare moment of cross-border dialogue between users from mainland China and others outside the country, Chinese censors moved in.

00:42:05.000 If Xi Jinping's administration isn't ignoring Clubhouse, why should fact-checkers?

00:42:09.000 Why should you?

00:42:10.000 Yeah, you should be just like the Chinese. 1.00

00:42:12.000 Good answer, journalistic center-pointer.

00:42:14.000 Good answer, PolitiFact founders.

00:42:16.000 What we really need is for our fact-checkers to be more like the Chinese. 1.00

00:42:20.000 Well done.

00:42:21.000 Man, our journalistic establishment, they are fantastic.

00:42:23.000 I have one final journalistic establishment story for you in just one moment.

00:42:27.000 First, let us talk about making your business better.

00:42:30.000 So, businesses this year have had to be really flexible.

00:42:33.000 We've had to deal with staffing problems, and we've created new staffs.

00:42:37.000 We've built massively here at Daily Wire.

00:42:40.000 I know that you're doing the same.

00:42:41.000 Well, the reality is that if you own a business, the best way to get the best employees, and if you are a prospective employee and you wanna apply to the best jobs, the best way to hook up with this is ZipRecruiter.

00:42:50.000 If you're in charge of hiring for your business, all of these pivots over the last year have made your job even more challenging, especially if you have to hire for brand new roles.

00:42:56.000 Thankfully, there's one place you can always count on to make hiring faster and easier.

00:43:00.000 ZipRecruiter.com.

00:43:02.000 When you post a job on ZipRecruiter, it gets sent out to over 100 top job boards with one click.

00:43:07.000 Then, ZipRecruiter's powerful technology finds people with the right skills and experience for your job.

00:43:11.000 And actively invites these people to apply.

00:43:13.000 It's no wonder four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter got a quality candidate within the first day.

00:43:18.000 See for yourself right now.

00:43:19.000 You can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire.

00:43:22.000 That is ZipRecruiter.com slash D-A-I-L-Y-W-I-R-E.

00:43:27.000 Let ZipRecruiter take hiring off your plate so you can focus on growing that business. 1.00

00:43:31.000 Go to ZipRecruiter.com slash DailyWire.

00:43:32.000 ZipRecruiter is indeed the smartest way to hire. 0.73

00:43:35.000 Okay, so final journalistic story of the day.

00:43:37.000 Remember, the establishment media have just blown themselves out and so have the social media bros.

00:43:41.000 The lack of trust in these institutions is absolutely justified.

00:43:44.000 100% justified.

00:43:46.000 So it turns out, the New York Times recently killed a column from Brett Stevens, one of their columnists. 0.99

00:43:51.000 Now, the New York Times publishes all sorts of crap. 1.00

00:43:53.000 Like, absolute garbage. 1.00

00:43:54.000 They publish the ridiculous musings of Nikole Hannah-Jones, and the insane navel-gazing of Charles Blow, and the ridiculous Solipsism of Michelle Goldberg. 1.00

00:44:06.000 I mean, their columnist crew is just the dregs. 0.97

00:44:09.000 It's just, it's an awful, awful New York Times op-ed page.

00:44:11.000 Paul Krugman.

00:44:12.000 I mean, just the list of horribles goes on.

00:44:15.000 But Bret Stephens wanted to publish a column at the New York Times about the firing of Donald McNeil because that was a big story, right?

00:44:20.000 Donald McNeil was the science reporter who was fired from the New York Times for the great sin of using the n-word in non-racist fashion.

00:44:27.000 Because he was retelling, he was asking a question about how somebody used the n-word to create context and determine whether this was in fact a racist use of the n-word or not.

00:44:35.000 This generated a massive blowback inside the New York Times woke staff, and they got him fired. 0.98

00:44:41.000 And that ended with New York Times editor, executive editor Dean Beckett, who's an idiot, saying that intent is not an element of racism, which is ridiculous. 0.99

00:44:50.000 I mean, truly insane. 0.99

00:44:52.000 In order to declare somebody a racist, they should have to have racist intent. 0.99

00:44:55.000 It's ridiculous. 0.98

00:44:56.000 I mean, just on its face, it's insane. 0.92

00:44:58.000 Especially because the New York Times has printed the N-word several times in the past several years.

00:45:02.000 They printed it several times this month, in fact.

00:45:05.000 Was intent not an element of the crime there, or what?

00:45:07.000 Okay, so, Bret Stephens wanted to publish a column at the New York Times on this particular issue.

00:45:12.000 So the New York Times killed it.

00:45:14.000 In an internal email obtained by the Daily Beast on Thursday, Stevens, a conservative columnist, claimed he wrote a column defending McNeil, but it was put on ice by the Times publisher.

00:45:22.000 His claim was first reported by NBC's Dylan Byers.

00:45:24.000 If you're still wondering why it wasn't in the paper, it's because AG Sulzberger spiked it, he wrote atop the email.

00:45:29.000 Sensitively titled Regardless of Intent, the column draft appeared to zero in on executive editor Dean Baquette's statement about McNeil.

00:45:36.000 A copy of the column obtained and published by the New York Post late Thursday showed Stephen singling out Baquette and accusing the Times of hypocrisy, writing, quote, The Times has never previously been shy about citing racial slurs in order to explain a point.

00:45:48.000 Stevens wrote, every serious moral philosophy, every decent legal system, every ethical organization cares deeply about intention.

00:45:54.000 It is the difference between murder and manslaughter.

00:45:56.000 It is an aggravating or extenuating factor in judicial settings.

00:45:59.000 It is a cardinal consideration and pardons, or at least it was until Trump got in on the act because Stevens has to get his slap in.

00:46:04.000 It's an elementary aspect of parenting, friendship, courtship, and marriage.

00:46:08.000 The columnist added, a hallmark of injustice is indifference to intention.

00:46:12.000 And the New York Times killed it.

00:46:14.000 Kathleen Kingsbury, editor of the Times opinion section, disputed Stevens' account, telling Daily Beast that while she consulted with Sulzberger about the column, it was ultimately her decision to nix it.

00:46:23.000 She said, I have an especially high bar of running any column that could reflect badly on a colleague.

00:46:28.000 I didn't feel this piece rose to that level.

00:46:30.000 Oh, um, is that what it is?

00:46:33.000 So you guys basically ran Barry Weiss out of town on a rail because she wrote stuff that you didn't like.

00:46:38.000 You allowed the Slack channel to be used as a hate board for Barry Weiss.

00:46:42.000 But, you know, what we really cannot have is Bret Stephens writing that the New York Times is being ridiculous in firing Donald McNeil. 0.96

00:46:50.000 The New York Times is a garbage heap, it remains a garbage heap, and it should not have your subscription or your trust. 0.99

00:46:55.000 It's a ridiculous outlet, and that is being shown every single day. 0.99

00:46:59.000 Okay, now, finally, we're gonna get to impeachment talk.

00:47:02.000 Okay, so we will get to impeachment in just one second.

00:47:06.000 First, let us talk about staying in shape.

00:47:08.000 Well, when it comes to getting or staying in shape, nothing feels as good as that feeling of accomplishment, hitting those fitness goals, feeling great about yourself.

00:47:13.000 Here's the thing, Echelon can help you get there.

00:47:16.000 Now, I know you've seen those commercials for Peloton, and then you're like, oh, that's kind of interesting, and then you look at the price, and your eyes roll back in your head, and you faint.

00:47:22.000 Because Pelotons are extremely, extremely pricey.

00:47:25.000 Echelon will give you pretty much the same thing, except for a fraction of the price.

00:47:30.000 Echelon offers the next generation of connected fitness bikes, fitness mirrors, rowing machines, their Echelon Stride Smart Treadmill.

00:47:36.000 No matter what your favorite fitness activity, Echelon will give you a fun, challenging workout from the comfort of your own home.

00:47:41.000 The EX7S is Echelon's latest state-of-the-art innovation.

00:47:44.000 It takes cycling to the next level.

00:47:45.000 That EX7S connected bike is built with performance, flexibility, and durability in mind.

00:47:50.000 It is the bike for competitors at heart.

00:47:51.000 They have world-class instructors.

00:47:52.000 They'll motivate you with thousands of daily live, non-demand, studio-level classes, always available when you need them.

00:47:57.000 And unlike their competitors, Echelon is affordable for everyone.

00:48:00.000 One membership lets up to five family members all work out at the same time.

00:48:03.000 Right now, you can try any Echelon fitness equipment at home for 30 days.

00:48:06.000 So, my wife and I, we're really working on getting in shape.

00:48:08.000 We've got our Echelon fitness equipment and we are moving on it.

00:48:11.000 I mean, it is great.

00:48:12.000 It is fantastic equipment.

00:48:14.000 The classes are excellent.

00:48:15.000 Go to echelonfit.com slash Ben.

00:48:17.000 That's E-C-H-E-L-O-N-fit.com slash Ben.

00:48:21.000 Echelonfit.com slash Ben.

00:48:23.000 Go check them out right now.

00:48:25.000 Get yourself in shape.

00:48:26.000 Do it the inexpensive and fantastic way.

00:48:28.000 Echelonfit.com slash Ben.

00:48:30.000 Alrighty, in just a second.

00:48:32.000 We're gonna get to all things impeachment related because, finally, the Trump team is going to lay out its defense today.

00:48:37.000 First, gang, gotta tell you, a DailyWire membership is the only way you should be viewing our content.

00:48:40.000 If you're not a member, you're missing all the best features right now.

00:48:42.000 Use promo code SHAPIRO.

00:48:44.000 You'll get 10% off any member plan you choose.

00:48:46.000 I'm gonna tell you in a second why the membership is so great, but let me just remind you, the real reason you should get membership is because you want to build an alternative.

00:48:53.000 That is what we are doing here at DailyWire.

00:48:55.000 This is a mission-based thing.

00:48:57.000 It's not just about the money. 0.96

00:48:58.000 It is also about building an alternative to the garbage heap that is Hollywood, the garbage heap that is your mainstream media.

00:49:04.000 And we are building that alternative and we need your help because we are fighting an uphill battle, not just because these guys have extraordinary influence, but also because the dissemination of information, the means of that dissemination via social media, that can be shut down at any time.

00:49:15.000 The only way to protect the outlets you love is by becoming a member.

00:49:19.000 And here's the great thing.

00:49:19.000 When you become a member, you get a bunch of great stuff.

00:49:21.000 Members get our articles ad-free, access to Yes, you get all of that plus 10% off when you use promo code Shapiro.

00:49:25.000 So stop depriving yourself.

00:49:26.000 Come join the fun.

00:49:27.000 Visit dailywire.com.

00:49:27.000 Use promo code Shapiro for 10% off and become a member today.

00:49:30.000 You'll also receive two of the greatest of all beverage vessels, the leftist here is Tumblr.

00:49:34.000 Yes, you get all of that plus 10% off when you use promo code Shapiro.

00:49:37.000 So stop depriving yourself, come join the fun, visit dailywire.com, use promo code Shapiro for 10% off and become a member today.

00:49:45.000 You're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.

00:49:48.000 All righty, so today marks the day on which Trump's team is going to lay out his defense to the impeachment charge against him.

00:49:58.000 And honestly, the defense is going to be fairly easy for him in the sense that the prosecution really did not prove the case they were seeking to prove.

00:50:04.000 Now, if the case that they were proving was that Trump said really bad and dumb stuff between the election and January 20th, case proved, but we all knew that.

00:50:12.000 If the case was that the people on January 6th did something evil and criminal, case proved, we already knew that.

00:50:16.000 If the case was, we have to show that Trump incited the action Did not prove that because in order to show that Trump incited the action, you have to provide evidence that Trump actively incited, didn't say peacefully and patriotically protest, actively incited the riot.

00:50:31.000 If you want to make the case that Trump is impeachable because of his behavior after and during the actual riot, then you have to have actual testimony from people who are in the room with Trump or Trump himself talking about what he did that day, why security forces weren't sent earlier.

00:50:44.000 Democrats did not bother to do this because in the end, This is not going anywhere.

00:50:48.000 Democrats know this isn't going anywhere.

00:50:49.000 Democrats, by the way, have been throwing out wild accusations without evidence since January 6th about the complicity of fellow Republicans.

00:50:56.000 Nancy Pelosi, Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, this has become a mainstream Democratic talking point, is that Republicans wanted to murder their fellow Congress people.

00:51:04.000 Alexander Ocasio-Cortez literally said that Ted Cruz wanted to have her murdered on January 6th, which is nuts.

00:51:12.000 I mean, Ted is the Zodiac Killer, but besides that, he has not committed a murder since, last I checked, like 1979.

00:51:16.000 It's been a long time for Ted.

00:51:19.000 Okay, beyond that, you had Nancy Pelosi suggesting that there were members of Congress who were working with the rioters.

00:51:24.000 No evidence has been presented to prove that point at all.

00:51:27.000 I've been calling for the evidence since they said it, because that's a pretty outsized allegation.

00:51:31.000 So what is this really about?

00:51:32.000 In the end, what this is really about is PR, and everybody knows it.

00:51:34.000 This is about the idea that every Republican is responsible for this.

00:51:38.000 This is why they went for the incitement charge, guys.

00:51:40.000 If they had wanted to impeach on the basis of abuse of power, it would have been a lot harder for Republicans to rebut that, frankly, because abuse of power is a vague, non-legal definition.

00:51:49.000 It's pretty easy to rebut that.

00:51:51.000 I mean, it's rather difficult to rebut that, actually, because, again, if you charge somebody with a crime that is a political crime, but not an actual legal crime, then your opponents aren't going to be able to declare that you haven't fulfilled the elements.

00:52:06.000 Abuse of power can be interpreted any variety of ways, but it's difficult to imagine that Trump didn't abuse his power when he spent two months railing against the veracity of the election and calling up election officials and all that kind of stuff, right?

00:52:17.000 But they didn't go for that charge.

00:52:18.000 They went for incitement.

00:52:19.000 It's the reason why Jonathan Turley, the law professor from George Washington University, he said that he thinks that basically the Democrats tanked this thing from the beginning.

00:52:27.000 He said they went for the incitement charge because they know that they want Republicans, in essence, to vote against impeachment so they can use that as a cudgel against Republicans.

00:52:35.000 That is the goal.

00:52:37.000 I think Turley happens to be right about this because the reality is you can't prove incitement here.

00:52:41.000 You can't.

00:52:43.000 And they didn't even bother to take witness testimony as to what Trump did the day of, right?

00:52:47.000 What was he doing in the immediate aftermath?

00:52:49.000 They didn't talk to anybody.

00:52:50.000 They didn't present any evidence.

00:52:51.000 All they said was like he was tweeting.

00:52:52.000 Okay, well, tweets are tweets.

00:52:55.000 Also, do you have evidence that he was called up by the National Guard and they were like, you know, Mr. President, we need to go in.

00:52:59.000 He was like, I don't want that to happen.

00:53:01.000 I love it.

00:53:02.000 If you got evidence, now would be the time to present it.

00:53:04.000 They didn't present that.

00:53:05.000 So what was the real goal here?

00:53:07.000 And this is also one of the secondary goals of using incitement as the standard.

00:53:10.000 The goal here is that any time a Republican uses inflammatory language from now on, or even says something that Democrats don't like, that will be considered incitement.

00:53:18.000 This is part and parcel of a broader Democratic and leftist attempt to treat everything they do not like as violence.

00:53:24.000 So when I spoke in Berkeley a few years back, I will never forget this, I was speaking at Berkeley, 600 police officers required in order so that I could just give a speech about free speech.

00:53:32.000 And protesters were outside with signs that said, speech is violence.

00:53:37.000 Speech is violence.

00:53:38.000 So this is something the left has been pushing for quite a while, is the idea that if you say something with which I disagree, you are doing me harm.

00:53:44.000 And that harm is, it should be considered a form of lawbreaking.

00:53:49.000 We should change the First Amendment so anything that is considered harmful Is criminal.

00:53:53.000 Now, here's the thing.

00:53:54.000 It isn't, right?

00:53:54.000 We got a First Amendment, and it isn't.

00:53:56.000 Incitement, however, is a criminal standard.

00:53:58.000 And so if you can establish that Trump's saying inflammatory things like, fight for the country, or you gotta fight, that kind of stuff amounts to incitement, it's pretty easy to go after people you don't like and claim that they are responsible for incitement.

00:54:09.000 And this is used against Republicans all the time.

00:54:11.000 It's been used going all the way back to Rush Limbaugh being blamed for the Oklahoma City bombing.

00:54:15.000 It's been used going all the way back to Sarah Palin being blamed for the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords for no apparent reason and without any available evidence.

00:54:22.000 So this is a long-standing kind of trope for the left.

00:54:25.000 And to the left, in using incitement, what they're really trying to do is say that it's not just Trump, it's everybody.

00:54:31.000 And they're not really making this particularly opaque.

00:54:33.000 I mean, they're being pretty clear about this.

00:54:35.000 Joy Reid over on MSNBC last night with Adam Schiff, who has not left his green, his green room tent, his pup tent in the green room at MSNBC and CNN for like years at this point.

00:54:47.000 And they actually have an official Adam Schiff room over at these cable networks and he sleeps there and he does his laundry and everything.

00:54:55.000 So she's with Adam Schiff and she's explaining that the GOP, the entire GOP is a radicalized anti-democratic institution.

00:55:01.000 Congressman Schiff, do we need to start having a serious conversation, not just about Donald Trump being a bad guy, but about the Republican Party becoming a radicalized, anti-democratic institution?

00:55:12.000 Because you can't have a regular party, like the Democrats who have their flaws and we can have issue with them, and a party that is willing to seize power by force.

00:55:20.000 Because that's what that sounded like to me.

00:55:22.000 Well, it's a party that's willing to seize power by force.

00:55:23.000 Now, again, can you name the Republican who has backed the January 6th riots?

00:55:27.000 Which one?

00:55:29.000 Anytime now would be good.

00:55:31.000 But even the New York Times is recognizing that what this really is about is just the PR.

00:55:35.000 So there's a piece by Peter Baker in the New York Times in the analysis section titled, if convicting Trump is out of reach, managers seek a verdict from the public and history.

00:55:44.000 I always like when people say history is going to render its verdict.

00:55:47.000 Yeah, well, history is like right now.

00:55:49.000 That's what's happening now.

00:55:50.000 So in 20 years, talk to me.

00:55:51.000 to me. Peter Baker says as a day of violence and mayhem at the Capitol slid into evening last month with bloodshed, glass shattered and democracy besieged, President Trump posted a message on Twitter that seemed to celebrate the moment.

00:56:01.000 Remember this day forever, he urged. The House Democrats prosecuting him at his Senate impeachment trial barely a month later hopes to make sure everyone does. With conviction in a polarized Senate seemingly out of reach, the House managers, as the prosecutors are known, are aiming their argument at two other audiences beyond the chamber.

00:56:17.000 The American people, whose decision to deny Trump a second term was put at risk, and the historians who will one day render their own judgments about the former president and his time in power.

00:56:26.000 Okay, well, here's the point.

00:56:28.000 Trump lost the election.

00:56:29.000 So who are they directing this at?

00:56:31.000 They're directing this to 2022 voters.

00:56:33.000 That's really what this is about.

00:56:34.000 They're directing it at 2022 voters.

00:56:36.000 Because the historians already don't like Trump.

00:56:38.000 Because the historians, most of them, are on the left.

00:56:40.000 They hated Trump before any of this stuff happened.

00:56:42.000 They're already ranking him like the worst president ever before the election.

00:56:46.000 So it's pretty clear which way they are leaning.

00:56:47.000 It's not about that.

00:56:48.000 It's about electoral politics.

00:56:49.000 It's about power, as always.

00:56:50.000 Because politics is generally about power.

00:56:53.000 And they know this.

00:56:55.000 Carl Rove said the managers had made a persuasive presentation.

00:56:57.000 He said not clear if they met the legal definition of incitement and insurrection, but he's effectively tarnished for all time and incapable of running in 2024.

00:57:06.000 And that, of course, is one of the goals.

00:57:08.000 Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who testified against impeachment, said the managers this time were just playing to the crowd rather than making a legal argument.

00:57:16.000 He said the House is presenting an emotionally charged but legally deficient case in terms of a conviction.

00:57:20.000 Indeed, much of the argument seemed designed to enrage rather than to convict.

00:57:23.000 The videos are provocative but not probative, he said.

00:57:25.000 Correct.

00:57:26.000 It is like showing the jury the remnants of a fire.

00:57:29.000 It does not prove the accused started the fire.

00:57:32.000 This is correct, but that's not the point.

00:57:34.000 This was never the point.

00:57:35.000 Which is, of course, why they fast-tracked this thing.

00:57:37.000 According to the Washington Post, Democratic lawmakers had coalesced behind a plan to force Trump from office within days of the attack on the Capitol building.

00:57:46.000 Biden told Pelosi he didn't oppose impeaching Trump, but Biden also made clear he had no intention of letting the prior president's conduct interfere with the early days of his own administration.

00:57:54.000 So if they were really truly serious about this, this wouldn't be a wham-bam thank-you-man impeachment, right?

00:57:59.000 They'd actually present witnesses.

00:58:00.000 They'd go through the whole process.

00:58:01.000 They'd try to prove their legal case.

00:58:02.000 But they're getting what they're getting out of this, right?

00:58:04.000 They showed the video.

00:58:05.000 A lot of people watched the video.

00:58:07.000 They get to claim that all Republicans for all time who didn't vote for impeachment are complicit in January 6th.

00:58:12.000 That was the point of this.

00:58:13.000 The point of this was never to reach an impeachment.

00:58:15.000 They're not even going through the normal process.

00:58:16.000 I mean, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who's supposed to preside over all of this, isn't even there.

00:58:21.000 So that's what this impeachment truly is about.

00:58:24.000 And that's what the impeachment was always about, realistically speaking.

00:58:28.000 Okay, so.

00:58:30.000 Yesterday, the Democrats finished their case.

00:58:32.000 Jamie Raskin, the House impeachment manager, he made an argument that essentially we have to use common sense.

00:58:38.000 Now, here's the thing about using common sense with regard to this.

00:58:41.000 Your common sense would tell you, because I've watched Trump for years as have you, that what Trump was doing on January 6th was fairly clear.

00:58:48.000 He wanted a photo op of a bunch of angry people outside the Capitol building.

00:58:52.000 Because that's what Trump likes.

00:58:54.000 Trump likes photo ops.

00:58:55.000 He likes images.

00:58:56.000 He wanted people to sound off.

00:58:58.000 He literally said it peacefully and patriotically.

00:59:00.000 I know people want to ignore that or pretend it doesn't matter.

00:59:02.000 It does.

00:59:04.000 And then people went and they broke into the Capitol.

00:59:07.000 Does anyone really think that Trump woke up that morning?

00:59:09.000 He's like, you know what I'd love?

00:59:09.000 I'd love if there were a bunch of people who ran into the Capitol building and tried to hang Mike Pence.

00:59:13.000 I think that'd be amazing.

00:59:14.000 Common sense tells you that this is not the case.

00:59:17.000 But we are supposed to believe that common sense tells us this is the case, according to Jamie Raskin and the House impeachment managers.

00:59:24.000 When Tom Paine wrote Common Sense, The pamphlet that launched the American Revolution.

00:59:31.000 He said that common sense really meant two different things.

00:59:36.000 One common sense is the understanding that we all have without advanced learning and education.

00:59:44.000 Common sense is the sense accessible to everybody.

00:59:47.000 But common sense is also the sense that we all have in common as a community.

00:59:57.000 Senators, America, we need to exercise our common sense about what happened.

01:00:04.000 Well, common sense tells me that Trump's rhetoric was inflammatory and that he was saying things that were not true, and that people who tend to storm Capitol buildings also did not do so at the direction of the President of the United States.

01:00:17.000 I guess what common sense tells me, because That seems fairly obvious to me, frankly.

01:00:22.000 Now, this is true.

01:00:27.000 I mean, you can impeach for any reason.

01:00:28.000 You can impeach for the President of the United States clipping his toenails wrong.

01:00:32.000 There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents the House from impeaching for literally anything.

01:00:37.000 There is a certain irony to Jamie Raskin standing up there A man who literally challenged election electors back in 2016, standing up there and saying that there is no superpower immunity from impeachment for people who do bad things in government.

01:00:51.000 It's also kind of ironic considering that there actually is special legislation that has been passed that grants immunity to members of the House who speak on the congressional floor from things like slander.

01:01:00.000 You can say anything slanderous you want so long as you're doing it on the floor of Congress.

01:01:03.000 So there actually is some special immunity there.

01:01:05.000 But in any case, here is Raskin saying that when Trump says that he's using the First Amendment here, that that's not sufficient to defend him.

01:01:11.000 I mean, it depends on the standard you're using.

01:01:13.000 You are the ones who said that he was inciting to insurrection.

01:01:16.000 It's a high legal bar.

01:01:17.000 You didn't clear that legal bar.

01:01:18.000 So instead, now you're basically charging something that you're not even alleging.

01:01:22.000 You're charging that he incited to insurrection and then you are not actually proving the case for incitement or that he facilitated an insurrection.

01:01:29.000 He's the president of the United States.

01:01:30.000 If he had gone to his military and said, I want you guys to invade the Capitol building right now and take all of those guys hostage.

01:01:36.000 That's what a coup looks like, right?

01:01:37.000 That would be an insurrection.

01:01:39.000 Him saying to a bunch of people, the election was stolen.

01:01:41.000 Let's go on a march to the Capitol and show people how angry we are and inject them with a spine.

01:01:47.000 That is not incitement, nor is it insurrection.

01:01:49.000 That's just political rhetoric.

01:01:51.000 It's stuff I don't like.

01:01:52.000 It's ugly, it's inflammatory.

01:01:54.000 That does not fulfill the charges.

01:01:55.000 Here's Raskin trying to make it fulfill the charges.

01:01:58.000 The First Amendment does not create some superpower immunity from impeachment for a president who attacks the Constitution in word and deed while rejecting the outcome of an election he happened to lose.

01:02:12.000 If anything, President Trump's conduct was an assault on the First Amendment and equal production rights that millions of Americans exercised when they voted last year.

01:02:22.000 So, meanwhile, Cory Booker was saying, we don't need more evidence.

01:02:25.000 This is one of the most beautiful things about the Democrats is that they say they don't need evidence when they literally didn't provide any evidence other than just tape and tweets.

01:02:32.000 That was the entire case.

01:02:33.000 Here are Trump's tweets.

01:02:34.000 We didn't learn anything new in the course of this.

01:02:34.000 Here's the tape.

01:02:36.000 We really didn't.

01:02:38.000 The only thing that we learned over the course of this, and I watched a fair bit of it, the only thing that we actually learned is that the rioters were close to members of Congress and the Vice President, in terms of proximity.

01:02:51.000 Which we already kind of knew, considering that members of Congress had openly talked about this.

01:02:54.000 I talked to members of Congress at the time.

01:02:57.000 But Cory Booker says, you know, we've presented enough evidence, you know, proving our case, that's not something we have to do.

01:03:03.000 It is hard to even venture to say that the commander-in-chief who swore an oath to protect this sacred space did not fail in his duty, did not betray that oath.

01:03:19.000 No.

01:03:20.000 We do not need more evidence, in my opinion, to come to the conclusion that Donald Trump violated his oath of office.

01:03:27.000 Okay, but that was not the question, really.

01:03:29.000 Okay, the question is whether he violated his oath of office.

01:03:32.000 Did he do so in the fashion alleged by the impeachment document?

01:03:36.000 You guys could have gone broader.

01:03:37.000 You didn't.

01:03:37.000 You did so on purpose.

01:03:39.000 That is a simple legal reality here.

01:03:42.000 Yeah, I think there are people who are going to vote for impeachment and Republicans, Democrats, and I see the case.

01:03:48.000 I disagree with the case, but I see the case.

01:03:48.000 I do.

01:03:50.000 But Democrats did not fulfill their burden here.

01:03:52.000 They really didn't.

01:03:53.000 And Trump's campaign is going to say that today.

01:03:54.000 Trump's team is going to say that.

01:03:55.000 They're going to say, listen, you guys keep saying incitement to insurrection.

01:03:58.000 Here's Maxine Waters saying that you should push back, get in people's faces and push back on them.

01:04:02.000 Here's Conal Harris tweeting out support for people who are rioting in Minnesota.

01:04:07.000 Here are members of Congress talking about how uprisings are generally okay so long as they are in the right political direction.

01:04:12.000 Do all these people get impeached or what?

01:04:14.000 Here's a bunch of you guys denying that Donald Trump was president for four years.

01:04:17.000 Is the standard election denial?

01:04:18.000 Like, what exactly is the standard here?

01:04:21.000 And there's not going to be a good comeback.

01:04:23.000 Rand Paul, the senator from Kentucky, he said, listen, this is pretty easy.

01:04:26.000 We should condemn violence and extremism on both sides, but it's pretty obvious that's not what's happening here.

01:04:31.000 My take is that we should condemn violence and extremism on both sides.

01:04:35.000 For six months, our cities have been on fire because of extreme left-wing anarchists, and now we had right-wing people who have shown that it can be just as crazy.

01:04:45.000 But I can tell you that the people creating mayhem would have physically attacked my wife and I, and were, at the very least, disorderly and not obeying commands.

01:04:54.000 Not one of them even got a traffic ticket.

01:04:56.000 So, you know, let's have the same standard.

01:04:59.000 Well, I mean, that is not going to be the standard.

01:05:01.000 And that's sort of the point.

01:05:02.000 There is no neutral standard that is applied across the aisle.

01:05:06.000 And Republicans are right to point that out.

01:05:08.000 Republicans are right to point that out.

01:05:09.000 And Democrats deliberately set a standard here in order so that it would be divisive.

01:05:15.000 It's amazing how many times we can do this in the course of a year.

01:05:17.000 There'll be something bad that happens to the country, and it should be very, very uniting.

01:05:21.000 When a giant pandemic hits the country, that should be a point of unity.

01:05:24.000 We're gonna work on this.

01:05:24.000 We're all gonna get together.

01:05:25.000 We're gonna use the best science available.

01:05:27.000 Everybody's sort of groping their way through this thing, but we're all on the same side, because nobody wants anybody to die.

01:05:32.000 Instead, it immediately turns into this political brow-beating, where if you are on the right, then it's because you want grandma to die.

01:05:38.000 If you even want to take economic concerns into account in forming COVID policy, it's because you want grandma to die.

01:05:44.000 We can cover up material.

01:05:45.000 Everything becomes a politically partisan issue immediately.

01:05:48.000 January 6th.

01:05:50.000 Seems like there's a pretty wide consensus by the polling data.

01:05:53.000 Trump was saying things that were not true from the election all the way up through January 20th about the election.

01:05:58.000 Also, people rioting in the Capitol building is super bad and evil.

01:06:02.000 That is something that is criminal, and those people should be prosecuted.

01:06:05.000 End of story.

01:06:06.000 In fact, you know who was saying that at the time?

01:06:07.000 Mike Pence, on the floor of the Senate.

01:06:09.000 Mitch McConnell, on the floor of the Senate.

01:06:11.000 Instead, it immediately went to, and also, by the way, even if you oppose the January 6th riots, and even if you opposed Donald Trump's statements about the election, even if you said voter fraud did not decide the election, even if you said all those things, unless you are willing to impeach Trump after he is already out of office, this means you are complicit in all of this.

01:06:27.000 There's a deliberate attempt to create division.

01:06:30.000 It ain't gonna get any better.

01:06:31.000 I was informed there was gonna be a new period of unity.

01:06:33.000 I'm not seeing any of it.

01:06:34.000 Not one little bit of it.

01:06:36.000 Because this was not designed for unity.

01:06:37.000 It was designed for division.

01:06:38.000 It was not designed to be a perfectly tailored impeachment charge against Trump.

01:06:43.000 It was not designed for any of that.

01:06:44.000 It was not designed to be a process that elicited evidence that was undeniable.

01:06:47.000 It was designed to be a political display.

01:06:51.000 And so they succeeded in the political display, but make no mistake, that's exactly what this is.

01:06:54.000 Alrighty, we'll be back here today with one additional hour of content for The Ben Shapiro Show.

01:06:59.000 First, you cannot forget to end your week by watching The Andrew Klavan Show.

01:07:02.000 On tonight's show, Drew will be discussing Christian politics and more, and Gina Carano being canceled.

01:07:06.000 So, head on over to dailywire.com this evening at 7 p.m.

01:07:08.000 Eastern and tune in.

01:07:10.000 I am Ben Shapiro.

01:07:10.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

01:07:12.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Colton Haas.

01:07:19.000 Executive Producer, Jeremy Boring.

01:07:21.000 Our Supervising Producers are Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.

01:07:24.000 Production Manager, Paweł Lajdowski.

01:07:26.000 Our Associate Producers are Rebecca Doyle and Savannah Dominguez.

01:07:29.000 The show is edited by Adam Sajewicz.

01:07:31.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.

01:07:33.000 Hair and Makeup is by Fabiola Cristina.

01:07:35.000 Production Assistant, Jessica Crand.

01:07:37.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.

01:07:41.000 Hey everybody, this is Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.

01:07:44.000 You know, some people are depressed because the republic is collapsing, the end of days is approaching, and the moon's turned to blood.

01:07:51.000 But on The Andrew Klavan Show, that's where the fun just gets started.

The Ben Shapiro Show - February 12, 2021

Daily Wire And Gina Carano Team Up To Fight The Death Star | Ep. 1194

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript