The Ben Shapiro Show - Did Joe Biden Just Commit An Impeachable Offense? | Ep. 1591

00:00:00.000 Joe Biden threatens the Saudis after begging them to pump more oil in advance of the midterms, and it looks a lot like a quid pro quo.

00:00:06.000 The new inflation numbers come in hot, and the January 6th committee votes to subpoena Donald Trump.

00:00:11.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:11.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:18.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressiveVPN.

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00:02:36.000 Well, as you all recall, because you're older than three years old, Donald Trump was impeached twice.

00:02:42.000 The first time he was impeached was obviously not over January 6th.

00:02:45.000 The first time he was impeached, it was over a phone call with the president of Ukraine in which he allegedly threatened Ukraine with removal of military aid if Ukraine didn't come up with some sort of dirt on Hunter and Joe Biden.

00:02:58.000 And there was no actual criminal charge named in the impeachment proceeding.

00:03:03.000 There was a suggestion that there had been bribery or that the use of American power in order to facilitate your electoral demands and to hold up defense aid for an ally on that basis could be impeachable.

00:03:16.000 And remember, President Trump was in fact impeached in the House before he was acquitted in the Senate.

00:03:20.000 On those grounds, and you will remember that the New York Times was a big backer of that impeachment effort.

00:03:24.000 In fact, they put out an editorial in November of 2019 talking about why Donald Trump should be impeached.

00:03:32.000 And here is what they said.

00:03:33.000 They said, quote, Americans agree to give their elected officials power over them, and those officials agree to exercise that power on Americans behalf.

00:03:41.000 If the nation's leaders breach that deal, By lining their own pockets and bartering their interests of their citizens, they break the trust that self-government and democracy depend upon.

00:03:49.000 The testimony so far indicates it's even worse in this case.

00:03:51.000 It suggests that Mr. Trump wasn't simply soliciting a bribe, but doing so to try to rig the next election.

00:03:56.000 It should go without saying, representative democracy cannot work if its leaders are cheating to keep themselves in power.

00:04:02.000 So again, the idea was Donald Trump had engaged in a quid pro quo with Ukraine.

00:04:06.000 He had essentially threatened to remove from them the weaponry that they needed in order to stave off a possible Russian invasion, which of course didn't happen while Trump was president.

00:04:13.000 It happened while Biden was president.

00:04:14.000 And that he was threatening them with that so that they would go and dig something up on Hunter and Joe Biden for purposes of the 2020 election.

00:04:21.000 And Trump's case was, well, no, I really I care about rooting out corruption in Ukraine.

00:04:26.000 That's really why I'm worried about all this, because Ukraine has had serious corruption issues and Burisma is a serious corruption issue. 0.98

00:04:31.000 And his opponents were saying, no, no, no, that's all a bunch of crap. 0.76

00:04:33.000 The reason that you're doing this is for electoral purposes. 0.98

00:04:35.000 The one thing that we were all supposed to agree on, left and right, is that quid pro quos for purposes of domestic political gain are bad.

00:04:43.000 These are bad.

00:04:44.000 These are, according to Democrats, impeachable.

00:04:46.000 The only question was whether Donald Trump had actually done this or not.

00:04:49.000 But certainly, it was an impeachable offense to, for example, demand that an American ally do a thing for you, specifically for you, for your electoral efforts, and in return, you would give them something that American taxpayers were paying for.

00:05:03.000 That would be a quid pro quo.

00:05:05.000 Well, this brings us forward to today, because as it turns out, it looks very much like this administration, the Biden administration, has been participating in a quid pro quo with the Saudis.

00:05:15.000 In fact, while Ukraine denied that there was a quid pro quo arrangement with Donald Trump during that impeachment proceeding, you remember this, Zelensky came out and he said, no, no, no, well, that's not how I read the phone call.

00:05:25.000 The Saudis are saying, no, there was an attempted quid pro quo here.

00:05:29.000 Joe Biden was pressuring us to essentially pump oil for one additional month to get him past the midterm elections to keep those oil prices a little bit lower than they otherwise would be.

00:05:39.000 And then he would presumably step off the gas himself, figuratively speaking, with regard to his persecution of the Saudi government, his crackdown on the Saudi government.

00:05:49.000 According to the UK Daily Mail, the Biden administration weighed in with Saudi Arabia and other OPEC Plus members, urging them to hold off for another month before announcing oil production cuts, a move that would have delayed the stunning announcement until after the midterm election.

00:06:01.000 The administration framed its objections to the production cuts as boosting Russian President Vladimir Putin's brutal war in Ukraine.

00:06:06.000 But according to the Wall Street Journal, the Saudis rejected the admonitions, viewing the administration's objections as a, quote, political gambit by the Biden administration to avoid bad news.

00:06:16.000 So, you'll notice that the Biden administration did not ask for, say, a six-month increase in oil pumping.

00:06:22.000 They did not ask for flexibility over the course of the coming year with regards to pumping that oil in order to quash Russian efforts in Ukraine.

00:06:31.000 No, they asked for a one-month pause.

00:06:33.000 One month, which is kind of suspicious, brings you just past the election.

00:06:37.000 And in fact, the Saudis have now put out an actual statement Confirming, effectively speaking, that Joe Biden was pressuring them for electoral purposes.

00:06:48.000 Their statement says, quote, the kingdom affirms that the outcomes of the OPEC plus meetings are adopted through consensus among member states. They're not based on the unilateral decision by single country. These outcomes are based purely on economic considerations that take into account maintaining balance of supply and demand in the oil markets, as well as aim to limit volatility that does not serve the interests of consumers and producers, as has always been the case within OPEC plus. The government of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia affirms that any attempts to distort the facts about the kingdom's position regarding the crisis in Ukraine are unfortunate and will not

00:07:16.000 change the kingdom's principal position, including its vote to support UN resolutions regarding the Russian-Ukraine crisis, based on the kingdom's position on the importance for all countries to adhere to the UN charter principles of international law and the kingdom's rejection of any infringement on the sovereignty of territories of countries over their territories.

00:07:31.000 In other words, Saudi is saying, listen, we voted with you guys against what Russia is doing in Ukraine.

00:07:35.000 So trying to say that we are sort of in the Russian pocket is just not true.

00:07:39.000 We're doing this for our own economic reasons.

00:07:41.000 This is fascinating.

00:07:42.000 Quote, the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would also like to clarify that based on its belief in the importance of dialogue and exchange of views with its allies and partners outside the OPEC Plus group regarding the situation in the oil markets, the government of the Kingdom clarified through its continuous consultation with the US administration that all economic analyses indicate that postponing the OPEC Plus decision for a month, according to what has been suggested, would have had negative economic consequences.

00:08:05.000 So that is them very not subtly saying, you asked us for a one month delay and we notice.

00:08:11.000 And that is not good economics and it's not good for our business.

00:08:14.000 But the most important thing is that Saudi is confirming that Biden didn't ask for an indefinite delay on production cuts.

00:08:19.000 He asked for a one month delay on production cuts.

00:08:23.000 And as soon as it became clear that the Saudis were not actually going to do that, the White House then made clear that they were going to re-evaluate ties with the Saudis.

00:08:31.000 In other words, it sounds very much like they are threatening an American ally with everything on the table, up to and including the possible removal of military aid in the face of Iranian predations via Yemen in the Houthis or Iran directly. 0.67

00:08:43.000 They're threatening that in order to get Saudi to jack up its oil supply, Just before an election.

00:08:50.000 That's what it sounds very much like.

00:08:51.000 According to the Washington Post, President Biden is kicking off a process of re-evaluating and potentially altering the U.S.

00:08:56.000 relationship with Saudi Arabia following the announcement by a Saudi-led coalition to enslash oil production, the White House said on Tuesday.

00:09:03.000 Officials said Tuesday Biden is doing so.

00:09:05.000 They offered no details on how the relationship might shift or what policies the president is considering.

00:09:10.000 White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters, quote, in light of recent developments and the OPEC plus decision about oil production, the president believes we should review the bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia and take a look to see if that relationship is where it needs to be.

00:09:22.000 He said, this is something the president's been thinking about, certainly in light of OPEC's decision.

00:09:26.000 I mean, they're saying the quiet part out loud.

00:09:28.000 They're not saying this is the culmination of a gradual breakdown in our relations with the Saudi government.

00:09:32.000 They're saying, listen, if you guys had pumped the oil, we would not be reevaluating our decision.

00:09:36.000 You didn't pump the oil, and so we're reevaluating our decision.

00:09:38.000 And what were we asking for?

00:09:39.000 A one month delay.

00:09:40.000 I mean, they're saying the quid pro quo out loud.

00:09:42.000 It's unbelievable, actually.

00:09:44.000 Now there's nobody in the media who sees this apparently as a serious problem.

00:09:49.000 It's totally okay when Democrats do this kind of stuff.

00:09:51.000 It is totally okay when Barack Obama says to Dmitry Medvedev in advance of the 2012 election that he just needs some flexibility from Vladimir Putin and then he will be able to get past the election and it'll give him the flexibility he needs to treat with Russia in a more Conciliatory fashion, right?

00:10:08.000 That was totally fine.

00:10:09.000 And apparently it is totally fine when Joe Biden openly, like in front of your face, asks a foreign ally to do a thing for him, for electoral purposes.

00:10:17.000 Because again, a one month delay in oil cuts does not really benefit the American public, especially if that is going to be balanced out by more significant oil cuts, which are going to raise the price even further.

00:10:29.000 So he's doing this for electoral purposes.

00:10:30.000 And he's saying he's doing this basically for electoral purposes with that timeline.

00:10:34.000 And then he's saying, well, maybe we'll remove the military aid.

00:10:37.000 I mean, Joe Biden was literally asked yesterday about the possibility of removing military aid, and he just sort of didn't answer the question.

00:10:43.000 Karine Jean-Pierre, the wildly untalented White House press secretary, she was out there saying, sure, there are going to be consequences for Saudi not doing what we want them to do.

00:10:52.000 I can't speak for their intentions or their timing.

00:10:57.000 That's not something that I can speak for.

00:10:59.000 But what I can speak about is their decision.

00:11:02.000 And in the time of global challenges, economic challenges that we're seeing, this was a decision that was a mistake.

00:11:10.000 And we can speak to that, because it was actually something that we saw them do.

00:11:14.000 And it's going to hurt, again, economies It was a mistake.

00:11:27.000 And they're trying to, you know, spin this a little bit like, well, you know, it's really for those low income.

00:11:39.000 I noticed something about those low income countries, those third world countries.

00:11:43.000 They're disproportionately siding with Saudi Arabia and Russia.

00:11:46.000 We could be providing them the energy supplies that they need, considering that America is, in fact, the world's number one producer of energy.

00:11:46.000 You know what we could be doing?

00:11:53.000 But we're not doing that.

00:11:54.000 Instead, we're ripping on the Saudis, and we're begging the Saudis, one month in advance of an election, to make sure that the oil prices are just low enough so maybe the Democrats aren't hurt too bad.

00:12:03.000 Bloomberg's Jonathan Farrow actually asked the White House budget director, Brian Deese, about whether the White House pressured OPEC Plus to delay cuts for purposes of the election, and Deese essentially attempted to avoid the question.

00:12:14.000 Did you ask the Saudis to delay that decision for a month?

00:12:18.000 Are they telling the truth or not?

00:12:20.000 Look, I'm not going to get on air and disclose private conversations that members of our administration had with counterparts.

00:12:27.000 But it's not private.

00:12:28.000 The Saudis have shared it with us.

00:12:29.000 You've got the opportunity to say it's true or not.

00:12:32.000 Is it true or not?

00:12:32.000 What I will say clearly is that the communications that we've had with OPEC members and continuing have been based on our assessment of the economic circumstances of supply and demand in global oil markets.

00:12:44.000 Okay, that's an amazing statement, right?

00:12:46.000 He's just refusing to say outright whether they asked for a one-month delay or there's a six-month delay.

00:12:51.000 Now we know.

00:12:52.000 He's not rebutting the Saudis. 0.87

00:12:53.000 He's not calling them liars.

00:12:55.000 So, does that sound like a quid pro quo?

00:12:56.000 Does that sound like the President of the United States is effectively demanding that the Saudis do a thing he wants for electoral purposes and he's going to threaten them with everything up to and including the removal of military aid in the most volatile region on planet Earth if he doesn't get what he wants?

00:13:13.000 It's absolutely astonishing.

00:13:15.000 It's absolutely astonishing.

00:13:17.000 Okay, but meanwhile, the media are focused in like a laser beam.

00:13:19.000 Not on that, a thing that is happening in real time right now with the President of the United States threatening to effectually increase conflict in the Middle East.

00:13:28.000 Okay, the fact is that if this administration had any level of either understanding or decency with regard to the Middle East, what they would be doing is attempting to facilitate the addition of Saudi Arabia to the Abraham Accords.

00:13:40.000 They were handed a legacy in the Middle East.

00:13:41.000 We're sitting in Jerusalem right now, and one of the amazing things that has happened In the Middle East over the course of the last four years has been the Abraham Accords, which has brought to the peace table Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Morocco, a bunch of countries.

00:13:56.000 And Saudi is perfectly willing to enter those Abraham Accords. 1.00

00:13:59.000 All they require are a couple of fairly minor American guarantees.

00:14:03.000 The Biden administration has been not only completely unwilling to do that, they've been fostering Negotiations with Saudi Arabia's mortal enemies over in Iran, the Ayatollahs, who are busily cracking the skulls of women who refuse to wear hijab.

00:14:16.000 They're negotiating with the Iranians.

00:14:17.000 The Iranians, meanwhile, are spreading their terror tentacles through Syria, through Iraq, to Lebanon, to the Gaza Strip. 0.99

00:14:25.000 And then this administration is threatening the Saudis.

00:14:27.000 This administration is actually making relations worse with the Saudis.

00:14:30.000 At a time when we could be building a burgeoning American alliance.

00:14:34.000 A pro-America alliance in this region.

00:14:37.000 This administration is pursuing precisely the opposite goal and then attempting to blackmail Saudi Arabia for Joe Biden's political benefit.

00:14:43.000 But apparently we should pay no attention to that.

00:14:46.000 That is inoffensive.

00:14:47.000 It's totally not a problem that the President of the United States is effectually engaging in a quid pro quo with Saudi Arabia, an American ally, again, facing down some of the worst people on earth over in Iran. 0.87

00:14:56.000 This does not mean that the Saudis are wonderful humans. 1.00

00:14:59.000 It does not mean that the Saudis don't engage in human rights predations.

00:15:01.000 They do.

00:15:02.000 So does pretty much every American ally that we deal with outside of the West.

00:15:07.000 But it is fairly astonishing the media just don't care about this.

00:15:09.000 What do they care about?

00:15:10.000 They care about January 6th.

00:15:11.000 They care about January 6th.

00:15:12.000 The January 6th committee held its last hearing on Thursday.

00:15:17.000 This is the last one before the election.

00:15:19.000 And they supposedly had a bunch of revelations to present.

00:15:22.000 They declared themselves victorious, by the way.

00:15:24.000 Like, Benny Thompson, who's a Democrat, member of the committee from Maryland, he came out and he's like, we proved our case.

00:15:30.000 We proved that Donald Trump facilitated and made happen the riots of January 6th in an attempt to overthrow Democ- You didn't prove that.

00:15:37.000 I'm sorry, you didn't.

00:15:39.000 The thing that you did prove, and that we already knew because we saw it in real time, so you actually didn't have to prove it, is that Donald Trump was attempting to put pressure on election officials in places like Georgia and Arizona in order to overturn the results of those elections and not have the electors certified in those states.

00:15:53.000 Like, we knew that.

00:15:54.000 He was publicly doing it.

00:15:56.000 It was terrible.

00:15:56.000 It was bad.

00:15:58.000 But did Donald Trump actively tell people, go riot at the Capitol?

00:16:02.000 Was he organizing behind the scenes with the Proud Boys to actually riot at the Capitol, which is the charge they are making of him?

00:16:09.000 I mean, they haven't proved that.

00:16:11.000 So, what exactly were the takeaways from the last hearing?

00:16:13.000 Well, the Washington Post has a bit of a rundown.

00:16:15.000 The big takeaways, of course, are that Donald Trump did not properly respond to the riots on January 6th, which I think, again, we knew because we have a clock.

00:16:25.000 There's a thing called the clock, and there's a thing called Twitter, and we had availability of both during January 6th.

00:16:30.000 Donald Trump did not respond with alacrity to what was happening in the Capitol building.

00:16:35.000 Yes, true.

00:16:36.000 So what were the big revelations yesterday?

00:16:38.000 Well, they brought forth some tape of Nancy Pelosi being Nancy Pelosi.

00:16:40.000 So Nancy Pelosi apparently was on camera and she was watching Donald Trump speak.

00:16:44.000 And then she was saying things like she was going to punch Trump if Trump was going to come to the actual Capitol building with the crowd or whatever.

00:16:50.000 I have serious doubts that an 80-year-old woman was about to start jumping on Donald Trump and pummeling her with her bony fists. 1.00

00:16:56.000 But nonetheless, we are supposed to pretend that this is an act of great heroism by Nancy Pelosi.

00:17:00.000 Fine, whatever.

00:17:01.000 Here is Nancy Pelosi.

00:17:03.000 Secret Service said they have dissuaded him from coming to Capitol Hill.

00:17:07.000 They told him they don't have the resources to protect him here.

00:17:10.000 So at the moment he is not coming, but that could change. 0.96

00:17:14.000 I'm going to punch him out. 0.92

00:17:18.000 I'm waiting for this. 0.99

00:17:19.000 For trespassing on the Capitol ground. 0.98

00:17:22.000 I'm going to punch him out and I'm going to go to jail and I'm going to be happy. 0.97

00:17:25.000 I've been waiting for this.

00:17:28.000 Well, if she'd really been waiting for this, then maybe she should have staffed up security at the Capitol building, considering she's the Speaker of the House.

00:17:34.000 And then there was tape that was revealed of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi begging the Attorney General to get Trump to tweet, to tell people to leave the Capitol building.

00:17:42.000 So again, we knew all of this.

00:17:44.000 I mean, this is not big revelations happening right here.

00:17:46.000 It just underscores bad stuff that we knew Trump was already doing.

00:17:50.000 They're breaking windows and going in, Obviously, we're untacking our offices and all the rest of that.

00:17:57.000 That's nothing.

00:17:58.000 The concern we have about personal safety, personal safety is, it just transcends everything.

00:18:07.000 But the fact is on any given day, they're breaking the law in many different ways.

00:18:13.000 And quite frankly, much of it at the instigation of the president of the United States.

00:18:20.000 Yeah, why don't you get the President to tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Attorney General, in your law enforcement responsibility?

00:18:29.000 A public statement they should all leave.

00:18:32.000 Okay, and Trump eventually did put out a video, obviously, telling everybody to leave.

00:18:38.000 Well, it's color commentary and stuff that we already knew, but again, it's designed to sort of refocus the country from the fact that we have a disastrous economic report, which we'll talk about in just a second, and a failing foreign policy, and a president who doesn't appear to be coherent.

00:18:38.000 What is the purpose of this?

00:18:52.000 And so let's focus in on Donald Trump.

00:18:53.000 So what did the January 6th committee actually show yesterday?

00:18:56.000 Not particularly much.

00:18:58.000 They showed that Trump prematurely declared victory and that he intended to do so.

00:19:01.000 That, of course, we knew already.

00:19:02.000 Again, a lot of this we know already.

00:19:05.000 There was a suggestion by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson that Trump already knew that he lost and that he was doing this despite the fact that he lost.

00:19:16.000 According to Hutchinson, Trump said something like, quote, I don't want people to know we lost.

00:19:19.000 Figure it out.

00:19:19.000 This is embarrassing.

00:19:20.000 We need to figure it out.

00:19:20.000 I don't want people to know that we lost.

00:19:22.000 Hutchinson said that this was not a verbatim quote.

00:19:25.000 But she said twice Trump had spoken in terms that indicated he knew he'd lost.

00:19:28.000 Well, unless you have, you know, some actual verbatim quote, again, it's going to be very hard to prove all of that.

00:19:34.000 Also, as I've said before, Donald Trump has a unique capacity to talk himself into positions, as we know.

00:19:38.000 He actually believes a lot of things that are quite false, and that's because he's talked himself into them.

00:19:44.000 They supposedly provided evidence that Trump might have approved of the rioters, but again, not really any hard evidence.

00:19:50.000 When they say might, again, no evidence really provided.

00:19:54.000 The committee leans in on the Secret Service according to the Washington Post.

00:19:58.000 Apparently there are a lot of agents expressing concerns about the January 6th rally more than a week before, which again raises questions as to why security wasn't up to the actual Capitol building.

00:20:05.000 We'll get to more on this in just one moment.

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00:22:21.000 And then finally, they got to the big story of the night.

00:22:24.000 And the big story of the night was that there was a unanimous vote to subpoena Donald Trump.

00:22:29.000 Which is really more a dramatic photo op than anything else, because as we'll discuss in just a moment, there really is no legal basis for compelling the President of the United States to testify in front of Congress.

00:22:42.000 There have been a bunch of presidents and ex-presidents who have been subpoenaed in the past.

00:22:45.000 Some have testified, some have not.

00:22:48.000 It was really more just a dramatic move in advance of the fact that the Democrats are about to lose the House of Representatives, and all this comes to a screeching halt in approximately three weeks here.

00:22:56.000 And so here was the January 6th committee last night voting to subpoena Donald Trump.

00:23:03.000 If there's no further debate, the question is on agreeing to the resolution.

00:23:08.000 Those in favor will say aye.

00:23:11.000 Aye.

00:23:12.000 Those opposed is no.

00:23:14.000 In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. 0.99

00:23:17.000 The clerk will report the vote.

00:23:20.000 Mr. Chairman, on this vote, there are nine ayes and zero nos.

00:23:25.000 The resolution is agreed to.

00:23:28.000 And shockingly, a committee that has no Republicans on it other than Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, shockingly, I can't believe it, they voted in favor of subpoena.

00:23:35.000 So what exactly does the subpoena mean?

00:23:37.000 It means nothing.

00:23:38.000 It means literally nothing because there's no way for them to truly enforce it and every legal expert understands there is no way for them to truly enforce it.

00:23:45.000 Steve Bannon was convicted of failing to perform in front of a congressional subpoena.

00:23:52.000 He spent zero time in jail.

00:23:54.000 Donald Trump is not going to jail over this.

00:23:56.000 The attempt- Well, they subpoenaed him.

00:23:57.000 They're gonna throw- No, they are not going to do that.

00:23:59.000 According to the Washington Post.

00:24:01.000 Not according to me.

00:24:02.000 They point out that the committee voted unanimously to subpoena Trump to submit documents and provide testimony concerning the events of January 6th.

00:24:09.000 Trump can refuse to comply with the subpoena.

00:24:13.000 Lawmakers could ask the DOJ to charge Trump with contempt of Congress.

00:24:16.000 Stephen Gillers, a professor of constitutional law at NYU, noted federal prosecutors may refuse such a request.

00:24:22.000 Alternatively, the department could add contempt to later charges if, in fact, they indict him for other stuff.

00:24:27.000 They could add it on top of, for example, document mishandling, which we'll get to in just one second.

00:24:33.000 Contempt of Congress, as the Washington Post points out, is a rarely used criminal statute meant to ensure people comply with congressional subpoenas.

00:24:40.000 Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress in July.

00:24:42.000 His sentencing is scheduled for October 21st.

00:24:45.000 Each of the two misdemeanor charges is punishable by at least 30 days and up to one year in jail.

00:24:49.000 Nobody has been incarcerated for contempt of Congress in half a century.

00:24:53.000 So yeah, you think that they're going, like, who?

00:24:56.000 Who?

00:24:58.000 Like, you think Joe Biden's DOJ is going to throw Donald Trump in jail for, what, 30 days or 60 days for contempt of Congress?

00:25:07.000 How exactly is that going to work?

00:25:08.000 Stanley Brand, former counsel to the House of Representatives, who's represented some of the January 6th witnesses, said, quote, there's a very low probability we'll ever see that happen.

00:25:15.000 How do you make a case for needing to do this when you're a legislative body, not even a grand jury, though you've been acting like one?

00:25:19.000 This is one of the other points, is that Congress, typically when you have a hearing, there are only a couple of purposes for the hearing.

00:25:25.000 One is a legislative purpose for the hearing, right?

00:25:27.000 We are going to investigate what went wrong so we can create legislation for the future.

00:25:31.000 And then there's an investigative purpose to a hearing, which is we fear that you have abused taxpayer dollars to do something, right?

00:25:37.000 It's an oversight hearing.

00:25:39.000 What exactly is this hearing meant to do?

00:25:41.000 I've said this since the beginning.

00:25:42.000 What exactly are they discovering here that they're going to do something about?

00:25:46.000 Where's the supposed misuse of taxpayer dollars that they're going to clean up?

00:25:51.000 What legislation are they going to pursue?

00:25:53.000 The answer is none of that stuff.

00:25:56.000 It's a grandstanding show.

00:25:57.000 And listen, that's what a lot of congressional committees are.

00:25:59.000 This is not unique to Democrats.

00:26:00.000 There are Republicans who have run grandstanding congressional committees before.

00:26:03.000 That's nothing new. 0.97

00:26:04.000 But to pretend that this is some sort of law enforcement agency, it's a law enforcement body, is of course incredibly silly. 0.90

00:26:10.000 The subpoena has pretty much no teeth.

00:26:12.000 According to that NYU professor, the subpoena may be the committee's way of giving Trump a formal opportunity to respond to its work, even if it does not expect Trump to show up.

00:26:20.000 Gillard said, I suspect the committee will not try to enforce the subpoena.

00:26:22.000 What it is saying with the subpoena is, here's your chance.

00:26:25.000 Well, Donald Trump, yeah, sure.

00:26:27.000 He's going to show up and he's going to, what, do battle with Benny Thompson?

00:26:31.000 By the way, there are a bunch of presidents who in the past have been subpoenaed.

00:26:31.000 Very unlikely.

00:26:36.000 And some of them have testified.

00:26:39.000 Lincoln testified voluntarily, for example, when he was subpoenaed.

00:26:42.000 But a bunch of presidents have not.

00:26:45.000 And ex-presidents.

00:26:46.000 So in 1953, for example, former President Harry Truman refused to comply with a House subpoena after he was accused of knowingly appointing a Russian spy to a position while in office.

00:26:54.000 The House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed Truman.

00:26:56.000 He refused to comply.

00:26:58.000 Instead, he gave a national broadcast denying the accusation, and the House let it go.

00:27:03.000 Two decades later, Nixon cited Truman when he refused to appear before a congressional committee investigating Watergate.

00:27:11.000 His successor, Gerald Ford, of course, ended up pardoning Richard Nixon, and that ended the subpoena.

00:27:17.000 Other presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and Bill Clinton, have all been subpoenaed, not before Congress, but in civil, criminal, and military proceedings.

00:27:26.000 There are a bunch of people who have testified, there are some who have not.

00:27:29.000 But the bottom line here is that there's no way for them to actually compel Trump to testify here.

00:27:34.000 It's all a grandstanding move.

00:27:36.000 Now, does this mean that there is no indictment on the way for Donald Trump?

00:27:39.000 That seems increasingly unlikely.

00:27:41.000 It seems as though the DOJ, under pressure from the January 6th committee, to do something about Trump.

00:27:46.000 It seems as though they are probably going to move toward an indictment of him based on the mishandling of classified materials over at Mar-a-Lago, according To the Washington Post, a Trump employee has now told federal agents about moving boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago at the specific direction of the former president, according to people familiar with the investigation, who say that the witness account, combined with security camera footage, offers key evidence of Donald Trump's behavior as investigators sought the return of classified materials.

00:28:08.000 Again, one of the things that is so irritating about this particular story is we still have no idea what exactly are the materials that Trump was hiding and why.

00:28:15.000 Like, was this really just Donald Trump being like, I really like that love letter from Kim Jong-un, and I want to keep it, and I don't care if it goes to the National Archives.

00:28:22.000 Go get it.

00:28:23.000 Bill, go pick it up.

00:28:24.000 Put it in the other room.

00:28:25.000 Hide it under my mattress.

00:28:26.000 Like, if so, is that something you're going to send the former president of the United States to jail for?

00:28:31.000 And the possible nominee for president of the opposing party in 2020?

00:28:35.000 Like, that's what you're going to go after him for?

00:28:37.000 So you missed on January 6th, and you impeached him twice, but didn't get him convicted either time.

00:28:41.000 And this is your backup?

00:28:44.000 The witness description and footage described to the Washington Post offer the most direct account to date of Trump's actions and instructions leading up to the FBI's August 8th search of the Florida residence and private club.

00:28:53.000 The people familiar with the investigation said agents have gathered witness accounts indicating that after Trump advisers received a subpoena in May for any classified documents remaining at Mar-a-Lago, Trump told people to move boxes to his residence at the property.

00:29:03.000 That description of events was corroborated by security camera footage, which showed people moving the boxes.

00:29:08.000 Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich declined to answer detailed questions for this article.

00:29:13.000 Budowich said the Biden administration has weaponized law enforcement and fabricated a document hoax in a desperate attempt to retain political power.

00:29:19.000 Every other president has been given time and deference regarding the administration of documents as the president has ultimate authority to categorize records and what materials should be classified again.

00:29:27.000 That seems like a specious piece of legal reasoning, but as always, several things can be true at once.

00:29:32.000 Trump's irresponsibility with documents Given the Hillary Clinton standard of intent to distribute to nefarious sources being required for actual prosecution, very difficult to get to the point where you think that Donald Trump ought to go to jail for something like this.

00:29:47.000 According to the Washington Examiner, however, this is exactly the direction that the DOJ is moving.

00:29:50.000 Apparently, government investigators are working to determine whether Trump committed a host of crimes, including those engaged with the destruction of government documents, mishandling of classified information, and obstruction. Trump has denied any wrongdoing, has dubiously claimed he declassified all of the records. According to former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissman, quote, between this and the testimony of Alex Cannon, Trump's M.A.L.

00:30:12.000 goose is cooked.

00:30:14.000 That's Mar-a-Lago.

00:30:15.000 As I have often said, the issue is no longer the proof, but DOJ's will.

00:30:18.000 Trump's worker told FBI about moving Mar-a-Lago boxes on Trump's orders.

00:30:22.000 So it looks as though according to former Pentagon special counsel Ryan Goodman quote astonishing levels of evidence that would convince jurors witnesses have told federal investigators after subpoena for federal classified documents Trump told people to move the boxes to his residence corroborated by security camera footage. So there are people who are attempting to defend Trump including former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti.

00:30:43.000 He underscored how the Trump employee, who has not been identified, reportedly changed his story across multiple interviews with federal investigators to admit that he handled sensitive material in moving the boxes at Mar-a-Lago.

00:30:53.000 Mariotti also emphasized that the subpoena against Trump came in May, before Trump reportedly gave the direction to reposition the boxes.

00:31:00.000 Mariotti said the employee is unlikely to be charged if he continues to cooperate.

00:31:03.000 His testimony suggests Trump tried to keep documents from the DOJ.

00:31:06.000 But again, if he changed the story a lot, that's going to lead to some holes in the story.

00:31:10.000 Where this goes, again, it seems highly likely at this point that there will be some sort of charges brought by the DOJ here.

00:31:17.000 The fact that the January 6th committee basically stirred up incentive for a Trump indictment on the document matters is somewhat telling.

00:31:27.000 It also happens to be telling, as I said before, that the double standard when it comes to document mishandling is so obvious and so clear.

00:31:35.000 Hillary Clinton is allowed to wildly mishandle classified documents according to the FBI so long as she didn't have intent to essentially distribute them to America's enemies, even if the enemies got a hold of them because she was keeping them on the internet. 0.97

00:31:46.000 That apparently is not a prosecutable offense.

00:31:48.000 What Trump did is a prosecutable offense.

00:31:50.000 Meanwhile, Trump can be impeached for quid pro quo with Ukraine when Joe Biden engages in open quid pro quo.

00:31:57.000 With the full view of the American public and the world public and the Saudi Arabian government effectively confirming the ask for the quid pro quo, that apparently is not any sort of serious Scandal in the media or on the left.

00:32:11.000 Meanwhile, all of this, all of it, is a distraction from the new economic reports.

00:32:16.000 Inflation continues to come in extraordinarily hot.

00:32:18.000 We'll get some more on this in just one second.

00:32:20.000 First, as you may have noticed, the economy is in a shambles and it's going to get worse in the near future.

00:32:25.000 Pretty much every economist is now predicting a recession is coming, a worse recession.

00:32:29.000 Well, if you own a business, the past few years have been a pretty bumpy ride, which means that if you overpaid on your taxes, you probably should try to get some of that money back.

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00:32:48.000 How do you cut through the red tape and get your business the refund money?

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00:33:21.000 That is GetRefunds.com.

00:33:23.000 Also, a few weeks ago on the show, I read you an email.

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00:34:05.000 Okay, meanwhile, Everything that is happening with regard to the January 6th committee or with regard to Joe Biden campaign, all of it is an attempt to distract from the simple fact, which is that Joe Biden's economic record is abysmal.

00:34:17.000 I mean, truly abysmal.

00:34:18.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S.

00:34:19.000 consumer inflation, excluding energy and food, accelerated to a new four-decade high in September, a sign that strong and broad price pressures are persisting.

00:34:27.000 The Labor Department on Thursday said its so-called Consumer Price Index, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, rose 6.6% in September from a year earlier.

00:34:35.000 That's the biggest increase since August of 1982.

00:34:37.000 That measure increased 6.3% in August.

00:34:39.000 It's actually rising faster than it rose last month.

00:34:43.000 So overall, by the way, the inflation report came in at 8.2%.

00:34:47.000 And when they say that it rose 6.6%, excluding energy and food, people spend a lot of money on energy and food, as it turns out.

00:34:56.000 The inflation report likely keeps the Federal Reserve on track to increase interest rates by 0.75 percentage points at its meeting next month.

00:35:03.000 It also raises the risk officials will delay an anticipated slowdown in the pace of rate increases after that or signal they are likely to raise rates to even higher levels early next year than previously anticipated by policymakers and investors.

00:35:13.000 Again, they're going to have to slam on the brakes because there was so much easy money that was dumped into the system.

00:35:19.000 U.S.

00:35:19.000 stocks tumbled in early trading before reversing to close much higher on the day.

00:35:22.000 Bond prices fell, while yields, which move in the opposite direction, rose.

00:35:25.000 Again, people are not willing to buy American bonds because they can see that we're going to have to pay off all of our debts using these inflated dollars.

00:35:32.000 Prices rose last month for housing, medical care, airline fares, and other services, threatening to keep inflation high for the foreseeable future.

00:35:38.000 Investors and policymakers follow core inflation closely as a reflection of broad underlying inflation and as a predictor of future inflation.

00:35:44.000 On a monthly basis, the core CPI rose 0.6% in September.

00:35:48.000 That was the same as August.

00:35:49.000 It was up from 0.3% in July.

00:35:52.000 Bill Adams, the chief economist at Comerica Bank, he said inflation has built up a lot of momentum over the last year.

00:35:56.000 That's going to keep inflation higher than the Federal Reserve wants it for at least a couple more months, if not a couple more quarters.

00:36:01.000 No, it's going to be a couple more quarters.

00:36:03.000 This is not coming down in the next couple of months.

00:36:05.000 Core services prices, which tend to persist once they start rising because that obviously means increased wages and benefits, rose at a one-month annualized rate of 9.9%.

00:36:17.000 So the services that you are paying for, whether the dry cleaners or whatever, the sharpest rate since 1982 has now been seen here in terms of the increase in price.

00:36:25.000 Prices for motor vehicle repair services rose 2.2% in September, month over month.

00:36:31.000 That's not year over year, that's month over month.

00:36:33.000 Veterinary services and daycare and preschool increased 2% last month alone.

00:36:38.000 These are price shocks that are rippling through the American economy.

00:36:42.000 Unsurprisingly, bond yields ended higher, lifted by the inflation data.

00:36:46.000 Bond yields are the gap between the price of a bond and the par value of the bond.

00:36:50.000 So what that means is fewer people are buying bonds because they have very little faith in the American government at this point.

00:36:56.000 Bonds rallied with stocks later in the session, eroding some of the climb, but unlike stocks, they failed to recoup all of their price declines.

00:37:01.000 Yields rose most sharply on short-term bonds, which are particularly sensitive to near-term interest rate outlook.

00:37:06.000 They also climbed on longer-term treasuries, which tend to have a larger impact on the financial markets and the economy.

00:37:10.000 Taken together, Thursday's moves in stocks, bonds, and currencies were difficult to understand, said Zach Griffiths, senior strategist at the Research Firm Credit Sites.

00:37:17.000 They provided more evidence of just how volatile markets are and how difficult they are to navigate.

00:37:22.000 But Treasury yields did tell a coherent story, said Griffiths, with rising short-term yields driven by bets on higher rates and the less rapid increase in longer-term yields reflecting a recognition that recession risks are rising.

00:37:32.000 So basically, the short-term rate, you're not going to invest in a bond that is paying you off at, say, 3% or 5% over the short term because inflation is going to outpace the actual increase you got from the bond.

00:37:42.000 You're instead going to hold on to the cash.

00:37:44.000 Or you're going to use that cash to invest in something else.

00:37:47.000 You're going to try to buy.

00:37:49.000 You don't even know what to do with your money is the real issue here.

00:37:51.000 And then when it comes to longer-term bonds, the question is going to be, if there is a recession, do you really want your money locked up in those longer-term bonds?

00:37:58.000 So a lot of this is disaster area for the United States economy.

00:38:01.000 We are starting to see the same sort of squeeze on our bond markets that the UK has been seeing.

00:38:05.000 Meanwhile, just to re-enshrine inflation and make sure that it becomes a permanent feature of American life, Our cost-of-living adjustments that are built into Social Security came in at 8.7%.

00:38:14.000 So Social Security checks are now going to be about 9% bigger than they were last year.

00:38:21.000 That is the largest cost-of-living adjustment to benefits in four decades according to the Social Security Administration.

00:38:27.000 Now, the administration is championing this.

00:38:29.000 They actually tweeted out, and the New York Times was tweeting out, well, this is going to be a really healthy boon for older Americans.

00:38:35.000 Like, well, that's a really weird way of reading in permanent inflation into the economy as a good thing.

00:38:43.000 According to, you know, people who are receiving Social Security checks, of course they need the extra money.

00:38:46.000 The problem is that that also is an inflationary pressure.

00:38:49.000 It's an increasing inflationary pressure.

00:38:52.000 Next year's COLA increase is likely to hasten the date of insolvency for Social Security Trust Fund, according to the Nonprofit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which predicts that full insolvency for Social Security is going to occur in 2034, so not all that far distant.

00:39:06.000 At that time, Social Security income would be sufficient to pay for about 80% of scheduled benefits, which means radical increases in taxes or cutting in benefits or delay of old age retirement.

00:39:17.000 Those are the three options that are available when Social Security goes bust.

00:39:22.000 Again, you're going to see the Federal Reserve increase the interest rates more radically.

00:39:25.000 They're going to have to continue escalating this thing.

00:39:28.000 Mortgage rates, too, are jumping tremendously.

00:39:30.000 According to MarketWatch, the rate on a popular type of home loan increased this week to its highest level in 20 years, according to data released on Thursday.

00:39:36.000 The average rate on a 30-year fixed loan increased to 6.92% as of Thursday, according to the results of Freddie Mac's primary mortgage market survey.

00:39:43.000 That is the highest rate since April of 2002, which means that we are about to see a tremendous cratering in the real estate market when those mortgage rates are hitting 7%.

00:39:50.000 Who can afford a 7% mortgage in an economy that is this shaky?

00:39:54.000 Mortgage rates have more than doubled this year as the Federal Reserve has moved to combat inflation.

00:39:59.000 Sam Kater, Freddie Mac's chief economist, said, quote, We continue to see a tale of two economies in the data.

00:40:03.000 Strong job and wage growth are keeping consumers' balance sheets positive, but lingering inflation, recession fears, and housing affordability are driving housing demand down precipitously.

00:40:10.000 Basically, people are taking their money out of the market and they're waiting around on it because they're afraid they're going to lose their job over the course of the next couple of quarters.

00:40:17.000 And many people will lose their jobs over the course of the next couple of quarters.

00:40:20.000 All of these bills coming due just before the midterm elections is precisely why Joe Biden was begging the Saudis to pump oil a month before the election.

00:40:30.000 The Biden economic advisors have no strategy here.

00:40:33.000 They're just going to try to whistle past the graveyard here.

00:40:35.000 So you have Brian Deese, White House economic advisor, suggesting that inflation is really not about America.

00:40:41.000 It's a global challenge, as though America isn't the leading factor in the global economy.

00:40:46.000 Inflation is a challenge.

00:40:47.000 It's a global challenge.

00:40:48.000 I think the first and most important point is that the United States is in a better and stronger position to take this challenge head-on than virtually any other country in the world.

00:40:58.000 That's in no small part because of the policies that we've put in place and the strong and resilient economic recovery that we have here in the United States.

00:41:07.000 Oh, we're in a great position, are we?

00:41:09.000 Because it seems like you're the ones who created the inflationary spiral with your vast bevy of spending.

00:41:13.000 I thought, by the way, the Inflation Reduction Act was supposed to reduce inflation.

00:41:15.000 It was like right in the name of the Inflation Reduction Act.

00:41:18.000 And that is not working.

00:41:20.000 D says, our policies are making all the difference.

00:41:21.000 To whom and how?

00:41:23.000 Explain.

00:41:24.000 Prices are too high, but the message the president is delivering is that you have a president administration That's waking up every day trying to address that problem head-on and we are making progress We are making progress on energy prices. We are making progress. We just have to we just have to stay at it and so The you know, we we have policies that are going to make a difference We have policies that have already made a difference. We just have to stay the course So I have a few quibbles with that one

00:41:53.000 One, I disagree with the president is waking up every day.

00:41:56.000 Uh, and then number two, obviously your policies are not actually moving us in the right direction.

00:42:00.000 But again, who's, who are you going to believe your pocketbook, your bank account or your, or your Or your administration?

00:42:08.000 I mean, this is the question.

00:42:09.000 You have to listen to Joe Biden.

00:42:10.000 You have to listen to Jared Bernstein, the economic advisor, the chief advisor to President Biden on the economy.

00:42:18.000 He says everything is moving in the right direction, which is weird because everything seems to be moving in the wrong direction.

00:42:23.000 I think the question is, are policy makers doing what they need to do?

00:42:27.000 The president released oil from the strategic reserve.

00:42:29.000 That contributed to almost a hundred day of gas declines.

00:42:32.000 I mentioned our work on the supply side.

00:42:34.000 The Inflation Reduction Act.

00:42:36.000 Lowering medical care costs.

00:42:37.000 Lowering prescription drug costs.

00:42:39.000 Lowering the cost of clean energy.

00:42:42.000 So all of these are moving in the right direction.

00:42:44.000 They take time to factor into these price indices.

00:42:48.000 And we'd like to see that happen a lot quicker.

00:42:51.000 Um, no.

00:42:52.000 The answer to all of this is no.

00:42:55.000 And the reason the answer to all of this is no, by the way, is not purely because of Joe Biden being bad at his job, although it's largely because of Joe Biden being bad at his job.

00:43:01.000 It's not purely because of Jerome Powell being bad at his job, although Jerome Powell was bad at his job and Janet Yellen.

00:43:06.000 All these people are bad at their jobs.

00:43:07.000 You know, the expert class, it turns out, is not particularly expert.

00:43:10.000 It has to do more with the simple fact that the West has decided they're going to blow out the spending and they will never, never actually receive the consequences of that other than in these vast Recessionary waves in which they blame the private sector.

00:43:24.000 That's the real underlying problem in all of this.

00:43:26.000 Alrighty guys, the rest of the show is continuing right now.

00:43:27.000 You're not going to want to miss it.

00:43:29.000 We're going to get into the underlying problems in the world economy.

00:43:32.000 Plus, we're going to get to a proposed law in Virginia that would effectively criminalize you not transing your kids.

The Ben Shapiro Show - October 14, 2022

Did Joe Biden Just Commit An Impeachable Offense? | Ep. 1591

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