The Ben Shapiro Show - Ep. 300 - Trump FIRES Comey, All Hell Breaks Loose

Talib Kweli, a rapper with a long history of social activism, dared me to call him Black Boy . What's the problem, White Boy? You think White Boy is racist? Well, if you're not a racist, then you don't need to know what a racist person is, because he's not racist at all. And if he is racist, it's because he uses the slur white boy in a derogatory fashion, even if it's not intended to refer to white people, then he must be a racist if he calls someone a racist even if they're not attempting to lynch him, which is exactly the point of the argument he's trying to make. But is he right about racism? Or is he wrong about something else entirely? Today, we'll break it down for you in a Choose Your Own Adventure episode of The Ben Shapiro Show, in which I present to you all the evidence for the various theories as to why the President of the United States just fired the FBI Director. James Comey. Ben Shapiro: It's totally insane, and we ll make you decide whether or not the firing is a good or bad thing, and you can make your own decision about whether it's good or not. If you like it, you'll love it! Subscribe to Ben Shapiro's newest podcast, "The Ben Shapiroism," wherever you get your news and information, and let me know your thoughts on the latest happenings in the world of politics, culture, entertainment, and pop culture. You can also become a supporter of the show on Anchor by becoming a patron of the Ben Shapiro Podcast, wherever you re listening to the show. Thanks for listening, Ben Shapiro is listening to this week's episode of "Ben Shapiro's Show." and I hope you're having a great rest rest easy, rest easy. and rest easy and good night, and God bless you! Ben and I'll see you in the next one soon. -- -EDUCATION CHECK MILLERZYNNE Green Greene -- Ben Shapiro ( ) Ben Jeezy ( ) - Thank you for listening to The R. Kweli's new album "Good Morning Green" Thanks, Ben Jawns ( ) and I'm listening to it on my favorite station, too? (Ben Jeeves ( ) .

00:00:00.000 This week, an odd tweet appeared in my mention from a verified Twitter user.

00:00:03.000 Users prominent enough to be granted a blue checkmark by Twitter itself.

00:00:06.000 This one came courtesy of a rapper named Talib Kweli Greene. 0.97

00:00:09.000 I'll admit I never heard of Greene until he suddenly appeared in my mentions calling me a racist ass. 0.96

00:00:14.000 It turns out Greene is a rapper with well over 1 million Twitter followers and a long history of quote-unquote social activism. 0.98

00:00:19.000 A quick search of Greene's Twitter feed showed a wide variety of instances of the rapper calling people white boy and coon.

00:00:26.000 Really, which is horrible.

00:00:27.000 He says that this does not make him racist, of course, only the term black boy would be racist, since Green maintains that white people cannot truly be victimized by racism.

00:00:34.000 When I pointed out that seeming incongruity, Green replied, What's the problem, white boy?

00:00:39.000 You think white boy is racist? 1.00

00:00:40.000 Wow, you're dumber than I thought. 1.00

00:00:41.000 He then dared me to call him black boy, which, of course, I would never do, since that would be racist. 1.00

00:00:46.000 What's Green's actual argument?

00:00:48.000 It seems to be that since the derogatory slur black boy was thrown around by lynch mobs, any other derogatory slur can no longer be derogatory.

00:00:55.000 This is the rhetorical equivalent of the argument your mom used to make back in grade school. 0.99

00:00:59.000 You're not really hungry.

00:01:00.000 There are children in China who are starving to death.

00:01:02.000 The argument fails for the same reason.

00:01:03.000 Yes, it turns out there are gradations of racism, just as there are gradations of hunger.

00:01:08.000 But you were hungry when you were a kid, even if your bowels weren't distended, and you're a racist if you call someone white boy in derogatory fashion, even if you're not attempting to lynch him.

00:01:15.000 Thanks to the theory of intersectionality, however, such logic goes by the wayside.

00:01:19.000 Intersectionality theory has now taken over the college campuses, leaving the broken corpses of decency and reason in its wake.

00:01:26.000 Intersectionality classifies social categories of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation into a hierarchy of victimhood that decides how you should be treated.

00:01:34.000 If you're a black lesbian, for example, you outrank a black straight man, and your view must be treated with more care and weight than that of the black straight man. 0.93

00:01:41.000 More importantly, since society somehow classifies you as lesser than the black straight man, you are incapable of ever doing anything to victimize that black straight man. 0.96

00:01:49.000 Social powerlessness means that your individual victim status never changes. 0.93

00:01:53.000 That's why Green and others on the left believe it's fine to use white boy as a slur.

00:01:57.000 Black people have historically seen discrimination in America, whites have not.

00:02:00.000 Whites benefit from a more powerful status in society at large, and therefore black people cannot possibly be racist against white people. 0.61

00:02:06.000 As Morehouse College professor Dr. Mark Lamont Hill said last year, black people don't have the institutional power to be racist or to deploy racism. 0.51

00:02:13.000 There's only one problem with this notion. 0.74

00:02:15.000 It's racist.

00:02:16.000 Racism bolstered by power is obviously more dangerous than racism without it.

00:02:20.000 But racism can be used to achieve power too, generally through the polarization of racial groups against one another.

00:02:26.000 Tribalism is a powerful force. 0.91

00:02:28.000 Resorting to a victimhood mentality to explain tribalism away doesn't make it any less toxic.

00:02:33.000 The faster Americans learn that, the faster racism can actually be curbed rather than exacerbated.

00:02:37.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:02:38.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:02:43.000 So, if I seem a little frazzled today, it's because the news is utterly insane.

00:02:48.000 It's totally crazy.

00:02:49.000 We'll break it down for you, we'll provide you all the evidence, and you will make your own decision today.

00:02:53.000 Yes, we're going to play a choose-your-own-adventure version of The Ben Shapiro Show today, in which I present to you all of the evidence for the various theories as to why the President of the United States just fired the FBI Director.

00:03:03.000 I don't know.

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00:04:23.000 Okay, so, James Comey is gone.

00:04:25.000 Now, on a raw level, good news.

00:04:27.000 James Comey was a crappy FBI director, if you recall last week, while a lot of the right was saying that James Comey had done a wonderful job explaining his conduct before Congress,

00:04:35.000 I was saying he should be fired because I thought that he's done a crappy job ever since July. 0.52

00:04:38.000 And my opinion of him did not change from July to now.

00:04:41.000 He always should have been fired.

00:04:42.000 His firing is a good thing for the FBI.

00:04:44.000 So on that note, I'm glad that President Trump fired him.

00:04:47.000 How he fired him is a little bit weird.

00:04:49.000 So what we heard is that James Comey was giving a lecture at some FBI branch out here in Los Angeles.

00:04:55.000 And in the middle of the speech, the TVs behind James Comey started showing the news that he had been fired.

00:05:02.000 And Comey... It's all a comedy.

00:05:07.000 It's just a comedy at this point.

00:05:08.000 I'm sorry.

00:05:08.000 It's so frickin' funny.

00:05:10.000 And then Comey apparently said to people, that's a pretty funny joke.

00:05:14.000 And then, like five seconds later, he's pulled off stage and brought into a back room where a letter from Trump to him is read aloud to him by somebody and a manila envelope is delivered by Trump's personal bodyguard to James Comey, the director of the FBI, at which point the cameras start following James Comey's car

00:05:31.000 Through Los Angeles.

00:05:32.000 It's the 405.

00:05:34.000 And all of a sudden it's back in OJ days. 0.52

00:05:35.000 It's like white Bronco days. 0.91

00:05:37.000 There's a Rockets game on TV.

00:05:39.000 He's being followed over the course of Los Angeles by a camera.

00:05:43.000 And Zoe Terbabter was the cameraman in the OJ chase.

00:05:47.000 His daughter, Katie Ter, is now covering it.

00:05:49.000 The Clintons are back.

00:05:50.000 Trump is back.

00:05:51.000 We're living in 1994 again, gang.

00:05:52.000 It's totally wild.

00:05:53.000 So pretty amazing stuff.

00:05:55.000 And then just to make things even crazier, this morning after Trump fires Comey, and the theory from the left is the reason he fired Comey is to cover up his evil Trump-Russia collusion, which as I said yesterday, there's no evidence of to this point.

00:06:08.000 The theory from the left is that's happening.

00:06:09.000 So who did Trump meet with today?

00:06:11.000 Today, the day after he fired Comey?

00:06:12.000 He met with Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, and Sergey Kislyak,

00:06:17.000 Who's that Russian ambassador who was so controversial that Mike Flynn was basically fired for getting on the phone with him?

00:06:23.000 Trump met and took pictures of both of them today, and then the press pool was told, come in and take pictures of them.

00:06:28.000 They walk in and who's sitting there?

00:06:30.000 Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon's Secretary of State.

00:06:33.000 So, I mean, this is Trollmaster 101.

00:06:36.000 It's pretty spectacular stuff.

00:06:37.000 Except I don't actually think, I don't actually think that Trump meant to do any of this stuff.

00:06:42.000 So, there are basically three theories as to why all of this is going down the way that it's going down.

00:06:48.000 But first, I want to give you the background as to what the Trump administration says was happening in all of this.

00:06:53.000 So, yesterday, very late yesterday, there's a letter that is released from the White House by Rod Rosenstein.

00:06:58.000 Rod Rosenstein is the Deputy Attorney General

00:07:01.000 Remember, Attorney General Sessions has recused himself from the Trump-Russia investigation and any investigation into the election, and so his Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, he's the one who actually writes this letter.

00:07:11.000 And he writes this long letter explaining why Comey has to go.

00:07:14.000 And he says,

00:07:25.000 I cannot defend the director's handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton's emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken.

00:07:34.000 Almost everyone agrees the director made serious mistakes.

00:07:37.000 It is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.

00:07:40.000 And then the rest of the letter explains exactly what I explained last week, which is that James Comey never should have done what he did in July 2016, when he basically read why Hillary was guilty, then changed the law and recommended that she not be prosecuted.

00:07:51.000 And then in October, he sent a letter

00:07:53.000 That again exposed Hillary Clinton to all sorts of public scrutiny without a tremendous amount of evidence saying that Hillary Clinton's emails had been discovered on Anthony Weiner's computer and then a few days later he exonerated her and Rod Rosenstein says all of this means that this is a mess and Comey basically had to go.

00:08:08.000 Now he never explicitly says in his letter that Comey is supposed to go which is sort of important for a reason I'll explain in a second but

00:08:15.000 He says, We should reject the departure from tradition.

00:08:17.000 Although the president has the power to remove an FBI director, the decision should not be taken lightly.

00:08:22.000 I agree with the nearly unanimous opinions of former department officials.

00:08:25.000 The way the director handled the conclusion of the email investigation was wrong.

00:08:28.000 As a result, the FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a new director.

00:08:32.000 Okay, so, that is the reason that is being put forth by the Trump administration, is that Trump was really mad at how James Comey handled the Hillary investigation.

00:08:44.000 No.

00:08:45.000 Yes.

00:08:45.000 Right, Austin.

00:08:46.000 Right what?

00:08:47.000 That is exactly the right question.

00:08:48.000 That is exactly the right question.

00:08:49.000 Because here is Donald Trump talking in October about how much he loves James Comey for how he handled the Hillary investigation.

00:08:56.000 And it took guts for Director Comey to make the move that he made in light of the kind of opposition he had where they're trying to protect her from criminal prosecution.

00:09:10.000 You know that.

00:09:11.000 Well, I guess the story is that he's really pissed at how they hurt Hillary.

00:09:14.000 They were so mean to Hillary.

00:09:16.000 I remember an entire campaign of Trump chanting, lock her up, so no on this.

00:09:21.000 No. 1.00

00:09:22.000 Okay, that's a bunch of crap. 1.00

00:09:23.000 And here's the proof it's a bunch of crap. 0.99

00:09:25.000 The director from Trump, Tukomi, actually firing him, says, quote, while I greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not effectively able to lead the Bureau. 0.96

00:09:38.000 Okay, so what he's really saying there is that he's pissed at Comey because he thinks Comey hasn't closed up the Trump-Russia investigation in expedient fashion.

00:09:46.000 So, I want to talk about what exactly that means, because there's two theories of how that comes down. 0.67

00:09:52.000 But first, I need to point out the hypocrisy of the Democrats.

00:09:54.000 I've pointed out Trump's hypocrisy, saying that he had to go because of how the Clinton investigation was handled, even though he sort of was a fan of how the Clinton investigation was handled in the end, because it made him win, in part, at least partially. 0.96

00:10:07.000 Okay, here's the Democratic hypocrisy. 0.96

00:10:09.000 Well, let me finish with the Republican hypocrisy first. 0.79

00:10:11.000 Jeff Sessions also said that Comey had to go on the basis of his handling of the Clinton investigation.

00:10:16.000 Here is Jeff Sessions way back when saying Comey did the right thing.

00:10:19.000 There's some serious allegations here that the American people need to know are fully investigated.

00:10:25.000 And, you know, FBI Director Comey did the right thing when he found new evidence.

00:10:30.000 He had no choice but to report to the American Congress where he had under oath testified the investigation was over.

00:10:38.000 He had to correct that and say this investigation is ongoing now.

00:10:42.000 And I'm sure...

00:10:43.000 Bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb 1.00

00:11:01.000 And Trump rightly says, crying Chuck Schumer stated recently, I love that the nicknames are back.

00:11:05.000 You know that Trump's on his game when the nicknames are back and dropping the G's.

00:11:09.000 Crying Chuck Schumer stated recently, I do not have confidence in him, James Comey, any longer than acts so indignant.

00:11:14.000 Hashtag drain the swamp.

00:11:16.000 Now he's saying that he's draining the swamp of Comey, the guy who he reappointed five seconds ago and basically blew him a kiss.

00:11:22.000 Actually, physically blew him a kiss while he was saying that he was going to reappoint him, which is just amazing. 0.99

00:11:28.000 Meanwhile, the Democrats are indeed hypocrites. 0.94

00:11:30.000 So Nancy Pelosi saying that this is just the worst thing in the world that Trump fired Comey. 0.96

00:11:33.000 I seem to remember Nancy Pelosi saying something different.

00:11:36.000 Here's what Nancy Pelosi said just a few months ago.

00:11:38.000 And these jobs, if you're not in it for a while, you can't take the heat.

00:11:43.000 And I think you just couldn't take the heat from the Republicans.

00:11:46.000 So Comey should have gone back in November, but now she's all pissed that Comey's leaving. 1.00

00:11:50.000 Here's an entire montage of Democrats saying the same thing.

00:11:53.000 President Trump called me and informed me he was firing Director Comey.

00:11:59.000 I told the president, Mr. President, with all due respect, you are making a big mistake.

00:12:05.000 Senator Harry Reid from Nevada says Comey broke the law.

00:12:08.000 One Democratic lawmaker is calling on Comey to resign.

00:12:11.000 The FBI director, okay, you violated these two protocols.

00:12:15.000 That kind of an ambiguity bomb this close to election was a terrible lapse in judgment.

00:12:19.000 I agree with Eric Holder.

00:12:20.000 I think here

00:12:23.000 Director Comey made a great mistake.

00:12:26.000 I call it an October betrayal of long-standing FBI protocol.

00:12:32.000 Sitting FBI director has abused his power.

00:12:35.000 He was acting in concert and coordination with the House Republicans.

00:12:38.000 End of story.

00:12:39.000 I think that Comey acted in an outrageous way.

00:12:44.000 Should he step down?

00:12:47.000 I think he should take a hard look at what he has done.

00:12:51.000 That's a series of Democrats from back in November.

00:12:52.000 That is Bernie Sanders.

00:12:53.000 That is, I think that's Elijah Cummings.

00:12:56.000 That's a bunch of other senators.

00:12:58.000 That's Chuck Schumer.

00:12:59.000 That is, that was Tim Kaine from Virginia.

00:13:02.000 So basically all the Democrats back in November wanted him fired.

00:13:04.000 Now they don't want him fired.

00:13:05.000 Jeffrey Toobin of CNN, who's the legal analyst last night, who's going crazy over Comey being fired.

00:13:10.000 Here's a small montage of Jeffrey Toobin, the legal analyst at CNN, what he had to say about James Comey up until the point James Comey was fired.

00:13:16.000 The idea that they were obliged to do this on top of Comey's statement about Hillary Clinton last week, it just shows, at least, that they are oblivious and incompetent, if not actively partisan in this presidential race.

00:13:34.000 Jeff, first of all, on this whole Mark Ridge document down from the FBI, is it just a coincidence that it happened now?

00:13:39.000 Well, perhaps.

00:13:40.000 It is certainly bizarre.

00:13:43.000 As someone who has made FOIA requests to the FBI, they are notoriously terrible about responding to them.

00:13:49.000 They take years, they don't release documents in any sort of orderly or consistent way.

00:13:55.000 It is conceivable that this was just a coincidence, but coming on top of

00:14:01.000 Why did James Comey feel compelled to release the information that they were looking into these emails right before the election?

00:14:22.000 This is CNN's legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin spending the entire election cycle saying Comey should be fired, and then of course he turns around and says, no way, he shouldn't be fired, this is all crazy.

00:14:31.000 Okay, so, this brings us to our three theories, which I will get to in just a second.

00:14:36.000 Our three theories of why Trump did what Trump just did with James Comey.

00:14:40.000 And this is the important part, so we'll get to that in just a second.

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00:16:59.000 Okay, so.

00:17:01.000 Here are the three theories about why Trump fired James Comey now.

00:17:05.000 So there are really two questions.

00:17:07.000 One is, does it have anything to do with the Trump-Russia investigation?

00:17:09.000 And the second is, why did he do it now?

00:17:11.000 So as we pointed out, it makes no sense to suggest that Donald Trump fired James Comey over his incompetence over the Hillary Clinton investigation.

00:17:18.000 But that is theory number one.

00:17:20.000 So theory number one,

00:17:21.000 I think?

00:17:43.000 Had to restate the evidence in order to prevent him from having committed perjury.

00:17:47.000 He lost the trust of the administration and so he had to be fired.

00:17:49.000 That's the most clear and obvious explanation.

00:17:52.000 It also does not explain the timing.

00:17:53.000 It doesn't explain why exactly this happened when it happened.

00:17:57.000 It doesn't explain why exactly Trump did it now, right?

00:18:00.000 He should have fired Comey immediately upon entering office or beforehand.

00:18:05.000 Or if he wanted to fire him now, he should have gone to listen.

00:18:07.000 Director Comey, we've lost confidence in you, but we want to make sure that there's some sort of institutional stability.

00:18:11.000 There's not a big scandal.

00:18:12.000 We want to have your help in transitioning away from this being your department to somebody else's department.

00:18:17.000 Here's a list of nominees.

00:18:18.000 Let's work on this, and let's try and figure out a way to transition this more smoothly.

00:18:22.000 That's not what happened, and there are serious questions as to why that didn't happen.

00:18:25.000 There's a lot of evidence to suggest that this had nothing to do with the Clinton investigation.

00:18:29.000 Number one, as I mentioned, Trump is obviously very, very angry.

00:18:32.000 At James Comey over Russia.

00:18:34.000 In that letter, as I mentioned, there's a phrase that says, So he's really pissed at Comey over Russia.

00:18:48.000 I'll explain.

00:18:48.000 This doesn't necessarily mean corruption, but he's pissed at Comey over Russia.

00:18:52.000 Politico has reported something similar today.

00:18:54.000 He had grown enraged by the Russia investigations, two advisors said.

00:18:57.000 Frustrated by his inability to control the mushrooming narrative around Russia, he repeatedly asked aides why the Russia investigation wouldn't disappear, demanded they speak out for him.

00:19:06.000 He would sometimes scream at TV clips about the probe, one advisor said.

00:19:09.000 Trump had grown angry with the Russia investigation, particularly Comey admitting in front of the Senate that the FBI was investigating his campaign.

00:19:15.000 So he's pissed at Comey for not coming out and saying there's nothing here, and so he fired him, is the theory.

00:19:20.000 He's been using Twitter to bash the Trump-Russia investigation.

00:19:22.000 The day before he fired Comey, he tweeted, The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax.

00:19:26.000 When will this taxpayer-funded charade end?

00:19:28.000 The next day, Comey was gone.

00:19:30.000 Third point, Rosenstein, remember the guy who wrote that long letter explaining why Comey should go?

00:19:34.000 His letter was dated yesterday.

00:19:36.000 If this was a long time in coming, why was the letter about when he should be fired dated the day that he was fired?

00:19:43.000 So, here's the problem, okay?

00:19:44.000 The Trump administration said that it took them 18 days to fire Michael Flynn after they were informed by the acting Attorney General that Michael Flynn was compromised by the Russians, but it took them apparently 18 seconds to fire the FBI director after the Deputy Attorney General said, oh, by the way, he's bad at his job.

00:20:00.000 So, this was basically just an excuse.

00:20:03.000 Clearly, Trump's surrogates don't know what's flying, so this makes it look like it was spur of the moment, not like this is a long time in coming.

00:20:08.000 And he clearly didn't fire Comey over the Clinton stuff, as we pointed out earlier.

00:20:12.000 So, theory number one has some holes in it.

00:20:14.000 This theory that Trump fired him for simple incompetence.

00:20:18.000 Now, there are people who are trying to maintain that, so there was a hint yesterday that this was coming.

00:20:24.000 Sean Spicer was asked at a press conference whether Comey had Trump's confidence, and he said this.

00:20:28.000 Does the president still have confidence, full confidence, in FBI Director James Comey?

00:20:32.000 I have no reason to believe.

00:20:33.000 I haven't asked him.

00:20:34.000 So I don't, I've not asked the president since the last time we spoke about this.

00:20:38.000 And the last time you spoke about it, you said he did have confidence, but you're not sure to say that again now?

00:20:42.000 Well, I don't, in light of what you're telling me, I don't want to start speaking on behalf of the president without speaking to him first.

00:20:48.000 So that was a hint that this was coming.

00:20:50.000 Spicer disassociating himself.

00:20:52.000 Susan Collins, senator from Maine, she says that Comey's refusal to indict Hillary is the reason why he's gone.

00:20:58.000 It seems to me that this may have been the inevitable conclusion of Director Comey's decision last July to go public with the reasons that he had decided not to recommend an indictment of Hillary Clinton.

00:21:16.000 I think that

00:21:18.000 He is a very well-intentioned individual, but that decision to bypass the normal rules of the Justice Department, which he could have gone to the Deputy Attorney General.

00:21:32.000 She's backing the narrative from the administration, but the problem, as I've pointed out here, is that there's real timing problems.

00:21:37.000 Charles Krauthammer said the same thing last night.

00:21:39.000 To fire him summarily with no warning in the middle of May because of something that happened in July is almost inexplicable.

00:21:48.000 Second, the reason ostensibly is, as you read in that letter, for doing something that you're not supposed to do, to usurp the Attorney General.

00:21:58.000 But second, to release all that information which was damaging to Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump's opponent.

00:22:06.000 Do we really believe that Donald Trump, after all these months, decided suddenly he had to fire this guy because he damaged Hillary back in July?

00:22:17.000 Another implausible conjecture.

00:22:19.000 Okay, and Krauthammer is exactly right, of course.

00:22:21.000 Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, he says he doesn't understand why this firing is happening now.

00:22:25.000 Even Senate Republicans are puzzled by this.

00:22:29.000 Oh, we don't have that.

00:22:30.000 Okay, so he said that, so in other words, so there are congressional Republicans who are upset about this.

00:22:34.000 So theory number one, that this was basically a straightforward firing of a guy who was incompetent, it doesn't really wash.

00:22:40.000 Okay, theory number two is the one the Democrats are pushing.

00:22:42.000 Theory number two is the idea that this was an incompetent cover-up, that basically James Comey was getting this close to uncovering the collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

00:22:50.000 Okay, that is theory number two.

00:22:52.000 That is backed up by a piece today in the New York Times that suggests that just days before he was fired, Comey asked for more money in the Russia investigation.

00:22:59.000 This is according to the New York Times.

00:23:01.000 They say Mr. Comey asked for the resources during a meeting last week with Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, who wrote the DOJ memo that was used to justify the firing of the FBI director.

00:23:10.000 Comey then briefed members of Congress on the meeting in recent days.

00:23:14.000 Okay, there's a bunch of Democrats who are pushing this narrative that it was an incompetent cover-up, basically, and here's Elizabeth Warren pushing that narrative. 0.71

00:23:20.000 Comey was not fired because of Hillary.

00:23:22.000 Comey was fired because of the Russians.

00:23:25.000 Okay, so that is the idea that the Democrats are pushing.

00:23:28.000 And again, that is backed up by a certain amount of evidence.

00:23:31.000 Number one, Trump tweeting on ending the investigation, as I mentioned a moment ago.

00:23:34.000 The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax.

00:23:37.000 When will this taxpayer-funded charade end?

00:23:39.000 It's also backed up to a certain extent by the idea that Sean Spicer still doesn't have, that the administration still has no real

00:23:48.000 Explanation for why exactly they didn't fire Mike Flynn, the national security advisor under Trump, for 18 days after they were informed that he was basically in the pay of the Russians at a certain point in time.

00:24:01.000 So all of this was not looking good for the Trump administration.

00:24:04.000 Then, the Trump administration makes it look even worse by some of the worst PR I have ever seen under any circumstances.

00:24:10.000 Kellyanne Conway goes on TV and says the words you never want to say if people are accusing you of engaging in a cover-up.

00:24:14.000 She says this.

00:24:16.000 I mean, Chairman Burr has said it raises serious concerns.

00:24:19.000 A Republican who's head of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation is concerned about the timing of all of this.

00:24:26.000 So the same senators that just voted to confirm this man, whose integrity is not in doubt, 94 to 6, two short weeks ago, were supposed to believe, I think, the derogatory descriptions you just made of him.

00:24:39.000 That's not fair.

00:24:40.000 And it was Senator Schumer who said about Mr. Rosenstein on the Senate floor on April 24th, and I quote, he has developed a reputation for integrity.

00:24:49.000 Senator Schumer has said this raises real concerns.

00:24:50.000 He's saying essentially this is a cover-up today.

00:24:53.000 Well, he's wrong.

00:24:54.000 It's not a cover-up.

00:24:55.000 In fact, the president makes very clear in his letter the fact that Mr. Comey, on at least three occasions, assured the president that he is not under investigation.

00:25:02.000 When you say that it's not a cover-up, I just fired the guy who was leading the investigation.

00:25:08.000 Again, they're just... It's Nixonian.

00:25:10.000 It's Nixonian.

00:25:11.000 Right?

00:25:11.000 I mean, flashback.

00:25:13.000 I want to say this to the television audience.

00:25:15.000 I've made my mistakes.

00:25:17.000 But in all of my years of public life, I have never profited

00:25:22.000 Never profited from public service.

00:25:24.000 I've earned every cent.

00:25:26.000 And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice.

00:25:32.000 And I think, too, that I can say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination.

00:25:39.000 Because people have got to know whether or not their president's a crook. 0.55

00:25:43.000 Well, I'm not a crook.

00:25:44.000 Whenever somebody says this is not a cover-up, I'm not a crook.

00:25:47.000 It never looks good on TV.

00:25:48.000 And the Trump administration is doing itself no favors through all of this.

00:25:51.000 Now, do I buy this theory?

00:25:53.000 Do I buy this theory?

00:25:53.000 I'll explain in a second why I don't buy this theory.

00:25:55.000 But again, I don't know.

00:25:57.000 This is the biggest problem with the Trump administration. 0.98

00:25:59.000 Trump wants things done and no one says to him no, and then he trots out surrogates who kiss his ass on national television instead of giving good rationales for him doing what he's doing. 0.96

00:26:08.000 So Sarah Huckabee Sanders goes on national TV on Tucker Carlson last night, and what does she say about the Trump-Russia investigation? 0.97

00:26:13.000 Everybody is clamoring that this is a cover-up because of the Trump-Russia stuff.

00:26:16.000 What does she say?

00:26:17.000 She says, well, let's kill the Trump-Russia investigation.

00:26:20.000 My gosh, Tucker, when are they going to let that go?

00:26:23.000 It's been going on for nearly a year.

00:26:25.000 Frankly, it's kind of getting absurd.

00:26:26.000 There's nothing there.

00:26:28.000 We've heard that time and time again.

00:26:29.000 We heard it in the testimonies earlier this week.

00:26:32.000 We've heard it for the last 11 months.

00:26:34.000 There is no there there.

00:26:36.000 It's time to move on.

00:26:37.000 And frankly, it's time to focus on the things that the American people care about.

00:26:41.000 It's time to move on from the Trump-Russia investigation.

00:26:43.000 If you're trying to show that you didn't fire Comey to kill the Trump-Russia investigation, it is not smart to send your surrogate on TV to say that you want the Trump-Russia investigation to die, and it's not smart to tweet the day before you fire the guy that you want the Trump-Russia investigation to die. 0.99

00:26:57.000 It's just, it's just stupid, okay? 1.00

00:26:58.000 Like, if you want Trump to succeed, he needs to not be stupid. 1.00

00:27:02.000 Now he's doing stupid things. 1.00

00:27:03.000 He's doing stupid things, right? 1.00

00:27:05.000 I mean, this is a stupid thing, and it's allowing the left to run wild over this entire thing. 1.00

00:27:09.000 Chris Matthews is going crazy over on MSNBC saying it's a little whiff of fascism! 1.00

00:27:13.000 Get up in the morning, come to this show, and say this stuff!

00:27:16.000 What we saw tonight is the rule of law does not matter.

00:27:19.000 It's the rule of political power.

00:27:22.000 You know, we hear President Trump say America first.

00:27:25.000 Tonight, President Trump put himself first.

00:27:27.000 A little whiff of fascism tonight, I think it's fair to say.

00:27:29.000 Absolutely.

00:27:30.000 A little whiff of, I don't care about the law, I'm the boss.

00:27:34.000 Okay, and this is the line that the Democrats are going to take all the way through.

00:27:37.000 Chuck Schumer taking this line today.

00:27:38.000 Also, why did it happen?

00:27:40.000 Because it's a cover-up.

00:27:41.000 We need a special investigator.

00:27:42.000 Now, now, now.

00:27:42.000 This is their routine now.

00:27:44.000 Why did it happen today?

00:27:47.000 We know the House is investigating Russian interference in our elections that benefited the Trump campaign.

00:27:55.000 Were these investigations getting too close to home for the President?

00:28:00.000 It is troubling.

00:28:02.000 That Attorney General Sessions, who had recused himself from the Russian investigation, played a role in firing the man leading it.

00:28:12.000 Okay, so this is the routine the Democrats are going to play all the way down the line.

00:28:14.000 So you've got theory number one, and you make up your mind on this.

00:28:16.000 There's theory number one, that Trump fired him for simple incompetence, and the timing was all coinkydink.

00:28:21.000 Okay, then there's theory number two, which is that Trump fired Comey to stop the Trump-Russia investigation, even though there's no evidence from the Trump-Russia investigation that anything is going on.

00:28:29.000 And then there is theory number three.

00:28:31.000 And this is my theory.

00:28:32.000 And you tell me if you think this theory is correct or whether this theory is incorrect.

00:28:36.000 But here is my theory as to why Trump fired him.

00:28:39.000 But for that you're going to have to subscribe.

00:28:41.000 So go over to dailywire.com right now for $8 a month.

00:28:45.000 You can become a subscriber to the dailywire.com or you can get your annual subscription which will buy you

00:28:50.000 Also, a free copy of The Arroyo, a fictional film set on our southern border about a rancher attempting to defend his land from the drug cartels.

00:28:57.000 Great action western by our own Jeremy Boring.

00:28:59.000 You can get that right now and go over to dailywire.com.

00:29:01.000 You can also watch the rest of the show live, be part of the mailbag tomorrow.

00:29:04.000 And there are lots of other goodies coming, I promise.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - May 11, 2017

Ep. 300 - Trump FIRES Comey, All Hell Breaks Loose

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