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 ( ) .
00:00:27.000He 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.
00:00:34.000When I pointed out that seeming incongruity, Green replied, What's the problem, white boy?
00:00:48.000It 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.
00:00:55.000This is the rhetorical equivalent of the argument your mom used to make back in grade school.
00:01:00.000There are children in China who are starving to death.
00:01:02.000The argument fails for the same reason.
00:01:03.000Yes, it turns out there are gradations of racism, just as there are gradations of hunger.
00:01:08.000But 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.
00:01:15.000Thanks to the theory of intersectionality, however, such logic goes by the wayside.
00:01:19.000Intersectionality theory has now taken over the college campuses, leaving the broken corpses of decency and reason in its wake.
00:01:26.000Intersectionality classifies social categories of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation into a hierarchy of victimhood that decides how you should be treated.
00:01:34.000If 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.
00:01:41.000More 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.
00:01:49.000Social powerlessness means that your individual victim status never changes.
00:01:53.000That's why Green and others on the left believe it's fine to use white boy as a slur.
00:01:57.000Black people have historically seen discrimination in America, whites have not.
00:02:00.000Whites benefit from a more powerful status in society at large, and therefore black people cannot possibly be racist against white people.
00:02:06.000As 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.
00:02:13.000There's only one problem with this notion.
00:02:49.000We'll break it down for you, we'll provide you all the evidence, and you will make your own decision today.
00:02:53.000Yes, 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.
00:04:27.000James 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,
00:04:35.000I was saying he should be fired because I thought that he's done a crappy job ever since July.
00:04:38.000And my opinion of him did not change from July to now.
00:05:10.000And then Comey apparently said to people, that's a pretty funny joke.
00:05:14.000And 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
00:05:55.000And 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.
00:06:08.000The theory from the left is that's happening.
00:06:37.000Except I don't actually think, I don't actually think that Trump meant to do any of this stuff.
00:06:42.000So, there are basically three theories as to why all of this is going down the way that it's going down.
00:06:48.000But first, I want to give you the background as to what the Trump administration says was happening in all of this.
00:06:53.000So, yesterday, very late yesterday, there's a letter that is released from the White House by Rod Rosenstein.
00:06:58.000Rod Rosenstein is the Deputy Attorney General
00:07:01.000Remember, 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.
00:07:11.000And he writes this long letter explaining why Comey has to go.
00:07:25.000I 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.
00:07:34.000Almost everyone agrees the director made serious mistakes.
00:07:37.000It is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.
00:07:40.000And 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.
00:07:53.000That 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.
00:08:08.000Now 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
00:08:15.000He says, We should reject the departure from tradition.
00:08:17.000Although the president has the power to remove an FBI director, the decision should not be taken lightly.
00:08:22.000I agree with the nearly unanimous opinions of former department officials.
00:08:25.000The way the director handled the conclusion of the email investigation was wrong.
00:08:28.000As a result, the FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a new director.
00:08:32.000Okay, 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.
00:08:49.000Because here is Donald Trump talking in October about how much he loves James Comey for how he handled the Hillary investigation.
00:08:56.000And 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.
00:09:23.000And here's the proof it's a bunch of crap.
00:09:25.000The 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.
00:09:38.000Okay, 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.
00:09:46.000So, I want to talk about what exactly that means, because there's two theories of how that comes down.
00:09:52.000But first, I need to point out the hypocrisy of the Democrats.
00:09:54.000I'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.
00:10:07.000Okay, here's the Democratic hypocrisy.
00:10:09.000Well, let me finish with the Republican hypocrisy first.
00:10:11.000Jeff Sessions also said that Comey had to go on the basis of his handling of the Clinton investigation.
00:10:16.000Here is Jeff Sessions way back when saying Comey did the right thing.
00:10:19.000There's some serious allegations here that the American people need to know are fully investigated.
00:10:25.000And, you know, FBI Director Comey did the right thing when he found new evidence.
00:10:30.000He had no choice but to report to the American Congress where he had under oath testified the investigation was over.
00:10:38.000He had to correct that and say this investigation is ongoing now.
00:13:05.000Jeffrey Toobin of CNN, who's the legal analyst last night, who's going crazy over Comey being fired.
00:13:10.000Here'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.
00:13:16.000The 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.
00:13:34.000Jeff, first of all, on this whole Mark Ridge document down from the FBI, is it just a coincidence that it happened now?
00:13:43.000As someone who has made FOIA requests to the FBI, they are notoriously terrible about responding to them.
00:13:49.000They take years, they don't release documents in any sort of orderly or consistent way.
00:13:55.000It is conceivable that this was just a coincidence, but coming on top of
00:14:01.000Why did James Comey feel compelled to release the information that they were looking into these emails right before the election?
00:14:22.000This 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.
00:14:31.000Okay, so, this brings us to our three theories, which I will get to in just a second.
00:14:36.000Our three theories of why Trump did what Trump just did with James Comey.
00:14:40.000And this is the important part, so we'll get to that in just a second.
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00:17:07.000One is, does it have anything to do with the Trump-Russia investigation?
00:17:09.000And the second is, why did he do it now?
00:17:11.000So as we pointed out, it makes no sense to suggest that Donald Trump fired James Comey over his incompetence over the Hillary Clinton investigation.
00:18:48.000This doesn't necessarily mean corruption, but he's pissed at Comey over Russia.
00:18:52.000Politico has reported something similar today.
00:18:54.000He had grown enraged by the Russia investigations, two advisors said.
00:18:57.000Frustrated 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.
00:19:06.000He would sometimes scream at TV clips about the probe, one advisor said.
00:19:09.000Trump had grown angry with the Russia investigation, particularly Comey admitting in front of the Senate that the FBI was investigating his campaign.
00:19:15.000So he's pissed at Comey for not coming out and saying there's nothing here, and so he fired him, is the theory.
00:19:20.000He's been using Twitter to bash the Trump-Russia investigation.
00:19:22.000The day before he fired Comey, he tweeted, The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax.
00:19:26.000When will this taxpayer-funded charade end?
00:19:44.000The 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.
00:20:00.000So, this was basically just an excuse.
00:20:03.000Clearly, 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.
00:20:08.000And he clearly didn't fire Comey over the Clinton stuff, as we pointed out earlier.
00:20:12.000So, theory number one has some holes in it.
00:20:14.000This theory that Trump fired him for simple incompetence.
00:20:18.000Now, there are people who are trying to maintain that, so there was a hint yesterday that this was coming.
00:20:24.000Sean Spicer was asked at a press conference whether Comey had Trump's confidence, and he said this.
00:20:28.000Does the president still have confidence, full confidence, in FBI Director James Comey?
00:20:34.000So I don't, I've not asked the president since the last time we spoke about this.
00:20:38.000And the last time you spoke about it, you said he did have confidence, but you're not sure to say that again now?
00:20:42.000Well, 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.
00:20:48.000So that was a hint that this was coming.
00:20:52.000Susan Collins, senator from Maine, she says that Comey's refusal to indict Hillary is the reason why he's gone.
00:20:58.000It 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.
00:21:18.000He 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.
00:21:32.000She's backing the narrative from the administration, but the problem, as I've pointed out here, is that there's real timing problems.
00:21:37.000Charles Krauthammer said the same thing last night.
00:21:39.000To fire him summarily with no warning in the middle of May because of something that happened in July is almost inexplicable.
00:21:48.000Second, 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.
00:21:58.000But second, to release all that information which was damaging to Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump's opponent.
00:22:06.000Do 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?
00:22:30.000Okay, so he said that, so in other words, so there are congressional Republicans who are upset about this.
00:22:34.000So theory number one, that this was basically a straightforward firing of a guy who was incompetent, it doesn't really wash.
00:22:40.000Okay, theory number two is the one the Democrats are pushing.
00:22:42.000Theory 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.
00:22:52.000That 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.
00:22:59.000This is according to the New York Times.
00:23:01.000They 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.
00:23:10.000Comey then briefed members of Congress on the meeting in recent days.
00:23:14.000Okay, 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.
00:23:20.000Comey was not fired because of Hillary.
00:23:22.000Comey was fired because of the Russians.
00:23:25.000Okay, so that is the idea that the Democrats are pushing.
00:23:28.000And again, that is backed up by a certain amount of evidence.
00:23:31.000Number one, Trump tweeting on ending the investigation, as I mentioned a moment ago.
00:23:34.000The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax.
00:23:37.000When will this taxpayer-funded charade end?
00:23:39.000It'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
00:23:48.000Explanation 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.
00:24:01.000So all of this was not looking good for the Trump administration.
00:24:04.000Then, the Trump administration makes it look even worse by some of the worst PR I have ever seen under any circumstances.
00:24:10.000Kellyanne Conway goes on TV and says the words you never want to say if people are accusing you of engaging in a cover-up.
00:24:16.000I mean, Chairman Burr has said it raises serious concerns.
00:24:19.000A Republican who's head of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation is concerned about the timing of all of this.
00:24:26.000So 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.
00:24:40.000And 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.
00:24:49.000Senator Schumer has said this raises real concerns.
00:24:50.000He's saying essentially this is a cover-up today.
00:24:55.000In 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.
00:25:02.000When you say that it's not a cover-up, I just fired the guy who was leading the investigation.
00:25:57.000This is the biggest problem with the Trump administration.
00:25:59.000Trump 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.
00:26:08.000So Sarah Huckabee Sanders goes on national TV on Tucker Carlson last night, and what does she say about the Trump-Russia investigation?
00:26:13.000Everybody is clamoring that this is a cover-up because of the Trump-Russia stuff.
00:26:37.000And frankly, it's time to focus on the things that the American people care about.
00:26:41.000It's time to move on from the Trump-Russia investigation.
00:26:43.000If 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.
00:28:02.000That Attorney General Sessions, who had recused himself from the Russian investigation, played a role in firing the man leading it.
00:28:12.000Okay, so this is the routine the Democrats are going to play all the way down the line.
00:28:14.000So you've got theory number one, and you make up your mind on this.
00:28:16.000There's theory number one, that Trump fired him for simple incompetence, and the timing was all coinkydink.
00:28:21.000Okay, 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.
00:28:29.000And then there is theory number three.
00:28:32.000And you tell me if you think this theory is correct or whether this theory is incorrect.
00:28:36.000But here is my theory as to why Trump fired him.
00:28:39.000But for that you're going to have to subscribe.
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