Wonder Woman has become one of DC s most iconic characters, along with Batman and Superman, as she should be. She is a feminist for certain. She scoffs at the notion of a secretary as a sort of modern form slavery. At the same time, she goes out of her way to coo at babies. Yes, Feminists like babies. And she falls head over heels for a heroic man, despite her own statements about men being unnecessary for pleasure. That makes her character unpalatable to hardcore feminists, who base feminism not on equality of rights, but on abortion and man-hating. And for rational reasons, it does demonstrate that strong women don t need to be anti-baby or anti-male. They should be fighting for the innocent, and willing to kill in order to do so. That's what feminism should be, but not according to the more militant feminists, which is why they're so mad for no reason at Wonder Woman. This is The Ben Shapiro Show, and it's a must-listen to episode of The Weekly Standard's flagship podcast. Subscribe today using our podcast s promo code POWER10 for 10% off your first pack! Want to sponsor the show? Subscribe, rate and review in iTunes, and become a supporter? Learn more about your ad choices and support the show: bit.ly/support-and-support-the-show. If you like what you're listening to, consider pledging a small monthly fee, and/or become a patron. We'll be giving you a 20% discount when you sign up for the service, and you get 20% off the ad-free version of the show, too! You get 10% all month, plus free shipping and free shipping, plus a discount on future orders, and a free shipping throughout the rest of the world, plus an ad-only version of $5, plus they'll get a whole bunch more perks, too, you'll get the best of the service that includes the best vouching service that gets you get for your ad-and I'll get all the same perks and access to all the best places in the world's best vids, the world gets a whole world gets the same service, the best post-up options, and I'm talking to you get a complimentary rate, and they'll also get the same thing, I'm saying it all that you decide how much they'll be able to do for you, too.
00:00:43.000And she falls head over heels for a heroic man, despite her own statements about men being unnecessary for pleasure.
00:00:48.000Early in the film, she tut-tuts the notion of marriage, as does he.
00:00:50.000By the end of the film, they're both on board.
00:00:52.000Plus, she's played by the wonderful Gal Gadot, a two-time mother who was pregnant during filming and just happens to be Israeli.
00:00:57.000She also served in the Israeli Defense Force for two years.
00:00:59.000All of this makes her character unpalatable to hardcore feminists, who base feminism not on equality of rights, but on abortion and man-hating and forceful opposition to Western standards of beauty.
00:01:08.000Here's Christina Cauterici at Slate, quote,
00:01:11.000To me, whatever chance Wonder Woman had of being some kind of feminist antidote to the overabundance of superhero movies made by and for bros was blown by its prevailing occupation with the titular heroine's sex appeal.
00:01:22.000Calderici even implies that Chris Pine's character quasi-rapes Diana because, quote, her capacity for consent is somewhat blurry, her never having met a man and all.
00:01:31.000Here's dude feminist Stephen Rose at The Guardian, quote, Plus, Wonder Woman fights against the Germans in World War I. This makes her an emissary of American militarism.
00:01:38.000On Tuesday, Josephine Livingstone wrote at the New Republic, quote,
00:02:06.000But the fact that many are not should show how out of touch the radical feminist movement has become.
00:02:12.000The film is great for teenage girls, and while it's clearly a fantasy, nobody, man or woman, could rush through bullets of World War I in the way Wonder Woman does, but it's men who typically do the fighting in war, and for rational reasons, it does demonstrate that strong women need not be anti-baby or anti-male.
00:02:25.000One of the reasons the movie went over so big is that its brand of feminism is taken for granted in the West.
00:02:30.000Sexism is no longer a major issue in American society.
00:02:34.000It's hard to imagine anyone seriously objecting to a fantasy female character fighting baddies while kissing babies and falling in love with a strong male character in traditional fashion.
00:02:42.000That's what feminism should be, but not according to the more militant feminists, which is why they're so mad.
00:04:16.000Again, use Shapiro so that you know that we sent you and also because that means you'll get that $500 new driver bonus.
00:04:23.000Okay, tons to get to today with regard to the Comey hearing.
00:04:26.000So, I will get to what exactly Comey said in the hearing that is relevant and interesting, but first I want to go through the part that actually is most important, and that is the seven-page piece of testimony that he released yesterday.
00:04:38.000So yesterday he releases text of testimony that he wanted admitted into the congressional record.
00:04:43.000What he says happened between him and President Trump.
00:04:45.000Now, in order to understand this, what you have to understand first and foremost is that the Democratic narrative going into this entire Comey hearing is that President Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election in order to swing the election to himself, and then he fired Comey in an attempt to cut it off.
00:05:07.000It wasn't just Trump obstructed justice about unrelated matters.
00:05:10.000It was that Trump was in bed with the Russians, and then in order to cover it up, he fired James Comey in order to obstruct the investigation.
00:05:16.000That was the case Democrats were making.
00:05:18.000And the reason they were making this case is because they didn't want it to seem like Hillary Clinton legitimately lost the election.
00:05:23.000They wanted it to seem like Hillary actually won the election, if not for Trump moving with Putin in concert.
00:05:29.000And therefore, he had to move with Putin in concert, they were colluding together, the election was rigged, and then Trump fired Comey to prevent all of that from coming out.
00:05:47.000So, the right is pointing out that it totally destroyed that narrative.
00:05:50.000On the other hand, it also points out that President Trump is
00:05:53.000Wildly in over his head when it comes to dealing with his own people that he acted really badly with regard to James Comey the FBI director on a Variety of matters in ways that would tick us off if we were on the left It would take us off and I'll explain how we know that in just a second But first I think it's important to go through the actual documents.
00:06:19.000It had already been read by everybody in America.
00:06:21.000So, he started in this document by describing his first meeting with then-president-elect Trump on January 6th at Trump Tower, at which he personally briefed Trump about an intelligence community assessment concerning Russian interference in the 2016 election.
00:06:36.000That was supposed to have the pee tapes in it and all of this.
00:06:39.000So Comey comes to the White House, or rather to Trump Tower, and he tells Trump about this dossier.
00:06:44.000He says he briefed Trump on the details himself, alone, out of respect for Trump's privacy.
00:06:49.000Comey explained he was worried that the briefing might lead Trump to believe that the FBI was investigating him, so he wanted to assure Trump that Trump was not being personally investigated.
00:06:57.000Now, as you recall, when Trump fired Comey,
00:07:00.000He had in his letter that Comey had said he was not being personally investigated three times.
00:07:07.000Comey told Trump over and over and over again he was not being personally investigated.
00:07:12.000So that part is actually true in what Trump had to say.
00:07:16.000Okay, so this confirms Trump's account.
00:07:20.000Then, according to Comey, he spoke with Trump one-on-one nine separate times in four months, three in person, six on the phone.
00:07:25.000The next meeting that Comey discusses in detail is that January 27th dinner.
00:07:29.000You remember, Trump went on national TV, he said that Comey basically came in and begged for his job, and then there were reports that Trump had asked Comey for a loyalty oath.
00:08:58.000Throughout history, some presidents have decided that because problems come from justice, they should try to hold the department close, but blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problem worse.
00:09:07.000Near the end of our dinner, the president returned to the subject of my job.
00:09:15.000I paused and then said, you will get that from me.
00:09:19.000As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase honest loyalty differently, but I decided it wouldn't be productive to push it further.
00:09:26.000So, this is obviously not good for Trump, right?
00:09:28.000It looks like there's some sort of quid pro quo here.
00:09:31.000He wants Comey's loyalty in exchange for Comey staying on the job.
00:09:35.000Okay, next meeting Comey discusses, and we're just gonna go through Comey's testimony, and then we're gonna talk about what it means.
00:09:40.000Comey moves on to his February 14th counterterrorism briefing with Trump.
00:09:43.000This is the one where Trump apparently shoes everybody out of the room.
00:11:03.000So the press is trying to say that, again, this is a cover-up, it's obstruction of justice, but the question is what exactly is being obstructed?
00:11:11.000So, if you want to say that there is some sort of pressure going on with regard to Flynn and the December phone calls, which, again, there's no underlying evidence that anything wrong happened in those phone calls, but if you want to say that Trump was upset with those, in the investigation of those phone calls, and he was pressuring
00:11:45.000According to Comey, the conversation was not reported to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Comey says, because Sessions was about to recuse himself.
00:11:51.000And then he says, quote, the investigation moved ahead at full speed.
00:11:55.000So again, Trump may have pressured Comey, but Comey obviously didn't take it sitting down and didn't just stop investigating.
00:12:02.000Shortly thereafter, according to Comey, he asked Sessions to provide a barrier between Comey and Trump.
00:12:07.000He said, I told the AG that what had happened, him being asked to leave while the FBI director who reports to the AG remained behind, was inappropriate and should never happen.
00:12:22.000Quote, on the morning of March 30th, the president called me at the FBI.
00:12:25.000He described the Russia investigation as a quote, cloud that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country.
00:12:30.000He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia.
00:12:36.000He asked what we could do to lift the cloud.
00:12:38.000I responded we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could and that there would be great benefit if we didn't find anything to our having done the work well.
00:12:45.000He agreed but then re-emphasized the problems that this was causing him.
00:13:32.000The reason that Comey said he wouldn't do it is he was afraid that in the course of the bigger investigation, Trump's name would come out and then he would have to correct himself the same way he did with Hillary Clinton
00:13:40.000Back in 2016, so better to say nothing right now than to come out and say Trump's not under investigation, then come out later and say Trump is under investigation.
00:13:48.000Okay, that being the case, that means that Trump was not firing Comey because he wanted Comey to stop the investigation into Trump.
00:13:55.000He was firing Comey because he was just mad that Comey wouldn't come out and say publicly what Comey had already told him privately, which is that Trump was not personally under investigation.
00:14:05.000I theorized that all the way back on May 10th.
00:15:25.000But again, there is no actual evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia, and once again, there is no evidence that Trump was trying to quash the investigation into Trump.
00:15:34.000What Trump wanted out of this whole thing was something very simple.
00:15:37.000He wanted Comey to come out publicly and say what he had said privately, which is that Trump was not personally under investigation.
00:15:42.000That is the entirety of this whole thing.
00:15:44.000Trump fired him because he wouldn't do it.
00:15:46.000He fired him because he wouldn't do it.
00:15:48.000Now, that is the issue with regard to Trump-Russia, and that's why the right today is chortling, and they're saying, okay, you guys have been making the case for half a year now.
00:15:56.000About the Trump-Russia collusion, and you were saying that Trump is at fault for trying to fire Comey as some sort of giant cover-up or something.
00:16:02.000Okay, you say all of that, but then there's no actual evidence of any of that.
00:16:30.000Because today, Comey, in his actual testimony, said that Loretta Lynch told James Comey that she didn't want the Hillary investigation referred to as an investigation, she wanted it referred to as a matter.
00:16:40.000And Comey said that created the appearance of impropriety between Loretta Lynch and Hillary Clinton's campaign.
00:16:48.000All of us on the right were livid about the fact that Loretta Lynch met with Bill Clinton on the tarmac and they talked about the Hillary investigation.
00:16:57.000It does create impropriety, just like it creates impropriety for President Trump to meet with the acting FBI director, James Comey, and tell him he wants a Flynn investigation dropped, or I hope the Flynn investigation will be dropped.
00:17:10.000No, it's not technically obstruction of justice, because again, there was no actual threat to Comey that if you don't drop this, I'm gonna do X, and it was not an actual...
00:17:38.000You know, again, it is not impossible to read it in the most innocuous way, but it is a little bit strange.
00:17:44.000If you're a Democrat and you're watching this, you're saying, okay, Donald Trump is obviously doing dirty things.
00:17:50.000If you are a Republican watching this, you're saying it's not so obvious that Trump is doing terrible obstruction of justice things, but he's acting inappropriately.
00:17:58.000I want to talk about what actually got said during the hearing and how the media is going to shift the narrative from its original narrative in just a second.
00:18:03.000But first, I want to say thank you to our advertisers over at Mack Weldon.
00:18:07.000So, Mack Weldon is better than whatever you are wearing right now.
00:19:18.000So that is what Comey released in his seven pages of testimony.
00:19:22.000It explodes the Democrat narratives that Trump was pressuring Comey to drop the Trump-Russia investigation, and it explodes the Democrat narrative that there was something deeply nefarious going on with regard to Trump being under personal investigation.
00:19:36.000Trump is not under personal investigation.
00:19:38.000Comey came out, he said when he left today, he said that Trump was not under personal investigation.
00:19:45.000Now, all of that said, here is some of what Comey had to say today.
00:19:49.000So Comey came out, and he didn't read the seven-page statement that had already been entered into testimony.
00:19:53.000So instead, he came out with this very short statement where he ripped Trump basically for firing him, and here's what he had to say.
00:20:01.000The administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader.
00:20:39.000The FBI does its job and that's really terrible.
00:20:40.000This is going to be the headline the media gloms onto is that Trump is a liar.
00:20:44.000And Comey reiterates that Trump is a liar.
00:20:46.000In clip 14, again, this is all opinion type stuff, but the media, which is now trying to build Comey up as some sort of great truth teller again, they're going to leap on this to say that Trump is just a liar in total.
00:20:58.000I want to go through a number of the meetings that you referenced in your testimony.
00:21:02.000And let's start with the January 6th meeting in Trump Tower, where you went up with a series of officials to brief the President-elect on the Russia investigation.
00:21:13.000My understanding is you remained afterwards to brief him on, again, quote, some personally sensitive aspects of the information you relayed.
00:21:22.000Now, you said after that briefing, you felt compelled
00:21:26.000to document that conversation that you actually started documenting it soon as you got into the car.
00:21:34.000Now, you've had extensive experience at the Department of Justice and at the FBI.
00:21:40.000You've worked under presidents of both parties.
00:21:43.000What was it about that meeting that led you to determine that you needed to start putting down a written record?
00:21:53.000I think the circumstances, the subject matter and the person I was interacting with.
00:21:59.000Circumstances first, I was alone with the President of the United States, or the President-Elect, soon to be President.
00:22:05.000The subject matter, I was talking about matters that touch on the FBI's core responsibility and that relate to the President, President-Elect personally.
00:22:16.000I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document.
00:22:21.000That combination of things I'd never experienced before, but it led me to believe I've got to write it down, and I've got to write it down in a very detailed way.
00:22:28.000Okay, so there's James Comey explaining that he thought that Trump's a big liar, so we have to keep all of the, uh, that we have to keep all of these notes, and that's his explanation.
00:22:37.000So the media's jumping on the idea that Comey thought Trump was a liar.
00:22:40.000Who cares whether Comey thought Trump was a liar?
00:22:42.000Like, he kept these notes, and then Trump either lied or he didn't.
00:22:45.000So, the media's jumping on conclusions without looking at the underlying evidence as usual.
00:22:50.000I thought Marco Rubio actually asked one of the better questions of the hearing thus far.
00:22:54.000He said, it's kind of amazing that all of this material has leaked about Trump,
00:22:58.000We've learned more from the newspapers sometimes than we do from our open hearings, for sure.
00:23:13.000Do you ever wonder why, of all the things in this investigation, the only thing that's never been leaked is the fact that the president was not personally under investigation, despite the fact that both Democrats and Republicans and the leadership of Congress knew that and have known that for weeks?
00:23:42.000It just demonstrates that when it comes to these leaks and it comes to the media, this is a motivated attempt to destroy President Trump.
00:23:46.000Okay, I want to talk about how the left is going to pivot off of their original narrative in just a second, right?
00:23:51.000Their original narrative, again, was that it was Trump-Russia collusion.
00:23:54.000They did all this to save Hillary, of course.
00:23:56.000That it was Trump-Russia collusion, and that's why Hillary lost the election, and that's why Trump attempted to fire James Comey, was all as a cover-up.
00:24:03.000Comey totally destroys that entire narrative.
00:24:10.000But we'll talk about how the left is gonna pivot to their new line of accusations, which is a very different line of accusations than the ones that they've already made.
00:24:17.000But for that, you're gonna have to go over to dailywire.com.
00:24:31.000Also means you get Clavin's show live.
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