The Ben Shapiro Show - Ep. 316 - The Apocalypse Has Comey

In the wake of Jeremy Corbyn's victory in the UK election, many are wondering why so many young people are turning to the far-left. Ben Shapiro argues that it s not just a symptom of growing disillusionment with the status quo. It s also a reflection of the growing discontent of the millennial vote, which has been a consistent theme in recent Western elections. And he argues that the main culprit may not be nationalism, but radical leftist ideas and ideas that appeal to a new generation of disillusioned millennials. Ben Shapiro: What's the real reason for the rise of the far left in Western politics, and why it can t be explained away as a reaction to the current economic and political climate? To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/sponsorships/TheBenShapiroShow and use the promo code at checkout to receive 10% off your first purchase when you enter the discount code: YASSOCIATE at checkout. We're part of the Modern Era Media Podcasts Podcast Network. See all the great network shows on the network including Vimeo, NPR, NPR and the New York Times. Subscribe to our newest podcast, The FiveThirtyEight, wherever you get your ebooks, and subscribe to our new podcast on Audible, iTunes, Podchaser, Podcoin, and The Huffington Post. Subscribe and comment on Apple Podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Become a supporter of The Ben Shapiro's new podcast, Ben Shapiro s new book, The Best of the Besties and much more! Subscribe on iTunes Learn more at bit.ly/Ben Shapiro's newest book: The Besties Besties: The Political Miscalculation? Subscribe & Subscribe to Ben Shapiro Podcasts Subscribe to The Political Machinations Subscribe to his new podcast Other Words For Great Reads by Ben Shapiro on Amazon Prime Video Subscribe on Podchronicity Subscribe on Vimeo Learn more on this podcast by clicking here and listen to his podcast on VaynerSpeaker Subscribe on Itunes Subscribe on the PodCastle on Podcoin Subscribe on Strava Subscribe on SoundCloud Subscribe on Podcast Rowell s New Music by clicking HERE and Subscribe on Spare Cash Subscribe on Your Review & Share it on iTunes Subscribe on PODCAST Subscribe to His Podcasts on Soundcloud Learn More at Podcoin Learn More on This Podcast by Mr. John Grady's Podcasts

00:00:00.000 On Thursday, in an apparent attempt to demonstrate that voters in the United States and Germany couldn't be the only ones to embrace reactionary unpredictability, the voters of the United Kingdom dealt the Conservative Party a stunning blow, elevating the far-left Labour Party, led by a Noam Chomsky-esque loon named Jeremy Corbyn, to the brink of power.

00:00:17.000 The Conservatives, led by Theresa May, will still retain leadership thanks to a coalition government, but they were expected to walk away with the election, and Labour was supposed to be in disarray.

00:00:26.000 Instead, the Conservatives are on the verge of chaos, and Labour is united under a terrorist-supporting anti-Semite with a gut-level hatred of Western civilization.

00:00:34.000 Well done, Brits.

00:00:36.000 Josh Krashour of National Journal makes an even more important point, though.

00:00:39.000 The youth vote in Britain went overwhelmingly for Corbyn.

00:00:42.000 Corbyn's surprisingly competitive showing was fueled by young voters who rallied behind Labour by a whopping 34 point margin, 63 to 29, according to British exit polling.

00:00:52.000 For all the fears of creeping nationalism, it's the growing discontent of the millennial vote that's been a consistent theme in recent Western elections.

00:01:00.000 Many young voters are rejecting capitalism entirely, attracted to rhetoric promising free tuition and a generous social safety net at a time when many are struggling to make ends meet.

00:01:09.000 Numerous studies also show younger voters are much more skeptical toward the value of democracy than their elders.

00:01:14.000 Crash Hour rightly points out that 27% of young French voters felt for an actual communist, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

00:01:20.000 In the United States, Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders drew, quote, more under 30 voters than Clinton and Trump combined.

00:01:27.000 Crash Hour is right to note that the reactionary left is responding to the reactionary right, that young voters who resonated to Corbyn, Melancon, and Sanders were responding in part to Brexit, Le Pen, and Trump.

00:01:37.000 And there's nothing new about young people embracing radical politics.

00:01:40.000 The 60s and 70s were full of such elections, see George McGovern, and the 1930s were full of radical political movements worldwide supported by youngsters.

00:01:49.000 Each generation has its own brand of radicalism, and given the success of the post-Cold War neoliberal consensus, the rebellion was bound to come in the form of far-left redistributionism.

00:02:00.000 Clinton and Bush and Blair and Chirac were all of the same general mind on capitalism.

00:02:05.000 Young people have reacted to that background.

00:02:07.000 Commentators are trying to find economic rationales for the blowback, but there is something else going on.

00:02:13.000 We live in a unique time in human history.

00:02:15.000 War between major powers is almost inconceivable, and despite economic worries, the vast majority of people are employed.

00:02:21.000 The American unemployment rate is currently 4.7%, the Brits 4.8%, the French unemployment rate is 9.6%, where it's been hovering since the economic crash of 2008.

00:02:30.000 Yes, terrorism is a threat, as is multiculturalism, but the far left isn't pledging to do anything about any of those things. 0.87

00:02:36.000 No.

00:02:37.000 What we have here is an entire generation of Westerners brought up to believe that prosperity and freedom are the norm, and given a background noise, and that the next mission for which they should fight is redistributionism.

00:02:49.000 Income inequality is the next Rubicon to cross, and income inequality springs from the same origins as racism and sexism and bigotry, Western civilization.

00:02:58.000 This perspective is not coming from disillusionment.

00:03:00.000 It's springing from an existential meaninglessness taught by two generations of parents who abandoned traditional values in favor of secularism and are now surprised to find their secular kids and grandkids embracing transformative Marxism as a way to animate their lives.

00:03:15.000 People want meaning.

00:03:17.000 Economics does not provide meaning, but causes do.

00:03:19.000 Bernie appears to have a cause.

00:03:21.000 So does Corbyn.

00:03:22.000 So did Melancon.

00:03:24.000 As economist Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw said way back in 1998, when it appeared the global capitalist consensus was unshakable, quote, a system that takes the pursuit of self-interest and profit as its guiding light does not necessarily satisfy the yearning in the human soul for belief and some higher meaning beyond materialism.

00:03:42.000 Few people would die with the words free markets on their lips.

00:03:45.000 The West has failed to teach its children meaning.

00:03:48.000 The children found their own meaning in Marxism, and so we appear ready to re-embrace the horrors of the past, unless we get to work right now teaching young Westerners that they are part of a fight for liberty and freedom and responsibility, rather than for transformative, crushing redistributionism.

00:04:03.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:04:04.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:04:09.000 Alrighty, we are going to get into everything Columbia related.

00:04:11.000 We're also going to talk more about the UK election, which really is quite stunning for Theresa May.

00:04:16.000 The worst political miscalculation in the modern era.

00:04:18.000 She called snap elections and then she ended up almost being thrown out of office, which is just an amazing thing.

00:04:23.000 We also have the mailbag today.

00:04:24.000 Yay! 0.99

00:04:25.000 So if you want to be part of the live mailbag, you're going to have to go over to dailywire.com right now and subscribe.

00:04:29.000 We will dedicate some real time to the mailbag today.

00:04:31.000 But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Birchgold.

00:04:35.000 So right now,

00:04:35.000 We're living in times of uncertainty.

00:04:37.000 I mean, if that British election showed you nothing else, it showed that the global markets are contingent on some sort of steadiness in the West.

00:04:44.000 And that steadiness is not exactly there right now.

00:04:48.000 There's a lot of unpredictability.

00:04:50.000 Plus, our enemies are on the move.

00:04:51.000 China's on the move. 0.55

00:04:52.000 Russia's on the move.

00:04:53.000 The markets themselves could be overvalued.

00:04:55.000 I saw a report today that said that the investor, famous investor,

00:04:59.000 Came out and said that he was expecting an economic crash anytime now.

00:05:03.000 This is just one reason why you should hedge some of your bets with gold.

00:05:06.000 You should have some gold in your portfolio.

00:05:08.000 You should have some precious metals in your portfolio.

00:05:11.000 Right now, over the last five months, the fact is that the gold prices have increased.

00:05:16.000 Every month for the first five months of 2017.

00:05:18.000 In 2017, gold is up 13% thus far.

00:05:21.000 That is a reflection of consumer anxiety, of investor anxiety about the markets and I don't think that that anxiety is totally misplaced.

00:05:29.000 Right now, you can get some precious metal and you can switch your IRA or eligible 401k into an IRA.

00:05:35.000 Back by physical gold and silver by calling my friends at Birch Gold Group.

00:05:39.000 They have a long-standing track record of continued success.

00:05:42.000 They have thousands of satisfied clients, five-star reviews, A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau.

00:05:46.000 Right now, contact Birch Gold for a free information kit on physical precious metals.

00:05:51.000 They have a comprehensive 16-page kit revealing how gold and silver can protect your savings and how you can legally move again that IRA or 401k.

00:05:58.000 Out of stocks and bonds into a precious metals IRA with this much uncertainty should certainly have some investment in precious metals I do.

00:06:05.000 Birchgold.com slash Ben.

00:06:07.000 That's Birchgold.com slash Ben.

00:06:09.000 Use that slash Ben so they know that we sent you and not only we get that 16 page free comprehensive kit and make sure you ask all your questions, but they'll also know that we sent you and they'll be more likely to advertise with us in the future and we can continue bringing the show to you free of charge as you listen.

00:06:26.000 Okay, so

00:06:27.000 Lots happening in the news, obviously.

00:06:29.000 Lots of fallout from the James Comey hearing.

00:06:31.000 So, after having a chance to reflect, there are a bunch of headlines that come out of the James Comey hearing.

00:06:37.000 And I want to play, I think, the three key clips.

00:06:39.000 We have a little mash-up here of the key clips from the Comey hearing.

00:06:43.000 First of all, here are the headlines from the clips we're about to show you.

00:06:45.000 First of all, Comey said openly that President Trump and his staff did not ask, did not ask

00:06:51.000 For killing of the Russia investigation.

00:06:53.000 This destroys the Democrat narrative.

00:06:55.000 And remember, as I said yesterday, the entire Democrat narrative since Hillary lost the election was that Hillary lost because Donald Trump worked with Vladimir Putin to corrupt the election.

00:07:04.000 And in doing so, he then had to fire James Comey because Comey was this close to finding out about it.

00:07:10.000 That was their narrative.

00:07:11.000 That was completely debunked.

00:07:12.000 Comey said that yesterday.

00:07:14.000 Also, in other big news, Attorney General Loretta Lynch apparently attempted to influence the Clinton investigation while Comey was there.

00:07:21.000 That was a big piece of breaking news as well.

00:07:24.000 And then the piece of news that the left is jumping on, which is that Comey called Trump a liar several times in the... in the...

00:07:31.000 In the hearings yesterday.

00:07:32.000 And the final piece of big news is that Comey leaked his memos to prompt the naming of a special counsel.

00:07:38.000 So people on the right are jumping on this to suggest that this means that Comey is a leaker and that Comey is going to be prosecuted for leaking.

00:07:44.000 We'll talk about all of these things, but here are the key clips from the hearing yesterday.

00:07:49.000 Did any individual working for this administration, including the Justice Department, ask you to stop the Russian investigation?

00:07:57.000 No.

00:07:57.000 At one point the Attorney General had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter which confused me and concerned me.

00:08:06.000 And although the law required no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the 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.

00:08:26.000 Those were lies, plain and simple.

00:08:28.000 I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter.

00:08:33.000 Didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons, but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.

00:08:40.000 Okay, so here were the big headlines, and there's a lot of conflict over what the headlines should be.

00:08:45.000 I mean, just to show you how much conflict there was over what the headlines should be, this is a picture of CNN and Fox News covering the exact same hearing and having precisely opposite headlines.

00:08:55.000 Here it is, the conflicting chyrons.

00:08:56.000 You can see CNN saying that Comey took Trump's request about dropping the Flynn investigation as a directive.

00:09:03.000 And then on the right, you see Fox News saying, Comey, the president did not order me to let the Flynn probe go.

00:09:09.000 You know, again, everyone's sort of taking out of this what they want to hear.

00:09:12.000 I'm going to give you the big headlines as I saw them yesterday, and then we're going to go through what the reaction to all this has been.

00:09:18.000 So as I said, first headline, Comey basically blows out of the water the Democratic narrative that there was collusion between Trump and Russia in this election cycle, and that Trump fired Comey to cover this up.

00:09:30.000 Even Chris Matthews is acknowledging this now.

00:09:32.000 Here's Chris Matthews acknowledging as much.

00:09:34.000 But the big story to me has always been, as all of us, and I think Nicole really touched on it there, the assumption of the critics of the President, of his pursuers you might say, is that somewhere along the line in the last year, the President had something to do with colluding with the Russians.

00:09:48.000 Something to do with helping hand, encouraging them, feeding their desire to affect the election in some way.

00:09:53.000 Some role they played, some conversation he had with Michael Flynn, or Paul Manafort, or somewhere.

00:09:59.000 And yet what came apart this morning was that theory because, in two regards, the president said, according to the written testimony of Mr. Comey, go ahead and get anybody's satellite to my operation and nail them.

00:10:10.000 I'm with you on that.

00:10:11.000 So that would be Manafort, Carter Page, someone else like that.

00:10:15.000 And then he also came across what was fascinating.

00:10:17.000 Comey said,

00:10:19.000 That basically Flynn wasn't central to the rushed investigation.

00:10:22.000 That he was touching on it.

00:10:25.000 Of course Flynn wasn't honest in his answering of the official forms the NFL had to become national security head.

00:10:33.000 But it only touched on that.

00:10:35.000 That it wasn't really related to that.

00:10:36.000 But he could be flipped for that.

00:10:38.000 But in other words, they could flip him because they had him caught on something he dishonestly answered.

00:10:43.000 But he wasn't central, it seemed, to the Russian thing.

00:10:46.000 And I've always assumed what Trump was afraid of, he had said something to Flynn, and Flynn could be flipped on that, and Flynn would testify against the President that he had had some conversation with Flynn in terms of dealing with the Russians affirmatively.

00:11:01.000 And if that's not the case, where's the there there?

00:11:05.000 What Matthews is saying right there, what Matthews is saying right there is the key and that's the thing that Trump should be seizing on because that debunks the entire leftist narrative and when even Chris Matthews...

00:11:20.000 When even Chris Matthews gets it, that demonstrates that the Democratic narrative fell apart.

00:11:24.000 So that was headline number one.

00:11:25.000 Headline number two was that Loretta Lynch pressured James Comey to change the way they were terming the investigation into Hillary Clinton, calling it, instead of an investigation, calling it a matter. 0.97

00:11:35.000 Okay, now that had already been revealed by the New York Times way back in April.

00:11:39.000 People really didn't pay attention to it at the time.

00:11:40.000 Comey said it now, so now it's in the testimony, and people on the right are jumping on that.

00:11:45.000 Yes, that's terrible.

00:11:47.000 And yes, Comey should have done something about it, he should have gone public with it, or he should have written a memo to file, as he is so fond of doing, and all of that is true.

00:11:54.000 It is also true, to be fair, that if we are going to say that we are disturbed by Loretta Lynch putting pressure on James Comey in how he discusses the Hillary investigation,

00:12:04.000 Then we should be similarly concerned if President Trump is putting pressure on Comey in any way with regard to any other investigation.

00:12:10.000 Like, let's be a little bit consistent here in all of this.

00:12:13.000 Okay, third headline.

00:12:14.000 President Trump apparently acted improperly and Comey found it troubling.

00:12:18.000 So we can't get away from, and this is what the left is jumping on, they've now pivoted from their original narrative to the new narrative, which is that Trump is a bully and a thug because Trump said to Comey, pulled him aside in a meeting, told everybody else to get out of the room, and then told him he hoped that Comey could find a way

00:12:33.000 To let Flynn go.

00:12:34.000 Now people on the right are sort of ignoring this or pretending it doesn't exist or saying, well, it's not obstruction.

00:12:39.000 No one's saying it has to be technical obstruction.

00:12:41.000 As Alan Dershowitz has said, Trump could overtly tell James Comey that he wanted him to drop the investigation and that he would, and he's ordering him to do so.

00:12:50.000 And that wouldn't necessarily constitute obstruction of justice.

00:12:53.000 On a criminal level, but impeachment is not a criminal offense.

00:12:56.000 Impeachment is about what is politically palatable to do.

00:12:59.000 Democrats could jump on this and they are.

00:13:02.000 The biggest problem for Trump is that now, because he said all this stuff, now you could end up with a situation where Trump actually is under investigation.

00:13:09.000 So we found out that Trump is not under investigation.

00:13:13.000 We found out that he wasn't under investigation when Comey was the head of the FBI, and that Comey told him that several times, and that's probably why Trump fired him, is because Comey wouldn't say it publicly.

00:13:22.000 But now, because of the conversations that he had with Comey, he may very well be under federal investigation from Bob Mueller, the special investigator.

00:13:29.000 So that means that Comey, if he wanted to nail Trump, has played his cards exactly rightly, which means that Comey is kind of a sleaze, but it also means that Comey has outplayed Trump here.

00:13:38.000 Right?

00:13:38.000 Here's how the chain of events went.

00:13:40.000 Basically, Comey was called into Trump's office and Trump said to him, I'd appreciate it if you could get rid of this Flynn thing, right?

00:13:47.000 I hope that you get rid of this Flynn thing, however you want to put it.

00:13:49.000 And then Comey didn't pay attention to Trump, continued on his merry way, didn't see anything so wrong he had to report it, and then he gets fired.

00:13:56.000 And then Trump tweets that there must be conversations between Trump and Comey that are on tape, and Comey better hope they're earned, at which point Comey responds by revealing the presence of the memos, which prompts the creation of the special investigator.

00:14:11.000 And now that special investigator is going to look into Trump over obstruction.

00:14:14.000 So in other words, Trump did two things that now have put him on the hook where he wouldn't have been on the hook before.

00:14:18.000 One, he had conversations with Comey about Flynn that he shouldn't have had.

00:14:21.000 And two, he then tweeted about how he had tapes,

00:14:24.000 Which prompted, supposedly, Comey to reveal the memos, and leaked the memos out, which prompted the appointment of the special prosecutor.

00:14:33.000 Now some people on the right are saying, well that means we should get rid of the special prosecutor.

00:14:37.000 A little bit late for that, okay guys?

00:14:38.000 Regardless of whether you think that Comey did the wrong thing in revealing the contents of the memos, in order to debunk what Trump was saying about him,

00:14:47.000 The cat's out of the bag.

00:14:48.000 You shut down the special prosecutor right now, it looks like Trump really does have something to hide.

00:14:52.000 So Trump's in a catch-22 because now the special prosecutor, according to Comey, will probably end up looking at Trump's activity toward Comey and may come up with some sort of obstruction charge, or at least the implication of obstruction, giving Democrats something to hang their hat on.

00:15:06.000 In other words, the quote-unquote cover-up of a crime that didn't occur may snag Trump because Trump has a big mouth.

00:15:13.000 That's what Democrats are hoping, anyway.

00:15:16.000 That's what Democrats are hoping.

00:15:18.000 Now I want to talk about how Trump can get out of this, and what Trump actually should be saying about all this, because I think that he has a pretty good case to make, if he were just honest about it, but he's not making that case, unfortunately.

00:15:29.000 We'll talk about it in one second.

00:15:30.000 First, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at the U.S.

00:15:33.000 Concealed Carry Association.

00:15:36.000 Every day you see stories about somebody breaking into somebody's house, somebody breaking into somebody's store, robberies, carjackings, riots.

00:15:42.000 There's been an uptick in the last couple of years in murder in major cities all over the United States.

00:15:49.000 And you want to sleep a little bit better at night because you know that if you have to defend yourself, there's going to be somebody standing next to you.

00:15:54.000 Then you need to go over to the USCCA at defendmyfamily.com.

00:15:58.000 Defendmyfamily.com and sign up with the USCCA.

00:16:02.000 What the USCCA does is they give responsible gun owners like you and like me complete peace of mind.

00:16:06.000 They give you training in how to use your weapon, but they also provide you the defense resources necessary in case you do use your weapon.

00:16:12.000 I live in California.

00:16:13.000 That means if I shoot a bad guy coming onto my property, then there is at least a significant chance that I will be prosecuted or I'll end up in legal peril.

00:16:21.000 USCCA helps you out with that.

00:16:24.000 USCCA makes sure you're legally and financially protected for after you pull

00:16:28.000 We're good to go.

00:16:43.000 For the guns and ammo of your choice, like 1776, you'll get $1,776 for the guns and ammo of your choice.

00:16:50.000 And they are picking five winners.

00:16:51.000 You can register right now at DefendMyFamily.com.

00:16:55.000 DefendMyFamily.com to get your five big chances to win.

00:16:59.000 The offer does not last forever.

00:17:00.000 This is designed for July 4th.

00:17:02.000 So go over to DefendMyFamily.com.

00:17:03.000 Number one, you should be signing up any

00:17:05.000 Okay, so...

00:17:20.000 With all the headlines that came out about Comey, and with the newfound attempt by the left to push the notion that Trump obstructed justice, even though, as Chris Matthews says, there is no real there there, there's something that Trump could do, right?

00:17:33.000 What Trump should do, here's what Trump should do.

00:17:35.000 I basically wrote this out yesterday.

00:17:37.000 If I were Trump, here's what I would say.

00:17:39.000 I would say this.

00:17:40.000 I did not collude with Russia during the 2016 election.

00:17:44.000 I had said that all along, people.

00:17:46.000 And Comey confirmed there is no evidence to suggest collusion by me.

00:17:51.000 He even admitted, finally, that I was not under personal investigation.

00:17:55.000 He told me privately.

00:17:57.000 He wouldn't say it publicly.

00:17:58.000 And that made me very, very angry.

00:18:00.000 That is the real reason I fired him.

00:18:02.000 Out of anger!

00:18:04.000 Anger that I was not being exonerated in public view, even though Comey knew I was not under investigation.

00:18:12.000 Also, I did not obstruct any investigation.

00:18:16.000 Comey admits I never tried to obstruct the Russia investigation.

00:18:20.000 He admits I said he should check out my associates on Russia.

00:18:24.000 As far as my comments on General Flynn, it was just because I like General Flynn.

00:18:28.000 It wasn't because I was trying to cover anything up.

00:18:30.000 There were hot-headed statements about what I hoped would happen.

00:18:34.000 I said, I hope.

00:18:35.000 Is hope in order?

00:18:36.000 I know how to give an order. 0.93

00:18:37.000 I'm Donald freaking Trump. 0.68

00:18:40.000 We have no evidence that Flynn even did anything.

00:18:43.000 Right?

00:18:44.000 Flynn lied about talking to the Russians.

00:18:46.000 Is that a crime?

00:18:47.000 Maybe, but it's not a big enough crime for me to care about.

00:18:50.000 That's why I said something to James Comey.

00:18:52.000 Why is this even a big deal?

00:18:54.000 Comey knows I didn't obstruct the Flynn investigation.

00:18:57.000 He didn't even quit.

00:18:58.000 He didn't even report it.

00:18:59.000 Look, I should have had patience.

00:19:01.000 I should have had patience with the process.

00:19:03.000 But I'm not a patient guy.

00:19:06.000 I want to get stuff done.

00:19:07.000 The cloud hanging over my administration, thanks to the Democrats, is crippling my ability to get something done.

00:19:14.000 Don't call it obstruction.

00:19:15.000 It isn't.

00:19:15.000 That's nasty.

00:19:16.000 There's no underlying crime.

00:19:17.000 I didn't obstruct when there's no crime.

00:19:19.000 So, let's get back to work. 1.00

00:19:21.000 I'll stop being impatient, and you guys stop saying stupid stuff. 1.00

00:19:24.000 Right? 1.00

00:19:24.000 That's what Trump should say. 1.00

00:19:26.000 That's what Trump should say.

00:19:27.000 And if Trump actually said that, then he might be able to make a good defense.

00:19:31.000 What he should not do is get into a credibility fight with James Comey.

00:19:34.000 He should not get into the business of trying to say that James Comey is lying about him and that James Comey is not telling the truth about what he said about Flynn.

00:19:41.000 The reason being, Comey just testified before Congress, under oath, under penalty of perjury.

00:19:47.000 Who is more credible?

00:19:48.000 Now I know there are a lot of Trump fans saying he's more credible than Comey.

00:19:50.000 Okay.

00:19:51.000 But Comey is a lawyer.

00:19:53.000 Comey knows that he doesn't want to get caught up in a perjury charge.

00:19:56.000 And he knows that right now the entire Trump administration would be happy to charge him with perjury.

00:20:00.000 So the idea that he's going to go out there and outright lie... 0.97

00:20:03.000 is just silly. 1.00

00:20:05.000 Like, Comey's not stupid. 1.00

00:20:06.000 Okay? 1.00

00:20:06.000 He may not be your cup of tea, but he's not a stupid man. 1.00

00:20:09.000 And if Trump wants to pit his perception of honesty against Comey's perception of honesty, that's not a battle Trump can win. 0.98

00:20:15.000 What Trump should have done is play a little bit of jujitsu here.

00:20:18.000 Trump should have said, what Trump should have said is, everything Comey said is true as to content, but not as to meaning.

00:20:25.000 Right?

00:20:25.000 That's what he should have said.

00:20:27.000 I'm an impatient guy.

00:20:28.000 I met with him because I was upset about the Flynn stuff.

00:20:31.000 I didn't mean he should quash the investigation.

00:20:32.000 Look, did I even have a follow-up?

00:20:33.000 Did I even try to quash the Flynn investigation?

00:20:36.000 Hard to accuse me of obstruction when I didn't do anything other than saying to him that I hoped he would see his way clear to letting Flynn go.

00:20:43.000 Maybe it was sort of a ham-handed thing for me to say, but obstruction?

00:20:47.000 Really?

00:20:47.000 And again, even Comey confirmed that there's this Trump-Russia stuff is a big nothing burger.

00:20:53.000 That's what Trump should be doing.

00:20:54.000 Unfortunately, that's not what Trump is doing.

00:20:56.000 So Trump came out on Twitter today, and Trump immediately decided to attack Comey's credibility, which is just not smart.

00:21:02.000 Because again, he's relying on Comey's credibility in order for him to get out of the Trump-Russia stuff.

00:21:08.000 Right, he wants to say that Comey is credible when he says that Trump was not under investigation and that there's no evidence of collusion, but he wants to say he's not credible when it comes to what Trump said to Comey in the privacy of the Oval Office or at Trump Tower.

00:21:21.000 So Trump tweets, quote, That's what he originally tweeted that got him in trouble.

00:21:24.000 Now here's what he tweeted, quote, Okay, on this leaker thing, quick note,

00:21:37.000 People who are trying to say that Comey should be prosecuted for leaking, his notes were not government documents.

00:21:43.000 If I have a personal diary that I am taking, and it's not classified, and this apparently was not classified material, and Trump did not assert executive privilege, from a legal, from a lawyer's perspective, this is not prosecutable.

00:21:55.000 What Comey did, you may not like the leak, you may think it makes him a politically motivated actor, I certainly do, but I think that to say that he's a leaker and therefore he did something illegal,

00:22:04.000 He didn't actually do anything illegal any more than Trump did something illegal by talking to the Russians about Israeli intel.

00:22:09.000 He has the capacity to do it.

00:22:11.000 It may be bad, but it's not necessarily illegal.

00:22:13.000 Again, this is just bad strategy.

00:22:15.000 I'm not saying that Trump, again, did anything deeply wrong here.

00:22:18.000 In fact, I'm trying to figure out a good way to defend Trump, but this is not the smartest way to do this.

00:22:22.000 You know, in conclusion with that, he sends out Mark Kasowitz, his lawyer, to make the case that Trump was, that Comey is lying about Trump.

00:22:31.000 This is not a smart tactic.

00:22:32.000 It's, again, Trump fighting back.

00:22:35.000 And he's fighting back aggressively rather than in intelligent fashion.

00:22:38.000 Here's Mark Kasowitz, his lawyer, saying that Comey's the liar, not Trump.

00:22:41.000 The president never suggested that Mr. Comey, quote, let Flynn go, close quote.

00:22:50.000 Okay, so him saying that is really not smart, because again, unless he has tapes to prove that, and he said he has, and now the White House won't say whether there are tapes or whether there aren't tapes, the tapes will be subpoenaed.

00:23:00.000 Trump, unless he goes under oath, is going to lose this particular credibility battle.

00:23:04.000 The best move would be to do what I just said, admit basically that everything that Comey said is true, and then say Comey is misconstruing everything because Comey's a politically motivated actor.

00:23:13.000 I'm a hothead.

00:23:14.000 I say things out of turn, but that's not what I meant.

00:23:16.000 There's no obstruction here.

00:23:17.000 There's no underlying crime.

00:23:19.000 That's what Trump should be saying.

00:23:20.000 Instead, he's not, and that's leading Democrats to be put in a position where they can actually do him some damage.

00:23:25.000 I'm going to talk about that in just a second, but for that, you're going to have to go over to dailywire.com.

00:23:29.000 Go ahead and subscribe at dailywire.com right now.

00:23:31.000 $8 a month gets you access

00:23:34.000 To the rest of the show live, you can be part of the mailbag, which we are now doing on Fridays, because, hey, we're five days a week now, which is super exciting.

00:23:40.000 Plus, if you want the annual subscription at Daily Wire, then if you get that annual subscription, you get a free signed copy of this very book, the one that I hold here in my hand, Say It, Sell.

00:23:52.000 It's a book by me and my dad, there we are, yes.

00:23:55.000 My dad's my best friend.

00:23:56.000 We're actually going to have him on next week to talk about the book, actually, which will be a lot of fun, because my dad's awesome.

00:23:59.000 My dad is the really nice version of me, which is to say, I mean, really, really nice, because I'm not super nice.

00:24:06.000 My dad is, like, the nicest person anyone knows.

00:24:07.000 We're going to have him on next week to talk about the book Say It.

00:24:10.000 So you get a free signed copy when you go over to dailywire.com.

00:24:14.000 We're good to go.

The Ben Shapiro Show - June 10, 2017

Ep. 316 - The Apocalypse Has Comey

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript