Corey Lewandowski has been charged with assault and battery for the alleged assault of Michelle Fields, a reporter for the right wing website Breitbart News. The charges have been dismissed by the Department of Justice as "preparing for trial" and dismissed as a "hoax" by Lewandowski's lawyer. Today, Ben Shapiro explains why this is a big deal, and why it doesn't matter what happened to Michelle Fields and why she should never have been accused of anything like this in the first place. He also talks about the latest on the latest in the Lewandowski/Breitbart News situation, and other things that will interest you as we do every single day on The Ben Shapiro Show! Ben Shapiro is a regular contributor to the New York Times, CNN, CBS and other media outlets. He is also the host of the conservative podcast "The Weekly Standard" and hosts the conservative radio show The Weekly Standard on Fox News Radio and SiriusXM satellite radio. You can catch him on the air wherever you get your favorite streaming service, and wherever else you re getting your news and information. If you like what you can get your fix, you won't want to miss it! Subscribe to the Ben Shapiro show on the Four Corners Podcast on Apple Podcasts, wherever you re listening to the show. Subscribe on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices. Like, comment and subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you're listening to, it's on your favorite podcast platform you use to consume the most of your favorite news and let us know what's trending news and gossip about politics and culture in your world! You'll get the latest updates from Ben Shapiro's newest podcast on the future of politics and everything else going on in the world. Thank you for listening to Ben Shapiro s newest podcast! Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe and share it on your social media account! Be sure to leave us a review and tell a friend about what s going to be featured on your feed! on your podcast? on the and we'll be sure to let Ben Shapiro on the next episode of The Six Sigma Podcasts on his Insta Story? and other important things that he mentioned in the show? in his podcast is of course you'll get a chance to hear about what else is going to happen next week's episode of the show next week on The Six SONGS WEEKEND? Subscribe?
00:01:47.000We'll start off with, I know a lot of people are watching right now because of the interest in the Breitbart News debacle, the fact that I stepped down from Breitbart News.
00:01:56.000I read my statement on the air at the end of yesterday's show, the one that BuzzFeed printed, and there are certain developments that are happening that I can't tell you about
00:02:06.000For legal reasons, I should put it that way.
00:02:08.000But, I can say that I was on the Today Show this morning, I was on Fox News last night, Megan Kelly had me on with Michelle Fields, and I want to start off by saying to all of you Michelle Fields truthers out there who believe that she bruised her own arm, and that this is all nonsense, and that she wasn't grabbed, and that the tape shows that this is all a hoax,
00:03:04.000They made clear that they stand with the Trump campaign.
00:03:06.000Overstanding not only with their own reporter, but overstanding with the basic truth, which is that Corey Lewandowski grabbed her by the arm.
00:03:24.000Nobody suggested that she was raped by Corey Lewandowski.
00:03:27.000Nobody has suggested any of these things.
00:03:29.000Nobody even really suggested that this was a major physical incident in which her arm was ripped off and she was beaten to death with it.
00:03:35.000Nobody said any of that, particularly not Michelle.
00:03:38.000What Michelle said has been very consistent from the beginning.
00:03:40.000She was grabbed by the arm, she was pulled by the arm, yanked by the arm, she was bruised on the arm, she stumbled a little bit, and she regained her balance.
00:03:48.000That was the whole thing, and it was reported by Ben Terrace of the Washington Post, too.
00:03:51.000If you don't think that Michelle is telling the truth, maybe you think Ben Terrace is also lying, and you think that
00:03:57.000She went home, Michelle, and she had her arm bruised by Jamie Weinstein.
00:04:00.000Honestly, for the people who believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, despite all evidence to the contrary, and the people who believe that Ted Cruz was born in Canada or ineligible for the presidency, it isn't a big stretch to simply look at tape and pretend that it doesn't exist.
00:04:14.000But, you know, if that's the game that you want to play, I'll leave you to it.
00:04:52.000She asked me why is this a story, given the fact that Michelle wasn't egregiously injured, and here was my answer to Megyn Kelly last night.
00:05:00.000I mean, Ben, in your view, Ben, apart from the implosion of Breitbart, and it's part of the civil war that we're seeing from some on the right, why is this a story?
00:05:10.000Well, I mean, I think the idolatrous worship of the Trump campaign by some people in the media, leading to them covering up the truth, is a major story.
00:05:17.000And as you say, I think it's again a story because the Trump campaign never acknowledges mistakes, never acknowledges their responsibility for violence, never acknowledges anything that they do wrong.
00:05:29.000But that does have consequences, and it does have victims.
00:05:32.000In this case, it was just a bruise on the arm, but there are other cases where it's more than that.
00:05:37.000And one of the other cases in which it's more than that is, for example, that black guy getting clocked at one of the Trump rallies, right?
00:05:42.000And then Trump sang on national TV, and maybe he'd pay for the defense of the guy who clocked that guy in the face.
00:05:48.000So this has a lot to do with the Trump campaign, it has a lot to do with Breitbart, and it has a lot to do with the media's worship for Trump.
00:05:54.000You know, people have been asking, okay, so I've alleged that Breitbart News is a very pro-Trump website.
00:06:54.000We're gradually growing and steadily growing to the point where we now have nearly 40,000 people every day listening to the Ben Shapiro Show, which is wonderful, listening to our podcast.
00:07:03.000If I were a big Trump supporter, I guarantee it would be higher than that.
00:07:06.000Because the fact is that Trump is a very popular man, and he says a lot of politically incorrect things, and so people like that.
00:07:13.000Okay, that's one reason to support Trump is for the cash.
00:07:16.000The second reason is because you think that Donald Trump says things that need to be said.
00:07:20.000So there's a great cartoon in the New Yorker that Andrew Klavan forwarded to me, and it makes me sad that I'm now finding common cause with some people on the left who are ripping Trump, but when people are right, they're right.
00:07:35.000Facts don't care about your feelings, and facts don't care where they came from.
00:07:38.000So there's a cartoon in the New Yorker, which is generally a terrible publication.
00:07:43.000The cartoon showed this couple watching a TV screen, and inside the TV screen is Satan.
00:07:48.000And they're saying to each other, well sure it's Satan, but he's saying things that need to be said.
00:07:53.000And there is that feeling for a lot of folks about Trump.
00:07:56.000I like Trump and we're gonna cover Trump because he says that he slaps the media.
00:08:00.000So Breitbart for a long time has said the left media is terrible.
00:08:03.000Early on, if you look at my coverage of Trump, when he first jumped in, I was saying the same things.
00:08:07.000I was saying, for example, I think that he's slapping some of the right people.
00:08:10.000When he tells Jorge Ramos that he needs to actually just not interrupt other people, that's a good thing, right?
00:08:16.000I was saying some of these things too, and then gradually it became clear that Trump was more than just slapping the wrong people, he was slapping everybody, and particularly he was disgracing conservatism.
00:08:26.000And then there's a third reason, and that is ego.
00:08:28.000There are a lot of people who really want to glom onto a winner.
00:08:31.000And they see Trump as a winner, and they think they can ride him all the way to the top.
00:08:35.000And this is really what I want to talk about today.
00:08:38.000So what I want to talk about today is this weird idea that's going around that Donald Trump is going to be just fine as president.
00:10:36.000I mean, that's been going around for a long period of time.
00:10:40.000But also, I have to look at what is practical.
00:10:47.000I didn't see a path for Kasich, who I like, or for Rubio, who I like.
00:10:54.000As far as Cruz is concerned, I don't think that he's going to be able to draw independents and Democrats, unless he has some kind of miraculous change.
00:11:07.000So I have to look at what is practical and what is going to save this country.
00:11:13.000And the American dream for the next generation.
00:11:16.000Is there another scenario that I would have preferred?
00:11:19.000Yes, but that scenario isn't available.
00:12:49.000So it turns out that Dr. Ben Carson, the most principled, moral man in the race, is endorsing Donald Trump because nobody else would give him stuff.
00:12:57.000That's pretty much what it turned out to be.
00:13:06.000Even if, I don't want to do the Ben Carson voice because if I do it, then people who are listening to this in their cars will drive off roads, crash into bridges, burn buildings down.
00:15:41.000Send all of your friends emails that annoy them because you have Reagan at the end of it, which is really neat.
00:15:46.000Obviously, the email privacy is great.
00:15:49.000Unlike all of these other email providers, Reagan.com doesn't copy or scan or sell any of your email content, so your private email stays private.
00:15:57.000You can access it from anywhere, and it works on all of your various devices.
00:16:01.000To get involved, all you have to do is go to reaganprivacy.com right now.
00:17:00.000So, for example, Donald Trump yesterday.
00:17:02.000So, Todd Palin was in a snowmobile accident up in Alaska.
00:17:07.000And so, Donald Trump did an event with Sarah Palin.
00:17:11.000And here is Donald Trump at that event talking about Todd Palin's snowmobile accident.
00:17:17.000So, what I say about Second Amendment is this, okay?
00:17:20.000And you can say the same thing for California with the 14 great people that were killed.
00:17:25.000There were no bullets going in the opposite direction.
00:17:28.000If Todd Palin were in that room, frankly, if Sarah Palin were in the room, it would have been... Forget about Todd, especially now.
00:17:37.000If Sarah Palin were in that room, but if somebody were in that room that had a gun of some kind attached to the hip, attached to the ankle, where bullets could fly in the opposite direction, you wouldn't have had this.
00:17:51.000I just gave you the Salvador Dali scream face there because what in the world?
00:17:56.000And this just slips right by people, right?
00:18:52.000And the first three that came to mind were all Trump, right?
00:18:54.000It was Trump with Chris Christie behind him, looking as though he just discovered that his puppy had died.
00:19:01.000And then there was the press conference with Ben Carson, where Ben Carson looked like something straight out of an Iranian hostage video.
00:19:07.000And then there was the press conference with Sarah Palin, where Donald Trump was standing to the side and Sarah Palin just started screaming and shouting for no reason.
00:19:14.000Well, if you just can't get enough of Sarah Palin screaming and shouting... And by the way, less people say... I've called Hillary Clinton shrill in the past.
00:19:22.000Less people say that I am not a bipartisan fellow.
00:19:26.000If you look up shrill in the dictionary, under that word you will now see this video.
00:20:13.000Who are doing nothing but wasting your time and trying to take away your First Amendment rights, your rights to assemble peacefully, and the media being on the fuck's side.
00:20:28.000Okay, so there's Sarah Palin explaining that her, by the way, her husband is in the ICU right now.
00:20:33.000There's Sarah Palin explaining that the most important thing she can be doing while her husband is in the ICU is campaigning for Donald Trump.
00:20:42.000And then she drops that punk-ass thuggery routine, which somebody has already cut a very, very funny vine of Sarah Palin doing this, and they put it over a dope beat.
00:20:54.000They put it over a rap beat, and so they recut it, so it's actually Sarah Palin rapping about punk-ass thuggery, which is pretty funny.
00:21:01.000Well, we'll have to grab it for tomorrow, because it is pretty humorous.
00:21:04.000This is the campaign you think you're gonna control?
00:21:05.000These are the people that you think you're gonna control?
00:21:08.000Like the Donald Trump who trots this out, right?
00:21:10.000You think that this is what you're going to control?
00:21:13.000Donald Trump surrounds himself with sycophants.
00:21:15.000He's surrounded consistently all the time by people who just kiss his rear.
00:21:20.000Corey Lewandowski is just one of these people apparently.
00:21:22.000Politico has a piece today about Lewandowski and how Lewandowski basically
00:21:27.000Hangs around Trump all the time, and there are even people inside the Trump campaign who are unhappy with Lewandowski, and that's how you end up with Donald Trump on national TV calling Michelle Fields a liar, right, for saying exactly what happened, which is that she was grabbed by the arm by Corey Lewandowski.
00:21:42.000I'm firmly convinced that, or at least partially convinced, I won't say firmly, I'm partially convinced that, you know that press conference?
00:21:48.000Trump held after he won a bunch of states on the Tuesday night of last week.
00:21:54.000You remember how he said Trump Steaks still exist, Trump Wine still exist, Trump Vodka still exist, Trump Water still exist, Trump University still exist?
00:22:04.000I'm at least partially convinced that he thinks they do.
00:22:08.000That he's not actually lying because all the people who surround him are just telling, he says, are you telling me that Trump's stakes no longer exist?
00:22:24.000For example, here's an anecdote from today's New York Times, right, quote, Mr. Trump is abundantly proud of his ability to drive a golf ball.
00:22:32.000Once asking rhetorically during a news conference, do I hit it long?
00:22:39.000Mr. Senecall, who is Trump's former butler, he suggested that Mr. Trump was perhaps not quite as strong as he imagined, remembering times they would hit balls together from the Mar-a-Lago property into the Intracoastal Waterway, which is always great, you know, hitting it right into the lake.
00:22:54.000Tony, how far is that, Mr. Trump would ask.
00:22:56.000It's like 275 yards, Mr. Senecall would respond, though he said the actual distance was 225 yards.
00:23:34.000Jeff Sessions has this immigration plan that he trotted out for Trump, basically.
00:23:38.000And Trump, in the debate, the minute he got a little bit kerfluffled, the minute he got a little flustered, Trump immediately dumped part of the plan, just on stage, in the middle of the stage.
00:23:58.000The idea that you're gonna control him is absurd.
00:24:00.000Roger Stone, who's a former consultant to Trump, still a pro-Trump guy, he said, he keeps his own counsel.
00:24:05.000He has succeeded so far by being his own man, so it's very tough to convince him not to continue on the course that has brought him this far.
00:24:16.000This is not somebody who, if you talk nicely to him,
00:24:19.000That if you just stick with him and you surround him with all the right people, he'll be cajoled, he'll be convinced to do the right thing.
00:24:48.000Not gonna happen, not happening, not gonna, it's just not.
00:24:52.000Okay, so that's one thing I wanted to talk about today.
00:24:54.000Second thing that I wanted to talk about today, in terms of all things Trump, because he now controls the news cycle, he has it throttled in his tiny man hands, is that
00:25:04.000There's this other kind of argument going around, and it's a good argument, that Trump is the lesser of two evils.
00:25:21.000And you're seeing a lot of people do this.
00:25:22.000Here's Katrina Pearson, for example, this is Trump's spokesperson, saying that, you know, when Trump uses violent rhetoric, you know, that is something that Obama started it.
00:25:34.000Trump campaign denied that anybody's been hurt.
00:25:38.000Well, I think this is exactly what I wanted to talk about, in all honesty, Jake, because the one thing the media does not show is what happens prior to these events, where you do have these Black Lives Matter protesters go out there, whether it's moveon.org pushing people out to these things or not.
00:25:52.000They go into these Trump rallies, and they start swinging and kicking.
00:25:55.000They throw themselves on the ground, start throwing themselves into people, and then expect to not be pushed off of them.
00:26:07.000If we want to talk about inciting violence, where is the interview with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama when they're talking about bringing a gun to a knife fight, when they're inciting violence against police officers?
00:26:18.000Today, we have police officers called out to fake calls so they can be ambushed and potentially assassinated.
00:26:24.000And we're talking about protesters, paid protesters, going to disrupt a Republican rally?
00:26:29.000If it wasn't Donald Trump, it would be any of the other candidates on this panel, and they know it.
00:26:34.000Well, I mean, the line from The Untouchables about bringing a gun to a knife fight, I think people recognize that that was an allusion to Sean Connery.
00:26:53.000In the Untouchables is that you have to bring greater violence to lesser violence.
00:26:56.000I mean, in case Jake Tapper has not actually seen the Untouchables, what proceeds from there is that they immediately break into a still, guns blazing.
00:27:04.000That's literally the next scene after the, you bring a knife, a gun to a knife fight.
00:27:08.000So let's, you know, we'll take it easy on Katrina Pearson.
00:27:11.000But what she's basically saying here is actually right, right?
00:27:13.000What Trump's people are saying here is correct.
00:27:15.000The left does this kind of stuff all the time.
00:27:31.000When you have the mayor of Baltimore saying that she gives rioters room to riot.
00:27:35.000When you have the DOJ saying they're going to go easy on offenders because they don't want to offend the local communities.
00:27:41.000You know, this is stuff that actually ends in violence.
00:27:43.000It's why you've seen a significant uptick in the last couple of years in violence, and this scares me.
00:27:48.000I mean, I think that, as I've mentioned a couple of times, great book, I just finished Barry Latzer's book, The Rise and Fall of Violent Crime in America, and he talks about how from 1960 to 1990, the violent crime in the United States rose 400%, so multiply by four times, right?
00:28:03.000To the point where there was a statistic in the early 1980s that if the crime statistics stayed the same for the next 20 years as they were that year,
00:28:11.000A person living then would have a 40% chance of being victimized in a violent altercation, right?
00:29:27.000Well, first of all, the actions Friday night clearly were left-wing fascism, and you're exactly right.
00:29:33.000I'm really saddened by any Republican who wants to blame Trump.
00:29:38.000Donald Trump wasn't the reason, for example, that, as you point out, Condi Rice gets cancelled, Ben Carson gets cancelled on the campus, Ayaan Hirsi Ali gets cancelled on the campus.
00:29:48.000The fact is, you have this entire movement of fascism, which is saying, if you don't agree with me, I'm going to shut up your right to speak.
00:30:31.000And I think we have some obligation to say to the news media, you know, you need to get off this Trump bashing and report honestly, not just in the presidential race, but on the campuses, what is happening.
00:31:13.000And Bill O'Reilly says the same thing, right?
00:31:15.000Here's Bill O'Reilly on Fox News last night saying people who are criticizing Trump's authoritarian streak, most of them are authoritarian, right?
00:32:07.000It is wrong for Democrats to pander and to make room for people to be violent and to incentivize people to be violent and to incite people to be violent.
00:32:23.000It is wrong for Donald Trump to get up on stage and say that people should be punched in the face for expressing in protest, or that people should be taken out on stretchers for disagreeing with him, or that he will pay the legal bills of people who punch people in the face for no reason other than protesting.
00:35:32.000Meanwhile, I will talk about the left briefly here.
00:35:34.000Hillary Clinton is just, if the media were actually fair, which they are not, they would be covering the fact that Hillary Clinton is a sideshow.
00:35:48.000She's a disaster and we're gonna run a guy who signed her checks and is less popular than she is against her.
00:35:54.000Here's Hillary Clinton yesterday talking about what she's gonna do about coal, the coal industry.
00:36:00.000I'm the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country.
00:36:11.000Because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.
00:36:17.000And we're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people.
00:36:21.000Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives, to turn on our lights and power our factories.
00:37:28.000So, you know, changing from a dictator who has hollowed out your country to something resembling a functioning state and even hopefully more of a democratic one doesn't happen overnight.
00:37:40.000And we've got to continue to support the Libyan people, to give them a chance because
00:37:46.000We didn't lose a single person in Libya.
00:39:31.000Obamacare is super unpopular, so we run the guy who invented it.
00:39:35.000And in 2016, we have two of the most corrupt and insane political candidates on the left running, and we're going to counter them with the most corrupt, insane guy we can find.
00:39:44.000I mean, we could have found a homeless schizophrenic living on the streets of Los Angeles and run him for president, and he'd be giving more coherent answers half the time than the current Republican frontrunner.
00:39:53.000But here's Bernie Sanders being a complete kook.
00:39:57.000I look at climate change almost in military terms.
00:40:00.000I look at the fact that if we do not significantly reduce carbon emissions, there's going to be massive damage done to our country and this planet.
00:40:48.000It's not that the Republicans don't understand science.
00:40:51.000It's they are dependent for their campaign contributions on the fossil fuel industries, which takes us to the most important issue, and that is the need to overturn Citizens United and the corrupt campaign finance system.
00:41:13.000We're going to put everybody in barracks and put everybody on rationing to fight climate change, Bernie.
00:41:17.000And by the way, at a certain point in this campaign, his voice will ultimately give out and he will just be staring at the camera going like this.
00:41:25.000And waving his arms like a crazy person.
00:42:49.000There's a lot of work to be done and that is why I am sick and tired of hearing about my own damn emails!
00:43:07.000No more things I like, but I will say one brief note.
00:43:09.000So yesterday, and I might as well put this under things I hate, because I really do hate it.
00:43:14.000Yesterday, I was targeted by Breitbart News very early in the morning by an article that was put under my father's pseudonym.
00:43:22.000So my dad was a writer for Breitbart News also.
00:43:24.000He resigned about half an hour after I did on Sunday night.
00:43:27.000And they posted an article over at Breitbart News that was an absolute scurrilous hit piece that is ridiculous.
00:43:32.000I talked about it a little bit on yesterday's show.
00:43:34.000And they posted it under the byline, William Bigelow.
00:43:37.000The reason they did that is because my dad's pseudonym over at Breitbart was William Bigelow.
00:43:42.000And he wrote under a pseudonym for two reasons.
00:43:43.000One is, if he screwed something up, he didn't want it to blow back on me.
00:43:47.000He didn't want it to turn into a, okay, we'll get Ben because his dad screwed something up.
00:43:52.000And two, he never wants his career to conflict with mine.
00:43:54.000And two, I get lots of death threats and I asked him to write under a pseudonym because I don't want him getting death threats too, because it's just more stuff for us to worry about.
00:44:03.000I already sleep with a gun by my bed, I didn't feel like he needs to do that too.
00:44:06.000So Breitbart wrote it under William Bigelow knowing I would then have to talk publicly about who William Bigelow is.
00:44:16.000I just want to sign off by, and it's even nastier because all I can say about my father is that my father is the most wonderful person that I know.
00:44:24.000My father is a, you know, obviously aside from my wife and child, my father is an unbelievable human being.
00:44:31.000Anybody who knows him knows what a wonderful guy my dad is.
00:44:45.000And for Breitbart to target him like that is deeply despicable.
00:44:49.000But, you know, this is the new American politics, I suppose, where if you cross Donald Trump or any of his allies, then you can expect that sort of thing.
00:44:56.000That's the thing that I hate for today.
00:44:58.000That's the thing that I hate for today.
00:45:02.000And I find this whole thing utterly reprehensible.
00:45:07.000And I would hope that we get to a point in our politics where we can stop with this sort of gauche, disgusting nonsense and just get back to, I don't know, how about the ideas?