The Ben Shapiro Show - How Screwed Is Trump?

00:00:00.000 Well, this week, Donald Trump is supposed to show up in court in Miami for his actual arraignment on 37 charges, ranging from obstruction of justice to mishandling of classified documents.

00:00:11.000 We need to go through the actual indictment.

00:00:12.000 The actual indictment, the text of the indictment dropped late on Friday afternoon.

00:00:16.000 And the indictment is not good for President Trump.

00:00:18.000 Let's be frank about this.

00:00:19.000 Two things can be true at once.

00:00:21.000 One, Trump clearly mishandled classified material.

00:00:25.000 So have Joe Biden.

00:00:26.000 So did Mike Pence.

00:00:27.000 So did Hillary Clinton. 0.89

00:00:29.000 Trump also, if the allegations in the indictment are correct, is going to have a tough time rebutting charges of obstruction of justice.

00:00:36.000 The indictment is really, really detailed.

00:00:38.000 Now, again, Hillary Clinton did pretty much the same thing and got away with it. 1.00

00:00:42.000 And this is why I suggested the last week two things can be true at once.

00:00:46.000 Trump's behavior in this matter has been abysmal.

00:00:49.000 And two, he should not be prosecuted based on the Comey standard, which was established in order to exonerate Hillary Clinton.

00:00:54.000 Here's the thing that the American people are not going to be able to sustain.

00:00:57.000 A Department of Justice, where when a Democrat is in power, a Republican gets prosecuted.

00:01:01.000 And when Republicans are in power, a Democrat does not get prosecuted and nobody gets prosecuted.

00:01:06.000 Or alternatively, If the Republican is in power and Democrats get prosecuted and Democrats who are in power Republicans get prosecuted, the stakes are wildly raised for every single election because you now know that if the opposition party is in power, you're in actual danger of going to jail.

00:01:19.000 And this is a really scary thing for the vast majority of Americans.

00:01:22.000 It's banana republic type stuff where Hillary Clinton gets exonerated by James Comey.

00:01:26.000 And then five minutes later, Donald Trump is being hit with the exact same indictment.

00:01:31.000 But this time, he may go to jail for literally decades for pretty much the same activity in which Hillary Clinton engaged.

00:01:36.000 Now, if you're Jack Smith and you're the special counsel who's brought in to investigate this case, that really is not a question for you.

00:01:43.000 A lot of people are upset with Jack Smith for bringing in the indictment.

00:01:45.000 This isn't on Jack Smith.

00:01:46.000 This isn't on Merrick Garland.

00:01:47.000 It isn't on Joe Biden.

00:01:48.000 Jack Smith is the special counsel.

00:01:50.000 It is his job to look into whether a crime was committed.

00:01:52.000 And if you look at the indictment, what he thinks he has established, It's very hard to say that he should be not bringing an indictment against Trump, but Merrick Garland is the sitting Attorney General of the United States, and Joe Biden is the sitting President of the United States, and they're the ones who are going to have to decide whether the indictment is actually brought or not.

00:02:08.000 The Attorney General of the United States gets a recommendation from the Special Counsel, and then it's his DOJ that decides whether to go forward with the case, and that does involve factoring in other questions, like what is the political ramification of prosecuting the former President of the United States and the current frontrunner for the opposition party?

00:02:24.000 That is a question for a political appointee like Merrick Garland.

00:02:29.000 It's not really a question for Jack Smith.

00:02:31.000 So again, many things can be true at once.

00:02:32.000 In order to understand the case itself, because the temptation is going to be on both sides for Democrats to say Trump should go to jail and Hillary shouldn't have gone to jail.

00:02:41.000 There was no distinct, there was a distinction, a massive distinction.

00:02:44.000 Hillary was clearly innocent. 0.60

00:02:45.000 Trump is clearly guilty.

00:02:46.000 Trump should clearly go to jail.

00:02:46.000 That's not true.

00:02:48.000 And the temptation on the right is going to be to say that Trump did nothing wrong here, that everything was perfectly on the up and up, that the indictment itself is a sham, and that's not true either.

00:02:56.000 The things that are true are one, if you read the indictment, and if they prove what is in the indictment, Trump's behavior is egregious and probably violates the criminal law.

00:03:04.000 And two, this case should not be brought specifically because you cannot have the appearance from the DOJ.

00:03:10.000 That they will exonerate any Democrat, but they will convict any Republican.

00:03:13.000 You cannot do that.

00:03:14.000 If you do that, then the DOJ loses all legitimacy.

00:03:16.000 At that point, it becomes just a political tool.

00:03:18.000 So we're going to start today by going through the actual indictment.

00:03:20.000 So you know, as people who are following the news, what is actually in the indictment, not the rumors.

00:03:24.000 I'm going to read you the indictment.

00:03:26.000 I'm going to read you large chunks of it so that you actually know what Trump is being charged with and what he allegedly did and what they have evidence of.

00:03:31.000 Now, again, these are all allegations.

00:03:33.000 They're going to have to prove all of this in court beyond a reasonable doubt.

00:03:35.000 Trump has, just like every other criminal defendant, a presumption of innocent until proven guilty.

00:03:40.000 I will say, however, that the indictment in this particular case is significantly more damning than the indictment in the Manhattan DA case, Alvin Bragg's ridiculous case up in New York.

00:03:48.000 That case where Alvin Bragg is trying to claim that Donald Trump violated campaign finance law on the federal level and therefore it can be laundered into a state law violation that amounts to a felony, even though it's really a misdemeanor in the state of New York.

00:03:59.000 And anyways, it's beyond the statute of limitations. 0.67

00:04:01.000 That whole case is ridiculous on its face. 0.86

00:04:03.000 On its face. 0.61

00:04:04.000 That is not the case with this particular indictment.

00:04:07.000 Again, it's perfectly within bounds to say Hillary Clinton did the same thing.

00:04:10.000 There's no reason she shouldn't be in jail.

00:04:12.000 What you cannot say is that Donald Trump did nothing wrong here because that is not true if the indictment has any level of credibility to it at all.

00:04:18.000 Okay, so Trump is supposed to show up on Tuesday in court along with his alleged co-conspirator, Walt Nauta, who is an aide who is kind of moving boxes around for him.

00:04:30.000 And the Trump team is creating a defense. 0.85

00:04:33.000 Its defense is largely rooted in a non-legal defense, right?

00:04:36.000 It's a political defense, which again, is going to be the double standard, which is true.

00:04:39.000 The double standard is true. 0.98

00:04:40.000 There is 100% double standard.

00:04:42.000 It is also true that Trump is going to have a very tough time in a courtroom explaining his behavior here.

00:04:47.000 We'll get to what is in the indictment in just one second.

00:04:49.000 First, it's time to talk about Daily Wire's most trusted privacy partner and premier sponsor of this show, ExpressVPN.

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00:05:53.000 Okay, so let's begin with the documents that actively were in Trump's possession.

00:05:58.000 So according to this indictment, which again was released late afternoon on Friday, So in other words, the original sort of argument that Trump was making, which is that it was basically a signed letter from Kim Jong-un that appears not to be true if the indictment is correct.

00:06:09.000 States and foreign countries, United States nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities

00:06:13.000 of the United States and its allies to military attack and plans for possible retaliation

00:06:17.000 in response to a foreign attack.

00:06:18.000 So in other words, the original sort of argument that Trump was making, which is that it was

00:06:22.000 basically a signed letter from Kim Jong-un that appears not to be true if the indictment

00:06:25.000 is correct.

00:06:26.000 If the indictment is correct, this is highly classified material.

00:06:29.000 If Donald Trump is leaving around in his ballroom documents amounting to specific American retaliatory

00:06:34.000 plans in case of say an Iranian strike in the Middle East.

00:06:39.000 Well, that sort of stuff should not be hanging around in Donald Trump's ballroom.

00:06:42.000 Obviously.

00:06:43.000 And it turns out that one of the key witnesses in this particular case is actually Trump's lawyer.

00:06:47.000 I've said before, and as we'll soon go through in the indictment, the worst job in America is being Donald Trump's lawyer.

00:06:52.000 The reason that is the worst job in America is because he frequently will tell you a thing, and then he will go out and he will absolutely contradict that thing.

00:06:58.000 He will change on the fly.

00:07:00.000 He will do everything that you as a lawyer tell your client not to do.

00:07:04.000 The first rule of lawyering is you tell your client to shut his mouth.

00:07:07.000 Donald Trump has never done that, not once, which makes it very difficult to be his lawyer.

00:07:10.000 Number two, if you are a lawyer, one of the first things that you also tell your client is if you have any critical communication to make, do not make it in writing.

00:07:17.000 Because if you make it in writing, it will be now discoverable.

00:07:20.000 Discoverable means that the other side, prosecution, they can see all that sort of stuff.

00:07:24.000 So if you have to do something bad, Make sure that you pick up the phone and you call somebody.

00:07:28.000 Here I am giving criminal defense advice, but here is the reality.

00:07:30.000 If you're going to do something bad, don't text that you're about to kill your neighbor.

00:07:33.000 It's a really bad idea.

00:07:36.000 Do not write them an email.

00:07:37.000 Don't write an email to your boss being like, I would like to embezzle. 1.00

00:07:40.000 How do I go about doing it?

00:07:41.000 Very, very bad idea.

00:07:43.000 Now, better thing is to not do the criminal thing at all, but...

00:07:46.000 Just as a lawyer, again, this is legal advice.

00:07:48.000 You don't want your client to be talking and you don't want your client to be texting.

00:07:52.000 Donald Trump does a lot of both of those things.

00:07:53.000 And it turns out in this case that one of his biggest obstacles is that he put his own lawyers directly in the line of legal fire, which actually flipped some of his own lawyers.

00:08:01.000 So here is the allegation of fact in the indictment.

00:08:03.000 And we are starting on page 10 of the indictment quote.

00:08:06.000 In January 2021, as he was preparing to leave the White House, Trump and his White House staff, including And now again, that's totally normal.

00:08:12.000 of his aides, packed items, including some of Trump's boxes.

00:08:14.000 Trump was personally involved in this process.

00:08:16.000 Trump caused his boxes containing hundreds of classified documents to be

00:08:19.000 transported from the White House to the Mar-a-Lago club.

00:08:22.000 And now again, that's totally normal.

00:08:24.000 People leave office, they bring with them a bunch of boxes.

00:08:26.000 From January through March 15th, 2021, some of those boxes were stored in the

00:08:30.000 Mar-a-Lago White and Gold Ballroom, in which events and gatherings took place.

00:08:33.000 Trump's boxes were, for a time, stacked on the ballroom stage, as depicted in the photograph below.

00:08:38.000 So somebody took a picture of the fact that he had kept all of these documents, including classified documents, on a giant stage in the ballroom.

00:08:46.000 In March 2021, Naoda and others moved some of Trump's boxes from the White and Gold Ballroom to the Business Center at the Mar-a-Lago Club.

00:08:52.000 On April 5, 2021, an employee of Trump's office texted another employee of that office to ask whether Trump's boxes could be moved out of the Business Center to make room for staff to use it as an office.

00:09:01.000 The second employee responded, quote, Whoa, OK, so POTUS specifically asked Walt for those boxes to be in the business center because they are his papers.

00:09:08.000 Later that day, they exchanged text messages again.

00:09:10.000 Trump employee two said we can definitely make it work if we move his papers into the lake room.

00:09:14.000 And the first employee said there's still a little room in the shower where his other stuff is.

00:09:17.000 Is it only his papers he cares about?

00:09:19.000 There's some other stuff in there that are not papers.

00:09:20.000 Could that go to storage?

00:09:21.000 Or does he want everything in there on property?

00:09:24.000 And the second employee said, yes, anything that's not the beautiful mind paper boxes can definitely go to storage.

00:09:29.000 Want to take a look at the space and start moving tomorrow at a.m.

00:09:32.000 After that text exchange between Trump employee one and Trump employee two in April 2021, some of Trump's boxes were moved from the business center to a bathroom.

00:09:39.000 You can see the picture right here of all of these boxes stored up in the bathroom and into the shower at the Mar-a-Lago Club Lake Room, as depicted in that photograph.

00:09:48.000 Now, so far, this is nothing different than anything that Joe Biden has done.

00:09:51.000 So far, what you're talking about is Joe Biden taking a bunch of boxes and shoving it in his garage next to his Corvette.

00:09:56.000 Or putting it at the Biden Center for Chinese Grift in Washington, D.C., or any of the rest of the stuff.

00:10:00.000 Is that good?

00:10:01.000 No, it's not good.

00:10:02.000 Is that usual?

00:10:03.000 Yeah, it's kind of usual.

00:10:04.000 The fact of the matter is that we now have multiple public officials who have taken classified documents and put them in places they ought not be, including, apparently, in the bathroom over here.

00:10:14.000 Well, it gets worse is the problem.

00:10:15.000 In May 2021, Trump directed that a storage room on the ground floor of the Mar-a-Lago Club be cleaned out so it could be used to store his boxes.

00:10:21.000 The hallway leading to that storage room could be reached from multiple outside entrances, including one accessible from the Mar-a-Lago Club pool patio through a doorway that was often kept open.

00:10:29.000 The storage room was also near the liquor supply closet, linen room, lock shop, and various other rooms.

00:10:33.000 And then all the boxes in June were moved to the storage room.

00:10:37.000 Now, again, you can see all these boxes lined up in the storage room.

00:10:40.000 By December, Nowda found several of Trump's boxes fallen and their contents spilled onto the floor of the storage room, including a document marked secret relative to U.S.

00:10:48.000 FVEY, which denoted the information in the document was releasable only to the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance, consisting of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, and the United States, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

00:10:58.000 Trump Nowda texted one of Trump's employees, quote, I opened the door and found this.

00:11:02.000 Trump employee two said, oh no, oh no, and I'm sorry, POTUS had my phone.

00:11:05.000 One of the photographs now detected to Trump employee two is depicted with the visible classified information redacted.

00:11:11.000 So a bunch of this stuff had spilled onto the floor.

00:11:13.000 Now again, this is all clumsy and bad handling of classified information, and it is no different than Joe Biden keeping this next to his Corvette in his garage.

00:11:19.000 So they are bringing charges on this particular stuff, but this is not the distinction between what Trump did in terms of bringing home documents and what happened next.

00:11:28.000 In May 2021, Trump caused some of his boxes to be brought to his summer residence at the Bedminster Club.

00:11:32.000 Like the Mar-a-Lago Club, after Trump's presidency, the Bedminster Club was not an authorized location for storage, possession, review, display, or discussion of classified documents, according to the indictment.

00:11:40.000 On July 21, 2021, when he was no longer president, Trump gave an interview in his office at the Bedminster Club to a writer and publisher in connection with a forthcoming book.

00:11:48.000 Two members of Trump's staff also attended that interview, which was recorded with Trump's knowledge and consent.

00:11:53.000 Okay, so this is not a secret recording.

00:11:54.000 This is not somebody wearing a wire.

00:11:55.000 Trump knew that he was being recorded.

00:11:57.000 Before the interview, the media had published reports that at the end of Trump's term as president, a senior military official, this would be Mark Milley, purportedly feared that Trump might order an attack on country A, presumably Iran, and the senior military official advised Trump against doing so.

00:12:09.000 Upon greeting the writer, publisher, and two staff members, Trump stated, look what I found.

00:12:12.000 This was Milley's plan of attack.

00:12:14.000 Read it and just show it.

00:12:15.000 It's interesting.

00:12:16.000 Later in the interview, Trump engaged in the following exchange, quote, Well, with Milley, let me see that.

00:12:21.000 I'll show you an example.

00:12:22.000 He said, I wanted to attack Iran.

00:12:23.000 Isn't it amazing?

00:12:24.000 I have a big pile of papers.

00:12:25.000 This thing just came up.

00:12:26.000 Look, this was him.

00:12:27.000 They presented me this.

00:12:28.000 This is off the record, but they presented me this.

00:12:29.000 This was him.

00:12:30.000 This was the Defense Department and him.

00:12:32.000 And the writer says, wow.

00:12:33.000 And Trump says, we looked at some.

00:12:35.000 This was him.

00:12:35.000 This wasn't done by me.

00:12:36.000 This was him.

00:12:36.000 All sorts of stuff.

00:12:37.000 Pages long.

00:12:38.000 Look, the staffer says, mm hmm.

00:12:39.000 Trump says, wait a minute.

00:12:40.000 Let's see here.

00:12:41.000 He says, I just found out.

00:12:42.000 Isn't this amazing?

00:12:43.000 This totally wins my case, you know.

00:12:45.000 Except it is, like, highly confidential.

00:12:47.000 And the staffer laughs.

00:12:48.000 And Trump says, secret.

00:12:49.000 This is secret information.

00:12:50.000 Look at this.

00:12:51.000 You attack and... And then he says, by the way, isn't that incredible?

00:12:54.000 The staffer says, yeah.

00:12:55.000 He says, I was just thinking because we were talking about it.

00:12:56.000 And you know, he said he wanted me to attack Iran and what... And he says, this was done by the military and given to me.

00:13:01.000 I think we can probably, right?

00:13:03.000 Declassify it.

00:13:05.000 And he says, see, as president, I could have declassified it.

00:13:08.000 And the staffer says, yeah.

00:13:09.000 He says, now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret.

00:13:13.000 Well, that's not great, Bob.

00:13:16.000 The reason that is not great, Bob, is because that is Donald Trump on tape acknowledging that he now has classified information in his possession, and he's revealing it to a non-classified source, and he is saying, I could have declassified it, but I did not declassify it.

00:13:27.000 So this blows two of Trump's defenses out of the water if this tape is accurate.

00:13:30.000 Okay, defense number one that Trump would theoretically use is, I didn't know that this was classified material.

00:13:34.000 It was just material there.

00:13:35.000 Now you're calling it classified, but I didn't really know, right?

00:13:37.000 Ignorance is in fact a defense under the law if you are using the intent standard.

00:13:42.000 If the idea is that you have intent to hide classified material, you have intent to mishandle classified material, you have to know that it's classified material in order for you to have the proper intent to hide it.

00:13:51.000 If I take this piece of paper right here on my desk and I just hide it, that's not a crime.

00:13:55.000 If it turns out that it's classified, And I didn't know it was classified.

00:13:59.000 It's still probably not a crime.

00:14:00.000 You have to have intent in order to do it.

00:14:01.000 So defense number one was going to be Trump saying that he had no intent because he didn't know it was classified.

00:14:07.000 Here he is on tape saying it's classified.

00:14:09.000 Defense number two is one that Trump has frequently used, where he says, I declassified everything when I left the White House.

00:14:14.000 I, by nature, declassified everything.

00:14:16.000 OK, the problem is that when you say things like, quote.

00:14:21.000 Quote.

00:14:22.000 He says, I could have declassified it.

00:14:25.000 I can't now, you know, but this is still a secret.

00:14:28.000 This is a direct quote.

00:14:28.000 See, as president, I could have declassified it.

00:14:30.000 Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret.

00:14:35.000 I mean, at that point, you are admitting in full on tape, apparently.

00:14:40.000 On tape, you're admitting that you had the power to declassify and you did not, which means it is not declassified and you know it is classified.

00:14:47.000 Both of those things.

00:14:49.000 We'll continue with the indictment in just one second.

00:14:51.000 Again, I think it's important for everybody to have a clear picture of what's in the indictment so that they have a clear picture of the facts on the ground in this particular case.

00:14:58.000 And then we'll get to the political ramifications and the fact that, again, there is a DOJ double standard here.

00:15:02.000 And the DOJ double... Let's put it this way.

00:15:04.000 If Hillary Clinton had been prosecuted by James Comey, In summer of 2016.

00:15:08.000 If that had happened, it would be very difficult for anyone to argue that Trump should not be prosecuted on these grounds.

00:15:12.000 Because Hillary was not prosecuted on very similar grounds, it is fully within the realm of rationality to say the DOJ should not be prosecuting the chief political opposition to the current president of the United States on these grounds.

00:15:26.000 We'll get to more on this in a second.

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00:16:37.000 Okay, so back to this indictment.

00:16:39.000 In August or September of 2021, says the indictment, when he was no longer president, Trump met in his office at the Betminster Club with a representative of his PAC.

00:16:47.000 During the meeting, Trump commented that an ongoing military operation in country B was not going well.

00:16:51.000 Trump showed PAC representative a classified map of country B and told the PAC representative he should not be showing the map to the PAC representative and to not get too close.

00:16:58.000 The PAC representative did not have security clearance or any need to know classified information about the military operation.

00:17:03.000 So he started showing classified maps around to people, again, who were not actually, you know, under classification standards.

00:17:09.000 On February 16, 2017, four years before Trump's disclosures of classified information, Trump said at a press conference, quote, the first thing I thought of when I heard about this is how does the press get this information that's classified?

00:17:18.000 How do they do it?

00:17:19.000 You know why?

00:17:19.000 Because it's an illegal process and the press should be ashamed of themselves.

00:17:21.000 So what the indictment goes out of its way to do is quote Trump basically 2015, 2016, 2017, saying this stuff is prosecutable.

00:17:27.000 In other words, he knew that criminal activity is criminal.

00:17:31.000 Okay, but here's the problem.

00:17:34.000 So some of this goes to mishandling of classified material that's pretty egregious, right?

00:17:41.000 It is egregious to say, I could have declassified.

00:17:43.000 I did not declassify.

00:17:44.000 It is classified.

00:17:45.000 Here, I need you to write this in your book.

00:17:48.000 Right, that's pretty obvious mishandling of classified information.

00:17:51.000 Now, again, that is still, even that, even that, as egregious as it is, is within the boundaries of a wide variety of public officials who leak classified information to the press.

00:17:59.000 It happens on a routine basis.

00:18:01.000 That stuff happens all the time.

00:18:02.000 Where things start to diverge is when we get to the obstruction of justice charges. 1.00

00:18:05.000 Because here is just plain stupid. 0.99

00:18:07.000 Okay. 1.00

00:18:07.000 I got to say that Trump's behavior when it comes to the handling of classified documents, you could say before that it was foolish. 1.00

00:18:13.000 You could say before that it was messy. 0.97

00:18:14.000 You could also say that it was precedented, right?

00:18:16.000 Storing boxes in your bathroom.

00:18:17.000 Hillary Clinton literally had a private server in her basement and it was connected to a bathroom in Denver. 0.99

00:18:22.000 Okay.

00:18:23.000 There's that.

00:18:24.000 Also, when you say Donald Trump is showing around classified documents to various other players, that's bad.

00:18:30.000 It is, in fact, a violation of statute.

00:18:32.000 Also, that sort of stuff happens all the time.

00:18:34.000 I mean, the press is constantly getting classified information and then reporting on it.

00:18:38.000 So that stuff does happen.

00:18:39.000 When it comes to the obstruction, this is this.

00:18:41.000 Listen, all of this is self inflicted wounds by President Trump.

00:18:44.000 You know that the bad guys are out to get you.

00:18:45.000 You know there are people who want to see you in jail.

00:18:48.000 You know they spend all day long coming up with fake criminal conduct in New York, but there are people out there who just want you to commit a crime and they're begging you to commit a crime.

00:18:57.000 If you're a smart person and you do the smart thing, what you do is you make sure you don't.

00:19:01.000 You're very careful in your behavior.

00:19:02.000 There's a reason that public figures like me overpay their taxes.

00:19:05.000 I deliberately overpay my taxes.

00:19:07.000 Why?

00:19:07.000 Because I don't want the IRS coming after me under Joe Biden.

00:19:10.000 But Donald Trump, because presumably he thinks that he has, you know, kind of full-scale immunity, he acts in ways that are very foolish. 0.98

00:19:16.000 And that is particularly true when it comes to this obstruction stuff. 0.98

00:19:19.000 So now we get into the obstruction area.

00:19:20.000 And this is different materially than what we've seen from other people, except for Hillary Clinton.

00:19:25.000 Here is what the indictment says, quote, beginning in May 2021, the National Archives and Records

00:19:29.000 Administration, which was responsible for archiving presidential records, repeatedly demanded that

00:19:33.000 Trump turn over presidential records he had kept after his presidency. On multiple occasions,

00:19:37.000 beginning in June, NARA warned Trump through his representative that if he did not comply,

00:19:41.000 it would refer the matter of the missing records to the DOJ.

00:19:43.000 Between November 2021 and January 2022, NAUTA and another Trump employee brought boxes from the

00:19:48.000 storage room to Trump's residence for Trump's review.

00:19:51.000 On November 12, 2021, Trump employee 2 provided Trump a photograph of the boxes in the storage room by taping it to one of the boxes Trump employee 2 had placed in Trump's residence.

00:20:00.000 Trump employee 2 provided Trump the photograph so Trump could see how many boxes were in the storage room.

00:20:04.000 On November 17th, 2021, NowTo texted Trump employee 2 about the photograph, saying, quote, he mentioned about a picture of the boxes.

00:20:10.000 He wants me to see it.

00:20:12.000 Trump employee 2 replied, calling you shortly.

00:20:14.000 On November 25th, Trump employee 2 texted NowTo about Trump's review of the boxes, saying, quote, has he mentioned boxes to you?

00:20:19.000 I delivered some, but I think he may need more.

00:20:21.000 Can you ask if he'd like more in the Pine Hall?

00:20:22.000 This is another entry room into Trump's residence.

00:20:24.000 NowTo replied, quote, nothing about boxes yet.

00:20:26.000 He has one he's working on in Pine Hall.

00:20:28.000 Knocked out two boxes yesterday.

00:20:30.000 We're going to continue with this indictment in just one second.

00:20:32.000 And I think it's worthwhile for everybody to have a full fluidity with the criminal charging document here.

00:20:37.000 Because again, this is the most, it's going to be the most controversial prosecution in American political history.

00:20:42.000 What's happening right now.

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00:21:41.000 Okay, back to this indictment.

00:21:44.000 Trump employees are bringing boxes up for Trump to go through after the National Archives has requested months ago that he hands over all of the classified documents.

00:21:52.000 On December 29th, 2021, a Trump employee, too, texted a Trump representative who was in contact with the National Archives.

00:21:59.000 Box answer will be wrenched out of him today, promise.

00:22:01.000 The next day, Trump representative 1 replied in two successive text messages.

00:22:04.000 Hey, just checking on boxes.

00:22:05.000 Would love to have a number to them today.

00:22:07.000 Trump employee 2 spoke to Trump and responded a few hours later in two successive text messages.

00:22:10.000 12 is his number.

00:22:12.000 On January 13th, 2022, Nata texted Trump employee 2 about Trump's tracking of boxes, saying, quote, he's tracking the boxes and more to follow today on whether he wants to go through more today or tomorrow.

00:22:21.000 And this Trump employee replied, thank you.

00:22:23.000 Again, this is Trump employee two who's basically trying to work with the National Archives.

00:22:26.000 Now to send Trump employee two four successive text messages.

00:22:29.000 Quote, one thing he asked was for new covers for the boxes for Monday.

00:22:32.000 Can we get new box covers before giving them on Monday?

00:22:35.000 They have too much writing on them.

00:22:36.000 I marked too much.

00:22:38.000 So they replaced the covers of the boxes.

00:22:40.000 On January 17, 2022, Trump employee 2 and Nowda gathered 15 boxes from Trump's residence, loaded the boxes in Nowda's car, and took them to a commercial truck for delivery to the National Archives.

00:22:49.000 When interviewed by the FBI in May 2022 regarding the location and movement of those boxes, Nowda then made false and misleading statements as set forth in count 38 of the indictment, including falsely stating he was not aware of Trump's boxes being brought to Trump's residence, falsely stating he did not know how the boxes that he and Trump brought from Trump's residence to the commercial truck for delivery had gotten to the residence, So, when the 15 boxes Trump had provided reached NARA in January 2022, NARA reviewed the contents and determined 14 of the boxes contained documents with classification markings.

00:23:23.000 Specifically, the boxes contained 197 documents with classification markings, of which 98 were marked secret, 30 were marked top secret, and the remainder were marked confidential.

00:23:32.000 Okay, and then we get into the moving around of the boxes and the concealment of the boxes.

00:23:37.000 Okay, so May 23rd, 2022, Trump met with his attorneys at Mar-a-Lago to discuss the response to the National Archives subpoena.

00:23:44.000 Trump Attorney 1 and Trump Attorney 2 told Trump they needed to search for documents that would be responsive to the subpoena and then provide a certification that they had complied, that they'd handed over all the documents.

00:23:53.000 Trump then said, quote, I don't want anybody looking.

00:23:55.000 I don't want anybody looking through my boxes.

00:23:57.000 I really don't.

00:23:57.000 I don't want you looking through my boxes.

00:23:59.000 What if we what happens if we just don't respond at all or don't play ball with them?

00:24:03.000 Wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here?

00:24:05.000 Isn't it better if there are no documents?

00:24:08.000 While meeting with the attorneys that day, Trump also said, quote, Attorney, he was great.

00:24:12.000 He did a great job.

00:24:13.000 You know what he said?

00:24:14.000 He said that it was him, that he was the one who basically deleted all of her emails, the 30,000 emails, because they basically dealt with her scheduling and her going to the gym and having beauty appointments.

00:24:22.000 And he was great.

00:24:23.000 And he said she didn't get in any trouble because he said he was the one who deleted them.

00:24:26.000 So this is Trump saying to his attorneys.

00:24:29.000 Effectively speaking, I want you to destroy the documents and then claim that you destroyed the documents by accident.

00:24:34.000 And therefore, I will be off the hook if the documents just disappear.

00:24:37.000 Trump related the story more than once that day.

00:24:39.000 So again, what you have here again, and this is just bad behavior by Trump, not particularly smart behavior by Trump.

00:24:44.000 Is Trump saying, I know what Hillary Clinton did was criminal and she got off because her lawyers were clever.

00:24:49.000 What if you are by clever lawyers, right?

00:24:51.000 On May 23rd, Trump also confirmed his understanding with Trump attorney that Trump attorney would return to Mar-a-Lago to search for any documents with classification markings.

00:24:58.000 The Trump attorney made it clear to Trump that he would conduct a search for responsive documents by looking through the boxes.

00:25:03.000 Trump indicated he wanted to be present and that Trump would change his summer plans to do so.

00:25:07.000 After meeting with his attorneys, Trump delayed his departure from Mar-a-Lago.

00:25:11.000 And then, apparently, between that meeting with his attorneys and when the attorneys were supposed to return to review the boxes, that is when Nauda removed, at Trump's direction, a total of 64 boxes from the storage room and brought them to Trump's residence.

00:25:24.000 Now, what that means is that Trump was effectively hiding this material from his own attorneys.

00:25:27.000 Again, I say it's a bad job to be Trump's attorney.

00:25:29.000 This is why.

00:25:30.000 Because the attorney said, we want to look through the boxes so that when we attest that you have turned over all the material, we can say we've seen all the material and you turned over all the classified stuff.

00:25:38.000 That's essentially what his attorneys want to do.

00:25:40.000 Trump says, great, come back in a week.

00:25:43.000 They come back in a week and Trump has now removed a bunch of those boxes and moved them elsewhere.

00:25:47.000 So then when they go through the boxes and turn over everything, they attest that they've turned everything over.

00:25:51.000 But Trump knows that's not true because he has removed the boxes.

00:25:54.000 On June 1st, 2022, Trump spoke with his attorney by phone and asked whether the attorney was coming to Mar-a-Lago the next day and for exactly what purpose.

00:26:01.000 The attorney said he was going to review the boxes.

00:26:03.000 On June 2nd, the day Trump attorneys were supposed to review Trump's boxes, Trump spoke with Nauda for 24 seconds and then, later that day, Nauda, an employee of Mar-a-Lago, moved 30 boxes from the residence to the storage room.

00:26:15.000 In sum, between May 23rd and June 2nd, before Trump's attorney reviewed Trump's boxes, Nowda moved 64 boxes from the storage room to Trump's residence and brought to the storage room only 30 boxes.

00:26:25.000 So 34 boxes basically went missing.

00:26:28.000 So, this is a problem, okay?

00:26:30.000 This is where you get into the obstruction situation.

00:26:33.000 Because the lawyers then said to the subpoena that they did a diligent search conducted of the boxes moved from the White House to Florida, that any and all responsive documents accompanied their certification, and according to the indictment, these statements were false.

00:26:45.000 Because, among other reasons, Trump had directed now to remove boxes before Trump's attorney's June 2nd review.

00:26:52.000 So, in other words, when they went back to the government, they said, we've turned over all the documents, Trump already knew that he retained all those documents, right?

00:26:58.000 So that's where the obstruction charges are coming from.

00:27:00.000 Okay, that is essentially the case.

00:27:02.000 So the case that we have here is twofold.

00:27:05.000 One is the mishandling of classified material.

00:27:10.000 And that breaks down into he took classified material home and he stored it in his bathroom.

00:27:13.000 Again, no different from Joe Biden in the garage.

00:27:14.000 And then you have the Trump was waving around the documents and saying that they were classified in front of people who did not have classification clearance and he was admitting in those conversations that he had not actually declassified that material so he knew it was classified and he was showing it to other people.

00:27:28.000 Now, again, bad looks very much like many government officials who end up leaking to the press and some of those people do get prosecuted.

00:27:35.000 So as far as we are aware, we're not sure that Hillary Clinton actually took those classified materials and was showing them to people who did not have classification standards.

00:27:43.000 Huma Abedin was her aide, so maybe she was emailing him, but it ended up on Anthony Weiner's computer, so you could speculate that maybe she was doing something similar.

00:27:49.000 And then you have the obstruction.

00:27:50.000 The obstruction is that he went to his own attorneys.

00:27:52.000 And I mean, this is just, I'm sorry, this is a self-inflicted wound.

00:27:55.000 It's a gaping hole.

00:27:56.000 You go to your own attorneys, you have them testify to the government that they cleared all the documents, and then you hide more documents from your own attorneys.

00:28:04.000 And then you get caught on that.

00:28:05.000 Just forget about Hillary for a second. 0.94

00:28:07.000 That on its own is bad.

00:28:08.000 Now, what did Hillary do? 1.00

00:28:10.000 Hillary bleach bit her own computer. 1.00

00:28:12.000 Hillary literally took a program and cleared her own computer of all the documents that were being searched for. 1.00

00:28:16.000 And they were only found later when they ended up on Anthony Weiner's computer.

00:28:20.000 So, this is why I say the double standard is very much in play here as a political argument, as a legal argument.

00:28:26.000 And the question is whether that's going to make any difference.

00:28:30.000 So, Bill Barr, who is Trump's former Attorney General and a person who actively launched the investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.

00:28:38.000 He said that it was a bullcrap probe in the first place and launched an investigation into its origins.

00:28:42.000 He's been very critical of Manhattan DA's prosecution.

00:28:45.000 Bill Barr went on Fox News and he said like, look, I read the indictment and it's not great.

00:28:51.000 What about this chief argument that comes up for the president's allies and his legal team that this should have been handled under the Presidential Records Act, not this Espionage Act charge and other federal statutes that were used here?

00:29:03.000 Well, it started out under the Presidential Records Act and the archives trying to retrieve documents that Trump had no right to have.

00:29:12.000 But it quickly became clear that what the government was really worried about were these classified and very sensitive documents.

00:29:18.000 I was shocked by The degree of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were, frankly.

00:29:24.000 I do think we have to wait and see what the defense says and what proves to be true.

00:29:29.000 But I do think that even half what Andy McCarthy said, which is if even half of it is true, then he's toast.

00:29:36.000 I mean, it's a it's a pretty it's a very detailed indictment and it's very, very damning.

00:29:42.000 So again, we're not really sure what the defense is going to be at this point.

00:29:45.000 I've just spelled out to you what's in the indictment.

00:29:47.000 We haven't yet to hear from the defense.

00:29:48.000 The defense may blow apart the prosecution's case.

00:29:50.000 We don't know yet.

00:29:50.000 And we're going to have to see what that looks like.

00:29:52.000 But the indictment itself, they have text messages, they have recordings, they have pictures.

00:29:57.000 They have a lot of stuff.

00:29:58.000 Well, Donald Trump responded to Bill Barr.

00:30:01.000 He's not responding to the indictment in sort of specific fashion at this point, but he is responding to Bill Barr because the basic rule is that if you have ever worked for Donald Trump and then you cross Donald Trump, then you become an enemy, whether you're Kayleigh McEnany or whether you're Bill Barr.

00:30:12.000 Here is Trump going after Bill Barr for those comments.

00:30:15.000 This thing is a disgrace and virtually everybody other than a lowlife like Bill Barr, who I, as you know, I terminated because he was gutless.

00:30:23.000 He wouldn't do what you're supposed to do.

00:30:25.000 But everybody says this is a Disgraceful indictment.

00:30:29.000 It shouldn't happen.

00:30:30.000 It was done for political reasons, but it was also done, I guess, to cover up the kind of a massive crime that's now being revealed by the Republicans in the House.

00:30:40.000 It's incredible when you look at what happened, when you look at the kind of money that flows into the Biden family and to Joe Biden, by the way.

00:30:47.000 OK, so as a political matter, what Trump is saying here is exactly right.

00:30:51.000 I mean, the fact is that you don't see the DOJ going hard after Hunter Biden here.

00:30:55.000 You didn't see the DOJ go hard after Hillary Clinton.

00:30:57.000 The double standard is a political argument.

00:30:59.000 It's not actually a legal argument.

00:31:00.000 So we're not sure what the defense is going to look like here.

00:31:02.000 In fact, Trump's defense team is currently in flux.

00:31:04.000 According to The Wall Street Journal, he has now replaced one lawyer with another.

00:31:10.000 Former federal prosecutor Todd Blanche was going to lead the defense now.

00:31:14.000 He's already parted ways with two other lawyers who represented him through the special counsel investigation.

00:31:18.000 He's going to bulk up the legal team.

00:31:20.000 But the defense team in flux, it remains unclear, according to the Wall Street Journal, exactly how Trump will confront the criminal charges.

00:31:24.000 It will likely reprise a number of arguments his lawyers have made in their long legal battle to head off the prosecution in the first place.

00:31:30.000 Even many big kind of legal Trump defenders, like Alan Dershowitz, have said the indictment against Trump is very strong here.

00:31:34.000 The real question is going to be what the defense is and also, again, that political double standard.

00:31:39.000 A defense lawyer with expertise in national security, Rob Kellner, said one of the big challenges Jack Smith faces is persuading every one of those 12 jurors it could be a criminal offense for Trump to share documents that a couple of years before when he was president he would have been free to share.

00:31:50.000 But again, that's not really a legal defense as much as it is a political defense.

00:31:55.000 One of the key figures who is going to be testifying here, presumably, is going to be Trump's lawyer, Evan Corcoran, who is the person who is cited in that document I was talking about as Trump attorney number one, the person who is going and telling the National Archives, I turned over all the documents.

00:32:06.000 And then meanwhile, Trump was fibbing to him and moving the documents around behind the scenes.

00:32:10.000 Corcoran, according to the Wall Street Journal, figures prominently in the government's case that Trump conspired to obstruct justice and caused a false statement to be made to federal authorities.

00:32:18.000 Corcoran's compelled testimony, former lawyer Tim Parlatori and three others wrote, was clearly a suboptimal and constitutionally dubious substitute for a more complete search of the property under consent.

00:32:27.000 Trump's lawyers could seek ahead of trial to challenge evidence from Corcoran.

00:32:31.000 They could try to prevent Corcoran from testifying.

00:32:34.000 Somehow.

00:32:35.000 Again, I'm not sure exactly how they would achieve that.

00:32:37.000 Now, Trump does have one advantage in this case, presumably.

00:32:40.000 It has been assigned by lottery to Judge Eileen Cannon, who's a Trump appointee, to the federal court in South Florida.

00:32:45.000 Cannon is very controversial because she previously presided over a lawsuit that Trump brought in this case in which he got a special master appointed to go through the documents before the FBI was allowed to go through the documents.

00:32:56.000 That was eventually overturned by, I believe, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

00:32:59.000 So she's going to be the judge in this particular case.

00:33:01.000 The left is, of course, very upset about all of this, about that particular judge being appointed.

00:33:07.000 When we get to Trump's response to all of this, in particular, in just one moment.

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00:34:59.000 Okay, meanwhile...

00:35:00.000 So President Trump is now responding to the indictment.

00:35:02.000 He responded over the weekend.

00:35:04.000 And again, the political arguments that he is making are fine.

00:35:06.000 I mean, they are totally well within the boundaries.

00:35:09.000 I agree with many of them.

00:35:10.000 And the notion that the weapons of law enforcement have been turned against him since he declared in 2015.

00:35:17.000 I mean, that's obviously true.

00:35:19.000 Also, two things can be true at once.

00:35:21.000 Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

00:35:24.000 Also, just because they're out to get you doesn't mean that you should do dumb things that may be criminal.

00:35:30.000 It's not a smart thing to do.

00:35:33.000 Don't step on rakes.

00:35:35.000 Does that mean that he should be prosecuted again for the 100th time?

00:35:38.000 Hillary Clinton was not, so Donald Trump should not be.

00:35:41.000 However, did Donald Trump create this wound for himself?

00:35:44.000 He did.

00:35:44.000 All he had to do was give the documents back.

00:35:46.000 That's literally all he had to do.

00:35:47.000 When the National Archives called up, he should have figured, listen, there's a bunch of people in the deep state who hate my guts and they're waiting for me to screw up on this.

00:35:54.000 Why don't I just give them back the documents?

00:35:55.000 What is so vital in the documents that he cannot give them back?

00:35:58.000 Why?

00:35:59.000 That's the question people should be asking, especially going into Republican primaries.

00:36:02.000 Is this the kind of judgment that you think is likely to be successful in waging an all-out battle on behalf of American values, especially inside the deep state?

00:36:11.000 Is the best thing that you can do to walk directly into a trap created by your political and legal opponents?

00:36:15.000 Is that the smartest thing you do?

00:36:16.000 Anyway, here is President Trump.

00:36:18.000 He was mocking the charges over the weekend.

00:36:21.000 Donald Trump is indicted and they take one charge and they turn it into 36 charges.

00:36:28.000 You saw that.

00:36:28.000 Everybody was amazed.

00:36:30.000 I'm an innocent man.

00:36:31.000 We will prove that again.

00:36:33.000 Seven years of proving it, and here we go again.

00:36:37.000 Very unfair.

00:36:39.000 Trump also said that this has been great for his poll numbers, which it has been because the general rule is that when people feel that Trump is being victimized by the law enforcement apparatus, it's very good for his poll numbers inside the Republican Party.

00:36:49.000 Now, is it good for his poll numbers in general?

00:36:51.000 No.

00:36:52.000 I mean, is it going to be great for him in a general election?

00:36:55.000 Presumably no, especially because there's every possibility that if he picks, if he gets a jury that is not friendly to him, he could theoretically get jail time.

00:37:03.000 So we could have the historic opportunity to vote for a person who is currently sitting in prison when we vote in 2024.

00:37:11.000 And I'll be honest with you, on a sort of pure excitement level, my excitement for that would be really high.

00:37:17.000 Again, do I think Trump should go to jail for this?

00:37:19.000 No.

00:37:20.000 If that happened, would it be one of the weirdest and most amazing things to happen in the history of the Republic?

00:37:24.000 Well, yeah.

00:37:25.000 I mean, if the major political candidate taking on the current incumbent of the United States was sitting in jail and we're voting for him and then he had to pardon himself, that would be fascinating.

00:37:35.000 I mean, we are living in a weird alternative universe in which God's writing this season is very strange.

00:37:42.000 It's a strange writing by God, this season of Trump.

00:37:44.000 We're in like season six of Trump and the writing has gotten a little bit It's a little bit wild.

00:37:49.000 We're close to jumping the shark in season six of Trump here.

00:37:52.000 In any case, here was President Trump talking about the poll numbers.

00:37:57.000 As far as the joke of an indictment, it's a horrible thing.

00:38:02.000 It's a horrible thing for this country.

00:38:06.000 I mean, the only good thing about it is it's driven my poll numbers way up.

00:38:10.000 Can you believe this?

00:38:13.000 I mean, driven his poll numbers way up among Republicans.

00:38:14.000 So 80% of Republicans said they would vote for him even if he is in prison, which of course is correct.

00:38:19.000 I mean, if he's the nominee, you're going to vote for Joe Biden?

00:38:22.000 Does that guy seem like an upgrade to you?

00:38:23.000 He's done a horrible job.

00:38:25.000 However, here's the problem for him in a general election.

00:38:27.000 Are you likely to be elected under that position?

00:38:31.000 No.

00:38:31.000 According to a new ABC Post Trump indictment poll, 61% say document charges are serious, including 38% of Republicans and 63% of independents.

00:38:39.000 Again, don't worry about what Republicans think and what Democrats think.

00:38:42.000 Think about what independents think.

00:38:44.000 Over 6 in 10 independents think these are serious charges against Trump.

00:38:48.000 And when you look at the number who believe that Trump should be charged in this particular case, what you see is that 48% believe he should be charged and 35% believe he should not.

00:38:58.000 His approval rating is currently at 31%.

00:38:59.000 Are these numbers likely to go up or down as this case continues?

00:39:04.000 Probably they're not likely to go up.

00:39:06.000 So this is the problem.

00:39:07.000 It's also a problem for Republicans.

00:39:09.000 Again, every day that Republicans spend talking about Trump's various activities is a day they're not talking about Joe Biden's various activities and all the bad stuff that Joe Biden has done and the potential corruption that Joe Biden is embroiled in and the FBI whistleblower document that really should be the big story in the country.

00:39:26.000 Lindsey Graham was getting ripped up and down yesterday for making the comparison of Trump to Hillary, and he's right on this. 0.96

00:39:31.000 Again, two things can be true at once.

00:39:33.000 He is right that Hillary Clinton should have been charged.

00:39:35.000 Also, you cannot simultaneously make the case that Hillary should have been charged and Trump should not be charged unless you are basically willing to say that Hillary should have been charged, she wasn't.

00:39:45.000 And because she wasn't, Trump should not be.

00:39:47.000 That's the case that I'm making.

00:39:49.000 Is that once you set the standard, the standard is the standard.

00:39:50.000 You don't get to change the standard because Republicans are the crosshairs.

00:39:53.000 However, what Trump wants Republicans to say is that he did nothing wrong.

00:39:57.000 Well, you can't simultaneously say that Trump did nothing wrong and also Hillary did something wrong.

00:40:00.000 That is not a plausible case to make.

00:40:02.000 Here is Lindsey Graham trying to defend Trump here. 1.00

00:40:05.000 Trump has said repeatedly that he did nothing wrong.

00:40:08.000 Do you believe that?

00:40:10.000 Donald Trump, you may hate his guts, but he is not a spy.

00:40:13.000 He did not commit espionage.

00:40:16.000 What he did is very similar in my view to what Hillary Clinton did.

00:40:20.000 People in the Clinton case took a hammer to a blackberry and destroyed it.

00:40:25.000 They wiped clean with bleach bit emails.

00:40:29.000 They said they were all personal, but some of them actually were classified and it wound up on Anthony Weiner's computer and not a damn thing happened to her.

00:40:37.000 Okay, so again, Lindsey Graham is right about all of this, right?

00:40:40.000 He is correct about all of this, but the best case that you can make for Trump at this point is that they didn't prosecute Hillary.

00:40:46.000 When Trump was leading a chance to lock her up in 2016, then, you know, it's awkward.

00:40:51.000 It's awkward.

00:40:51.000 Jim Jordan, good congressperson from Ohio.

00:40:54.000 I like Jim a lot.

00:40:55.000 But Jim was stuck in a similar situation on CNN, trying to say that Trump, maybe Trump did declassify this material.

00:41:01.000 And then Dana Bash at CNN is like, well, I mean, he literally said on tape he didn't declassify the material.

00:41:05.000 And this is a problem.

00:41:08.000 Dana, the standard is clear.

00:41:10.000 The standard is Navy v. Egan, a 1988 case.

00:41:12.000 Unanimous decision from the court that Justice Blackmun wrote the opinion, and it said the President's ability to classify and control access to national security information flows from the Constitution.

00:41:25.000 He decides.

00:41:26.000 He alone decides.

00:41:27.000 He said he declassified this material.

00:41:29.000 He can put it wherever he wants.

00:41:30.000 He can handle it however he wants.

00:41:32.000 That's the law.

00:41:33.000 Do you have evidence?

00:41:35.000 That the president, when he was president, now former president, actually declassified these documents before he took them?

00:41:44.000 I go on the president's word, and he said he did.

00:41:47.000 And the Supreme Court said that's what counts.

00:41:50.000 So we can have all the things Jack Smith wants to say, but everyone sees this for the political operation it is.

00:41:56.000 The standard is the standard.

00:41:58.000 I didn't set the standard, the Constitution and the Supreme Court did, and they did it in a unanimous fashion, and it was opinion written by Justice Blackmun.

00:42:05.000 So that's the standard.

00:42:06.000 Now again, that would normally be Trump's defense, and Jim Jordan is right.

00:42:09.000 The problem is he was caught on tape literally saying, I could have declassified it, but I didn't.

00:42:13.000 Which makes things kind of awkward.

00:42:14.000 Trump has a habit of putting his defenders in awkward positions over and over and over.

00:42:17.000 Trump's own lawyer tried to make the argument that he only had mementos, and he didn't.

00:42:22.000 I mean, I'm sorry, but those are not mementos.

00:42:25.000 We saw a picture that's been widely publicized, right?

00:42:28.000 Of a box that's flipped over.

00:42:31.000 What's in that box?

00:42:33.000 Newspaper articles.

00:42:34.000 Pictures.

00:42:35.000 Things that are mementos.

00:42:37.000 Things that he has a right to take.

00:42:40.000 So, if I'm someone with documents that I have a right to have as the president who left the White House, do I want people rummaging through my personal items?

00:42:50.000 No.

00:42:51.000 So I think you have to remember, again, like I said, there's context to everything.

00:42:55.000 That context will be brought out on defense.

00:42:57.000 And that's going to be our opportunity.

00:43:00.000 We have not had an opportunity to give our side.

00:43:02.000 And that's the image right there that I'm discussing.

00:43:04.000 It's newspapers.

00:43:05.000 It's pictures.

00:43:06.000 It's mementos.

00:43:08.000 Okay, except that, again, according to the indictment, we'll see.

00:43:11.000 Maybe they can make this case.

00:43:12.000 According to the indictment, Trump himself is saying that there are secret documents, including classified maps, and including secret documents inside the DOD, that he was revealing to non-classified sources.

00:43:21.000 So, here is, in summation, the indictment is a problem for Trump.

00:43:25.000 If this gets in front of a jury, which presumably it will, it's anybody's guess as to which way this is going to go.

00:43:30.000 When it comes to whether the indictment should have been brought in the first place, that is a question for Merrick Garland and Joe Biden.

00:43:35.000 We live in a country where it is a good idea to prosecute your chief political opponent on exactly the same behavior that A candidate of your party was exonerated on in 2016.

00:43:44.000 That is really the political question.

00:43:46.000 Once it gets into a court, though, this is very dangerous stuff for Trump, and it's a self-inflicted wound for Trump.

00:43:49.000 He didn't have to do any of this.

00:43:51.000 When the documents were asked for by the National Archives, he should have returned them.

00:43:54.000 Not because the National Archives deserve them, not because they're the most wonderful people in the world, but because out of an abundance of caution, if you know people are gunning for you, why wouldn't you just do the thing?

00:44:06.000 Especially because it's not like Trump had a special use for these papers.

00:44:08.000 I mean, we know what Trump wanted them for.

00:44:09.000 He wanted them because he wanted them.

00:44:11.000 As I've been saying literally since the beginning of this entire peculiar situation.

00:44:16.000 The reason that Trump did this is because I like documents.

00:44:18.000 He wasn't doing it to distribute to the Chinese.

00:44:20.000 He wasn't giving it to the Russians.

00:44:21.000 There's nothing nefarious.

00:44:22.000 He just wanted the documents.

00:44:24.000 In the same way that Donald Trump likes putting his name on big gold letters on buildings, he wanted these documents in his possession because they were his.

00:44:30.000 Is that foible of personality a smart idea to humor in the middle of a situation in which your political opposition hates your guts and wants you in jail?

00:44:38.000 No, it isn't.

00:44:39.000 And it does speak to judgment when you go forward into a primary.

00:44:42.000 You would think that Donald Trump understands his opposition better than literally anyone since he's the person who's being targeted by them.

00:44:47.000 If you know that, don't you have a moral obligation to your own supporters and to your own agenda to guard yourself?

00:44:53.000 To be careful so they can't do this to you?

00:44:57.000 Well, we'll see how all of this plays out.

00:44:59.000 Alrighty, meanwhile, the fix is in.

00:45:01.000 Hey, somebody has to win and somebody has to lose in this culture war.

00:45:04.000 We used to believe in the United States there was such a thing as neutral.

00:45:07.000 There is no such thing as neutral anymore in the culture wars.

00:45:10.000 The reason there's no such thing as neutral is because neutral used to be, you live the way you want to live and I'll live the way that I want to live.

00:45:16.000 And when it comes to the teaching of children, we will restrict that to writing, reading, arithmetic.

00:45:20.000 How you raise your kids will be a matter of baseline morality.

00:45:24.000 And that's pretty much it.

00:45:25.000 We'll all leave each other alone.

00:45:26.000 And then the left decided that they have a new religion and it must be propagated to every person in the United States.

00:45:31.000 The left, quite rightly, pointed out that the default position in the United States was Judeo-Christian morality. 0.99

00:45:36.000 That was the default silent background to American life.

00:45:40.000 And that had to be dispensed with.

00:45:41.000 It had to be done away with.

00:45:42.000 And the only way that could happen is through sheer silencing.

00:45:45.000 Silencing and public pressure and shouting and screaming and legal cram downs.

00:45:49.000 That's the only way that the current culture could be destroyed and replaced with this new counterculture, pride progress, progressivism.

00:45:58.000 And we're seeing it play out in real time and it is hideous.

00:46:00.000 And it also means that everyone who thought they had the luxury of standing aside and just washing their hands of it and saying, whatever you do, you do wrong.

00:46:06.000 That luxury has now gone away.

00:46:08.000 You cannot wash your hands of this because the battle is upon you, whether you like it or not.

00:46:12.000 We're seeing it online.

00:46:13.000 So apparently, YouTube has now been going through literally all of the accounts over at Daily Wire and they've been looking for strikes.

00:46:22.000 When I say strikes, what I mean here is they've been looking to basically get rid of all of the various accounts that are associated with Daily Wire.

00:46:31.000 My account, Matt Walsh's account, Candace Owens' account, Michael Knoll's account, Jordan Peterson's account, Andrew Clavin's account, Brad Cooper's account.

00:46:36.000 These accounts have a combined total of 157 million views on YouTube.

00:46:43.000 Over the course of just the last month, about 20 million views a day, YouTube is attempting to kill these accounts.

00:46:49.000 Why?

00:46:49.000 Because all of us speak the truth when it comes to the question of men and women and whether men are women or vice versa.

00:46:56.000 So as Jeremy points out, last month, over the past few months, Daily Wire has received about 200 violations from YouTube across our accounts.

00:47:05.000 And these are violations going back years.

00:47:07.000 So they now have their little apparatchiks going through old videos looking for violations.

00:47:12.000 Last month, Matt Walsh was demonetized.

00:47:13.000 On Friday, Candace Owens and Michael Mulls were suspended for seven days after receiving their second strike, and Jordan Peterson was given his first strike three in 90 days and your account is terminated.

00:47:21.000 In the last 90 days, our accounts have received 104 violations for hateful and derogatory content, earning them limited monetization.

00:47:28.000 Again, nearly every one of these violations comes from our coverage of the trans debate.

00:47:33.000 Again, the basic idea here is supposed to be that if you say that a boy cannot become a girl, and that is absolute, sheer, anti-scientific garbage, if you say that, YouTube will ban you.

00:47:43.000 YouTube will strike you down.

00:47:46.000 As Jeremy points out, YouTube claims the ability to openly debate political ideas, even those that are controversial, is core to a functioning democratic society, but this is presumably, at the same time, that they are literally silencing, like preventing you from saying these things.

00:48:00.000 And if you say these things, then they strike you.

00:48:02.000 They hit you with a strike.

00:48:04.000 And even if you mention this stuff, by the way, outside of YouTube, they can hit you with a strike, apparently.

00:48:08.000 This is one of the things that they've been attempting to do.

00:48:10.000 And it's not just from YouTube.

00:48:11.000 YouTube is just the source where 25% of the population gets its news.

00:48:14.000 But it's not just YouTube.

00:48:15.000 The White House is pushing this stuff, too.

00:48:17.000 And the White House is pushing this at the top level.

00:48:20.000 I've seen no greater sign than the White House over the weekend that we have now seen the complete co-op.

00:48:26.000 We've seen ideological coup in the United States.

00:48:29.000 The Judeo-Christian value system has been completely destroyed in favor of pride progress, radical leftist gender ideology, individualistic nonsense. 0.99

00:48:36.000 Joe Biden put up this tweet, quote, today, the people's house, your house sends a clear message to the country and to the world.

00:48:41.000 America is a nation of pride.

00:48:44.000 Giant Pride Progress flag hanging from the center of the rotunda in the center sort of rotunda of the White House.

00:48:52.000 Looking out over the White House lawn.

00:48:55.000 Here's another picture of that from another angle.

00:48:57.000 You can see it's actually centered.

00:48:59.000 The American flags are on either side of the Pride Progress flag, but this is the regime. 0.55

00:49:02.000 Your new regime is the Pride Progress regime.

00:49:05.000 You will be ruled by it.

00:49:07.000 No longer is it a matter of whatever floats your boat, live your own life behind private doors, that's your problem.

00:49:13.000 No longer is that what the United States is.

00:49:15.000 The United States is a place where this is the official doctrine of the United States, is that boys can be girls, girls can be boys, and if you stand up to that, you may be in legal peril.

00:49:24.000 You could wind up in actual legal peril.

00:49:27.000 This is a country where if you say that marriage is between one man and one woman, you could be criminalized.

00:49:32.000 You could have your life taken away from you in a wide variety of ways.

00:49:35.000 Because that is the new regime.

00:49:37.000 Again, there is no neutral.

00:49:39.000 One, the American flag was put aside, and the Pride Progress flag was flown in its place.

00:49:43.000 As I pointed out, this is a coup.

00:49:45.000 It is a coup because, ideologically speaking, no American soldier has ever died for the Pride Progress flag.

00:49:51.000 Because no American soldier has ever served under the Pride Progress flag, because that is not the elected flag of the United States.

00:49:56.000 No law has ever been passed under the Pride Progress flag, because it is not the flag of the United States.

00:49:59.000 It is an ideological flag.

00:50:02.000 All you have to do to understand how sick and perverse this is is just replace the Pride Progress flag with the flag of the Vatican.

00:50:09.000 If you put that up there, everybody would recognize that this was a coup.

00:50:12.000 Put a Pride Progress flag there and everybody says, oh, well, you know, that's just neutrality.

00:50:16.000 That's secular neutrality.

00:50:17.000 It is not secular and it is not neutral.

00:50:18.000 It is a religious movement.

00:50:20.000 It is a fanatic religious movement dedicated to destroying all of its opposition through silencing and through, yes, the force of law. 0.89

00:50:27.000 And when you see that hanging, I mean, again, this is no shock. 0.86

00:50:29.000 You've seen Barack Obama all the way back in 2015, lighting up the White House in gay pride colors.

00:50:33.000 But when you see the Pride Progress flag, giant Pride Progress flag, centered above the seal of the President of the United States, while the American flag is shunted off to the side, in what could maybe be a violation of the flag code, when you see that sort of stuff, you recognize what is happening here.

00:50:47.000 The replacement of one ethic by another.

00:50:50.000 The complete destruction of one ethos and its replacement by another.

00:50:55.000 We all talk about courage.

00:50:55.000 over the weekend because they had a big pride celebration because of course it is pride month,

00:50:58.000 the most holy month in the secular catechism. And he made some pretty astonishing statements.

00:51:03.000 Here we go. We all talk about courage. Well, I see more courage in this lawn than I've seen

00:51:09.000 in any time in the recent past. He literally spoke in a military academy 10 days ago.

00:51:13.000 A military academy.

00:51:17.000 I've always made the joke that whenever we talk about courage and pride and all of this.

00:51:21.000 Oh, so much courage.

00:51:22.000 Oh, the massive courage of young people finding their own genitals and deciding that they wish to put them wherever. 0.71

00:51:27.000 Ah, the courage.

00:51:28.000 It's just like Normandy.

00:51:29.000 But Joe Biden basically says that part out loud.

00:51:31.000 All the memes have become reality.

00:51:34.000 When we make the joke that essentially the Republican foreign policy is a bomb with an American flag on it and the Democratic foreign policy is a bomb with a Pride Progress flag on it, Joe Biden just says the thing.

00:51:47.000 And here is Joe Biden saying that any anti-LGBTQ law, any law restricting, for example, genderqueer for third graders in school libraries violates our most basic values and that we have an obligation to spread those values around the world.

00:51:58.000 He has now replaced the sort of moral imperium of the United States, which used to be rooted In freedom of speech and property rights, for example.

00:52:08.000 Democracy, but while guarding individual rights.

00:52:11.000 He has now replaced that with the single litmus test is how you treat gay marriage.

00:52:18.000 Well, good luck with that.

00:52:19.000 Here's Joe Biden.

00:52:21.000 You know, when families across the country face excruciating decisions to relocate to a different state to protect their child from dangerous anti-LGBTQ laws, we have to act.

00:52:32.000 We have to act as a nation.

00:52:34.000 We need to push back against the hundreds of callous and cynical bills and laws introduced in states targeting transgender children, terrifying families, and criminalizing doctors and nurses.

00:52:48.000 These bills and laws attack the most basic values and freedoms we have as Americans.

00:52:53.000 That's not hyperbole.

00:52:54.000 It's a fact.

00:52:56.000 Our most basic values?

00:52:57.000 The most basic values of America are apparently alternative forms of sexual activity being spread to children.

00:53:02.000 That is it.

00:53:02.000 That is the most basic form of virtue in the United States.

00:53:05.000 Alrighty, guys.

00:53:06.000 The rest of the show continues right now.

00:53:07.000 You're not going to want to miss it.

00:53:07.000 We'll be getting into some stuff I like and some things that I hate as well.

00:53:11.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

00:53:12.000 Use code Shapiro.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - June 12, 2023

How Screwed Is Trump?

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