The Ben Shapiro Show


Impeachment Is On The Table | Ep. 867


Summary

Ben Shapiro breaks down the latest in the ongoing saga of Joe Biden and the Ukraine scandal, and why it's time for the United States government to get to the bottom of it. He also explains why it would be a good idea for the government to investigate Joe Biden for his alleged involvement in a bribery scandal involving his son, Hunter Biden, and a company he had a relationship with in Ukraine. And he explains why he thinks Joe Biden should be impeached if it's proven that he conspired with the Ukrainian government to try to get rid of a corrupt prosecutor who was investigating him and his son. Plus, President Trump heads to the UN to confront Iran and climate change, and passions run high while solutions run low. Ben Shapiro is the host of The Ben Shapiro Show on Fox News Radio and host of the conservative podcast, The Daily Wire. He is also a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard and The Daily Caller. His work has been featured in the New York Times, USA Today, and The Huffington Post, and many other publications. He is a frequent contributor to conservative publications and blogs, including The Daily Beast, and is widely respected by conservative publications. He has a regular radio show on SiriusXM Radio and the Weekly Standard, and hosts a show on the conservative radio show The View from Los Angeles radio station on WHYY in the early morning radio show, where he also hosts a weekly show on conservative radio talk show on weekends and radio show in the late night newscast, The View. on the airwaves. and radio station in the morning show on CBS Radio in New York City, and his new book, "The View From the Ground Zero." and on the radio show "The Weekly Standard" on the Hill Street Report, which he founded and hosts the podcast "The Street Report." The Street Report in Washington, D.C. in addition to his new website and podcast on the podcast, The View From The Avenue in Los Angeles, New York Magazine, and on social media, and also on The Hill, and travels the streets of San Francisco, California, and elsewhere in Europe, and in other places in the Midwest and the Caribbean. His new book is out in the UK, and New York, and he is a podcast in the South Africa, and has a blog in the Bay Area, and the Midwest, and everywhere else in the Pacific Coast, he does it all in the Southeast Asia, and does it's all over the Midwest.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Democrats push for impeachment as President Trump denies he asked for dirt.
00:00:03.000 President Trump heads to the UN to confront Iran.
00:00:05.000 And climate change passions run high while solutions run low.
00:00:09.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:00:09.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:00:11.000 Ah, much news to get to today.
00:00:19.000 A lot of it coming from the United Nations, which is indeed a horrible place.
00:00:22.000 It is the most eyesleeve international politics, a hive of scum and villainy.
00:00:26.000 And the fact is that I'm not in favor of eminent domain in the UN as a government building.
00:00:30.000 But if President Trump were to declare for any reason, including corrupt reasons, that the United Nations building ought to be Pursued by the Trump Corporation under eminent domain, torn down and replaced with the Trump Tower, I'd be in favor of it.
00:00:43.000 I mean, frankly, if they want to turn it into a nuclear waste depository, I'm in favor of it.
00:00:47.000 You will see why today as we discuss all of the myriad wonderful activities happening at the UN.
00:00:53.000 We'll get to that in just a little bit.
00:00:54.000 But first, President Trump Continues to dig a hole.
00:00:59.000 And the hole continues to be dug.
00:01:00.000 And the first rule of holes, of course, is to stop digging.
00:01:03.000 Well, yesterday, President Trump sort of went back and forth and back and forth on these Ukraine allegations.
00:01:08.000 So, just to review, to bring you up to date, when last we left our riveting story on this episode of Downton Abbey.
00:01:15.000 The President of the United States had a call with Ukraine.
00:01:18.000 The call with Ukraine involved the President asking the government of Ukraine to look into investigating and prosecuting Hunter Biden and or Joe Biden for a relationship that Hunter Biden had in 2016 with a company called Burisma, which is an oil and gas company in Ukraine.
00:01:33.000 And let's be frank about this.
00:01:34.000 The only reason Hunter Biden had this slot at Burisma is because his daddy is Joe Biden, because Hunter Biden has never actually earned a job.
00:01:41.000 Just a few months earlier, he had been kicked out of the Navy for drug use.
00:01:44.000 I mean, there had been serious problems with Hunter Biden, and yet he was getting these very rich jobs.
00:01:50.000 So he gets this job over at Burisma, and the prosecutor, there's a prosecutor named Shokin over in Ukraine, he starts looking into this.
00:01:56.000 Well, it turns out this guy Shokin also had a significant record of corruption.
00:02:00.000 So Joe Biden, who's vice president at the time, is openly calling on the government of Ukraine to fire this prosecutor.
00:02:06.000 Now, the question is, was he calling on Ukraine to fire the prosecutor because the prosecutor was looking into the corporation where his son was?
00:02:14.000 Or was Biden doing that because, in general, That prosecutor was corrupt.
00:02:18.000 Now Biden maintains the latter.
00:02:20.000 And he was openly bragging about pressuring Ukraine by threatening to withhold American aid to Ukraine.
00:02:24.000 A billion dollars in US loan guarantees, in fact.
00:02:28.000 So that is what set President Trump off.
00:02:30.000 President Trump always wants everybody investigated, as we mentioned yesterday on the program.
00:02:34.000 This is his thing.
00:02:35.000 Every other tweet from President Trump is about how someone should investigate Netflix for the Obama deal.
00:02:40.000 Someone should investigate Saturday Night Live for the FCC.
00:02:43.000 Somebody should investigate my underwear.
00:02:45.000 President Trump constantly wants investigations of people.
00:02:49.000 And so him getting on the line with someone being like, can you investigate something?
00:02:52.000 That's not necessarily a violation of law.
00:02:54.000 It's just the president being the president, which is not good.
00:02:57.000 You don't want the president of the United States talking to foreign leaders and asking them to investigate American citizens as a general rule.
00:03:04.000 But it's also a manner of degree rather than a difference in kind with past activities by prominent politicians.
00:03:10.000 As we've mentioned over the past week, in 2016 Hillary Clinton explicitly worked with the Ukrainian government, the DNC explicitly worked with the Ukrainian government at the Ukrainian embassy to try and dig up dirt on Paul Manafort, who was then Donald Trump's campaign manager because Manafort was allegedly working with the Russians and with the former Ukrainian regime of Viktor Yanukovych.
00:03:29.000 So that was Hillary Clinton engaging in that sort of politics.
00:03:32.000 Barack Obama in the lead up to 2012 was caught on a hot mic telling Dmitry Medvedev, who was a front man for Vladimir Putin, that he was going to offer Putin and Russia flexibility in exchange for Russia sort of backing off before the election.
00:03:43.000 So Trump saying to Ukraine, it'd be great if you could investigate Biden.
00:03:47.000 It's a difference in degree, not a difference in kind.
00:03:50.000 Now what would make it a difference in kind is if this was connected to taxpayer dollars.
00:03:55.000 Meaning that if Donald Trump had said to Ukraine, I'm withholding your military aid unless you investigate Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, that would be an impeachable offense.
00:04:03.000 That would be a crime.
00:04:04.000 It would be bribery.
00:04:05.000 It would look a lot like what Trump is accusing Biden of.
00:04:08.000 Because Trump is accusing Biden of essentially trying to bribe the government of Ukraine to get rid of a prosecutor looking into his son.
00:04:15.000 Now, in that particular case, Biden has claimed, and the evidence seems to be on his side, that Shokin, the prosecutor, was deeply corrupt, that he was ousted for corruption, and that the fact that this prosecutor was looking into Biden's son was sort of just coincidental.
00:04:29.000 And that may make you suspicious, but the fact is that when you have a lot of interlocking parts, and when you have a son who is working internationally in politics, and using your name to get around, there are going to be some conflicts of interest.
00:04:40.000 Or at least apparent conflicts of interest.
00:04:43.000 So Biden's claim looks a lot like Trump's claim today.
00:04:45.000 So Trump is saying, listen, now I had withheld Ukrainian aid, but the reason I was holding Ukrainian aid is because I was in general concerned about corruption in Ukraine, and then finally those fears were quelled, and then I gave the aid.
00:04:58.000 But it didn't have to do specifically with them investigating Joe Biden and Hunter Biden.
00:05:02.000 Now, the case in favor of that is that Ukraine did not investigate Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, and Trump unlocked the aid.
00:05:08.000 And he unlocked the aid before any of this story broke.
00:05:11.000 So if it was an explicit quid pro quo, or even an implicit quid pro quo, you would expect that Trump would not have released the aid.
00:05:17.000 So that is going to be his defense here.
00:05:19.000 But the fact that the aid was being discussed at the same time that Trump was pressing the Ukrainian president to investigate his chief political opponent domestically, that is leading to a lot of, I think, well-founded suspicions.
00:05:32.000 Just as the right is suspicious that Joe Biden was using his leverage In order to knock off a prosecutor in Ukraine in favor of his son, the left is suspicious for exactly the same reasons that Trump was threatening to withhold military aid from Ukraine in pursuit of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden.
00:05:46.000 So it's almost exactly parallel.
00:05:47.000 Like really, almost exactly parallel.
00:05:49.000 So the AP reported yesterday, President Donald Trump ordered his staff to freeze nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine a few days before a phone call in which he pressured the Eastern European nation's leader to investigate the family of political rival Joe Biden, a revelation that comes as more Democrats move toward impeachment proceedings.
00:06:06.000 Now, people are going to look at the timing here, and they're going to say the timing is really suspicious.
00:06:10.000 And the timing is suspicious.
00:06:11.000 I mean, I'm not going to sugarcoat the facts.
00:06:14.000 Of course it's suspicious.
00:06:15.000 If the president says, let's withhold aid to Ukraine, and then he gets on the line with Ukraine, and the first thing he says is, Can you investigate my political opponent, guys?
00:06:22.000 But the fact is that Ukraine probably was not top of mind for Trump, right?
00:06:27.000 If you're his defense lawyer, what you're going to argue is Ukraine, like you think Trump walks around thinking about Ukraine all day?
00:06:34.000 And the fact is that probably somebody came to him and said, should we give aid to Ukraine?
00:06:37.000 And he was like, nah, I'm not, let's wait to see if they're corrupt.
00:06:40.000 And then on the phone call, he just does what Trump does, right?
00:06:42.000 He just freewheels and he talks about Biden and all this stuff.
00:06:45.000 And then, without getting any commitment from the Ukrainians to go after Biden or Hunter Biden, then he releases the aid.
00:06:52.000 So if there's a quid pro quo, then where's the quo?
00:06:54.000 Right?
00:06:55.000 If the idea is that he is giving them aid in exchange for X, where is the X?
00:06:58.000 Because the X never materialized.
00:07:00.000 We'll get to more of this in just one second.
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00:08:35.000 Okay, so the AP reports that Trump, in remarks to reporters at the UN on Tuesday, confirmed that he held up the aid, but he said he did so to fight corruption and urge European nations to share in helping out Ukraine.
00:08:47.000 He said, as far as withholding funds, those funds were paid.
00:08:49.000 They were fully paid.
00:08:51.000 Okay, that's true.
00:08:52.000 He says, my complaint has always been, and I'd withhold it again, and I'll continue to withhold until such time as Europe and other nations contribute to Ukraine.
00:08:58.000 Now that obviously does fit with Trump's broader overall pattern of saying things like people aren't paying their fair share in NATO, and so we might withhold aid until NATO nations start paying more for their own defense.
00:09:08.000 He suggested that Germany and France put in money.
00:09:11.000 And then he used the moment to again suggest the Biden family inappropriately benefited from their ties to Ukraine.
00:09:18.000 So, President Trump, you know, he went off on the press over all of this.
00:09:22.000 He was over at the United Nations, and he took the time to rip into, not Fredo, Chris Cuomo on CNN for his coverage.
00:09:29.000 I don't watch CNN because it's fake news, but I watched Rudy take apart Fredo.
00:09:36.000 Fredo's performance was incompetent.
00:09:39.000 Rudy took him apart.
00:09:41.000 The press doesn't give him credit because they take little tiny snippets Wherever Rudy was a little bit... If he mispronounces a word, they'll show that.
00:09:50.000 They won't show the whole.
00:09:52.000 Rudy Giuliani took Fredo to the cleaners.
00:09:55.000 Okay, and he's talking about the exchange between Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, and not Fredo, we won't call him Fredo, apparently it's a racial slur, not Fredo, Chris Cuomo, over on CNN in exchange in which Rudy Giuliani sort of reversed himself and admitted within 30 seconds that he had actually, that Trump had actually spoken with the Ukrainian president about the possible prosecution of Joe Biden.
00:10:15.000 So a little bit more information on this withholding aid issue, because again, the quid pro quo is the criminal question here.
00:10:21.000 So according to the Washington Post, President Trump And this would be Karen Demirjian, Josh Dowsey, Ellen Nakashima, and Carol Lennig on it, so you can see that they're taking this pretty seriously, putting four reporters on the story.
00:10:32.000 President Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine, at least a week before a phone call in which Trump is said to have pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the son of former VP Joe Biden, according to three senior administration officials.
00:10:47.000 Officials at the Office of Management and Budget relayed Trump's order to the State Department and the Pentagon during an interagency meeting in mid-July.
00:10:54.000 According to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, they explained that the president had concerns and wanted to analyze whether the money needed to be spent at all.
00:11:04.000 Administration officials were instructed to tell lawmakers the delays were part of an interagency process but give them no additional information, a pattern that continued for nearly two months until the White House released the funds on the night of September 11th.
00:11:17.000 So now the Washington Post is reporting something that looks like they're trying to portray this as a cover-up, right?
00:11:22.000 I mean, that is obviously what they're saying.
00:11:24.000 That they're trying to say it wasn't solely up to Trump.
00:11:26.000 It was an interagency process and all the rest, which would be suspicious.
00:11:30.000 I mean, frankly, if the president was saying I want to withhold the aid, but let's call it an interagency process.
00:11:35.000 That would be bad.
00:11:36.000 All of this would be bad.
00:11:37.000 Trump's order to withhold aid to Ukraine a week before his July 25th call with Zelensky is likely to raise questions about the motivation for his decision and fuel suspicions on Capitol Hill that Trump sought to leverage congressionally approved aid to damage a political rival.
00:11:50.000 Now, Kellyanne Conway, spokesperson for the White House, she was on TV this morning and she confirmed that President Trump did withhold the money from Ukraine, but she maintains that it had to do with generalized corruption in Ukraine and not having to do with exerting leverage over Ukraine to go after Biden.
00:12:05.000 The Washington Post had a broken story yesterday afternoon that said that the president told Mick Mulvaney to hold the money, $391 million in Ukrainian military aid, before he talked to the president, the new president of Ukraine.
00:12:19.000 Is that how you believe it all happened?
00:12:21.000 Yes, the president in terms of the president wanted to talk to him first, make sure that this person who the new president who won in the landslide on the anti-corruption agenda was actually going to execute on that and keep the promises of his presidential elective platform.
00:12:36.000 OK, well, the left is going to say, well, and the way that Trump achieved his confirmation that this was an anti-corruption platform is by getting Zelensky to pledge to prosecute Biden.
00:12:48.000 But Zelensky didn't do that.
00:12:49.000 So here's the problem with that particular narrative, at least so far as we know, given the information.
00:12:53.000 The Ukrainian president has completely denied that he gave Trump the okay.
00:12:57.000 So in other words, he never said to Trump, according to the Ukrainian president Zelensky, that he was going to prosecute Biden.
00:13:02.000 So if the logic is Trump said Trump withholds aid for a week, and then he has a call with Zelensky to determine whether he is anti-corruption, but secretly to determine whether he'll go after Biden.
00:13:12.000 And then he says, You know, I want to make sure you're not corrupt, but in order for me to determine that, are you prosecuting by any chance Joe Biden?
00:13:20.000 And then Zelensky says yes, and then Trump releases the aid.
00:13:22.000 That looks like quid pro quo.
00:13:24.000 But apparently Zelensky said no.
00:13:26.000 Apparently Zelensky is like, no, Mr. President, no.
00:13:29.000 And Trump was like, okay, well, I guess you're not corrupt.
00:13:31.000 So that doesn't look exactly like the kind of quid pro quo that we are talking about.
00:13:31.000 Here's the money.
00:13:35.000 Again, I'm just operating off the evidence that I've been given.
00:13:37.000 If the evidence changes, then I will change my opinion.
00:13:39.000 But that's the evidence that is in place right now.
00:13:42.000 Republican senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee said September 12th that the aid to Ukraine had been held up while the Trump administration explored whether Zelensky, the country's new president, was pro-Russian or pro-Western.
00:13:52.000 They said the White House decided to release the aid after Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois threatened to freeze $5 billion in Pentagon funding for next year unless the money for 2019 was distributed.
00:14:01.000 Okay, so now what Democrats are going to claim is that Trump didn't actually want to release the aid, that he wanted to continue holding it over Ukraine, and it was only Dick Durbin threatening a larger funding freeze for the Pentagon that caused Trump to let it go.
00:14:13.000 In other words, there are two plausible narratives.
00:14:17.000 And we don't know the answer to this yet, which is why I'm sure there will be a congressional investigation.
00:14:21.000 And frankly, there should be.
00:14:23.000 Frankly, there should be.
00:14:24.000 I, as an American, want more information on what happened here.
00:14:27.000 I do not want the President of the United States of either party threatening to withhold aid to countries based on them investigating domestic political opponents.
00:14:35.000 That would be wrong.
00:14:36.000 It would be impeachable.
00:14:37.000 It would be a crime.
00:14:38.000 But we don't know that happened yet.
00:14:40.000 And as I say, There are two alternative versions of the timeline being presented.
00:14:44.000 The timeline presented by the Trump administration says, we are considering Ukrainian aid.
00:14:48.000 Trump spoke to Zelensky.
00:14:49.000 Zelensky made no guarantee that he would go after Biden, and in fact didn't say that he would go after Biden.
00:14:54.000 In fact, he said he wouldn't, presumably.
00:14:56.000 And then we released the aid.
00:14:57.000 So that's not a quid pro quo.
00:14:58.000 And on the left, they would say, well, the only reason you released the aid is you did so in spite of the fact that you didn't want to.
00:15:04.000 You wanted to hold it over Zelensky, but Dick Durbin made trouble for you, and so you decided to release the aid.
00:15:10.000 One senior administration official said Monday that Trump's decision to hold back the funds was based on his concerns about there being a lot of corruption in Ukraine, and that the determination to release the money was motivated by the fiscal year's looming close on September 30th.
00:15:22.000 So, the Trump administration making an alternative case.
00:15:25.000 We didn't do it because of Dick Durbin.
00:15:26.000 It's because all of the money has to be released by September 30th.
00:15:28.000 We had to give it an up or a down, and so we gave it an up.
00:15:32.000 There is concern within the administration that if they did not spend the money, they would run afoul of the law, the official said, noting that eventually, Trump did give the OMB's acting director, Russell Vought, permission to release the money.
00:15:42.000 The official emphatically denied there was any link between blocking the aid and pressing Zelensky into investigating the Biden, stating it had nothing to do with a quid pro quo.
00:15:49.000 Well, that is the key line.
00:15:50.000 So the actual source, the actual source for the Washington Post, or at least one of their key sources, is openly saying this was not a quid pro quo.
00:15:58.000 But Democrats are pushing forward anyway.
00:16:02.000 Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, he is, you know, obviously pushing back with the narrative that the Trump administration is providing him.
00:16:08.000 Listen, I mean, he should know, and McConnell obviously should know something about the spending of this money, considering that the Senate did have oversight of the spending of this money.
00:16:18.000 Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, said yesterday that it's regrettable that Chuck Schumer is politicizing this issue.
00:16:23.000 I've been disappointed to see our colleague, the Democratic leader, choose to politicize the committee's ongoing efforts.
00:16:29.000 with respect to a recent whistleblower allegation, the specific subject of which is still unknown.
00:16:37.000 I believe it's extremely important that their work be handled in a secure setting with adequate protections in a bipartisan fashion.
00:16:45.000 It is regrettable that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff and Senator Schumer have chosen to politicize the issue.
00:16:54.000 Okay, well, the Democrats are responding by saying, "Well, it doesn't even matter." Now they're shifting the goalposts.
00:16:59.000 The goalpost was until five seconds ago.
00:17:01.000 Adam Schiff saying, was there a quid pro quo?
00:17:03.000 Now the Democrats are shifting the goalposts saying, Even if there was no quid pro quo, Trump even asking is a method of quid pro quo.
00:17:10.000 So Senator Chris Murphy says, I don't think it really matters whether the president explicitly told the Ukrainians they wouldn't get their security aid if they didn't interfere in the 2020 elections.
00:17:18.000 There's an implicit threat in every demand that a United States president makes of a foreign power.
00:17:22.000 That foreign country knows that if they don't do it, there are likely to be consequences.
00:17:26.000 Well, that's too broad.
00:17:27.000 That's too broad.
00:17:28.000 Because there's a difference between a quid pro quo using American taxpayer dollars and a head of state asking another head of state for an official action.
00:17:36.000 You may not like him asking for the official action, but head of states do this a lot and they do it with domestic political considerations in mind.
00:17:43.000 President Obama was asking the Iranians, basically, for an Iranian nuclear deal in advance of the 2016 election for political reasons domestically, as well as in terms of foreign policies.
00:17:53.000 That's too broad an argument from Senator Murphy, although I do sympathize with the general sentiment that when a president exerts pressure, he should be very careful, which is why I think there is a difference between what Trump did being bad and what he did being criminal.
00:18:05.000 I think it's bad.
00:18:06.000 I don't think he should be asking Ukraine to investigate Biden.
00:18:08.000 If Ukraine wants to investigate Biden, they can investigate Biden.
00:18:11.000 But, that's not criminal, and that's really the standard for impeachable offenses or getting rid of Trump or anything like that.
00:18:17.000 Okay, we'll get to more of this in just one second because Democrats are ramping up the impeachment talk.
00:18:21.000 First, you know, at the end of the day, I need to unwind.
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00:19:27.000 Okay.
00:19:29.000 Mike Pence came out after all of this and he says, okay, well, you guys keep talking quid pro quo.
00:19:34.000 Well, how about the Biden quid pro quo?
00:19:36.000 And again, herein lies the great parallel between what Biden is suspected of doing by Republicans and what Trump is suspected of doing by Democrats.
00:19:44.000 And so far, there's no evidence that Biden actually engaged in a corrupt quid pro quo with the Ukrainian government.
00:19:49.000 And so far, there is no actual evidence that Trump engaged in a corrupt quid pro quo with Ukraine.
00:19:55.000 It just looks real bad.
00:19:56.000 Which, you know, as I get older, this seems to be the nature of politics.
00:20:00.000 Just things look bad all the time.
00:20:02.000 And most of the time, they're not as bad as they look, but they look really ugly in the moment, which is why good politicians try to avoid this sort of stuff.
00:20:09.000 Here's Mike Pence pointing out, guys, I mean, if you're talking quid pro quo, then you actually do have to talk about Joe Biden, who is suspected of doing exactly the same thing.
00:20:17.000 You are now accusing, I mean, like exactly the same thing, withholding aid to Ukraine in exchange for a personal benefit.
00:20:23.000 That is exactly the accusation Trump is making of Biden and the exact accusation that Democrats are making of Trump.
00:20:29.000 So far, there's insufficient evidence for either charge.
00:20:31.000 Here's Mike Pence, though, trying to turn this on its head and go after Joe Biden.
00:20:35.000 He had a quid pro quo.
00:20:37.000 He said to Ukrainian officials that you will not get over a billion dollars in American aid unless you fire a prosecutor who just happened to be investigating a company that Vice President Biden's son was on the very board of.
00:20:52.000 Making a lot of money.
00:20:53.000 Apparently with no background in oil, gas, or energy.
00:20:57.000 The American people have a right to know.
00:21:01.000 Okay, so again, that's the allegation that Republicans are making of Biden, and the evidence is thus far insufficient.
00:21:12.000 And it is the accusation that Democrats are making of Trump, and thus far the evidence is insufficient.
00:21:16.000 Now, Chris Murphy, Who is indeed a motivated actor is claiming that the Ukrainians came away with the impression that there was a requested quid pro quo.
00:21:24.000 So Murphy, who spoke with Zelensky, this is according to the Washington Post, during an early September visit to Ukraine, said on Monday that the Ukrainian president directly expressed concerns at their meeting that the aid that was being cut off to Ukraine by the president was a consequence of his unwillingness to launch an investigation into the Bidens.
00:21:40.000 But that is not what Zelensky has said publicly.
00:21:42.000 Zelensky has not said that publicly.
00:21:44.000 There's also been some talk today that former National Security Advisor John Bolton wanted to release the money to Ukraine because he thought it would help the country while curtailing Russian aggression.
00:21:52.000 But Trump has said he was primarily concerned with corruption.
00:21:55.000 Now, again, that may be smoke that turns out to be nothing, meaning that Bolton I mean, I know John Bolton.
00:22:01.000 Of course John Bolton wanted to release the aid to the Ukrainians.
00:22:04.000 John Bolton is extraordinarily anti-Russian.
00:22:06.000 He sees that the Ukrainian government needs to resist Russian-backed militias in places like Crimea, as well as in the southeast of the country.
00:22:15.000 And the fact is that If Donald Trump had serious corruption concerns about Ukraine, he would withhold that.
00:22:20.000 I mean, there was open... John Bolton got fired, right?
00:22:22.000 I mean, so there was open conflict between Bolton and Trump over a wide variety of Bolton's hawkish issues.
00:22:28.000 That does not speak directly to the question of corruption.
00:22:32.000 Trump keeps telling reporters the same thing.
00:22:34.000 He said, it's very important to talk about corruption.
00:22:36.000 If you don't talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country you think is corrupt?
00:22:40.000 Besides Bolton, several other administration officials told the Washington Post they did not know why the aid was being canceled or why a meeting was not being scheduled.
00:22:48.000 The decision was communicated to state and defense officials on July 18th.
00:22:51.000 Officials familiar with the meeting said, by mid-August, lawmakers were acutely aware that the Office of Management and Budget had assumed all decision-making authority from the defense and state departments and was delaying the distribution of the aid through a series of short-term notices.
00:23:04.000 Several congressional offices questioned whether the OMB had the legal authority to direct federal agencies not to spend money that Congress had already authorized.
00:23:11.000 Spokespeople for the Pentagon and State Department have declined to comment.
00:23:15.000 Mid-August is the time when a whistleblower from the intelligence community filed that complaint regarding Trump and Ukraine to the intelligence community inspector general, Michael Atkinson.
00:23:24.000 Atkinson informed the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of the complaint's existence on September 9th.
00:23:29.000 That is the same day that three House committees launched an investigation to determine whether Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, had improperly pushed Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.
00:23:37.000 So, if you're going to look at that timeline, two days after that complaint was made clear to the Congress that it existed, the aid to Ukraine was released.
00:23:45.000 So, I'm not going to blame anybody for being suspicious here.
00:23:47.000 I'm not.
00:23:48.000 I'm not.
00:23:49.000 I mean, I see why you would be suspicious.
00:23:51.000 I'm also going to say that so far the evidence is insufficient to conclude that this wasn't a generalized question of Trump not wanting to hand over aid to Ukraine, but was in fact Trump trying to hold back aid in order to motivate the Ukrainian government to go after Joe Biden.
00:24:09.000 In just a second, we're going to get to the effect of all of this, because Democrats may end up split on all of this, given the impeachment momentum and the direction in which that is moving.
00:24:19.000 First, let us talk about how expensive your phone bill is.
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00:25:56.000 Okay, so the momentum for impeachment among the Democrats is growing and some of the some of the I would say edge Republicans are wavering.
00:26:06.000 Mitt Romney of Utah, who of course has never been a friend to President Trump, he suggested that Trump should make available the whistleblower complaint that has been deemed to be credible and urgent.
00:26:16.000 I think it'd be very helpful to get to the bottom of the facts.
00:26:18.000 If they don't, it'll be up to the House to decide how to proceed.
00:26:21.000 And frankly, I don't disagree with Mitt Romney.
00:26:24.000 I think more information is good.
00:26:25.000 I am a public citizen of the United States.
00:26:27.000 I would like more information on this phone call.
00:26:29.000 And Trump has agreed to release the transcripts.
00:26:31.000 Now, as I say, I think it's weird that the Democrats are now asking for the whistleblower complaint as opposed to the underlying phone call transcript that they are presumably worried about.
00:26:41.000 Right, I mean, it's weird.
00:26:42.000 They don't want the primary material, they want the secondary material.
00:26:44.000 You know, when you do a historical research project, there are primary materials, that'd be like the actual historical document, and then there are secondary materials, which are a summary of the historical document.
00:26:53.000 Why wouldn't you wanna see the actual historical document, namely the transcript of the phone call between Trump and Zelensky, as opposed to seeing the whistleblower complaint, which is apparently secondhand, because the whistleblower didn't even have firsthand knowledge of the call between Trump and Zelensky.
00:27:08.000 Nonetheless, Democrats are openly talking impeachment now.
00:27:12.000 According to Breitbart, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will convene the Democratic caucus at 4 p.m.
00:27:17.000 Eastern Daylight Time on Tuesday to discuss whether to impeach President Donald Trump.
00:27:21.000 This is a new development reported by the Washington Post congressional correspondent Rachel Bade on Monday evening.
00:27:26.000 It comes in the wake of reports late last week that Trump encouraged Ukrainian officials to reopen inquiries into the business dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden.
00:27:37.000 Now, Republicans are gonna kick back simply because they're gonna say, okay, so you're gonna impeach Trump on the basis of the information that has not yet been fully garnered, and yet you're not willing to do the same about Joe Biden.
00:27:49.000 Like, you're fully willing to dismiss all the complaints about Joe Biden, and the complaints are exactly the same, that you used your government position to withhold aid to Ukraine in benefit for, in one case, in benefit for Hunter Biden, in the other case, to investigate Hunter Biden.
00:28:03.000 So, do you guys have enough information yet is gonna be the Republican response to all of this.
00:28:08.000 But apparently they're going to meet today to talk about impeachment.
00:28:11.000 And seven freshman Democrats have now written a letter to the Washington Post openly calling for impeachment.
00:28:16.000 These representatives are Gil Cisneros of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Chrissy Houlihan of Pennsylvania, Elaine Luria of Virginia, Miki Sherrill of New Jersey, Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan, and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia.
00:28:27.000 Now, Spanberger is kind of notable because Spanberger is considered one of the more moderate Democrats.
00:28:31.000 So this means that the impeachment effort is moving mainstream inside the Democratic House Caucus.
00:28:36.000 Apparently, the current count of Democrats who are willing to countenance impeachment is up to near 160.
00:28:43.000 So they are definitely moving in that direction.
00:28:45.000 According to the Washington Post, In this letter, they say, our lives have been defined by national service.
00:28:50.000 We are not career politicians.
00:28:51.000 We are veterans of the military and of the nation's defense and intelligence agencies, which is why these seven Democrats are being now put out front.
00:28:58.000 Said our service is rooted in the defense of our country on the front lines of national security.
00:29:02.000 We have devoted our lives to the service and security of our country.
00:29:05.000 And throughout our careers, we have sworn oaths to defend the constitution of the United States many times over.
00:29:09.000 Now, we join as a unified group to uphold that oath as we enter uncharted waters and face unprecedented allegations against President Trump.
00:29:17.000 The President of the United States may have used his position to pressure a foreign country into investigating a political opponent, and he sought to use U.S.
00:29:24.000 taxpayer dollars as leverage to do it.
00:29:27.000 Well, that sentence doesn't read.
00:29:28.000 I mean, really, because it says he may have used his position and he sought to use taxpayer dollars.
00:29:34.000 So which is it?
00:29:35.000 May or he did?
00:29:36.000 I mean, so far the information suggests may have.
00:29:39.000 It does not suggest he did.
00:29:40.000 If we knew he did, Trump would be in real trouble right now.
00:29:43.000 He allegedly sought to use the very security assistance dollars appropriated by Congress to create stability in the world, to help root out corruption, and to protect our national security interests for his own personal gain.
00:29:53.000 These allegations are stunning, both in the national security threat they pose and the potential corruption they represent.
00:29:59.000 We also know that on September 9th, the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community notified Congress of a credible and urgent whistleblower complaint related to national security and potentially involving these allegations.
00:30:09.000 Despite federal law requiring the disclosure of the complaint to Congress, the administration has blocked its release to Congress.
00:30:15.000 Well, again, the question with regard to the whistleblower complaint is slightly different than the question that is being asked about the underlying material.
00:30:23.000 The whistleblower complaint, typically, under the law, has to come from the intelligence community about the intelligence community.
00:30:29.000 It can't just be the intelligence community spotting something having nothing to do with the intelligence community.
00:30:34.000 What are they whistleblowing on?
00:30:35.000 Normally, the whistleblowing... There are whistleblower protections at companies.
00:30:40.000 If you work at a company, and that company is violating the law, and you make a whistleblower complaint about a completely separate company, you are not considered a whistleblower under the law.
00:30:48.000 The same thing obtains when it comes to the intelligence community.
00:30:51.000 If you're working for the intelligence community, and you have a complaint about stuff within the intelligence community, that holds under the whistleblower law.
00:30:57.000 Not, I mean, this is the Trump administration's case, not a generalized complaint that you have about President Trump.
00:31:01.000 That'd be kind of weird.
00:31:03.000 In a second, we'll get to more of the Democrats talking impeachment and accelerating their impeachment push.
00:31:08.000 First, let's talk about the importance of a great smile.
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00:32:38.000 So we're going to get to more of impeachment talk.
00:32:38.000 Okay.
00:32:41.000 Plus we have to get to the president talking with Iran and the 2020 race and the Democrats growing ever more radical.
00:32:48.000 Bernie now trying to outflank Elizabeth Warren on his wealth tax.
00:32:51.000 I mean, it's pretty wild stuff and maybe scandal for Elizabeth Warren.
00:32:55.000 We'll get into that in just a moment.
00:32:57.000 First, go over to dailywire.com and subscribe.
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00:33:12.000 Not going to pitch it harder than that today, because come on, we have more news to get to.
00:33:12.000 They are great.
00:33:16.000 But we are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
00:33:20.000 So as I say, seven freshman Democrats have written this letter to The Washington Post, and they continue.
00:33:33.000 They say, this flagrant disregard for the law cannot stand.
00:33:35.000 To uphold and defend our Constitution, Congress must determine whether the president was indeed willing to use his power and withhold security assistance funds to persuade a foreign country to assist him in an upcoming election.
00:33:45.000 As I say, the big defense from Trump is going to be, I released the aid and they didn't investigate Biden, so what's your problem?
00:33:52.000 So, this may come down once again, frankly, to the question of attempt.
00:33:56.000 If you looked at the second half of the Mueller report, there was a lot of attempt.
00:33:59.000 There was a lot of President Trump mouthing off to people in his administration, going, you know what, why don't you go fire Robert Mueller?
00:34:05.000 And people going, no, Mr. President, we're not doing that.
00:34:06.000 And him going, okay.
00:34:08.000 Is this sort of the same thing?
00:34:10.000 Trump threatening to withhold aid, and then the Ukrainians saying no, and then members of his administration and Congress going, you need to release the aid, and him going, okay.
00:34:19.000 Is that a crime?
00:34:20.000 Because if the quid pro quo is never pro quoed, is it a quid pro quo?
00:34:25.000 Is willingness alone enough for impeachable offense?
00:34:29.000 So there's gonna be a two-level defense for Trump, right?
00:34:31.000 One is going to be that he did not, in fact, threaten to withhold aid, right?
00:34:36.000 If that barrier is not passed, this is not an impeachable case.
00:34:38.000 If Trump said, I didn't threaten to withhold aid, I just said to him, it would be great if you could see clear to investigating Hunter Biden, and let's be real, he's corrupt.
00:34:45.000 That's Trump mouthing off.
00:34:46.000 That's bad.
00:34:47.000 It's not good for a president of the United States to do that.
00:34:49.000 I think it's immoral.
00:34:50.000 I don't think it's right.
00:34:51.000 I don't think it's impeachable.
00:34:52.000 If Trump said, I'm gonna withhold taxpayer dollars unless you go investigate my domestic political opponent, then the question becomes, did it happen or did it not?
00:35:02.000 And his attempt enough for an impeachable offense, meaning if he threatens withhold the aid and the Ukrainian said no, and then he let the aid go, which is actually what happened in terms of practicality, is that criminal?
00:35:13.000 And you know, honestly, I'll have to consider the answer to that.
00:35:16.000 I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head.
00:35:18.000 I want to look at the statute.
00:35:19.000 Is attempt enough?
00:35:21.000 Is that attempted bribery if the act is not completed?
00:35:26.000 Was it just Trump mouthing off, right, as Trump is apt to do?
00:35:29.000 Again, the second half of the Mueller report is entirely Trump mouthing off and people saying no to him and then him caving.
00:35:35.000 So this gets pretty complex and pretty sloppy.
00:35:39.000 The Democrats are going to want to investigate, obviously.
00:35:40.000 So they say, And in their effort to show passion, they are going over the top.
00:36:08.000 Here's Cory Booker saying he doesn't think that Watergate compares, which is weird since we had actual evidence of presidential criminality in Watergate and we do not yet have that of President Trump.
00:36:16.000 Here's Booker.
00:36:17.000 What do you make of the news about President Trump and his conversation with the president of Ukraine?
00:36:25.000 It is a betrayal of the office at the scale of which I haven't seen in my lifetime.
00:36:31.000 And you might have to go back to God, I don't think Watergate even compares to what this is.
00:36:38.000 Again, this is an oversell and the Democrats are overselling.
00:36:41.000 This is why, honestly, the Nancy Pelosi wing of the Democratic Party is trying to hold back the enthusiasm on the part of Democrats, because she's saying, let's just wait for the facts to catch up with where we want to go here.
00:36:51.000 That would be the smart move, just politically speaking.
00:36:53.000 OK, now shifting over to the 2020 presidential race.
00:36:56.000 The obvious beneficiary of this continues to be Elizabeth Warren.
00:36:59.000 Everybody is talking about Biden and Ukraine.
00:37:00.000 Everybody's talking about Trump and Ukraine.
00:37:02.000 And Elizabeth Warren is just sitting over to the side, soaking up the glorious media attention.
00:37:07.000 There's a new tracking poll in California, and it shows Elizabeth Warren opening up a wide lead.
00:37:12.000 Now, It is a small sample size, like 600 people, and it's a survey.
00:37:17.000 It's a monthly tracking poll for Capitol Weekly, and it shows Elizabeth Warren increasing her share of the vote, pushing VP Joe Biden down to third place among likely voters.
00:37:26.000 It has her up at 29%, Sanders at 21%, and Biden at 18%.
00:37:30.000 Again, there are these leading candidates.
00:37:32.000 Kamala Harris is really dropping.
00:37:34.000 A lot of her support is shifting over to Elizabeth Warren.
00:37:36.000 If Elizabeth Warren wins California, this primary season is over.
00:37:41.000 This primary season is over.
00:37:43.000 So again, this is kind of a stunning move by Elizabeth Warren.
00:37:49.000 There is a scandal that may be brewing for Elizabeth Warren that is not receiving the sort of attention it should.
00:37:54.000 And that scandal has been revealed courtesy of a group of left-wing journalists.
00:38:01.000 There's one, there's a field journalist at a place called Status Coup, which I've never heard of before.
00:38:06.000 But he reveals that there's a think tank called Demos.
00:38:09.000 And they gave the Working Families Party $45,000 in 27-2018.
00:38:13.000 And the Working Families Party just shocked the world.
00:38:17.000 They'd endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2016, and they came out and they endorsed Elizabeth Warren moving forward to 2020.
00:38:22.000 And they said that our voting breakdown was 60-40 in favor of Elizabeth Warren.
00:38:26.000 There's only one problem.
00:38:27.000 The way that that Working Families Party internal vote goes, half is from the leadership, half is from the populace.
00:38:34.000 And they have not revealed the breakdown of that.
00:38:35.000 Why does that matter?
00:38:36.000 Well, because Demos, which gave 45 grand to the Working Families Party in 2017-2018, is led by?
00:38:43.000 Amelia, okay?
00:38:44.000 Amelia Warren Tiagi, who is Elizabeth Warren's daughter.
00:38:48.000 So in other words, what that looks like is Elizabeth Warren's, like, all these politicians and their kids, man.
00:38:52.000 Elizabeth Warren's kid, chairwoman of Demos, right?
00:38:56.000 Demos gave 45 grand to the Working Families Party.
00:38:59.000 That was the first year that Demos had ever given anything to the Working Families Party.
00:39:02.000 And within one year, the Working Families Party had shifted its support from Bernie Sanders to Elizabeth Warren.
00:39:08.000 Dave Weigel of the Washington Post says, the Working Families Party endorsement of Warren is not surprisingly irritating some Sanders supporters.
00:39:15.000 Warren's 60.9% win combined two totals, a vote by the leaders and an online member vote.
00:39:20.000 Each of those counted for 50% of total, but the Working Families Party won't release the separate tallies, which suggests, of course, that the people voted in favor of Bernie Sanders and the leaders were like, you know what we like?
00:39:29.000 This sweet, sweet cash coming from Elizabeth Warren's daughter.
00:39:33.000 So again, is this a case of smoke but no fire?
00:39:35.000 Or is this a case of smoke and fire?
00:39:37.000 Like, the appearances of conflict, as I say, in politics, are everywhere.
00:39:40.000 Because if you're looking for appearances of conflict, it is not hard to find them, particularly when you have your kids in the political realm.
00:39:47.000 For what it's worth, in 2015, the Working Families Party did reveal the results of the online membership survey, and it was 87% for Bernie Sanders.
00:39:56.000 Whigle says, I talked to the WFP's national director Maurice Mitchell earlier.
00:40:00.000 He made clear the group will not release separate vote totals.
00:40:03.000 For there to be one true vote and to maintain the nature of the secret ballot, all of that went into the back end.
00:40:08.000 Which is pretty incredible.
00:40:10.000 Which is pretty incredible.
00:40:13.000 So Elizabeth Warren, this has not received any of the sort of media coverage that it should be receiving because the media are too busy massaging Elizabeth Warren's presidential hopes.
00:40:22.000 But that is a pretty bad story for Elizabeth Warren.
00:40:24.000 If her daughter looks like she was bribing the Working Families Party to support mom, And the Working Families Party won't reveal the internal vote totals.
00:40:31.000 That is a bad story for Elizabeth Warren, and could in fact harm her.
00:40:35.000 I think you will see Bernie Sanders make a case out of this.
00:40:38.000 Bernie is starting to open up his guns, as I suggested he would have to, on Elizabeth Warren.
00:40:43.000 Earlier today, he proposed a super wealth tax, not just a wealthy tax, a super wealth tax, in which he would reduce the ability of billionaires to be billionaires.
00:40:53.000 He literally tweeted out, Billionaires should not exist.
00:40:56.000 Perhaps we should put them on trains to very cold places.
00:40:59.000 You know, like Montana or something.
00:41:01.000 And we will build... We won't call them gulags, but they will be kind of like gulags.
00:41:05.000 And we'll put them there.
00:41:06.000 And then they won't be billionaires anymore.
00:41:08.000 And we'll liquidate the gulags.
00:41:10.000 And we will unite the workers of the world.
00:41:13.000 Bernie Sanders really going for it.
00:41:15.000 He tweeted out, There is no justice when three billionaires are able to own more wealth than the bottom half of the entire country.
00:41:21.000 Well, no, there might be justice, depending on whether they also employ hundreds of thousands of Americans, made millions of lives better with their products, and engaged in voluntary exchange.
00:41:32.000 So his new plan, Bernie Sanders, he's gonna go for the super-duper wealth tax!
00:41:35.000 And you knew this was coming, right?
00:41:36.000 Elizabeth Warren proposed her 2% wealth tax, which is unconstitutional and would not raise anywhere near the kind of money she's talking about, because you know what wealthy people are very good at?
00:41:44.000 Tax avoidance.
00:41:46.000 Very, very good at it.
00:41:47.000 In fact, it's one of the reasons why you see Democrats say stuff like, well, you remember back in the 1960s when the top tax bracket was 91%?
00:41:53.000 Right, and the effective tax rate on rich people was pretty much the same because rich people started taking their money and putting it in places that were not taxable.
00:42:04.000 The tax revenue of the federal government versus the GDP of the United States has basically remained stable since the reduction of war spending after World War II.
00:42:13.000 So that has not really changed.
00:42:16.000 But Bernie Sanders is proposing a new wealth tax.
00:42:18.000 A 1% tax on net worth over $32 million every year.
00:42:23.000 2% from $50 million to $250 million.
00:42:26.000 3% from $250 million to $500 million.
00:42:29.000 4% from $500 million to $1 billion.
00:42:31.000 And 8% on wealth over $10 billion.
00:42:33.000 He says this will raise $4.35 trillion per decade.
00:42:36.000 And then he says this would be used to fund Bernie's affordable housing plan, universal child care, and the top fund, Medicare for All.
00:42:42.000 I mean, that is sort of a problem considering that Medicare for All is supposed to cost something like $34 trillion, so if he raises $4.35 trillion over the next decade, I'm not sure where the other $30 trillion is going to come from, but this is Bernie Sanders upping the ante.
00:42:57.000 And also, Bernie Sanders is more of a true believer than Elizabeth Warren, and you're going to see him make that case.
00:43:03.000 Just in the last 24 hours, Bernie Sanders is drawing the contrast between Elizabeth Warren and her supposed warm embrace of capitalism and his own love for socialism.
00:43:12.000 Here's Bernie saying that people are brainwashed to believe in capitalism.
00:43:15.000 Someone says this to him, and of course, he fully agrees.
00:43:18.000 Even though I have a lake house and I love pudding.
00:43:20.000 Many types of pudding.
00:43:21.000 Pudding is delicious.
00:43:23.000 I think that the kind of brainwashing or the idea, at least like I grew up with, is that our definition of success is like the American dream in great capitalism.
00:43:36.000 You're rewarded for getting everything and just keeping it to yourself and not worrying about everybody else.
00:43:42.000 And that's sort of like a psychology that we've all been taught.
00:43:46.000 I think Lizzie is exactly right.
00:43:49.000 That's a profound, it's a profound point.
00:43:53.000 Oh, it's super profound to believe that capitalism is good.
00:43:56.000 People have been brainwashed to believe that capitalism is good by, you know, the immense prosperity that capitalism has created.
00:44:02.000 But if we get rid of capitalism, everything's like... I don't know how he claims that he is in favor of, quote-unquote, democratic socialism, Norway, Finland, Sweden style, when he is ripping on capitalism, which provides the entire growth basis for the Nordic countries, as every politician in Norway and Sweden and Finland will tell you openly.
00:44:20.000 But Bernie is trying to draw a contrast with Elizabeth Warren.
00:44:22.000 Meanwhile, Joe Biden continues to sort of stumble around.
00:44:25.000 Yesterday, he was asked by a reporter to make the case for his presidency, and he basically said, no, I'm not going to do it.
00:44:31.000 Iowa, the unemployment rate is two and a half percent.
00:44:34.000 People say they are employed in Iowa and their small businesses are growing.
00:44:38.000 They were employed before he got elected.
00:44:43.000 The president won by 10 percentage points in Iowa.
00:44:46.000 I guess he didn't win by 10 percentage points.
00:44:48.000 What I'm suggesting is he's not the reason for the unemployment rate being down.
00:44:51.000 But why should people want to make a change, though?
00:44:54.000 Well, that's up to them to decide.
00:44:57.000 Why should they?
00:44:58.000 It's for them to decide.
00:45:00.000 We'll make your case.
00:45:02.000 I'm not going to.
00:45:03.000 I'm not going to make my case.
00:45:04.000 Well, you know, you might want to at some point.
00:45:06.000 And Biden's problem is that he's having the so-called Teddy Kennedy problem from 1980.
00:45:10.000 Teddy Kennedy was famously asked in an interview in 1980 when he was running against Jimmy Carter, whether, in fact, he had a reason for wanting to be president and he had no answer.
00:45:20.000 And Biden has that same feel about him.
00:45:22.000 So you've got Elizabeth Warren on the far left, and Joe Biden stumbling around somewhere in the middle slash left.
00:45:27.000 And then you've got Elizabeth Warren, who, again, continues to receive glowing media coverage.
00:45:31.000 And the media are ignoring anything that smacks of corruption for her.
00:45:34.000 Okay, meanwhile, there's a lot of hubbub over at the UN over climate change.
00:45:38.000 And there's a girl named Greta Thunberg who is, I will say, a very effective emotional spokesperson for the climate change effort.
00:45:47.000 And she was very emotional over at the UN.
00:45:49.000 She's not the only one, by the way.
00:45:50.000 There are a bunch of these kids who have been trotted out by the far left.
00:45:53.000 In order to make the climate change case, she's gotten an enormous number of headlines because she's been involved in a huge organizational effort over in Europe to get people into the streets, and here is what it sounded like.
00:46:03.000 You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.
00:46:08.000 Entire ecosystems are collapsing.
00:46:11.000 We are in the beginning of a mass extinction.
00:46:15.000 And all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.
00:46:21.000 How dare you?
00:46:22.000 Okay, now, honestly, I feel bad for her because obviously she believes what she is saying.
00:46:26.000 And there are other kids who are out there saying things like, we're all going to die.
00:46:29.000 We're all gonna, this is gonna be the last generation.
00:46:33.000 I'm not going to blame these kids.
00:46:34.000 These kids are enthusiastic.
00:46:35.000 That's fine.
00:46:36.000 I am going to blame people on the left who specifically hide behind children in order to avoid solutions talk.
00:46:43.000 So there's a friend of mine, I'm not going to name check for his own job security, over at Wharton Business School, and he tweeted a few weeks back that if you actually want to do something, you have to lead with solutions.
00:46:53.000 If you're just talking about problems, that's called complaining.
00:46:56.000 Well, I'm not going to blame kids for complaining because that's what kids do, right?
00:46:59.000 You wouldn't expect a teenager to have a solution because teenagers don't have solutions.
00:47:03.000 What I would expect is for politicians and folks on the left who pretend to be serious about these issues to actually provide the solutions.
00:47:09.000 But this is specifically why they are trotting out kids like Greta Thunberg.
00:47:13.000 The reason they are using those kids as the spokespeople for their cause is because no one expects children, no one expects teenagers to provide solutions They would expect politicians to provide solutions because if you saw Barack Obama say something like that, if he said, how dare you?
00:47:27.000 If he said, how dare you?
00:47:29.000 Why is it?
00:47:30.000 Why can't we just all get together?
00:47:31.000 Then we would all say, okay, what's your solution?
00:47:33.000 You got an answer?
00:47:34.000 And he'd say, nope.
00:47:35.000 And we'd be like, okay, well, then you're full of it.
00:47:37.000 But if a kid does it, we're like, well, that's passionate.
00:47:39.000 That means something.
00:47:40.000 So politicians are using these kids and they're hiding behind these kids to avoid talk about solutions.
00:47:44.000 Why?
00:47:44.000 Because it turns out solutions when it comes to climate change are in short supply and are incredibly difficult.
00:47:50.000 They're very, very hard.
00:47:51.000 And nobody, even on the environmentalist left, wants to talk about that.
00:47:55.000 Instead, they want to throw out this pie-in-the-sky garbage like the Green New Deal, which provides no solutions, by the way.
00:48:00.000 And then they want to say, if you oppose those solutions, it's because you're not passionate enough.
00:48:03.000 It's the same thing the left will do about gun control.
00:48:05.000 We don't actually have solutions tailored to the problem, but we're going to put out a bunch of kids who can talk about the problem.
00:48:13.000 And then, if you say that the kids have no solutions, it's because you're targeting children.
00:48:17.000 This is the goal of people on the left.
00:48:19.000 Put forward the kids as political shields for their own inability to come up with a solution.
00:48:25.000 At the same time that Greta Thunberg is out there pushing on climate change and saying that continuous economic growth is a myth and all this.
00:48:33.000 It's not a myth, by the way.
00:48:34.000 We've had continuous economic growth in the West since 1800.
00:48:37.000 Like really exponential, by the way.
00:48:40.000 Put that aside.
00:48:41.000 At the same time that all of these kids are being trotted out and cheered by the media and Barack Obama going on Twitter and talking about, look at the courage of these children.
00:48:49.000 Aren't they courageous?
00:48:50.000 Isn't that great?
00:48:51.000 They deserve action.
00:48:52.000 And you're like, okay, what action?
00:48:53.000 I don't know, but they deserve action.
00:48:55.000 At the same time that's happening, report from the New York Times.
00:48:57.000 The UN Climate Action Summit on Monday was meant to highlight concrete promises by presidents, prime ministers, and corporate executives to wean the global economy from fossil fuels to avoid the worst effects of global warming.
00:49:07.000 But despite the protests in the streets, China on Monday made no new promises to take stronger climate action.
00:49:13.000 No, you mean that giant protests in the West are not going to affect Xi Jinping?
00:49:18.000 I mean, for God's sake, he was threatening to roll tanks over people in Hong Kong.
00:49:22.000 So you think that he cares what Greta Thunberg has to say?
00:49:25.000 Of course not.
00:49:25.000 And the media know this.
00:49:27.000 The lead emitter on planet Earth is China.
00:49:28.000 It is not close.
00:49:29.000 The second emitter is India.
00:49:31.000 Hey, those countries are not going to change their policies because a bunch of school children in the West are protesting in the streets without any actual solutions to the problems.
00:49:42.000 Which is why I suggest that all of this is a disingenuous effort by people who do not have solutions to the problem in order to politically polarize.
00:49:48.000 And that does break the system because if the suggestion is That if only we had sufficient willingness, we could come to a solution.
00:49:55.000 And then you provide no solutions?
00:49:57.000 You're putting strain on a system that is not capable of carrying it.
00:50:00.000 And then people lose faith in the system.
00:50:03.000 It is an anti-democratic point of view to suggest that complaining is in and of itself a solution, and then you don't have to provide solutions, and no solution is put forth, and people get more passionate and more upset, and the system can't do it.
00:50:15.000 You're putting strains on a system because you are too lazy and too stupid, and I'm not talking about any of these kids.
00:50:19.000 I'm talking about the politicians who are using these kids, and members of the media who are using these kids.
00:50:24.000 You are too lazy, or too disingenuous, or too stupid to come up with solutions.
00:50:28.000 And so instead, you try out a bunch of kids who are not expected to have solutions, so that you can have them complain about the problem, and then if anybody points out that nobody's providing a solution, like, well, those are kids.
00:50:37.000 Why would you expect them to have solutions?
00:50:38.000 I don't.
00:50:39.000 I expect you to have solutions, and I expect you to stop with the political manipulation in which you are engaged, because it is gross and very, very bad for the system.
00:50:46.000 Okay.
00:50:47.000 Time for a quick thing that I like and then a thing that I hate.
00:50:50.000 So, things that I like today.
00:50:52.000 So there is an older series that is really quite excellent called The Killing.
00:50:57.000 This is on AMC.
00:50:59.000 It's now actually available on Netflix.
00:51:01.000 I think originally it aired on AMC.
00:51:04.000 And the series is kind of a slow burn.
00:51:06.000 It's kind of slow moving.
00:51:08.000 And there's one particular performance in this series that is really first rate.
00:51:14.000 I'm trying to remember the name of the actor.
00:51:17.000 Here's a little bit of the trailer, and I'll look up the name of the actor in the meantime.
00:51:24.000 Who are you?
00:51:25.000 I'm Holden from county.
00:51:27.000 Are you Linda?
00:51:27.000 Yeah, I'm Linda.
00:51:30.000 School kids on a field trip this morning found this.
00:51:32.000 You don't have a history of running away, Mrs. Larson?
00:51:35.000 Rosie?
00:51:36.000 No.
00:51:39.000 Okay, so the series opens with the death of a teenager and then the entire first season about investigation of that death.
00:51:45.000 What makes the series a little bit different is there's a lot of focus on the immediate family and the aftermath of the killing.
00:51:50.000 So it's actually quite disturbing in that way.
00:51:53.000 The performance of Joel Kinnaman in this... Joel Kinnaman plays Holder, who's sort of the sidekick to the main character, Morel Enos.
00:52:00.000 I'm not sure how her name is pronounced.
00:52:01.000 And Kinnaman is just terrific.
00:52:03.000 He plays the father in Hannah, which I've also recommended.
00:52:05.000 He's also in Altered Carbon, which is a really interesting series.
00:52:09.000 And he is really excellent.
00:52:10.000 I mean, he can really inhabit a part.
00:52:12.000 If I had not known that he was in those other series, I wouldn't have known that he was in those other series.
00:52:18.000 There's been some talk about Kinnaman as a potential James Bond in the future.
00:52:21.000 When you watch this, or you watch Altered Carbon, You start to see why people are talking that way.
00:52:26.000 So you can check out The Killing.
00:52:27.000 I think there are four seasons that are available on Netflix, and it's worth the watch.
00:52:31.000 It's pretty interesting.
00:52:32.000 Time for a quick thing that I hate.
00:52:37.000 Okay, so when people suggest that maybe the left-leaning media wishes to tear down our social institutions, it's because of pieces like this.
00:52:44.000 The New York Times Magazine has a piece by Malia Wallin called How to Propose an Open Relationship.
00:52:50.000 Now, the answer to this is don't.
00:52:53.000 Right, the answer is don't.
00:52:54.000 Because, as it turns out, open relationships, as a general rule, are not good for people.
00:52:59.000 Monogamy is good for you.
00:53:00.000 It makes you a better person.
00:53:02.000 It urges you to control the drives that are not supposed to overpower you.
00:53:06.000 It urges you to view people as people and not as sex objects.
00:53:10.000 Monogamy is an inherent good.
00:53:12.000 I don't know why that has become a controversial proposition, but I will stick to it anyway.
00:53:16.000 Monogamy is an inherent good.
00:53:17.000 There's something good about monogamy.
00:53:18.000 But the New York Times is going to recommend how you can broach the subject of an open relationship with your spouse.
00:53:23.000 By the way, 95% of people who do this will be men.
00:53:26.000 Because as it turns out, men are much more interested in open relationships than women, as a general rule.
00:53:31.000 Terry Conley, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who studies sexuality says, don't bring it up during an argument.
00:53:37.000 Yeah, you think?
00:53:38.000 You're arguing with your spouse, you're like, you know what?
00:53:41.000 Let's just go F other people, man.
00:53:43.000 That's not gonna go well.
00:53:44.000 If you're in a monogamous relationship and want to explore making it non-monogamous, raise the topic gradually.
00:53:50.000 As a general rule, by the way, topics you have to raise gradually with your spouse are probably topics you shouldn't be broaching.
00:53:56.000 Really, if you have to raise a topic gradually with your spouse, it's a pretty good indicator, and you can't have an open conversation about it, pretty good indicator that this may not be a topic that is worthy of consideration.
00:54:07.000 Conley says, start hypothetically.
00:54:09.000 For example, ask your partner to name the most attractive famous people.
00:54:12.000 You could then say, oh, that person is so hot.
00:54:13.000 If they propositioned you, I'd be fine if you had sex with them.
00:54:16.000 If your partner looks horrified at the suggestion, it doesn't bode well.
00:54:19.000 Well, maybe you should have figured this stuff out before you got in a relationship.
00:54:22.000 I know, I know, suggesting that you might want to base a relationship on values before you get in a relationship with somebody is heresy.
00:54:29.000 Instead, what you're supposed to do is reverse the order of things.
00:54:32.000 So, it's so funny.
00:54:33.000 You watch the old sitcoms, and the usual order of things is you fall in love with somebody, you marry them, and then you go to bed with them.
00:54:39.000 And now, the order of things in every sitcom and every TV show ever is you go to bed with them, maybe you fall in love with them, and then, after 10 years, you marry them.
00:54:47.000 And then we're surprised that relationships aren't working as well, because as it turns out, you know what's the easiest part of a relationship?
00:54:53.000 Having sex with somebody.
00:54:54.000 That part's super easy, because sex is a biological imperative.
00:54:57.000 You know what's the hardest part?
00:54:58.000 The actual relationship part.
00:55:00.000 So if you start with that, maybe your relationship will be better.
00:55:04.000 But the New York Times Magazine is going to help you make the case to your spouse that you should be able to screw other people.
00:55:08.000 Once you decide to make your case outright, be explicit about what you want.
00:55:11.000 Say it clearly.
00:55:12.000 Listen carefully to what your partner wants.
00:55:14.000 To make what sex researchers call consensual, extra dyadic involvement work, you need to be willing to communicate often and with empathy.
00:55:22.000 Monogamous couples move into non-monogamy for all kinds of reasons.
00:55:26.000 Unmet sexual desire, boredom, illness, curiosity.
00:55:29.000 Open arrangements tend to work best for couples with lower inclinations toward jealousy and, in the case of heterosexual pairs, less rigid gender norms.
00:55:36.000 Yeah, shocker.
00:55:37.000 Just the suggestion of romantic permutation can be stimulating.
00:55:40.000 Thank you, New York Times Magazine.
00:55:42.000 You're definitely, you're definitely making things better.
00:55:45.000 If both parties appear willing to try an open relationship, give yourself a trial period.
00:55:48.000 I'm so glad that the New York Times has turned into Cosmo.
00:55:51.000 Cosmo circa 1993.
00:55:53.000 Good job, New York Times.
00:55:54.000 Journalism-ing of the highest order.
00:55:56.000 Okay, we'll be back here later today with two additional hours of content and all the updates on Ukraine, I-crane, we all crane for Ukraine.
00:56:02.000 We'll have all of those updates a little bit later, so that's why you should subscribe.
00:56:05.000 If not, we'll see you here tomorrow.
00:56:06.000 I'm Ben Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.
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