The Ben Shapiro Show

00:00:00.000 President Trump edges closer to firing Robert Mueller, Vladimir Putin consolidates his grip, and Democrats battle over their future.

00:00:05.000 Lots to talk about.

00:00:06.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:07.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:13.000 I'm punch drunk already, and it's just Monday.

00:00:15.000 That's what's going on here at the studio.

00:00:17.000 A little bit later today, I'm going to be flying out to Pennsylvania.

00:00:19.000 I'm speaking at Susquehanna University, which is happening on Tuesday.

00:00:23.000 And then I'm speaking at Georgetown on Wednesday.

00:00:25.000 So it's going to be a packed week full of wonderful, wonderful things.

00:00:28.000 And we have so many things to talk about today, including the president of the United States, who appears to be on the verge of at least considering maybe firing Robert Mueller.

00:00:36.000 Maybe that's speculation.

00:00:37.000 Maybe it's not.

00:00:37.000 We'll go through all the details first.

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00:01:54.000 All right.

00:01:54.000 So, big news over the weekend is that President Trump thinks, which aren't?

00:01:58.000 Yes, he's been tweeting that out all morning, this morning, on Monday.

00:02:00.000 WITCH HUNT!

00:02:01.000 And I don't know, that's not really how he says it, but it just feels like it should be that way because it's all capital letters.

00:02:06.000 He tweeted that out this morning.

00:02:08.000 Earlier, he tweeted out, the Mueller probe never should have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime.

00:02:13.000 It was based on fraudulent activities and a fake dossier paid for by crooked Hillary in the DNC and improperly used in FISA court for surveillance of my campaign.

00:02:22.000 All caps.

00:02:23.000 WITCH HUNT!

00:02:25.000 So President Trump really going off.

00:02:27.000 Now what led all of this to happen?

00:02:29.000 Well, on Friday afternoon, the president decided, well really the DOJ decided, to fire ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

00:02:35.000 Now, Andy McCabe should have been fired long ago, if you really will recall.

00:02:39.000 Andy McCabe was the fellow whose wife had been paid basically by Terry McAuliffe when she was running for Senate in Virginia, and she lost, but it didn't matter.

00:02:48.000 She was very close to the Clinton team.

00:02:49.000 Andy McCabe had been far too close.

00:02:51.000 Even Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the FBI agents who were very anti-Trump, were texting with each other going, why is Andy still on this case?

00:02:58.000 Legitimately, why is Andy still on this case?

00:02:59.000 And then it turns out that Andy McCabe had leaked a bunch of information to the press.

00:03:03.000 The information that he leaked to the press, by the way,

00:03:05.000 It was not anti-Trump information, it was anti-Hillary information.

00:03:08.000 Because what he leaked to the press, apparently with the approval of James Comey over at the FBI, was that the FBI wanted to reopen the Hillary investigation and Barack Obama's DOJ did not want to reopen the Hillary investigation in the aftermath of learning that there were Hillary Clinton emails on Huma Abedin's husband's server, on Anthony Weiner's server.

00:03:27.000 So it wasn't like Andy McCabe is actually being investigated for being anti-Trump.

00:03:32.000 In fact, what he was being investigated for was going to the press out of school in a way that was actually anti-Hillary.

00:03:37.000 But on Friday, the Trump administration decided we can't let this slide.

00:03:41.000 His pension's supposed to kick in on Sunday.

00:03:43.000 So we'll wait till the very last minute, then we will screw him so hard, it'll be like Debbie Does Dallas.

00:03:47.000 It'll be the worst thing ever.

00:03:50.000 Okay, that's how hard they went after Andy McCabe.

00:03:51.000 Which is such a burn, right?

00:03:52.000 I mean, you spend 20 years working for a place, they wait until 30 seconds before you retire and get your pension, and boom!

00:03:56.000 There goes your pension.

00:04:07.000 Ending the career of an official who had risen to serve as second in command at the Bureau, McCabe had more recently been regularly taunted by President Trump and besieged by accusations he had misled internal investigators at the DOJ.

00:04:17.000 In a blistering statement Friday night, McCabe said his firing is part of a larger effort to discredit the FBI and the Special Counsel's investigation.

00:04:23.000 Quote, This attack on my credibility is one of a larger effort not just to slander me personally, but to taint the FBI, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals more generally.

00:04:32.000 It is part of this administration's ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the Special Counsel investigation which continue to this day.

00:04:38.000 Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the Special Counsel's work.

00:04:42.000 Trump tweeted, quote, Andrew McCabe FIRED, all caps.

00:04:48.000 Okay, so what exactly is Trump talking about?

00:04:49.000 It's not totally clear.

00:04:49.000 Here is where Comey may have lied.

00:04:51.000 Okay, so what Andy McCabe said in his statement is that he had never talked out of school.

00:05:10.000 Right.

00:05:10.000 That when he went to the press anonymously, that had been known by people higher up in the FBI.

00:05:14.000 Well, there was only one person higher up in the FBI at the time.

00:05:16.000 That would have been James Comey.

00:05:17.000 Well, James Comey had said openly this would be this would be clip 17.

00:05:22.000 James Comey had said openly in testimony that he had never approved any anonymous leaking to the FBI.

00:05:27.000 Oh, there is definitely a problem.

00:05:29.000 You know, this would seem to contradict what Comey said.

00:05:33.000 Now, we already know that Comey is a leaker.

00:05:36.000 The question is, is he a serial leaker?

00:05:38.000 Because we know that after he was fired, he removed his memos, which, by the way, I believe were FBI material, at least seven of them, and gave them to a friend at Columbia Law School, some of which, at least the information, was leaked to the media.

00:05:54.000 This is an even more serious allegation, because it would be occurring when he was director, and it will raise questions of whether Comey is not just a leaker, but a liar.

00:06:23.000 This case was not brought by Attorney General Jeff Sessions just out of, you know, out of hand.

00:06:29.000 This case was brought because the Office of Professional Responsibility, which is a non-partisan group inside the FBI, which is known for not going after people very hard, went really hard after Andy McCabe and said he did something really wrong.

00:06:40.000 They gave a recommendation to the FBI that he be fired, and to the DOJ that he be fired, and that his pension essentially be suspended.

00:06:48.000 Now that brings us to question number two.

00:06:49.000 And question number two is, why does this matter?

00:06:52.000 Why isn't it just a guy did something wrong at the FBI and now he's been fired?

00:06:55.000 And McCabe's take is, well, Trump is going to use this to try and blast the entire FBI as corrupt, and then suggest that they were out to get him and are still out to get him, and that's what the Mueller investigation is.

00:07:05.000 And Trump's normal response to this would be, listen, I'm not trying to stop the Mueller investigation.

00:07:09.000 They're doing their own thing.

00:07:10.000 What you did is wrong.

00:07:11.000 What Mueller is doing is what Mueller is doing, and we'll deal with that as it comes.

00:07:14.000 But unfortunately, the president of the United States continues to make himself look more and more guilty.

00:07:18.000 Now, do I think the president is actually guilty of collusion?

00:07:20.000 No, I don't.

00:07:21.000 Do I think the president is guilty of obstruction?

00:07:23.000 No, because I think it's very difficult for the president to be guilty of obstruction according to the laws that are on the books, right?

00:07:27.000 I've looked at all those laws.

00:07:28.000 We've discussed them multiple times on the program before.

00:07:31.000 Very difficult for the president of the United States to actually be guilty of obstruction.

00:07:35.000 With that said, the president is making himself look more guilty by flailing around like a crazy person, like Kermit the Frog in that gif.

00:07:43.000 That's what the president is basically doing on Twitter every day.

00:07:46.000 So, after McCabe is fired, instead of him just saying, listen, McCabe had to go.

00:07:50.000 McCabe was a problem.

00:07:51.000 And then saying Comey had to go.

00:07:52.000 Comey was a problem.

00:07:53.000 Instead it turns into Comey was a problem, McCabe is a problem, and Mueller is a problem.

00:07:57.000 So President Trump tweeted out, warning Robert Mueller, and this follows a week in which Mueller, it came out, is now investigating the financial ties that Trump has to all his financial dealings.

00:08:07.000 Trump had said a long time ago that was a red line for him, that if Mueller started looking into his financial dealings, he'd seriously consider firing Mueller.

00:08:12.000 So if you're on the left, here's what this lineup of events looks like.

00:08:15.000 Mueller starts investigating Trump's finances.

00:08:17.000 Trump fires McCabe.

00:08:19.000 Or Jeff Sessions fires McCabe.

00:08:20.000 And then Trump says, let's fire Mueller.

00:08:22.000 Right?

00:08:23.000 It looks like you could just skip the middleman.

00:08:24.000 And it looks like Trump is trying to shut down Mueller because he doesn't like what Mueller is looking at.

00:08:28.000 If you're on the left, I can't say that's completely implausible based on the president's behavior.

00:08:32.000 What I really think this is, is Trump has been wildly annoyed.

00:08:35.000 I know everyone in the White House is very, very annoyed.

00:08:37.000 But the continuation of an investigation they think has no merit and they feel like it's just dogging the president day in and day out.

00:08:43.000 Trump is a guy who fixates on things, whether it is unmentionables or whether it is Robert Mueller.

00:08:49.000 The man fixates on things.

00:08:50.000 And once he fixates, he doesn't let go.

00:08:53.000 Also not a joke I meant to make.

00:08:54.000 In any case, Trump tweeted this out.

00:08:55.000 He said, All caps.

00:09:08.000 Whenever I yell like that, it means it's all capital letters.

00:09:11.000 I do think there's a sort of E.E.

00:09:12.000 Cummings quality to President Trump's tweets, you know, with the random punctuation and the capital letters.

00:09:16.000 It is amusing to me.

00:09:17.000 In any case, Trump also tweeted out, wow, watch Comey lie under oath to Senator G when asked, have you ever, that'd be Senator Graham, not like original gangster, Senator G when asked, have you ever been an anonymous source or known someone else to be an anonymous source?

00:09:29.000 He said, strongly, never, no.

00:09:31.000 He lied as clearly shown on Fox and Friends.

00:09:34.000 OK, all of this is to say that the president of the United States is not making himself look particularly good here with all of this activity, even though Andy McCabe had to go.

00:09:42.000 Because I don't understand what McCabe had to do with the Mueller investigation, per se.

00:09:45.000 Remember, the Mueller investigation only began.

00:09:47.000 The special counsel was only appointed because the president insisted on using Rod Rosenstein as his hitman to go after James Comey.

00:09:54.000 And that meant that Rod Rosenstein now became a witness in the Comey matter, which meant that he had to appoint a special investigator.

00:09:59.000 It really had nothing to do with Andy McCabe.

00:10:01.000 Trump has basically seized on every piece of evidence that there are members of the FBI who didn't like him as evidence that everything against him is wrong and false and slanderous.

00:10:10.000 And I don't see how you get from point A to point B. I'm willing to hear the case, but I don't really see what McCabe has to do with the Mueller investigation per se.

00:10:18.000 And every attempt that Trump makes to connect the two makes it look like he's sort of desperate.

00:10:22.000 Now, I know there are people on the right who are very angry with me when I say this, because they want to believe that President Trump is totally right on all of this, there's a deep state coup that's happening, and Andy McCabe was part of this deep state coup.

00:10:32.000 Again, you're going to need the evidence.

00:10:34.000 I need the evidence to see that in order for me to believe that.

00:10:37.000 And there's a really good piece in The Wall Street Journal about how truth has sort of become tribal on both sides with regard to American politics these days.

00:10:43.000 And unfortunately, people are believing what they want to believe instead of believing things are true.

00:10:47.000 And if you say to them, I need the evidence for that, then this shows that you are not part of the tribe and therefore you are disloyal.

00:10:54.000 So if I say, President Trump makes an assertion, I want to know whether the assertion is true, this is a symptom of my disloyalty.

00:10:59.000 Whereas if I would just say, Trump said it,

00:11:02.000 And if people attack him on the truth, then it's even more true because they're just attacking Trump.

00:11:06.000 Then, you know, then I would be, I guess, a tribal loyalist.

00:11:09.000 Well, I'm not into the tribal loyalty thing, as you may have noticed.

00:11:11.000 So I'm going to ask again what McCabe's firing has to do with Robert Mueller and why the president is connecting the two.

00:11:17.000 What's even worse is that President Trump's lawyer is coming out and saying the same thing.

00:11:21.000 So his personal attorney on Saturday called on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to shut down the special counsel investigation into Trump's campaign associates' ties to Russia.

00:11:29.000 Listen, I'm fine with the end of this investigation, but I think Trump firing him is not going to be a good look for him.

00:11:34.000 I'll explain why this is a problem for Trump, why his lawyer was saying stupid things in just a second.

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00:13:05.000 OK, so President Trump's attorney came out, John Dowd.

00:13:09.000 And he said this, quote, This is what Dowd says,

00:13:29.000 So I guess the idea here is that we know that McCabe is corrupt.

00:13:32.000 We know that McCabe has supposedly lied or at least Comey has lied.

00:13:37.000 And so we are now going to attribute to James Comey that he let off the Mueller investigation on bad evidence.

00:13:42.000 And so we should end this sucker right now.

00:13:43.000 Now, again.

00:13:44.000 Remember, the Mueller investigation was not originally predicated on the Carter Page FISA warrant that everybody is so hot and bothered about.

00:13:50.000 Originally, it was predicated on the George Papadopoulos surveillance.

00:13:53.000 Papadopoulos was a relatively low-level staffer, I think, for the Trump campaign.

00:13:58.000 There's not a lot of evidence that he was a higher-up.

00:13:59.000 But he was talking with Russian sources in London who said that they could smuggle him Hillary emails, and then he was telling that back to the Trump campaign.

00:14:06.000 That's what led off this investigation in the first place.

00:14:09.000 And again, we still don't know that everything in the Steele dossier that the FISA warrant was based on was false.

00:14:14.000 We know that some of it was false.

00:14:15.000 We don't know that the entire thing was false.

00:14:17.000 We know that it was politically motivated, but a lot of OPPO research is politically motivated, and that doesn't necessarily mean that it's false.

00:14:22.000 In any case, should this investigation have been begun on the evidence that we now see?

00:14:27.000 I'm not sure that it should have.

00:14:28.000 Should it be ended on this basis?

00:14:30.000 Well, it's very difficult politically for the President of the United States to end this investigation on the basis that Andy McCabe got fired for a completely separate reason.

00:14:37.000 And again, there's a bit of revisionist history going on here.

00:14:39.000 The revisionist history is, if this was an attempt to get Trump,

00:14:43.000 If this was always an attempt to get Trump, if they initiated this investigation in March 2016, right as Trump was about to win the nomination, and the attempt was to get Trump, then why didn't any of this leak until after Trump was already elected president?

00:14:54.000 The only stuff that was coming out from the FBI during the election cycle had nothing to do with Trump.

00:14:58.000 It had to do instead with Hillary Clinton.

00:15:00.000 Remember, James Comey is the guy who basically sunk Hillary's chances.

00:15:03.000 It's amazing to watch as people shift the narrative, right?

00:15:06.000 So now Comey is a favorite of the Democrats again.

00:15:08.000 When, for a few minutes, he was the worst guy in the world, according to Democrats.

00:15:12.000 Now, James Comey is an absolutely insufferable doof.

00:15:15.000 So, Comey came out in response to Trump ripping into McCabe and into Comey and into Mueller, and here's what he said.

00:15:21.000 And so, I have just one note for James Comey, who is just, as I say, insufferable.

00:15:23.000 And this guy, when Trump said that Comey's a grandstander, that is 100% true.

00:15:36.000 That is 100% true.

00:15:37.000 When he says that Comey is sanctimonious, that is certainly true.

00:15:40.000 How do I know this?

00:15:41.000 Because if James Comey has such a great story to tell, why is he waiting for his book release to tell it?

00:15:47.000 If it is vitally important that the American people know what James Comey knows, if it's vitally important that the American people judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not, then why is James Comey waiting to shill his book?

00:15:59.000 Why is he waiting to get out there and sell his book in these tours where they're selling the tickets for $100 a pop?

00:16:04.000 In order to tell his story.

00:16:05.000 That doesn't sound like somebody who's a deeply honorable guy.

00:16:08.000 That sounds like a guy who's trying to make some money on the side and make himself seem honorable at the same time.

00:16:13.000 So it is quite possible that there are no good players here, right?

00:16:15.000 It is quite possible that nobody is doing anything right on any of this.

00:16:19.000 And so Trump's own lawyers started to walk this back.

00:16:21.000 Ty Cobb, not the great batsman for the Detroit Tigers, but Ty Cobb, Trump's lawyer, he came out and he sort of backed off John Dowd's comments saying that Trump should fire Mueller.

00:16:32.000 So Ty Cobb instead said Trump, it turns out, is not actually discussing firing Mueller.

00:16:37.000 So he came out and he reversed himself.

00:16:39.000 The White House lawyer said, in response to media speculation and related questions being posed to the administration, the White House yet again confirms that the president is not considering or discussing the firing of the special counsel Robert Mueller.

00:16:49.000 This is what he says.

00:16:50.000 OK, so that obviously is different from what Trump's other lawyer said.

00:16:53.000 And then Trump's other lawyer, I love this, came out and said, well, I was speaking on my own.

00:16:56.000 I didn't really mean that I was speaking for Trump.

00:16:58.000 How many lawyers can come out and say they're not speaking on behalf of their client?

00:17:01.000 We now have one lawyer of Trump's who said he didn't pay off

00:17:04.000 A porn star on behalf of President Trump.

00:17:07.000 And now we have another lawyer who says he wasn't speaking on behalf of President Trump.

00:17:10.000 It is not good to be an agent, in fact, for the President of the United States.

00:17:14.000 That is certainly true.

00:17:16.000 Meanwhile, there are people who are making the obvious point here, which is that if Trump wants to look innocent here, he should just shut up.

00:17:22.000 If Trump wants to look innocent here, he should let the wheels of justice grind exceedingly small.

00:17:27.000 Trey Gowdy makes this point.

00:17:28.000 Trey Gowdy, of course, is a hardcore right-winger from South Carolina.

00:17:32.000 He's the head of the House Oversight Committee.

00:17:34.000 And here's what he had to say about Trump's lawyers coming out and talking about Mueller.

00:17:37.000 Chris, if you look at the jurisdiction for Robert Mueller, first and foremost, what did Russia do to this country in 2016?

00:17:45.000 That is supremely important and it has nothing to do with collusion.

00:17:49.000 So, to suggest that Mueller should shut down and that all he is looking at is collusion, if you have an innocent client, Mr. Dowd, act like it.

00:17:56.000 That's exactly right.

00:17:57.000 I mean, the fact that Gowdy is saying exactly what I'm saying, I take it as a point of pride, because the reality is that Trump should stop with all this stuff.

00:18:05.000 And Republicans are saying this too, right?

00:18:07.000 Republican senators are now warning the president not to fire Mueller.

00:18:10.000 They say the president has to let the federal investigators finish what they're doing.

00:18:13.000 Again, I think a lot of this has to do with Trump just being annoyed.

00:18:16.000 I think he fired Comey because he was annoyed.

00:18:17.000 I don't think this is all planned out.

00:18:19.000 Again, I don't think you can have it both ways if you're a Democrat.

00:18:21.000 Either Trump is a doof who just does things on the spur of the moment, or Trump is a master manipulator, behind the scenes, working with Putin.

00:18:28.000 The guy can't even capitalize correctly.

00:18:31.000 I'm going to go with he's just a doof doing things on the spur of the moment because I think that that fits the evidence a little bit better than he is nefariously plotting everything.

00:18:38.000 Jeff Flake, who's become a rather irritating figure, he came out and he said that McCabe's firing was a horrible day for democracy.

00:18:44.000 Of course, he said this on CNN.

00:18:46.000 Well, when the President said it was a great day for democracy yesterday, I think it was a horrible day for democracy.

00:18:53.000 To have firings like this happening at the top from the President and the Attorney General does not speak well for what's going on.

00:19:03.000 So, I don't know what the designs are on Mueller, but it seems to be building toward that, and I just hope it doesn't go there.

00:19:12.000 I don't think it's going to go there.

00:19:12.000 I think a lot of this is loose talk by the president, because the president does a lot of loose talk.

00:19:16.000 But, hey, I've been proved wrong before.

00:19:17.000 The president usually has about a six-month time delay.

00:19:19.000 He's got one of these — President Trump's policies, or at least his firings and staffing policies, are sort of like one of those cartoon bombs in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, where you light the wick and it's eight miles long, and then it takes a year for the bomb actually to go off.

00:19:32.000 It's possible that's what Trump is doing.

00:19:33.000 It's also possible that he's just talking like Trump talks.

00:19:36.000 I do love that Jeff Flake looks like he just stayed a little bit late at a wedding and had to make it on time for this State of the Union hit.

00:19:44.000 Again, I think a lot of this is Trump being frustrated.

00:19:46.000 This is what Reuters is reporting.

00:19:47.000 There's a shock.

00:19:56.000 We're good to go.

00:20:11.000 Is a relatively nonpartisan.

00:20:13.000 Apparently, it's a pretty clean nonpartisan group.

00:20:16.000 So I have a tough time saying that, you know, that it has to do with with Sessions just wanting to, again, Sessions has been pretty stalwart in not allowing Trump to interfere with Mueller.

00:20:26.000 He's been pretty stalwart in not getting rid of Rod Rosenstein.

00:20:29.000 He's been pretty stalwart in not getting rid of McCabe until the evidence came out from the Office of Professional Responsibility.

00:20:33.000 So all of the talk about how

00:20:36.000 Trump's people are acting as lackeys in this.

00:20:38.000 I just, I don't see the evidence for that at all.

00:20:41.000 Okay, meanwhile, there's a story that came out over the weekend that got all sorts of press, and I'm not really sure why.

00:20:46.000 Yeah, let me correct.

00:20:48.000 I have a very strong feeling why, but

00:20:51.000 I don't think it's the reason that a lot of other people are saying.

00:20:54.000 So there's a story that came out from the UK Guardian about Cambridge Analytica.

00:20:58.000 Cambridge Analytica was the data firm that President Trump was using during his election.

00:21:01.000 It's also been used by the Heritage Foundation.

00:21:03.000 Originally, I believe it was used by the Cruz campaign.

00:21:06.000 And the idea was that they were nefariously gathering data from Facebook.

00:21:10.000 So it's a very long article by a woman named Carol Cadwallader.

00:21:14.000 And it's about a guy named Christopher Wiley, who is an openly gay guy who worked with Steve Bannon and I guess maybe Milo Yiannopoulos.

00:21:23.000 He said that he described a tool on Facebook called Steve Bannon's Psychological Warfare Mind F Tool.

00:21:29.000 Now, as you know, I am no fan of Steve Bannon's.

00:21:32.000 I think Steve Bannon is one of the worst persons I have ever met in my life.

00:21:36.000 I think he's one of the worst people ever.

00:21:38.000 I think Steve is garbage.

00:21:40.000 This story does not hold up to scrutiny.

00:21:42.000 I'll explain why in just a second.

00:21:43.000 First, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at stamps.com.

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00:22:57.000 Okay, so.

00:23:15.000 This story basically alleges that there is some sort of evil, nefarious corruption going on inside the Trump campaign with regard to data operations.

00:23:22.000 So again, the UK Guardian is reporting that in 2014, Steve Bannon was Wiley's boss.

00:23:27.000 The guy who we're talking about here is a guy named Christopher Wiley, who is a pink-haired guy.

00:23:32.000 I mean, this is part of the article.

00:23:33.000 He's a pink-haired guy who was apparently some sort of computer genius.

00:23:37.000 And Robert Mercer was the guy who was funding Cambridge Analytica.

00:23:41.000 The idea they brought into was to bring big data and social media to an established military methodology, information operations, then turn it on the U.S.

00:23:49.000 electorate.

00:23:49.000 It was Wiley who came up with that idea and oversaw its realization.

00:23:52.000 It was Wiley who became the source for the UK Guardian.

00:23:55.000 And here's what it basically says.

00:23:58.000 Apparently, he ended up showing the author a tranche of documents that laid out secret workings behind Cambridge Analytica.

00:24:03.000 In the months following publication, it was revealed that the company had reached out to WikiLeaks to help distribute

00:24:08.000 Hillary Clinton's stolen emails in 2016, and then we watched as it became subject to a special counsel investigation into possible Russian collusion in the U.S.

00:24:15.000 election.

00:24:16.000 The Observer also received the first of three letters from Cambridge Analytica threatening to sue Guardian News and Media for defamation.

00:24:22.000 We're still only just starting to understand the maelstrom of forces that came together to create the conditions for what Mueller confirmed last month was information warfare, but Wiley offers a unique, worm's eye view of the events of 2016, of how Facebook was hijacked,

00:24:35.000 Okay, so what exactly is that extraordinary attack?

00:24:40.000 He says that they broke Facebook.

00:24:45.000 What exactly did they do?

00:24:46.000 Well, apparently, they sent out a couple of links on Facebook that allowed them to gather information.

00:24:50.000 That's pretty much it.

00:24:52.000 Apparently, all they really did, I mean, they buried the lead all the way down in this story.

00:24:57.000 You know, in the middle of this long biography of who this guy is.

00:25:01.000 But essentially, all they did was they put out things like IQ tests and personality quizzes that give you access to somebody's Facebook, right?

00:25:09.000 You've had these before.

00:25:10.000 Somebody will send you to a site and they'll say, take this personality quiz.

00:25:13.000 And they'll say, do you want to access this personality quiz through Facebook?

00:25:15.000 So you say yes.

00:25:16.000 Well, now they have access to the information on your profile.

00:25:19.000 That's not illegal.

00:25:20.000 You consented to it.

00:25:21.000 It's not a big deal.

00:25:23.000 That's all Cambridge Analytica did.

00:25:25.000 They put out some of these quizzes, they gathered all the information, and then they had all this profile information of people that wasn't political information per se, but it was personality information, and personality gauges pretty highly with politics.

00:25:36.000 It tracks pretty highly with politics.

00:25:37.000 There are a bunch of studies that suggest that if you like certain types of food, or if you like certain types of music, that that's likely to mean that you are of a particular political party, for example.

00:25:46.000 So, Christopher Wiley is one of the guys who was designing all of this.

00:25:50.000 So, in 2013, Wiley met Steve Bannon, and he apparently said that Bannon got it immediately.

00:25:56.000 And so, he decided to pitch the Mercers on making Cambridge Analytica the nexus for doing all of this stuff.

00:26:04.000 Cambridge Analytica would be the great cyber warfare nexus.

00:26:08.000 So Robert Mercer was going to pour millions of dollars.

00:26:11.000 They flew to New York to meet the Mercers in Rebecca's Manhattan apartment.

00:26:13.000 And Wiley said, she loved me.

00:26:14.000 She was like, oh, we need more of your type on our side.

00:26:16.000 Your type, the gays.

00:26:17.000 She loved the gays.

00:26:17.000 So did Steve.

00:26:18.000 He saw us as early adopters.

00:26:19.000 He figured if you can get the gays on board, everyone else will follow.

00:26:21.000 It's why he was into the whole Milo thing.

00:26:23.000 So Robert Mercer was very into it.

00:26:25.000 So what did Wiley do?

00:26:27.000 So apparently, what Wiley did was he executed a contract with SEL, which is the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, which shows they were in a commercial agreement with a company called Global Science Research, owned by Cambridge-based academic Alexander Kogan, specifically premised on the harvesting and processing of Facebook data so that it could be matched to personality traits and voter rolls.

00:26:46.000 Cambridge Analytica spent $7 million to amass the data, about $1 million of it with the Global Science Research Center.

00:26:52.000 She has the bank records and wire transfers.

00:26:55.000 Emails reveal Wiley first negotiated with Michal Kaczynski, one of the co-authors of the original MyPersonality research paper, to use the MyPersonality database.

00:27:03.000 And then they replicated the information in that database, and then they built up a store of data.

00:27:08.000 Now, what exactly?

00:27:09.000 Apparently, they collected millions of profiles in a matter of weeks.

00:27:13.000 But none of this is illegal.

00:27:15.000 There's nothing here that's illegal.

00:27:17.000 Now, as soon as Wiley reported this, Facebook immediately suspended him.

00:27:20.000 So here's the real question.

00:27:21.000 Why are the media covering this?

00:27:22.000 I'm not seeing anything here that says to me something deeply nefarious and horrible went on.

00:27:26.000 It looks like data gathering that was done by the Obama camp, I'm sure, in 2012 and in 2008.

00:27:30.000 This was playing catch-up on the right for all the data banking that had been done on the left.

00:27:36.000 One of the big criticisms of the Romney campaign in 2012 is that their information system was so bad, that their data analytics were so weak.

00:27:42.000 And so Trump was trying to fight that, and Bannon was trying to fight that, which seems to me a smart thing to do, not an illegal thing to do.

00:27:48.000 So why exactly is everybody focusing on this?

00:27:50.000 I'll tell you.

00:27:50.000 The answer that everybody is focusing in on non-illegal behavior by Cambridge Analytica is because they don't want to pressure Cambridge Analytica.

00:27:57.000 They want to pressure Facebook.

00:27:59.000 And they want to pressure Facebook, and they want to pressure YouTube, and they want to pressure Google, and they want to pressure Twitter.

00:28:04.000 There's a massive attack on conservatives going on right now in social media.

00:28:08.000 Facebook's traffic, they've used their new algorithm to target people on the right who are open about their right-wing views.

00:28:15.000 If you are a quote-unquote objective site, then they have not targeted you in the same way.

00:28:19.000 There was a study that came out last week demonstrating that major sites, I'm talking about everybody from Breitbart to Daily Wire, has been targeted by Facebook and that our traffic has dropped pretty precipitously for all of those sites, right?

00:28:29.000 Daily Caller, The Blaze.

00:28:32.000 All of these, every single right-wing site saw a major hit in traffic since Facebook instituted its new algorithm.

00:28:38.000 Wanna know what didn't see a major drop in traffic?

00:28:40.000 You wanna know what didn't see any drop in traffic, essentially?

00:28:43.000 The folks on the left.

00:28:43.000 They saw virtually no drop in traffic whatsoever, which is not surprising.

00:28:48.000 Why would they see a drop in traffic?

00:28:49.000 After all, Facebook is a left-wing outlet, and the goal here is to pressure Facebook, right?

00:28:53.000 Dianne Feinstein's been pressuring Facebook, and now the media are gonna say Cambridge Analytica used Facebook.

00:28:57.000 They better crack down on these right-wingers.

00:28:59.000 These right-wingers who are doing data mining.

00:29:01.000 They better find a way to crack down.

00:29:02.000 That's what this is all about.

00:29:03.000 It's about militarizing Google and Facebook and YouTube and Twitter.

00:29:06.000 It's why Louis Farrakhan is still being recommended as a follow for a lot of people, including me, right?

00:29:12.000 Because I've tweeted about Louis Farrakhan, it will recommend that I follow Louis Farrakhan.

00:29:15.000 He's not been suspended from Twitter.

00:29:17.000 But you know who was suspended from Twitter?

00:29:18.000 Steven Crowder for a week.

00:29:20.000 All of these algorithms are being built by left-wingers, and whether they know it or not, they are biased against right-wingers, and it is really gross, and pretty soon, there's going to be no choice but for people on the right to build their own fora for distribution of material if this continues, because it truly is an insane thing.

00:29:35.000 I want to discuss a little bit more about that, plus an update on Parkland, which just demonstrates, once again, this is not about the guns, this is about the failure of the authorities.

00:29:43.000 But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Wondery's This Is War.

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00:30:09.000 In the first episode, you meet a guy named Ian Mearns, and a month before his senior year in high school, he decided to join up in the military.

00:30:14.000 It was August of 2001, and then, of course, his life utterly changed September of 2001.

00:30:19.000 There's so many wonderful stories that need to be told about our soldiers.

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00:30:49.000 I do want to discuss a little bit more about what's going on in Parkland, because this is a pretty astonishing story that came out.

00:30:53.000 Plus, I want to talk about the Russian elections.

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00:31:47.000 Alrighty, so, the Parkland authorities apparently, this is an amazing story, apparently the authorities actually knew not only that the Parkland shooter was an evil piece of garbage, but they wanted to institutionalize him two years before he shot up that school in Parkland, Florida.

00:32:03.000 According to Ryan Saavedra over at Daily Wire, shocking new details about the gunman who shot up Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were released on Sunday.

00:32:09.000 It was revealed that officials from the school and a sheriff's deputy recommended that he be forcibly committed to a psychiatric facility two years before his rampage.

00:32:18.000 Nothing was ever done.

00:32:19.000 The AP says the documents, which are part of the gunman's criminal case in the shooting, show that he had written the word kill in a notebook, told a classmate he wanted to buy a gun and use it, and had cut his arm supposedly in anger because he had broken up with a girlfriend.

00:32:30.000 He also told another student he had drunk gasoline and was throwing up.

00:32:33.000 Calls had been made to the FBI about the possibility of the gunman using a gun at school.

00:32:37.000 The gunman's mother, Linda, is quoted as saying she had fresh concerns about her son's mental state after he punched holes in a wall at their home in Parkland.

00:32:44.000 The clinicians at Henderson came to the home for interviews and said the gunman admitted punching the wall, but said he did so because he was upset at a breakup with his girlfriend.

00:32:50.000 The documents say the gunman, quote, reports that he cut his arms three to four weeks ago and states that this is the only time he has ever cut.

00:32:56.000 The gunman states that he cut because he was lonely, states that he had broken up with his girlfriend,

00:32:59.000 This is about ensuring that law-abiding people can protect themselves when the authorities fail, as it is apparent they do pretty much every time at this point.

00:33:07.000 They are failing on a regular basis.

00:33:09.000 It truly is a horrifying, horrifying thing.

00:33:25.000 There was a big election last night in Russia.

00:33:27.000 When I say election, I mean selection, because it was pretty obvious who exactly was going to win.

00:33:30.000 And we all know the answer to that one, right?

00:33:32.000 The person who was going to win, clearly, was going to be Vladimir Putin, and so it was, and so it ever shall be.

00:33:37.000 So Putin has now been in power since 1999.

00:33:40.000 He's been in power for almost 20 years.

00:33:42.000 I don't count Dmitry Medvedev's reign in Russia as an actual reign.

00:33:45.000 He was obviously a puppet of Putin, as everybody knew, including President Obama.

00:33:49.000 So Putin has been continuously in power.

00:33:51.000 For 20 years.

00:33:52.000 There are so many points to be made about this.

00:33:54.000 It's really quite fascinating.

00:33:55.000 The first point to make is, number one, obviously there's some rigging going on in these elections.

00:33:59.000 And when people know it's inevitable that Putin's going to be elected, they're not even going to show up.

00:34:02.000 Here's some video of some of the election rigging.

00:34:04.000 Okay, so you can see, here's a woman walking over and stuffing ballots into the ballot box.

00:34:11.000 Right.

00:34:11.000 And then you can see another woman who takes out another ballot.

00:34:15.000 She hands it to the lady.

00:34:16.000 Look at this.

00:34:17.000 They're just taking ballots and shoving them into the ballot box.

00:34:19.000 None of these people have voted.

00:34:21.000 They're literally just walking over there and shoving ballots into the ballot box.

00:34:26.000 So, yeah, this is all perfectly legit, though.

00:34:27.000 Don't worry.

00:34:28.000 Nothing nefarious going on here at all.

00:34:30.000 They are legitimately just stuffing ballots

00:34:33.000 Into the ballot box.

00:34:34.000 Yeah, everything's cool, everything's above board over there in Russia.

00:34:38.000 Garry Kasparov, who's been a dissident for a long time, obviously a world-famous chess player, maybe the greatest chess player in history.

00:34:43.000 He says these elections are a sham, because of course they are.

00:34:47.000 Well, of course that's true.

00:34:48.000 I mean, I'd be afraid too if I were living in Russia, considering that Putin has legitimately murdered people with weapons of mass destruction abroad, right?

00:34:56.000 I mean, the man poisoned

00:35:16.000 Apparently a Soviet dissident, a Russian dissident, not too long ago.

00:35:20.000 There was a false spring in Russia that happened right as the Soviet Union fell.

00:35:24.000 And now they've fallen right back into what can only be described as a state capitalism tyranny.

00:35:29.000 It looks a lot more like China over in Russia than it looks like the United States as far as state control of the economy.

00:35:34.000 It is an oligarchy run by all of Vladimir Putin's friends.

00:35:37.000 And a lot of that was a reaction that there a lot of it is a feeling in Russia of a romantic nationalism It's really fascinating article in The Wall Street Journal today Really really interesting or a couple days ago over the weekend about how Russian people particularly young Russian people feel about Vladimir Putin

00:35:53.000 And the reason that this is important is for a couple of reasons.

00:35:55.000 First, it's important because we in the United States are in the midst of what people are saying is a youth revolution.

00:35:59.000 Very, very important that all the youth of America be treated with respect, because these are experts on politics.

00:36:05.000 These are people who know whereof they speak.

00:36:08.000 And young people are passionate.

00:36:09.000 I mean, I've been reading over the last couple of weeks, op-ed after op-ed, from idiots saying that young people are more passionate and we can only hope to give the future to them.

00:36:17.000 Hey, Putin's people are the young people.

00:36:20.000 The young people like Putin.

00:36:21.000 This is the Wall Street Journal.

00:36:39.000 When we talk with our parents, they are sometimes shocked by the numerous opportunities we have today.

00:36:43.000 The three young people, like all Russians of their generation, have known no leader other than the former KGB colonel who is on track to win another six-year term in presidential elections on Sundays.

00:36:51.000 Over the course of their lives, Putin has transformed Russia from an at-times chaotic democracy to an authoritarian state.

00:36:56.000 He has written a new social contract that offers citizens far better living standards and restored swagger on the world stage while limiting political freedoms.

00:37:03.000 Polls, sociological research, and interviews with more than a dozen young Russians in four cities reveal a generation largely at ease with that trade-off, though there are those who are browbeaten dissenters.

00:37:13.000 And they have some polls on this.

00:37:15.000 OK, this is really, it's shocking.

00:37:17.000 OK, so here are the approvals for Vladimir Putin in Russia.

00:37:21.000 OK, so the approval among young people particularly.

00:37:24.000 OK, this is the popularity.

00:37:27.000 81% approve.

00:37:29.000 Right now.

00:37:30.000 And disapprove 18% in Russia as of right now.

00:37:33.000 If that doesn't sound legitimate, it's because no one anywhere has that sort of popularity unless you are actually a tyrant.

00:37:38.000 By age group.

00:37:39.000 Here's by age group.

00:37:40.000 So he's vastly popular across Russia, but he is most popular with young people.

00:37:44.000 The 18 to 24s approve of Vladimir Putin at the highest rate, followed by 25 to 39s, followed by 55s and over.

00:37:53.000 There has been a rise in living standards.

00:37:55.000 They have slipped since 2014.

00:37:57.000 A lot of that was based on Russia's oil boom.

00:37:58.000 So thanks to fracking, the prices of oil in Russia dropped precipitously, and that stopped a lot of the growth in Russia.

00:38:05.000 The percentage of total population with a monthly income below subsistence level has been dropping precipitously since 2000, thanks to the oil oligarchy that exists in Russia.

00:38:14.000 But again, the popularity of Putin is largely linked to the fact that he is not only ensuring that a lot of the oil money is going to various public services, but also the fact that Putin is restoring a sense of national importance and greatness.

00:38:30.000 There's something in human history, it happened really with the French Revolution, with regard to something called romantic nationalism.

00:38:37.000 Romantic nationalism was the idea that your country is not only better than other countries because of the ideas it espouses, it is better because of its language, it is better because of its people.

00:38:47.000 It's this idea of nationalism without patriotism.

00:38:50.000 Russia isn't great because it promulgates great values, Russia is great because it deserves to be great, because Russia is great.

00:38:56.000 America is great in the same way.

00:38:58.000 This is the way that Barack Obama used to speak of American exceptionalism.

00:39:00.000 Everyone believes in their own exceptionalism.

00:39:02.000 There is a baseline level of truth to that that really started with the French Revolution.

00:39:07.000 So the French Revolution changed everything, and in order to sort of understand what's been going on in Russian politics, I think you actually have to go back 200 years and look at a little bit of the history of romantic nationalism.

00:39:17.000 So, when the French Revolution first broke out, there was a feeling that something magical was happening, right?

00:39:22.000 The French Revolution, which began in 1789 with the fall of the Bastille,

00:39:26.000 That was just months, actually, after the first meetings of the U.S.

00:39:30.000 Senate under the U.S.

00:39:31.000 Constitution.

00:39:31.000 It's pretty amazing.

00:39:32.000 When that happened, there was a feeling of international — there was going to be an international rise in freedom.

00:39:38.000 The French movement wasn't just French.

00:39:39.000 It was international.

00:39:40.000 It was global.

00:39:41.000 It was universal.

00:39:41.000 And that quickly shifted into something else.

00:39:44.000 It quickly shifted into a romantic nationalism.

00:39:46.000 That romantic nationalism really took hold around 1793 in France when there was a threat of foreign war from the Austrians.

00:39:54.000 So the Austrians thought they were going to waltz right into France and restore the monarchy in France and they were going to be able to take over the new French Republic because it was so chaotic and because it was crazy and because it was led by all of these nut job radicals.

00:40:07.000 And so the French instituted something that had never been done before in world history, a general draft of the population, what was called the Levy en masse.

00:40:13.000 That happened in 1793.

00:40:15.000 And when they did that, when they issued the Levy en masse, they gathered 1.5 million people.

00:40:21.000 1.5 million people were essentially drafted by the French government.

00:40:23.000 And the French were able to fight off all invaders.

00:40:27.000 They were able to throw off all comers.

00:40:29.000 It was an amazing thing.

00:40:31.000 And it totally shifted the balance of power in Europe because suddenly you had a country that was treating all of its citizens as part of the state bargain.

00:40:38.000 It was treating all of its citizens as their individual's identity were wrapped up in the identity of the state.

00:40:45.000 This sort of romantic nationalism was also being pursued in what was then not quite Germany yet.

00:40:51.000 It was still Austria and some of the German states and Prussia.

00:40:55.000 It was being pursued by people like Hegel at the time.

00:40:59.000 A little bit later was Hegel.

00:41:00.000 But at the time, there was a romantic nationalism that was being pushed that said that Germany, you should only speak German.

00:41:05.000 Germany is a special place.

00:41:07.000 And therefore, Germany should have its own pan-national state of Germans.

00:41:11.000 You can see how this played out during the 20th century.

00:41:13.000 Well, these sorts of feelings in the human heart were feelings that were described by George Orwell in 1940 with regard to the Nazis.

00:41:18.000 What he was wondering was, why is it that there's so many people who are in the Nazi regime, who are young, when they could be part of Britain, right?

00:41:27.000 They could be part of a global movement toward capitalism and freedom and toward prosperity, a sort of middle-class existence.

00:41:33.000 And what he said was, there's part of the human heart that wants the flags, that wants the drums, that wants the blood, that wants the toil, that wants the sacrifice.

00:41:40.000 There is that feeling today in Russia, too.

00:41:42.000 If you look at the polls, Stalin is still very much admired inside Russia.

00:41:45.000 And one of the reasons that he is so very much admired inside Russia is because Stalin stood for national greatness.

00:41:51.000 Would you want to live in a country that wasn't great?

00:41:53.000 It was prosperous, but it was Switzerland.

00:41:55.000 Would you want to live in Switzerland?

00:41:56.000 Would you want to live in a country that felt like it had a historical purpose?

00:41:59.000 And when Hegel talked about the world history and how states were the great drivers of this history, how states were the

00:42:08.000 The main forces behind pushing forward progress in history, and that progress in history was proof of God.

00:42:14.000 When he said that, there were a lot of people who resonate to that on a normal, on a normative level, who say, that's how I want my state to be.

00:42:21.000 I want my state to be a driver in world history.

00:42:23.000 And at least you could justify your own poverty living in the Soviet Union by saying, well, we're trying something new, a grand experiment.

00:42:29.000 At least we're trying something new.

00:42:30.000 At least we're powerful.

00:42:31.000 At least we're threatening the United States on the world stage.

00:42:34.000 That's how powerful we are.

00:42:35.000 Those big, bad U.S.

00:42:36.000 greedy pokes, we're challenging them every single day.

00:42:39.000 Well, when the Soviet Union collapsed, a lot of that purpose went away.

00:42:41.000 There's a great book called Secondhand Time.

00:42:42.000 I've recommended it on the show before.

00:42:44.000 And that book talks with Russians before, during, after the Cold War.

00:42:48.000 And what they say is that there's a certain nostalgia that exists in Russia for a time when Russia was a great power.

00:42:54.000 And now Putin gets to kind of pretend that Russia is still a great power.

00:42:58.000 And this is something that drives a lot of young people.

00:42:59.000 A lot of young people are interested in that.

00:43:02.000 Well, the problem with believing that your country must be a great power without any excuse for actually being a great power, you're not spreading liberty, you're not spreading democracy, you're not doing anything great.

00:43:09.000 Is that it leads to war.

00:43:11.000 It leads to an unmoored nationalism that turns very quickly into something violent and terrible.

00:43:17.000 And that's why Putin is constantly invading countries around him.

00:43:20.000 It's why he's invading Crimea.

00:43:21.000 It's why the folks in Kazakhstan should be particularly worried, or Azerbaijan.

00:43:24.000 There are a lot of states that border the former Soviet Union that are in danger, right?

00:43:31.000 It's why Latvia and Lithuania, why those states are particularly worried right now, because Putin is trying to demonstrate to his public that he's part of this romantic nationalism movement

00:43:39.000 Brought to the floor once again.

00:43:42.000 History repeats itself.

00:43:43.000 Putin is more comedy than tragedy, but not by much.

00:43:47.000 So, that's the old saying, is that history repeats itself.

00:43:51.000 The first time is tragedy, the second time is comedy.

00:43:53.000 Putin, again, is not comedy.

00:43:54.000 He's closer to it than Stalin was.

00:43:56.000 But, all of this is to say that there is a yearning in the human heart that is not being met.

00:44:00.000 A yearning in the human heart that is not being filled.

00:44:02.000 And it's being filled, globally speaking, with a certain level of romantic nationalism, with a certain level of tribalism, with a return to socialistic ideas without God.

00:44:11.000 And this is really disturbing.

00:44:12.000 It's not just happening there.

00:44:13.000 It's happening here, too.

00:44:14.000 The romantic nationalism movement that says that America is great not because of any of its founding principles, but just because America is America.

00:44:23.000 The folks who say that America ought to move toward equality because equality is what's going to fill that hole in the heart.

00:44:28.000 And I don't mean social equality.

00:44:29.000 I mean equality of finance.

00:44:31.000 All of this stuff is indicative of a greater ill that is plaguing humanity right now.

00:44:35.000 I'm writing an entire book on it right now.

00:44:36.000 But the romantic nationalism that's taking place in Russia is something that should not be ignored, nor can it be ignored if you actually want to understand what's going on.

00:44:43.000 OK, so meanwhile, Democrats are still trying to figure out exactly what it is they should do in the wake of Hillary Clinton.

00:44:51.000 So as you recall, last week Hillary Clinton came forward and suggested that she was only not president of the United States because of these evil, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad

00:45:01.000 Hicks and Rednecks and their wives, who are living in the middle of the country.

00:45:05.000 Well, now she issued a very, very long statement, because she has never issued a short statement, talking about why she was wrong.

00:45:11.000 But she doesn't really apologize.

00:45:13.000 She says, during an interview last week with an Indian news publication, I was asked about 2016 and whether Trump is the virus or a symptom of something deeper going on in American society.

00:45:21.000 Like most Americans, people overseas remain shocked and dismayed at what they are witnessing daily.

00:45:25.000 My first instinct was to defend Americans and explain how Donald Trump could have been elected.

00:45:28.000 I said that places doing better economically typically lean Democrat and places where there is less optimism about the future lean Republican.

00:45:34.000 That doesn't mean the coast versus the heartland.

00:45:35.000 It doesn't even mean entire states.

00:45:37.000 In fact, it's more often captures the divisions between more dynamic urban areas and less prosperous small towns within states.

00:45:43.000 Man, what's hilarious about this is this is supposed to be her apology, but instead, she just doubles down on all of this and says that, so, to those who are upset or offended by what I said last week, I hope this explanation helps to explain the point I was trying to make.

00:45:54.000 We all got it, lady.

00:45:56.000 We all got the point that you were trying to make.

00:45:58.000 That's the problem.

00:45:58.000 You wish we didn't get it.

00:46:00.000 No wonder Democrats are running for her.

00:46:01.000 Mary Harf, who was a former spokesperson for the State Department under Obama, she came forward and said Hillary should please just go away, like, enough.

00:46:07.000 You're right, and she should go away.

00:46:09.000 I hate to say that.

00:46:10.000 I really do.

00:46:11.000 The first female nominee of a major party has a historical role, certainly, and the right to speak up.

00:46:17.000 She is not helping the Democratic Party, and I think she should take a very long vacation and leave the future of the party to other people.

00:46:26.000 The future of the party is not with her, and the clearest indication of that is the fact that in the 20 special elections that have taken place so far in 2018, Democrats on average have gotten 24 more points than she did.

00:46:39.000 The party of the future is not Hillary Clinton's party, and I get why she wants to keep explaining it, but it is not true.

00:46:46.000 OK, so even Democrats are starting to realize they need to move away from Hillary Clinton if they hope to be successful in the future.

00:46:51.000 OK, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.

00:46:55.000 And then we'll get to the the Federalist Paper.

00:46:57.000 So things that I like.

00:46:59.000 So I had the opportunity to interview Charlotte Pence about her new book, which is called Marlon Bundo's A Day in the Life of the Vice President.

00:47:06.000 Her mom did the art.

00:47:07.000 Charlotte Pence wrote it.

00:47:08.000 So Charlotte is Mike Pence's daughter.

00:47:10.000 Karen Pence is Mike Pence's wife.

00:47:12.000 And the book is really charming.

00:47:13.000 I read it with my daughter over the weekend.

00:47:15.000 She really enjoyed it.

00:47:16.000 So here is my sit down with Charlotte Pence.

00:47:18.000 So here we are with Charlotte Pence.

00:47:20.000 She's the author of Marlon Bundo's A Day in the Life of the Vice President, which is a children's book, as you can probably guess from the title.

00:47:26.000 And it's illustrated by Karen Pence.

00:47:28.000 She's, of course, the vice president's wife.

00:47:29.000 And Charlotte, if you didn't guess, was the vice president's daughter as well.

00:47:33.000 Well, Charlotte, welcome to the show.

00:47:34.000 Thank you for having me.

00:47:43.000 There's actually a good answer for that.

00:47:45.000 When we got Marlon, we had him in a student film project, so I had to go on Craigslist and get a bunny.

00:47:52.000 And so I was texting the Craigslist owner, and he said to make him an offer.

00:47:58.000 So it became this godfather joke.

00:48:00.000 We were going to make him an offer, he couldn't refuse.

00:48:02.000 And my friend loved Marlon Brando, and I said we have to name him Marlon Bundo to make it, you know.

00:48:07.000 Nice.

00:48:07.000 Okay, so where did the idea for actually doing a book on the rabbit come in?

00:48:11.000 Yeah, so we started an Instagram for him right after the inauguration and just got pretty popular.

00:48:18.000 People really liked him.

00:48:19.000 We kind of made this bodice joke that he was, you know, having official duties as the bodice.

00:48:24.000 And so my mom and I talked about doing a children's book and her illustrating it.

00:48:29.000 And she's an amazing watercolor artist.

00:48:31.000 And so we just went for it.

00:48:34.000 And we were brainstorming ideas and said, you know, the first one at least should definitely be about the role of the vice president because a lot of people don't actually know the official duties of the vice president.

00:48:44.000 So that's all in there.

00:48:45.000 That's really cool.

00:48:46.000 So, how long has your mom been doing watercolors?

00:48:49.000 Because that is definitely something that nobody knows.

00:48:51.000 Oh my gosh.

00:48:52.000 Yeah, forever.

00:48:53.000 I mean, ever since I've been alive.

00:48:55.000 I mean, she used to have a business for it.

00:48:57.000 She's a really talented artist, not just watercolor artist.

00:49:00.000 She's amazing.

00:49:01.000 Okay, so you're going to be doing a book tour with this, presumably.

00:49:04.000 Yeah.

00:49:05.000 And I hope that everybody treats you well, because obviously it's a very polarized political environment.

00:49:09.000 Do you expect that it's going to get politicized when you do the book tour, or do you hope that

00:49:13.000 I mean, I kind of think that Marlon can bring everyone together.

00:49:17.000 I really believe this.

00:49:19.000 I mean, the book is historically accurate.

00:49:23.000 It's good for teachers.

00:49:24.000 It's good for adults.

00:49:24.000 It's good for kids.

00:49:26.000 It is personal to my dad, a day in the life of the vice president with my dad.

00:49:30.000 As you can kind of see at the end, his faith comes into it.

00:49:34.000 But for the most part, it talks about what the vice president actually does, which is

00:49:39.000 I think something I didn't really know until my dad was vice president, a lot of these little things.

00:49:44.000 So one of the things that's really cool about your family is that all of the kids have different things that they do.

00:49:49.000 So I've met two of the Pence children, and none of you seem to be supremely politically active, as opposed to just active in different areas of what you do.

00:49:59.000 So how's it been having your father in the White House?

00:50:04.000 It's like a boring answer, but I mean, he's just my dad at the end of the day.

00:50:08.000 So I feel like, I mean, growing up, it was always like, this is my dad's job.

00:50:13.000 You know, my mom's a teacher and my dad is a congressman for most of my childhood.

00:50:17.000 And so we were always included in whatever we wanted to be included in as the kids.

00:50:23.000 Um, but we also didn't have to do anything we didn't want to do and go to any event we didn't want to go to.

00:50:28.000 So, at the end of the day, it's really, um, it's our family.

00:50:31.000 It's my dad.

00:50:32.000 You know, we talk about, um, current events on the phone when we're catching up, but then we talk about, you know, what I got at the grocery or whatever, and, um, at the end of the day, it's just my dad.

00:50:42.000 And you work out here in Hollywood, so how has that been?

00:50:44.000 Have people treated you decently in Hollywood?

00:50:46.000 Yeah, I mean really they have.

00:50:47.000 I think that once you meet people, you know, you get to know people better on a personal level.

00:50:52.000 I think that always brings people together instead of seeing someone from a political lens on TV or in magazines or something.

00:51:02.000 I think I've been welcomed out here in my job especially.

00:51:06.000 It's been fun.

00:51:07.000 Well, that's awesome.

00:51:08.000 I've met enough members of your family to know you have an amazing family.

00:51:10.000 And obviously, this is a book that you should get for your children.

00:51:13.000 It is Marlon Bundo's A Day in the Life of the Vice President, written by Charlotte Pence and illustrated by Karen.

00:51:17.000 Thanks so much for stopping by.

00:51:18.000 I really appreciate it.

00:51:19.000 Thanks for having me.

00:51:19.000 This is awesome.

00:51:20.000 So that was fun.

00:51:21.000 So that's Charlotte Pence, who is just a charming young woman and her family is really filled with wonderful people.

00:51:27.000 OK, other things that I like.

00:51:28.000 So I just have to play a clip of this because it was funny.

00:51:29.000 I was on CNN yesterday and my phone did go off in the middle of the interview.

00:51:33.000 The real move, the real power move would have been to pick up and just take the call in the middle of the interview.

00:51:37.000 But I didn't have my wits about me enough to do that.

00:51:40.000 But Brian Stelter on Reliable Sources asked me about bias in the media.

00:51:43.000 And I said, you guys, that would be you.

00:51:46.000 Well, over the last three weeks, obviously, the coverage of the gun debate has been absolutely egregious.

00:51:50.000 I mean, I don't want to single out your network, but CNN's been pretty bad on this from a conservative perspective.

00:51:55.000 The idea that when there's a mass shooting that the media feel the necessity to put on TV not only survivors, but specific survivors, that there's a certain subset of survivors who make it on TV a lot, a lot, and there are certain other survivors who don't, and that they decide to single out certain events and not other events in order to make a particular case, or they allow certain people to go on TV

00:52:16.000 Thank you.

00:52:34.000 OK, so that was a lot of fun.

00:52:35.000 And I give a lot of credit to Stelter for having me on.

00:52:37.000 He knew that I was going to hit CNN.

00:52:38.000 He didn't mind.

00:52:39.000 So good for him for doing that, because obviously he wanted to have some differing voices.

00:52:43.000 He did say, my favorite part of this interview is where he suggested, well, if we at The Daily Wire are so critical of the mainstream media, why don't we try to infiltrate the mainstream media and then try and shift them?

00:52:53.000 And my answer to him was, are you going to hire me?

00:52:55.000 Like, really, is CNN gonna hire me?

00:52:56.000 Because they have my phone number.

00:52:57.000 Anytime they want to, they can call and offer me a primetime show.

00:53:00.000 I'm going to seriously doubt that that is in CNN's plans anytime soon, which sort of proves my point.

00:53:06.000 Okay, so, time for a quick thing that I hate, and then we'll get to a Federalist paper, if we have time.

00:53:10.000 If not, then we'll do it tomorrow.

00:53:16.000 OK, so the thing I hate today is Oprah Winfrey was on with Stephen Colbert, and it is just amazing to me how late night TV has become an exclusive propaganda outlet for the left.

00:53:26.000 Stephen Colbert obviously has been a lefty for a very long time and an irritating lefty at that.

00:53:31.000 Really, really irritating lefty at that.

00:53:34.000 So, it's amazing, because folks on TV will rip Mike Pence up and down for suggesting that he has conversations with God, meaning he talks to God and God does the listening, or that he attempts to hear God in the events of his own life.

00:53:44.000 You know, how crazy is that?

00:53:45.000 That's wild, right?

00:53:47.000 But Stephen Colbert, when Oprah Winfrey says, I'm waiting for God to give me a sign, Stephen Colbert actually tries to manufacture God and then pretend that God is telling Oprah Winfrey to run.

00:53:55.000 This is what Democrats would love best?

00:53:57.000 I would love nothing better than for Oprah Winfrey to run.

00:53:59.000 First of all, I think Trump would smoke her.

00:54:00.000 I think it would just be brutal.

00:54:02.000 Because again, Trump is as dirty as dirty can be, and Oprah is perceived as this angelic figure.

00:54:06.000 The minute that anybody finds out that her school in South Africa has been twice hit with serious violations of sexual abuse of children, she's pretty much toast.

00:54:16.000 So, even though she may not be responsible for it, that's what's been going on with her school over in Africa, so that's a problem for her.

00:54:21.000 But again, anything anyone says bad about Oprah is going to make her look a lot dirtier than anything anyone says about Trump.

00:54:26.000 I mean, Trump's been hit with everything, including the kitchen sink, and none of it seems to stick to him in any serious way.

00:54:30.000 In any case, here is Colbert mimicking God in order to try to convince Oprah to run.

00:54:35.000 Oprah!

00:54:35.000 Stephen!

00:54:36.000 What's up?

00:54:37.000 Hey!

00:54:38.000 Oh, hey!

00:54:39.000 Hey, God!

00:54:40.000 It's God, everybody!

00:54:41.000 Give it up for the Lord!

00:54:42.000 Is there, you know, something you'd like to tell Oprah?

00:54:47.000 Oh, yeah.

00:54:48.000 I hear thou seekest a sign?

00:54:50.000 Well, is this clear enough?

00:54:54.000 How do I make this clearer, Oprah?

00:54:57.000 Oh, I know!

00:54:59.000 Oprah Winfrey 2020!

00:55:00.000 Yes, she can!

00:55:04.000 OK, so now you have late night hosts openly stumping for Oprah Winfrey to run against President Trump.

00:55:09.000 Yeah, and doing so by mocking God and people of faith.

00:55:12.000 So that's just wonderful.

00:55:14.000 Well done, Stephen Colbert.

00:55:15.000 That's not going to alienate anybody in the middle of the country or anything.

00:55:17.000 Well done.

00:55:18.000 OK, quick Federalist paper.

00:55:19.000 Good news.

00:55:19.000 This one will take me less than 30 seconds.

00:55:21.000 So Federalist number 20.

00:55:23.000 Every week I've been going through a Federalist paper.

00:55:24.000 This is a continuation of the argument regarding the ineffectiveness of Confederacy.

00:55:29.000 The idea that you can't have a bunch of powerful, sovereign actors and then a very weak coalitional government at the top.

00:55:36.000 And he uses, this is James Madison using the example of the United Netherlands, and he adds this telling line.

00:55:47.000 This is a fantastic point, and it's historically true.

00:55:49.000 Most tyrannies begin by saying, the current system is not working.

00:55:51.000 We need to move the current system aside and overrun its boundaries.

00:56:13.000 Suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War would be an example of this, although we went back to habeas corpus afterward.

00:56:18.000 Or the seizure of emergency powers by Hitler's Nazis in 1933 and 1934.

00:56:23.000 All of that would be a perfect example of what Madison was talking about, that when you don't have a properly balanced government, even if the government appears to be too weak centrally, very often people will say the exigencies of the circumstances demand

00:56:36.000 That we do X, and X is usually a permanent enlargement of the government.

00:56:40.000 Every time America has a major war, there's an enlargement of the government.

00:56:43.000 This goes even so far as the Patriot Act during 9-11.

00:56:45.000 It's why we must be so careful, particularly during times of emergency, about handing the government extra powers.

00:56:50.000 Alrighty, we will be back here tomorrow, broadcasting, I believe, from Pennsylvania.

00:56:54.000 So we'll see you then.

00:56:55.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:56:56.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:57:01.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Mathis Glover.

00:57:03.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:57:05.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:57:06.000 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:57:08.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:57:10.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

00:57:11.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.

00:57:13.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:57:16.000 Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

Is A Constitutional Crisis Coming? | Ep. 498

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