The Ben Shapiro Show - It’s Apocalypse Day! Ep. 608

00:00:00.000 President Trump's nightmares come to life via Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort heads for prison, and an illegal immigrant murders a college girl.

00:00:07.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

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

00:00:13.000 Oh my lord.

00:00:14.000 Yesterday was basically drinking from a fire hose of news.

00:00:17.000 So after a couple of relatively slow weeks, I say relatively because during the Trump presidency there is no such thing as an actual slow week.

00:00:23.000 Relatively slow just means sort of by Trump standards.

00:00:26.000 It turns out that all the news happened at exactly the same time yesterday and we will sift through all of it.

00:00:31.000 We will analyze all of it for you because some big things happened yesterday with serious ramifications for the Trump presidency.

00:00:37.000 But first,

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00:01:41.000 Okay, so, yesterday was a day, and today is another day, and things are happening at breakneck speed.

00:01:47.000 So, as I mentioned, after the sort of summer lull which lasted approximately 37 seconds, every piece of news in the world hit at exactly the same time.

00:01:56.000 Literally within minutes, we got verdicts coming in on the Paul Manafort indictment.

00:02:00.000 Paul Manafort was found guilty on eight separate charges.

00:02:03.000 There's a hung jury on the other ten.

00:02:05.000 And we had the Michael Cohen indictment that came down.

00:02:07.000 He pled guilty to a variety of crimes, including, most importantly, crimes regarding campaign finance.

00:02:13.000 Let's start with the Cohen stuff, because it's easy to talk about the Manafort stuff.

00:02:16.000 The Manafort stuff basically has nothing to do with the president.

00:02:18.000 There's some ramifications for the president, theoretically, but those are theoretical.

00:02:22.000 Michael Cohen stuff is a lot more damaging to President Trump.

00:02:25.000 Here is the direct section from the actual Michael Cohen indictment.

00:02:28.000 It says, the United States attorney further charges

00:02:32.000 The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended, Title 52, U.S.

00:02:36.000 Code Section 30101, regulates the influence of money on politics.

00:02:40.000 At all times relevant to the information, the Election Act set forth the following limitations, prohibitions, and reporting requirements which were applicable to Michael Cohen, the defendant, Individual 1, and his campaign.

00:02:50.000 Individual 1, in this case, would be President Trump, who was, of course, the guy who hired Michael Cohen

00:02:55.000 Here's what the indictment says.

00:02:56.000 So I'm not allowed to give

00:03:17.000 $3,000 to Donald Trump, and he is not allowed to accept $3,000 from me.

00:03:22.000 Corporations were prohibited from making contributions directly to presidential candidates.

00:03:25.000 So if I start an LLC, and I give money directly to President Trump from that LLC, that's a problem, including expenditures coordinated with candidates or their committees, and candidates were prohibited from accepting corporate contributions.

00:03:36.000 On or about June 16, 2015, Individual One began his presidential campaign.

00:03:41.000 That'd be Trump.

00:03:41.000 While Michael Cohen, the defendant, continued to work at the company and did not have a formal title with the campaign, he had a campaign email address and at various times advised the campaign, including on matters of interest to the press, and made televised and media appearances on behalf of the campaign.

00:03:55.000 At all times relevant to this information, Corporation One was a media company that owns, among other things, a popular tabloid magazine, Magazine One.

00:04:02.000 This magazine would be, presumably, the National Enquirer.

00:04:06.000 In or about August 2015, the chairman and chief executive of Corporation One, this would be Chairman One, this would be David Pecker, who's the head of National Enquirer, in coordination with Michael Cohen, the defendant, and one or more members of the campaign, offered to help deal with negative stories about individual one's relationship with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided.

00:04:29.000 Chairman One, that's Pecker, agreed to keep Cohen apprised of any such negative stories.

00:04:32.000 Consistent with the agreement described above,

00:04:36.000 National Enquirer advised Michael Cohen, the defendant, of negative stories during the course of the campaign, and Cohen, with the assistance of the National Enquirer, was able to arrange for the purchase of two stories so as to suppress them and prevent them from influencing the election.

00:04:47.000 First, in or about June 2016, a model and actress began attempting to sell her story of her alleged extramarital affair with individual one, that's Trump, that had taken place in 2006 and 2007, knowing the story would be of considerable value because of the election.

00:04:59.000 She then retained an attorney, this is Stormy Daniels, who in turn contacted the editor-in-chief of the magazine and offered to sell Stormy Daniels' story to the magazine.

00:05:08.000 At that point, David Pecker and the editor informed Michael Cohen, the defendant, of the story.

00:05:14.000 At Cohen's urging and subject to Cohen's promise that the National Enquirer would be reimbursed, the editor of the National Enquirer ultimately began negotiating for the purchase of the story.

00:05:23.000 On or about August 5th, 2016, the National Enquirer entered into an agreement with Stormy Daniels to acquire her limited life rights to the story of her relationship with any then-married man, which would mean Trump, in exchange for $150,000 and a commitment to feature her on two magazine covers and publish over 100 magazine articles authored by her.

00:05:39.000 Despite the cover and article features to the agreement, its principal purpose, as understood by those involved, including Michael Cohen, the defendant, was to suppress Stormy Daniels' story so as to prevent it from influencing the election.

00:05:49.000 Between in or about late August 2016 and September 2016, Michael Cohen agreed with the National Enquirer to assign the rights to the non-disclosure portion of that corporation agreement with Stormy Daniels to Cohen for $125,000.

00:06:00.000 Cohen then incorporated a shell entity called Resolution Consultants LLC for use in the transaction.

00:06:07.000 Both David Pecker and Cohen ultimately signed the agreement and a consultant for the National Enquirer using his own shell entity provided Cohen with an invoice for the payment of $125,000.

00:06:16.000 However, in or about October 2016, after the assignment agreement was signed, but before Cohen had paid the $125,000, the National Enquirer contacted Cohen and told him, in substance, the deal was off and Cohen should tear up the assignment agreement.

00:06:29.000 Cohen did not tear up the agreement, which was later found during a judicially authorized search of his office.

00:06:34.000 Second, so I guess I'm sorry, that was with regard to Karen McDougal, not Stormy Daniels.

00:06:37.000 Then we've got the Stormy Daniels story.

00:06:39.000 Second, on or about October 8th, 2016, an agent for an adult film actress, that'd be Stormy Daniels, informed Editor One that she was willing to make public statements and confirm on the record her alleged past affair with Trump.

00:06:51.000 The chairman and editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer then contacted Cohen and put him in touch with the attorney for Stormy Daniels.

00:06:57.000 Over the course of the next few days, Cohen negotiated a $130,000 agreement with that attorney to himself purchase Stormy Daniels' asylum and received a signed confidential settlement agreement and a separate side letter from that attorney.

00:07:09.000 Michael Cohen did not immediately execute the agreement, nor did he pay Stormy Daniels.

00:07:13.000 On the evening of October 25th, 2016, with no deal with Stormy Daniels finalized, the attorney told the National Enquirer that Stormy Daniels was close to completing a deal with another outlet to make the story public.

00:07:23.000 The National Enquirer texted Cohen that, quote,

00:07:31.000 The National Enquirer then called Cohen through an encrypted telephone application.

00:07:34.000 Cohen agreed to make the payment and then called the attorney to finalize the deal.

00:07:37.000 The next day, Michael Cohen, the defendant, emailed an incorporating service to obtain the corporate formation and documents for another shell corporation, Essential Consultants LLC, which Cohen had incorporated a few days prior.

00:07:48.000 Later that afternoon, Cohen drew down $130,000 from a fraudulently obtained home equity loan.

00:07:55.000 Which he had obtained because he lied basically about his income.

00:07:58.000 The next morning, Cohen went to the bank and wired approximately $130,000 from essential consultants to that attorney on the bank form to complete the wire.

00:08:05.000 Cohen falsely indicated the purpose of the wire was a retainer.

00:08:08.000 On or about November 1, 2016, Cohen received from the attorney copies of the final signed confidential agreement and side letter agreement.

00:08:15.000 Michael Cohen, the defendant, caused and made the payments described herein in order to influence the 2016 presidential election.

00:08:19.000 This is the key part.

00:08:20.000 So all of this basically only matters if this was an attempt to influence the election, in which case it is considered a campaign expenditure.

00:08:27.000 Now, this part of the indictment is the controversial part because there are folks who say, a former chair of the FEC has said this, as we discussed a little bit yesterday, a former chair of the FEC has stated that this is not actually a campaign contribution because it's more of a personal contribution.

00:08:42.000 Like,

00:08:43.000 Not everything that has an impact on a campaign is considered a campaign expenditure.

00:08:46.000 So if I go and I spend $400 on a haircut, that's not necessarily a campaign expenditure.

00:08:50.000 And if I use campaign funding on it, that may actually be campaign fraud.

00:08:54.000 So if I pay off somebody, is that a campaign expenditure or is it not a campaign expenditure?

00:08:58.000 It's kind of unclear.

00:09:00.000 I think that's the fairest way to put it.

00:09:01.000 It's a little unclear.

00:09:02.000 There are folks, Mark Levin has made this argument, who say that that is not a campaign expenditure.

00:09:06.000 There are folks like Andy McCarthy who say it is a campaign expenditure over at National Review.

00:09:11.000 In any case, the indictment continues.

00:09:13.000 They say,

00:09:28.000 Neither Woman 1 or Woman 2, that'd be Karen McDougal or Stormy Daniels, spoke to the press prior to the election.

00:09:32.000 In or about January 2017, Michael Cohen, in seeking reimbursement for election-related expenses, presented executives of the Trump company with a copy of a bank statement from the Essential Consultants bank account, which reflected the $130,000 payment Cohen had made to the bank account of Stormy Daniels in advance of the election.

00:09:49.000 That's Cohen's kind of transaction fee.

00:10:04.000 So he sent an executive of the Trump company those monthly invoices.

00:10:06.000 It started listing off $35,000 for two months.

00:10:27.000 Throughout 2017, according to the indictment, Michael Cohen sent to one or more representatives of the company monthly invoices which stated, During 2017, pursuant to the invoices described above, Michael Cohen, the defendant,

00:10:55.000 We're good.

00:11:17.000 Problem here is how it was done.

00:11:18.000 So Andy McCarthy sums up at National Review, he says,

00:11:46.000 What it looks like is that Donald Trump basically used Michael Cohen as a go-between in order to avoid campaign finance reporting, and then the question is going to be intent.

00:11:54.000 Cohen has testified that Trump had full intent to violate campaign finance law.

00:11:59.000 Now we'll talk about the consequences of that in just one second, what it means for President Trump, what it means for the possibility of impeachment, how this fits into past issues with regard to campaign finance law.

00:12:09.000 But first, let's talk about your watches.

00:12:12.000 Okay, so I wear a movement watch.

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00:12:17.000 They're really, really great.

00:12:18.000 Okay, I have one, my wife has one, my mom has one, my dad has one.

00:12:21.000 I get them for members of my family because I really like movement watches.

00:12:24.000 They've come pretty far from being a bunch of crowdfunded kids working out of a living room.

00:12:27.000 In the past year, they've introduced sunglasses, fashion-forward bracelets,

00:12:31.000 My wife has sunglasses, so do I. Movement watches are all about looking good and keeping it simple.

00:12:35.000 So it's not going to tell you how many steps you took today, but it is going to tell you the time, and it's pretty durable.

00:12:39.000 And then my son beats the living junk out of my watch, and it looks just as good as the day that I got it.

00:12:43.000 Movement watches start at just $95 at a department store.

00:12:46.000 These could be $400 to $500 because they cut out the middleman.

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00:13:00.000 See why the movement keeps growing?

00:13:01.000 Again, MVMT.com slash Shapiro.

00:13:03.000 I really love my movement watch again.

00:13:05.000 Look at this.

00:13:05.000 I mean, just classy looking.

00:13:07.000 We are a nation of laws.

00:13:28.000 And the essence of what this case is about is justice, and that is an equal playing field for all persons in the eyes of the law.

00:13:38.000 And that is a lesson that Mr. Cohen learned today, and it is a very harsh one for him.

00:13:44.000 So there's not actually a signed deal between Cohen to help the government in the Mueller investigation or with the Southern District of New York, for example.

00:13:53.000 None of this has anything to do with Russia, obviously.

00:13:55.000 And there are a lot of people today saying, well, the Democrats have been talking about Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia.

00:13:58.000 This has nothing to do with Russia.

00:14:00.000 That's true.

00:14:00.000 It's also not sufficient.

00:14:02.000 So we'll talk about the level of the alleged crime here and what it actually means in just a second.

00:14:08.000 But first, it's important to note that the credibility of this entire allegation is based on Michael Cohen.

00:14:12.000 Is Michael Cohen a liar or is Michael Cohen not a liar?

00:14:15.000 It's not helping his case that his lawyer, Lanny Davis, is out there basically trying to whore Michael Cohen to Robert Mueller.

00:14:21.000 And making allegations that Michael Cohen has not testified to.

00:14:23.000 So Michael Cohen has testified to the fact that President Trump instructed him to violate campaign finance law, but now Lanny Davis is out there trying to basically sell the story that Michael Cohen has information on Russia too.

00:14:35.000 So now it looks like Michael Cohen is just spilling every bean he can find in an attempt to avoid further jail time.

00:14:41.000 That does go to kind of public credibility with regards to this particular witness, who is not known as the most honest guy in the first place, which is probably why Trump hired him.

00:14:48.000 Here's Lanny Davis, Michael Cohen's attorney.

00:14:51.000 On just the crime of directing somebody to commit a crime, as you pointed out in your opening, it was a crime for President Trump to direct Michael Cohen to the crime of a campaign finance donation that exceeded the legal limitations.

00:15:09.000 Why didn't President Trump do this himself?

00:15:12.000 Why didn't he write or sign the check himself?

00:15:15.000 Was he covering up because he knew that there was something wrong in what he was doing, so he directed his lawyer to do something that he didn't want anybody to know that he did.

00:15:26.000 Okay, all of that is the dicey stuff, but then Lanny Davis goes on to suggest that maybe Michael Cohen will reverse his testimony and suggest that President Trump knew in advance about the Trump Tower meeting between members of his campaign and the Russian government to solicit information about Hillary Clinton.

00:15:39.000 Well, Michael Cohen has already testified before members of Congress that Trump didn't know about any of that.

00:15:44.000 So, was he lying then or is he lying now?

00:15:46.000 This is one of the problems for this particular case against President Trump.

00:15:50.000 The second problem is, of course, the question of whether this actually amounts to a campaign expenditure, which, as I mentioned before, is slightly dicey.

00:15:56.000 And then the final problem is, if President Trump is in the habit of signing checks to women to shut them up,

00:16:02.000 Which may, in fact, be the case.

00:16:03.000 It's possible he's been doing it for years and years and years and years.

00:16:06.000 If that's actually the case, and there's been this pipeline of him shutting down stories via the National Enquirer for years, it could easily not be a campaign expenditure.

00:16:13.000 It could just be Trump likes to shut up women, and this is just the latest example of him attempting to shut up women.

00:16:18.000 We're going to get to the Trump team's response to all of this in just a second.

00:16:22.000 So here is how President Trump has responded to all of this.

00:16:25.000 He had a series of tweets about Michael Cohen, as well as Paul Manafort.

00:16:29.000 And here is what he tweeted.

00:16:30.000 So he tweeted about Paul Manafort, who was convicted on eight counts that have nothing to do with Russian collusion.

00:16:35.000 It has to do with Paul Manafort just being corrupt.

00:16:37.000 But Paul Manafort, his former campaign manager, didn't testify against Trump at any point during this case.

00:16:43.000 And Trump basically is saying that that's a good thing.

00:16:47.000 He's basically saying, I'm happy that Paul Manafort shut up, which is not a great thing for the president to be tweeting.

00:16:52.000 I mean, it's just not smart.

00:16:53.000 So here's what he tweeted out.

00:17:10.000 So basically, he is saying, thanks for keeping your mouth shut, Paul.

00:17:14.000 I mean, that little phrase there where he says, make up stories in order to get a deal.

00:17:18.000 He's saying that he's glad that Manafort didn't lie to get him, for example, in order to mitigate against him.

00:17:23.000 But it's not great.

00:17:23.000 The president of the United States is basically saying, I'm glad Paul Manafort didn't spill his guts.

00:17:27.000 Like, the omerta is not something that you actually want the president of the United States talking up, per se.

00:17:33.000 That's really the only reason that Manafort is relevant in any of this.

00:17:36.000 Manafort, of course, doesn't

00:17:39.000 Really have anything on President Trump.

00:17:40.000 Again, all the allegations against Manafort basically predate the campaign and have nothing to do with the campaign.

00:17:45.000 Then Trump continues in his defense of Manafort.

00:17:47.000 And this is what's weird.

00:17:49.000 I don't understand why the president is out there defending Manafort, who committed crimes that have nothing to do with his campaign.

00:17:54.000 Unless he is actually afraid that Manafort is going to, you know, either start lying or spill his guts to Robert Mueller.

00:18:00.000 None of this makes any sense.

00:18:01.000 He should basically just cut himself loose of Manafort at this point and say, listen, I knew the guy for three months.

00:18:05.000 He was recommended to me by the RNC, which I think is true.

00:18:08.000 And I had him on the campaign.

00:18:10.000 Turned out he was corrupt.

00:18:10.000 I fired him.

00:18:11.000 And whatever happens, happens.

00:18:12.000 That's the operation of the law.

00:18:13.000 That would be the smart thing for Trump to do.

00:18:15.000 But instead, he's really kind of cozying up to Paul Manafort, who was just convicted of eight crimes, right?

00:18:20.000 He says, a large number of counts, 10, could not even be decided in the Paul Manafort case.

00:18:25.000 Witch hunt!

00:18:26.000 Okay, it's not a witch hunt when the guy was convicted of eight crimes.

00:18:29.000 Now, you might say that the Mueller investigation on Russian collusion is in totality a witch hunt.

00:18:33.000 I think there's an argument to be made on that score.

00:18:36.000 I don't think there's an argument to be made that the prosecution of Paul Manafort is a witch hunt when he was actually convicted of eight crimes yesterday and will spend a plentiful amount of time in jail.

00:18:45.000 Trump continued along these lines.

00:18:46.000 He tweeted out also with regard to Michael Cohen.

00:18:52.000 That is going to the argument that if you pay somebody off in advance of an election, that's really a personal expenditure.

00:18:59.000 It's not a campaign expenditure.

00:19:00.000 President Obama had a big campaign violation and it was easily settled.

00:19:04.000 So I'm going to get to the context of these other campaign finance violations and how common this is in just one second.

00:19:10.000 And then Trump concludes by basically

00:19:14.000 If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen, which is, indeed, the understatement of the year.

00:19:25.000 Doesn't really explain why he employed him for a dozen years, but I think it is fair to say the president does not, in fact, hire the best people.

00:19:33.000 Between Omarosa Manigault and Mike Flynn and Michael Cohen and Steve Bannon and Paul Manafort and pretty much everyone else who ever worked for the Trump administration or Team Trump, he does not hire the best people.

00:19:44.000 Okay, so what does all of this mean in context?

00:19:48.000 As I say, the defenses for President Trump in all of this are going to be kind of multifaceted.

00:19:54.000 So defense number one is it's not a crime that I paid somebody off.

00:19:57.000 That's a personal expenditure.

00:19:58.000 It's not a campaign expenditure.

00:19:59.000 So even if Michael Cohen pled guilty to a crime because he felt he had to plead guilty in order to mitigate the charges against him, that doesn't mean there's an actual crime here.

00:20:07.000 There hasn't been an indictment.

00:20:08.000 There's no actual investigation into Trump doing this stuff at this time.

00:20:12.000 So you can't get Trump on something that's not a crime.

00:20:14.000 That is case number one being made by folks like Mark Levin.

00:20:16.000 Case number two is that it's just a campaign finance violation.

00:20:20.000 And in this context, people have been looking at past campaign finance violations and suggesting that none of this is a big deal when you compare it to past campaign finance violations.

00:20:29.000 So John Fund over at National Review, for example, talks about the campaign finance violations that

00:20:34.000 We're good.

00:20:53.000 Scott Free.

00:20:54.000 And there's also a case with regard to John Edwards, who was in, who actually was tried, but there's a hung jury and he was not convicted.

00:21:01.000 And then there's talk about President Obama's campaign.

00:21:03.000 They paid $375,000, the largest campaign finance violation of the time in 2008.

00:21:08.000 They were paid, they were fined that much money.

00:21:11.000 Because they had accepted a bunch of money and not reported it.

00:21:14.000 Now, I'm going to explain in just a second the differences between Trump and those campaign finance violations.

00:21:19.000 Then we'll talk about kind of the broader ramifications of all this.

00:21:22.000 But first, let's talk about your bathroom habits.

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00:21:42.000 That's how I get ready, but you're not me.

00:21:43.000 You have your own way to get ready.

00:21:44.000 You might shave your whole body to get ready for a bike race because you're a weirdo.

00:21:47.000 Dollar Shave Club's Executive Razor and Shave Butter can make that happen for you.

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00:22:13.000 We're good.

00:22:33.000 The consequences of other campaign finance violations have been relatively minimal.

00:22:38.000 The Obama campaign was fined $375,000.

00:22:41.000 John Edwards was tried in federal court but not convicted.

00:22:45.000 The jury hung in that particular case.

00:22:47.000 And then you have the Clinton-Chinagate situation in which multiple members of Team Clinton were actually convicted of crimes but it never elevated to the level of President Clinton.

00:22:56.000 The difference between those cases and this is that in this case, Michael Cohen, the president's personal attorney, has testified under oath that the president of the United States ordered him, basically, to violate campaign finance law.

00:23:07.000 Now, what does that mean for impeachment, for example?

00:23:12.000 So let's talk about the legal.

00:23:14.000 Consequences for President Trump, and then we'll talk about the political consequences.

00:23:17.000 Now impeachment fits under the political consequences, not the legal consequences.

00:23:22.000 Impeachment is all about politics.

00:23:25.000 Legal consequences are all about what a jury can do.

00:23:28.000 So Trump has basically said, look, I can't be incited.

00:23:30.000 That's probably true.

00:23:32.000 The president of the United States is probably impervious to federal indictment because he is the head of the executive branch.

00:23:37.000 The Department of Justice exists under the executive branch.

00:23:40.000 And it's very doubtful that the Department of Justice can try the president of the United States because the president can just fire whomever it is that is trying him.

00:23:48.000 And the president may in fact have the power to pardon himself.

00:23:50.000 It's a real hole in the Constitution, which is why impeachment was originally intended by the founders to be widely applied.

00:23:56.000 The notion that impeachment was only going to be applied in the United States twice in American history.

00:24:02.000 Nixon wasn't impeached.

00:24:03.000 He resigned in advance of impeachment.

00:24:05.000 It was only applied against Andrew Johnson after the Civil War, when radical Reconstructionist Republicans decided they didn't want him as president, basically.

00:24:12.000 And then it was applied against Bill Clinton in 1998.

00:24:14.000 Those are the only two times in American history a president has ever been impeached in the House of Representatives.

00:24:20.000 Neither of them were convicted in the Senate.

00:24:22.000 The idea of the founders was that impeachment was going to be broadly used.

00:24:27.000 In the best of all possible worlds, we would use impeachment on a fairly regular basis, is the truth, because when presidents commit crimes, you would want Congress to check those crimes by impeaching the president or punishing him in some way.

00:24:37.000 Unfortunately, the legislature in the United States has basically become a vestigial organ of government.

00:24:42.000 They don't really do anything.

00:24:43.000 They just toss all power over to the executive branch, and then they expect that maybe the president will be indicted or something.

00:24:48.000 The president's not going to be indicted.

00:24:49.000 The DOJ has rules in place that basically say the president is not to be indicted.

00:24:53.000 Now, the president could still be subpoenaed.

00:24:55.000 So, you could have a Southern District of New York

00:24:59.000 investigation against President Trump, and they could subpoena him in order to get him to testify.

00:25:04.000 That'd be a nightmare scenario for the president, because then he ends up in exactly the same position that Bill Clinton ended up in in the civil trial of Paula Jones, where he ends up committing perjury, and that is the basis for impeachment.

00:25:14.000 Now, let's get to the impeachment question.

00:25:16.000 So there are folks who are immediately saying that impeachment is on the table.

00:25:20.000 Brett Stevens over at the New York Times, who of course is no fan of the president, he tweeted out that Trump should immediately be impeached based on these allegations.

00:25:27.000 He says, I've been skeptical about the wisdom and merit of impeachment.

00:25:30.000 Cohen's guilty plea changes that.

00:25:32.000 The president is clearly guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

00:25:34.000 He should resign his office or be impeached and removed from office.

00:25:38.000 On the other side of the ledger, you have people like Andy McCarthy, and he says that this is really not an impeachable offense because it doesn't rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.

00:25:47.000 It's just a campaign violation.

00:25:49.000 He says that to rise this to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors, it's not quite perjury.

00:25:54.000 So he doesn't think that it rises to that level.

00:25:57.000 Here's what he said.

00:25:57.000 Here's Andy McCarthy's case at National Review.

00:25:59.000 He says, this is with regard to the Clinton impeachment.

00:26:02.000 He says, the further removed misconduct is from the core responsibilities of the president, the less political support there will be for the president's removal from office.

00:26:09.000 This is critical because impeachment is a political remedy, not a legal one.

00:26:12.000 So in other words, if the president of the United States uses the IRS to target political opponents,

00:26:16.000 That is much more indicative of a president who deserves to be impeached than a president who committed a campaign finance violation, especially given the fact that campaign finance laws, I think on their face, are basically unconstitutional.

00:26:29.000 McCarthy says, This is critical because impeachment is a political remedy, not a legal one.

00:26:33.000 The way the framers designed the process, which requires just a simple House majority to file articles of impeachment but a two-third Senate supermajority for removal,

00:26:40.000 No president will ever be removed from office absent misconduct egregious enough to spur a consensus for removal that cuts across partisan lines.

00:26:47.000 Such misconduct would surely have to involve either A, an abuse of power involving core presidential powers or B, an extremely serious crime.

00:26:54.000 And McCarthy says the conduct here is not of an egregious nature that rises to high crimes and misdemeanors.

00:26:59.000 It is an infraction committed by many political candidates and often not even prosecuted.

00:27:04.000 More to the point, it is remote from the core responsibilities of the presidency, implicating pre-election actions to conceal alleged indiscretions that occurred a decade earlier.

00:27:12.000 And while the president has denied the indiscretions, it is not like the allegations come as any surprise to the public, who, while well aware of his flaws, elected Donald Trump nevertheless.

00:27:20.000 That said, if the Democrats take the House, there's no question that this will be the basis for some sort of impeachment claim against the President of the United States.

00:27:27.000 So we do have to ask the question, what distinguishes Bill Clinton's perjury charges from this particular case?

00:27:32.000 What distinguishes a campaign finance violation from perjury?

00:27:35.000 Well, you can make the argument that the perjurer is committed, well,

00:27:38.000 Clinton was president, and all of this activity took place before Trump was president.

00:27:42.000 That he basically committed the campaign violation before he was president, now he's president, he hasn't actually misused the powers of the presidency in order to do any of this stuff.

00:27:52.000 I think that's a semi-fair argument.

00:27:54.000 There's also the case to be made that committing a campaign finance violation is not the same thing as lying under oath, which Trump has not done at this point.

00:28:00.000 Which is one of the reasons why you could see a situation where Trump is subpoenaed

00:28:05.000 is caught in a perjury trap, and then you have exactly the same situation as Bill Clinton, which is why this is sort of a nightmare scenario for Trump.

00:28:11.000 All the people who voted for Bill Clinton's impeachment would then be forced to explain why Trumpian perjury is different from Clintonian perjury.

00:28:18.000 Maybe they say that there's less underlying crime here, that it's not really a crime, whereas Clinton was trying to cover up for crime, but he committed perjury with regard to Monica Lewinsky.

00:28:26.000 Now, the flip side is also true.

00:28:27.000 Remember, every single Democrat in the Senate voted not to convict President Clinton in 1998 because their case was, everybody lies about sex.

00:28:36.000 Well, if your case is everybody lies about sex, what exactly do you think Trump was doing here?

00:28:40.000 The entire case is that Donald Trump was basically lying about sex.

00:28:44.000 So what we've seen is almost a platonic inversion of the natural consequences of actions.

00:28:50.000 If this had happened to a Democrat, Republicans would be crying impeachment.

00:28:54.000 If this happens to a Republican, Democrats will cry for impeachment.

00:28:58.000 The truth is we have to come up with some sort of objective standard as to when impeachment is appropriate.

00:29:03.000 I am not sure that we have reached that standard yet, given the fact that Michael Cohen is not the most reliable witness, given the fact that we are not sure whether or not this is a crime in totality, and most of all, given the fact that even if this was a crime, we're not sure whether it rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors at this point.

00:29:19.000 That's not stopping the Democrats from celebrating inordinately.

00:29:22.000 Kathy Griffin was out there celebrating in the most bizarre possible fashion.

00:29:25.000 She released a video of herself dancing topless in front of a window.

00:29:30.000 Honestly, when I first saw this, Kathy Griffin blocked me long ago on Twitter to my great fortune.

00:29:34.000 I'm very happy about that.

00:29:36.000 I was wondering why there was a video of Carrot Top dancing in front of a window, and then it turns out it's just a clown.

00:29:41.000 It's actually Kathy Griffin dancing topless as they announce all of the charges in the Michael Cohen situation.

00:29:48.000 Now, how's this actually gonna break down?

00:29:50.000 It could break down in a couple of different ways.

00:29:52.000 So, it could break down in the way that the Democrats take the House.

00:29:57.000 And now, because of the basis of all this, they're forced to sort of file charges of impeachment.

00:30:01.000 It clears the House, it goes to the Senate, and dies in the Senate.

00:30:03.000 That's the most likely scenario.

00:30:05.000 And then, we get to find out whether an impeachment trial actually hurts an incumbent president in 2020, for example.

00:30:11.000 It's also possible that the Trump base is so driven nuts by all of this talk that they show up en masse in 2018.

00:30:18.000 It's also possible that this sort of takes the heart out of the Republican base because there's a feeling of incipient doom that sort of keeps people home in 2018 and 2020.

00:30:28.000 My guess is that it is the latter.

00:30:31.000 My guess is that as allegations of corruption mount, people are starting to get tired.

00:30:36.000 And the president is not doing a very good job of calming that sort of speculation.

00:30:41.000 And also, there's a feeling that, okay, if the House Democrats get control and they impeach him, nothing's going to happen anyway because the Senate's not going to do anything about it.

00:30:48.000 I'm going to talk a little bit more about what this means for 2018, plus another case that is really damaging to Republicans.

00:30:54.000 It was a very bad day for Republicans yesterday.

00:30:56.000 We'll talk about why in just a second.

00:30:58.000 First, you're going to have to go over to dailywire.com.

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00:31:14.000 I still can't believe it's not Friday.

00:31:16.000 This week is so long.

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00:31:27.000 This week we have on Clay Travis, the sports host who's become very controversial for his statements that he likes the First Amendment as well as breasts.

00:31:34.000 Indeed, Clay Travis on the Sunday special.

00:31:37.000 I'm Clay Travis, Fox Sports Radio and Outkick the Coverage.

00:31:40.000 I'm going to be on the Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special.

00:31:42.000 Tune in to hear Ben and I talk about how to make sports great again and why everything else has gone insane in the world of sports and beyond.

00:31:51.000 All that should be a lot of fun.

00:31:52.000 I hope you guys will come hang with us here on the Sunday special.

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00:31:56.000 If you're into sports, if you're into sports media and you're wondering what's wrong with kind of our sporting culture, we talk about it with Clay Travis, so check that out.

00:32:02.000 We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast in the nation.

00:32:09.000 So what are the electoral consequences of all of this?

00:32:12.000 Well, every additional scandal from the Republican side just drives down the enthusiasm on the Republican side for getting out there to vote, and drives up the enthusiasm on the Democratic side.

00:32:23.000 The proof in the pudding is 2006, when Republicans were running behind Democrats, fairly generically for a while, and then there was a scandal involving Mark Foley, who was a Republican congressperson from Florida, who it turns out had been getting it on with the pages.

00:32:36.000 Which is not great.

00:32:37.000 And that completely blew up and Democrats won like 60 seats.

00:32:40.000 Well, now it turns out that Duncan Hunter, another Republican, has been caught up in a campaign finance violation.

00:32:46.000 These ones are actually, I think, worse than the allegations about President Trump.

00:32:50.000 According to Amber Phillips over at the Washington Post, federal prosecutors allege that Duncan Hunter and his wife stole $250,000 in campaign funds to do things like take their family to Italy and buy a three-piece luggage set for it, buy their kids school lunches, treat family and friends to hotel rooms and wine and golf,

00:33:08.000 These allegations are really ugly.

00:33:11.000 Apparently, when Hunter and his wife chatted with each other about how they were able to get cash from the campaign to spend on daily life, they allegedly said, quote,

00:33:27.000 When Hunter told his wife he needed to buy my Hawaii shorts but he was out of money, she allegedly told him to buy them from a golf pro shop so he could claim they were actually golf balls for wounded warriors.

00:33:37.000 When the water utility company threatened to turn off their water, Margaret Hunter allegedly spent $300 in campaign funds to pay the bill.

00:33:43.000 And then she allegedly spent $152 on makeup at Nordstrom and told the campaign it was a gift basket item for the Boys and Girls Clubs of San Diego.

00:33:51.000 Not good stuff in any way.

00:33:54.000 And Duncan Hunter, of course, is one of the first Congress people to endorse President Trump for the presidency.

00:33:58.000 None of this is going to benefit Republicans going into the election.

00:34:01.000 Now, the overwhelming feeling of corruption and dirt that this is the swamp, it's not going to be good for the president of the United States.

00:34:08.000 Now, is this really going to move President Trump's approval ratings one way or another?

00:34:12.000 No.

00:34:12.000 As I say, his approval ratings are basically stagnant.

00:34:15.000 Everybody has an opinion on Trump.

00:34:16.000 Your opinion on Trump is set.

00:34:18.000 I think we're going to get a bunch of shock headlines on Friday.

00:34:20.000 Oh, Trump's approval rating is the same or it rose two points or something.

00:34:24.000 And everybody's going to say, see, it had no effect on President Trump.

00:34:27.000 That's not how politics works.

00:34:28.000 It's not just about the approval rating for a president who's basically set in stone.

00:34:32.000 It is also about whether people go out and vote in 2018 in order to save President Trump.

00:34:37.000 You know, these approval ratings polls do not measure public enthusiasm.

00:34:40.000 There's a sort of crisis mentality that I think people are trying to drive into Republicans, that if they don't stand up with Trump right now, then Trump will be impeached.

00:34:48.000 But it's hard to make that case at the same time that a lot of the Republican Congress people are being swept up in corruption allegations.

00:34:55.000 I don't know how motivated Republicans are to get out to vote.

00:34:57.000 There are a lot of folks who love President Trump who are motivated, but I think the folks in the middle are not.

00:35:00.000 Now, it's important to remember, folks,

00:35:02.000 And this is why Republicans should still go out to vote.

00:35:05.000 That all of politics does not, in fact, revolve around President Trump.

00:35:08.000 That if Democrats take the House of Representatives, they're going to pass a bunch of horrible, horrible legislation.

00:35:12.000 They're going to launch investigations, not only into President Trump, but into a lot of causes you hold dear.

00:35:17.000 They're going to attempt to crack down on religious freedom.

00:35:19.000 They're going to attempt to blow out the spending.

00:35:22.000 They're going to attempt to reverse all of the anti-regulatory policies of the Trump administration.

00:35:28.000 Losing the House to the Democrats on the basis of these allegations with regard to President Trump has ramifications that far exceed the impact on President Trump, which is why Republicans should still go out to vote.

00:35:39.000 But there's no question that all of this is depressing for Republicans, and we'll have to see how all of it plays out.

00:35:44.000 It's also possible that Mueller drops his full report before the election in November.

00:35:49.000 There were reports that were coming out today that he was going to drop his full report in October.

00:35:53.000 And depending on what's in there, that could depress turnouts still further.

00:35:56.000 And there are wages to a president who surrounds himself with people who are not good.

00:36:02.000 Michael Cohen is not a good person.

00:36:04.000 Omarosa Manigault, not a good person.

00:36:05.000 Michael Flynn, involved in a lot of bad stuff.

00:36:07.000 Paul Manafort, involved in a lot of bad stuff.

00:36:09.000 You surround yourself with pigs and you shouldn't be surprised when you get a little bit dirty.

00:36:13.000 President Trump has done that for a very long time.

00:36:14.000 That does have some serious electoral consequences and some legal consequences to boot.

00:36:20.000 We're gonna have to see how all of this goes.

00:36:21.000 I mean, when I say hold off and wait,

00:36:24.000 It's because we still don't have all the information on where this goes next.

00:36:28.000 Does this investigation proceed into a separate investigation?

00:36:31.000 Is President Trump subpoenaed?

00:36:32.000 Does Michael Cohen try to spill the beans on other stuff or make stuff up?

00:36:36.000 But suffice it to say, this is going to lead to at least a year-long news cycle that is not beneficial to the president, completely separate from the Russia stuff.

00:36:43.000 I was talking to some folks who work with the White House yesterday, and the attitude at the White House is not one of confidence.

00:36:50.000 It is one of, they can't, they don't know where the next shoe is gonna drop.

00:36:53.000 Now, there are a lot of folks on the right who are saying, witch hunt, witch hunt, everything is a witch hunt.

00:36:58.000 Some of this may indeed be a witch hunt.

00:36:59.000 Some of this may indeed be an overstepping of boundaries by the Mueller investigation.

00:37:03.000 It is also true that if you schtup a, if you schtup a porn star and then you pay her $130,000 through an election by funneling it through your corrupt fixer,

00:37:12.000 That's probably your own fault.

00:37:14.000 That's probably and if you and there's no there's no there's no honor among among the corrupt.

00:37:20.000 And that is certainly true with regard to Michael Cohen.

00:37:22.000 Now, meanwhile.

00:37:23.000 The Democrats, this just shows why elections have consequences and why Republicans should still get out to vote.

00:37:29.000 The most horrible story of the day yesterday actually had nothing to do with the President of the United States or Michael Cohen or Paul Manafort.

00:37:36.000 The most horrible story of the day had to do with Mollie Tibbetts.

00:37:38.000 So Mollie Tibbetts was a young woman who was missing, I guess, in Iowa.

00:37:46.000 She was abducted in around the 1900 block of 385th Avenue over in Iowa.

00:37:53.000 And it turns out the person who abducted her and murdered her was apparently an illegal immigrant.

00:37:58.000 Here's the story from the Des Moines Register.

00:38:00.000 They say, an undocumented immigrant is in custody charged with first-degree murder in the Molly Tibbetts investigation.

00:38:05.000 Christian Bejina-Rivera, 24, has been in the area for four to seven years.

00:38:09.000 Charges were filed in the Peweshik County Court.

00:38:10.000 He's being held on a $1 million cash bond.

00:38:13.000 Tibbetts was reported missing July 19th, according to a criminal complaint.

00:38:16.000 Shortly after her disappearance, investigators collected video footage from the east side of Brooklyn from the evening of July 18th.

00:38:22.000 The video showed Tibbetts running around Boundary and Middle Streets outside of Brooklyn when a black Chevy Malibu drove in the area around 7.45 p.m.

00:38:29.000 July 18th.

00:38:30.000 The footage shows the vehicle, driven by Rivera, going back and forth in the area, according to the criminal complaint.

00:38:34.000 Officers pulled this illegal immigrant in for questioning Monday when he admitted to making contact with a female running in Brooklyn and that he pursued her to an area east of town in Poitiac County, according to the criminal complaint.

00:38:45.000 Rivera told officials he exited his vehicle and started running behind her and alongside her.

00:38:49.000 Tibbetts then grabbed her phone and told him she was going to call the police.

00:38:52.000 He then told officials he got mad, panicked, and blocked his memory, which happens when he gets very upset, according to the criminal complaint.

00:38:58.000 He then abducted her and apparently murdered her.

00:39:00.000 He told officials he made a U-turn, drove to the entrance of a field, pulled into a driveway, drove into a cornfield.

00:39:05.000 He then realized he had earpieces in his lap, which made him realize Tibbetts was in the trunk.

00:39:10.000 Uh, they would not confirm whether the woman was alive or dead when she was inside the trunk.

00:39:15.000 Rivera told officials he pulled her out of the trunk, found blood on the side of her head.

00:39:18.000 He then dragged Tibbetts to a secluded location in the cornfield.

00:39:21.000 He told officials he put her over his shoulder, took her 20 meters into the cornfield, and covered her with some cornstalks, and then left her.

00:39:28.000 All of this is deeply, deeply horrifying stuff.

00:39:31.000 She was 20 years old, murdered while jogging.

00:39:34.000 And this, of course, has become a national news story because the person who did it was an illegal immigrant who apparently passed an E-Verify check, because you can pass E-Verify by using a fake social security number.

00:39:44.000 President Trump was speaking at a rally last night.

00:39:46.000 This is why he still has loyalty of a lot of his base, because when it comes to issues like illegal immigration, the president takes that stuff seriously where Democrats do not.

00:39:54.000 And you saw what happened to that incredible, beautiful young woman.

00:40:00.000 Should have never happened.

00:40:02.000 Illegally in our country.

00:40:05.000 We've had a huge impact, but the laws are so bad.

00:40:08.000 The immigration laws are such a disgrace.

00:40:11.000 We're getting them changed, but we have to get more Republicans.

00:40:15.000 We have to get.

00:40:17.000 Okay, Mollie Ivins, who is the, sorry, not Mollie Ivins, rather, Elizabeth Warren was talking about Mollie Tibbetts.

00:40:26.000 And Elizabeth Warren responded to the Mollie Tibbetts situation basically by saying that we need more rights for undocumented immigrants and then this stuff never would have happened.

00:40:34.000 I'm so sorry for the family here, and I know this is hard, not only for the family, but for the people in her community, the people throughout Iowa.

00:40:44.000 But one of the things we have to remember is we need an immigration system that is effective, that focuses on where real problems are.

00:40:52.000 I think we need immigration laws that focus on people who pose a real threat, and I don't think mamas and babies

00:41:05.000 Okay, what this has to do with anything is beyond me, but this is why people take President Trump seriously on illegal immigration.

00:41:13.000 They do not take Democrats seriously on illegal immigration.

00:41:15.000 And when Democrats express a lot of sympathy for victims of illegal immigrants, it's a rarity.

00:41:22.000 There was an MSNBC guest yesterday talking about Fox News will only pay attention to this case because it's an illegal immigrant.

00:41:28.000 Nobody really cares about it.

00:41:29.000 Well Fox News is talking about, you know, a girl in Iowa and not this, right?

00:41:34.000 And tomorrow morning we know who will wake up and tweet and sort of, you know, besmirch the reputation of Michael Cohen and all the people around him and really go back to Mueller.

00:41:41.000 And this is obviously going to boil down to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

00:41:44.000 We're good to go.

00:42:06.000 Okay, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.

00:42:08.000 So things I like...

00:42:26.000 I just started watching the show, Billions, and it's on Showtime.

00:42:31.000 I guess they just completed season three.

00:42:33.000 I've only seen the first couple of episodes, but it's really juicy, and it's really purple, and it's really great.

00:42:38.000 So it's Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis, and basically them trying to outact one another.

00:42:43.000 Basically, Paul Giamatti plays a sort of Elliot Spitzer figure, a go-getter attorney, district attorney in New York, who's attempting to get an insider trader, Damian Lewis, a charismatic inside trader.

00:42:56.000 It's really fun to watch.

00:42:57.000 Here is a little bit of the trailer.

00:43:00.000 What we do has consequences.

00:43:03.000 Intended and unintended.

00:43:06.000 The decisions we make, the actions we bring, have weight.

00:43:12.000 Come to work every day and be just and strong in the actions you bring.

00:43:17.000 And don't waver.

00:43:21.000 When did it become a crime to succeed in this country?

00:43:24.000 Everyone has access to the information, we just know how to analyze it better.

00:43:28.000 Okay, so it's great, it's fast-paced, it's really well-written, and it's a lot of fun to watch.

00:43:32.000 It's really over-the-top, so if that's your sort of thing, go for it.

00:43:44.000 Pay attention, really, to the first 30 seconds of the show.

00:43:46.000 Like, the opening of the show is basically an S&M scene, and I have to say, it does remind you that people are super weird.

00:43:52.000 Basically, the show opens with a pee tape, and you wonder why any... I just have... Like, I understand, you know, whatever floats your boat, but I just wonder why some things float people's boat.

00:44:02.000 It's just, like, why?

00:44:03.000 Why?

00:44:04.000 Why is your... No one knows.

00:44:06.000 In any case, you can check out that show.

00:44:08.000 It's fun to watch and well worth watching.

00:44:09.000 Okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.

00:44:14.000 There's a church in California that is now being promoted by, I think, NowThis.

00:44:19.000 And NowThis will basically promote any fringe phenomenon they can find.

00:44:23.000 There's a church that apparently combines Sunday worship with beers on tap, talks about how Jesus was apparently a person of color, which is real weird, and also talks about why they're going to donate proceeds to Planned Parenthood.

00:44:35.000 So it's not really a church, it's more of just

00:44:39.000 A bunch of atheists getting together and pretending that they care about their own version of Jesus who didn't exist historically and does not exist in the Bible.

00:44:46.000 But now this celebrates this because this is the diversity of religion or some such.

00:44:50.000 We are open and affirming LGBTQ.

00:44:52.000 We are feminist, and I believe Jesus was too.

00:44:55.000 We are environmentalist, which I believe that's the original mandate of the children of God to take care of the planet that we all know and enjoy.

00:45:03.000 We are anti-war, which I believe Jesus was too.

00:45:06.000 We are all for racial justice, which Jesus was a Palestinian Jewish rabbi.

00:45:12.000 He was a person of color.

00:45:13.000 That was killed by white supremacy, so we're usually making every effort to be on the front lines for racial justice.

00:45:20.000 So that's what sets us apart from many American churches.

00:45:24.000 We found an awesome spot, consequently happened to be right below Planned Parenthood in Santa Cruz, which we adore and support their efforts for giving health care to women.

00:45:34.000 I love that now this always plays this kind of meaningful guitar music under people saying the stupidest possible nonsense they can possibly find.

00:45:41.000 Really spectacular stuff.

00:45:42.000 So a few things about Jesus.

00:45:44.000 He was Jewish.

00:45:45.000 He was not a quote-unquote Palestinian.

00:45:47.000 He was Jewish because everybody who was called a Palestinian in those days was Jewish because it was Roman Palestine.

00:45:54.000 And the word Palestine, there's never been an independent state in the region.

00:45:57.000 There's never been a Palestinian state in the region.

00:45:58.000 There have only been Jewish states.

00:46:00.000 And there's been area controlled by the Romans or the Ottoman Turks.

00:46:03.000 Just historically speaking.

00:46:04.000 He was not killed because of white supremacy.

00:46:06.000 That's really dumb.

00:46:08.000 That wasn't like a thing then.

00:46:14.000 Jesus was not, it turns out, a feminist in the terms that feminists would use now.

00:46:19.000 Jesus did believe in the idea that women were valuable, if you read the New Testament.

00:46:24.000 But there are also some pretty awkward things for these feminist scholars about

00:46:30.000 Jesus talking about how relationships are supposed to work inside of marriage.

00:46:34.000 Jesus talking about what women are supposed to do in their role in the world.

00:46:39.000 To suggest that he's like a third wave feminist is weird.

00:46:42.000 And then to suggest that Jesus was very big on the abortions.

00:46:46.000 We're good to go.

00:47:07.000 He's a transgender woman, which is to say, a biological male, and cut a video in defense of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who requires white knighting, apparently, because I challenged Ocasio-Cortez to a debate.

00:47:19.000 The left can't let this go.

00:47:20.000 It's really astonishing.

00:47:22.000 They keep coming back to the idea that I did something deeply wrong in offering a discussion on the Sunday special or debate to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

00:47:29.000 As I've said many times, all she had to say was, nah, not interested.

00:47:31.000 That would have been the end of it, pretty much.

00:47:33.000 Instead, she decided to call me a sexist.

00:47:35.000 Riley Dentist... Riley Dennis, who is... I think it's fair to say that it might be more sexist to adopt all of the stereotypically feminine attributes and call yourself a woman than to say to a woman, can we have a discussion about politics?

00:47:48.000 Riley Dennis says that it was me engaging in sexism, and he would know as a woman.

00:47:54.000 The reason we're talking about this is because recently some conservative a**hole on the internet demanded that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez debate him.

00:48:02.000 Apparently I'm allowed to just demand that politicians debate me now.

00:48:05.000 I guess that's how this works all of a sudden.

00:48:06.000 Can you pause for a second?

00:48:08.000 So the answer is yes, you can do that anytime you want, it's a free country.

00:48:12.000 If you want people to debate you, you can ask them to debate.

00:48:14.000 They also have the right to say no.

00:48:16.000 Apparently it's a crime.

00:48:17.000 Okay, so let's continue with this volitionist.

00:48:19.000 If you ever see anyone disagree with you, even if they're incredibly busy public figures or politicians, you are entitled to a debate with them.

00:48:26.000 If they ignore your request for a debate, they're a coward.

00:48:28.000 Do you see how ridiculous that sounds?

00:48:30.000 Imagine if I now went on a Twitter tirade and published a sh**ton of articles demanding that someone debate me.

00:48:35.000 Like, it would just be ridiculous.

00:48:36.000 It would clearly be more for show than it would be for discussing any sort of actual issue.

00:48:41.000 Okay, except that I actually invited Ocasio-Cortez on my show to answer questions, and she turned it down by calling me a sexist.

00:48:49.000 So there's that.

00:48:50.000 It is amazing the lengths to which the left will go to suggest that even asking for... So if I don't ask for a conversation, it's because I'm dismissive.

00:48:57.000 If I do ask for a conversation, it's because I'm sexist.

00:48:59.000 And the person telling me I'm a sexist is a biological man who believes he is a woman.

00:49:05.000 Awesome.

00:49:06.000 I can't imagine why people don't take the left super seriously these days in terms of their ideology.

00:49:10.000 Okay, time for a quick psalm.

00:49:11.000 So, after watching all that anti-biblical nonsense from that fake church,

00:49:15.000 Let's go through a psalm.

00:49:16.000 Always makes me feel a little bit better to do this at the end of the show.

00:49:18.000 You know, maybe we... The psalms are very meaningful in a time when everything seems chaotic.

00:49:23.000 Psalm 6.

00:49:23.000 We've been going through one a week.

00:49:25.000 For the director of music with stringed instruments, according to Sheminit Abba.

00:49:29.000 Psalm of David.

00:49:30.000 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath.

00:49:32.000 Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint.

00:49:34.000 Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.

00:49:36.000 My soul is in deep anguish.

00:49:37.000 How long, Lord?

00:49:38.000 How long?

00:50:00.000 The part of this that's interesting is the idea that you have to demonstrate vulnerability before God.

00:50:05.000 So it's very difficult for people who tend to be prideful, and I'm one of them, to demonstrate vulnerability before God, to ask things of God.

00:50:13.000 And when you do ask things of God, what you're basically doing is you're accepting His authority.

00:50:16.000 You're accepting that you are not in charge of the world and that God is in charge of the world.

00:50:20.000 And so pouring out your pain before Him isn't self-indulgent.

00:50:22.000 It's actually a recognition that God is the source of all things.

00:50:27.000 And so to recognize that is the first step toward making yourself better.

00:50:31.000 I think that much of prayer is not even dedicated toward, you know, quote unquote, changing God's mind.

00:50:36.000 It's much more dedicated toward changing you and your attitude toward God.

00:50:40.000 Demonstrating vulnerability toward God is the same as demonstrating vulnerability toward anyone else.

00:50:45.000 In doing so, you're opening yourself up to being hurt.

00:50:48.000 But if you do that with God, then you're demonstrating a fulsome trust in Him that is well worthwhile and warranted.

00:50:53.000 Okay, we'll be back here tomorrow with all the latest.

00:50:55.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:50:55.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:51:00.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villareal, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay.

00:51:06.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:51:10.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:51:12.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.

00:51:14.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.

00:51:15.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Ford Publishing production.

00:51:18.000 Copyright Ford Publishing 2018.

The Ben Shapiro Show - August 22, 2018

It’s Apocalypse Day! Ep. 608

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