The Ben Shapiro Show - The Actual Big Issue | Ep. 610

00:00:00.000 While the nation focuses on scandal, other serious problems are actually cropping up.

00:00:04.000 The latest updates in the Trump investigations and we will check the mailbag.

00:00:07.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

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

00:00:13.000 Every day, another piece of news, and every piece of news more annoying than the last.

00:00:17.000 So much to get to today, we'll get to all of it first.

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00:01:23.000 Okay, so let's begin with all of the legal updates in the investigation into President Trump and the Trump Organization and campaign finance violations and all the rest of it.

00:01:35.000 There's a good piece today from Kimberly Strassel about the feeling that a lot of folks on the right are getting that this is all one-sided.

00:01:43.000 And President Trump is among those who feel that this is all one-sided, that the investigations into Trump have been consistent, non-stop, and were never mirrored by any similar investigations into the Hillary Clinton Foundation or into Hillary Clinton's emails.

00:01:55.000 This feeling that there are a lot of folks who were responsible for bad action on the left side of the aisle, but got away with it because there was no specific special investigation that was dedicated to them.

00:02:05.000 And there's some truth to this.

00:02:06.000 Kimberly Strassel's column today is all about this.

00:02:08.000 She points out,

00:02:23.000 And yet they are now witnessing unequal treatment in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe.

00:02:27.000 Yes, the former FBI director deserves credit for smoking out the Russian trolls who interfered in 2016, and one can argue he's obliged to pursue any evidence of criminal acts, even those unrelated to Russia.

00:02:36.000 But what cannot be justified is the one-sided nature of his probe.

00:02:39.000 Now, I think there is truth to the idea that the DOJ should be looking into campaign finance violations, for example, by the Hillary Clinton campaign, as Kimberly Strassel will explain in a second.

00:02:48.000 It looks like there were some of those violations, but those are kind of going by the wayside.

00:02:51.000 However, it is important to recognize that Mueller's original purview was Russian collusion and all crimes connected thereto.

00:02:58.000 And when it comes to Russian collusion and election interference,

00:03:02.000 All of that seems to be coming from the Trump side of the aisle.

00:03:05.000 So I'm not going to blame Mueller for the breadth of his purview.

00:03:09.000 However, you can say that the DOJ, outside of Mueller, ought to be looking into campaign finance violations by the Hillary team.

00:03:14.000 So here is what Kimberly Strassel writes, and I think that she's correct.

00:03:18.000 She says, if there's only one set of rules, where is Mr. Mueller's referral of a case against Hillary for America?

00:03:22.000 Federal law requires campaigns to disclose the recipient and purpose of any payments.

00:03:26.000 The Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS to compile a dossier against Mr. Trump, a document that became the basis of the Russian narrative Mr. Mueller now investigates.

00:03:34.000 But the campaign funneled the money to law firm Perkins Coie, which in turn paid Fusion GPS.

00:03:39.000 The campaign falsely described the money as payment for legal services.

00:03:42.000 The DNC did the same.

00:03:43.000 A Perkins Coy spokesperson has claimed that neither the Clinton campaign nor the DNC was aware that Fusion GPS had been hired to conduct the research, and maybe so.

00:03:51.000 But a lot of lawyers here seem to have been ignoring a clear statute, presumably with the intent of influencing an election.

00:03:57.000 And she points out also that there have been prosecutions under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which is what has been used to nail Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, people who are acting as essentially emissaries of foreign powers without registering as such.

00:04:08.000 But Strassel points out, under this standard, where are the charges against the principals of Fusion GPS, who Senator Chuck Grassley have said

00:04:16.000 So, I think that she's correct, that there should be more investigation into Perkins Coy, there should be more investigations into the DNC.

00:04:35.000 However, it is imperative to note, just in the interest of intellectual honesty, that when it comes to President Trump and Michael Cohen, Michael Cohen is the president's fixer, Michael Cohen's the guy who turned on Trump, that's the reason we're talking about all of this right now.

00:04:45.000 The reason we're talking about all of this right now is because Michael Cohen was the guy who was funneling the money, and he has now turned on President Trump and admitted criminal wrongdoing.

00:04:54.000 The same has not held true with regard to Perkins Coy.

00:04:56.000 That doesn't mean there shouldn't be an investigation, but there is a slight difference in the amount of evidence that has now been leveraged against President Trump and against the Trump Organization.

00:05:05.000 With all of that said, the breaking news today is that the Manhattan District Attorney's Office is considering pursuing criminal charges against the Trump Organization and two senior company officials in connection with Cohen's hush money payment to an adult film actress, according to two officials with knowledge of the matter.

00:05:21.000 A state investigation would center on how the company accounted for its reimbursement to Mr. Cohen for the $130,000 he paid to the actress Stephanie Clifford, who has said she had an affair with President Trump, the official said.

00:05:31.000 Both officials stressed the office's review of the matter is in its earliest stages and prosecutors have not yet made a decision on whether to proceed.

00:05:38.000 So presumably this would involve state charges against the Trump Organization or its executives.

00:05:43.000 The Trump Organization involves members of President Trump's family, so it could start to get very ugly for a lot of members of President Trump's family.

00:05:50.000 It's also true that the State Attorney General in New York hates President Trump and is more than interested in going after the Trump Organization.

00:05:57.000 Does this look like selective prosecution?

00:05:59.000 Does it look like they're going a little bit too deep?

00:06:01.000 Maybe, but we're going to have to see what charges arise.

00:06:04.000 Other news connected to this is that Allen Weisselberg, who is President Trump's longtime financial gatekeeper according to the Wall Street Journal, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors for providing information about Michael Cohen in the criminal investigation into hush money payments

00:06:18.000 Weisselberg is the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, so he's been granted immunity.

00:06:27.000 The Trump Organization, again, involves members of Trump's family, so this could theoretically reach into Trump's family.

00:06:32.000 It could also be that we're only finding out about Weisselberg basically becoming an informant for the government.

00:06:38.000 Because of the Cohen case.

00:06:40.000 In other words, what Weisselberg had to offer was bad material on Cohen, not about members of the Trump family.

00:06:45.000 We'll have to find out about all of that.

00:06:46.000 None of this is particularly good for the president, of course.

00:06:49.000 And then the biggest story connected with all of this is this kind of bombshell story that has now been reported by the New York Times and a bunch of other and a bunch of other

00:06:58.000 Outlets that the U.S.

00:06:59.000 tabloid newspaper, this is the UK Guardian reporting, the National Enquirer, kept a safe containing documents on hush money payments and other damaging stories it killed as part of its cozy relationship with President Trump leading up to the 2016 presidential election, people familiar with the arrangement have told the Associated Press.

00:07:15.000 The detail came as several media outlets reported on Thursday that federal prosecutors had granted immunity to the National Enquirer's chief, David Pecker.

00:07:23.000 There is a general sense, as I say, that there's a little bit of unfairness going on.

00:07:27.000 That on one side of the aisle,

00:07:43.000 There's an investigation that is going on into President Trump and all of his associates that is extraordinarily deep, that is extraordinarily detailed, that takes an enormous amount of effort.

00:07:52.000 And the feeling is, why are we taking all of this effort on what may or may not be a campaign finance violation?

00:07:59.000 And that effort pre-existed, the investigation into Cohen, right?

00:08:02.000 We had this whole Russian collusion investigation.

00:08:04.000 There's a feeling like this is fruit of the poisonous tree on the right, that the Russian investigation began, it was begun on bad auspices, that basically it was exacerbated by a bunch of bad claims from the DOJ and Obama associates and Hillary Clinton associates, that it was pushed forward by people like Peter Strzok, and that eventually, after President Trump fired Robert Mueller, and after Jeff Sessions recused himself,

00:08:25.000 Then a special counsel was appointed, and that special investigator then proceeded to dig into Michael Cohen as an extension into that, and it all feels just a little too much.

00:08:34.000 I think there is some truth to that, especially given the fact that the Obama administration routinely ignored crime that was happening within its own ranks.

00:08:41.000 I mean, Eric Holder was held in contempt by Congress for not turning over documents, and the President of the United States, Barack Obama, presented him with executive privilege.

00:08:50.000 He shielded him with executive privilege.

00:08:53.000 The feeling of unfairness on one side of the aisle is absolutely true.

00:08:56.000 And I think it's absolutely correct as well.

00:08:58.000 Two things can be true at once.

00:09:00.000 It can be that unfairness is happening here, that Trump is being pursued in a way Obama never would have been, that Michael Cohen is being pursued in a way no Obama associate ever would have been.

00:09:09.000 All of that can be true.

00:09:10.000 And at the same time, it can also be true that Trump is possibly guilty of some stuff and that the people around him are guilty of some stuff and have already pled guilty to some stuff.

00:09:19.000 So you can feel the unfairness and you can also say that something corrupt went on here.

00:09:22.000 Now, the question for the moral person, to get to the kind of root values, the question for the moral person is, do you think that this ought to result in President Trump getting off the hook as sort of a sop to the fact that the DOJ has become thoroughly politicized, or is the answer that we have to start enforcing the law somewhere, and if the law has to be enforced against people on our own side, well, that's the way it's going to have to go.

00:09:44.000 In other words, do two wrongs make a right?

00:09:46.000 Do we live in a political sphere where it is more important that both sides be treated equally by being let off the hook for corruption, or is it better that we actually start trying to reinstate some semblance of law enforcement in our system?

00:10:00.000 And it's hard.

00:10:01.000 It's hard because it feels like we on the right are constantly having to

00:10:05.000 Basically suggests that we are on a higher plane, that we are going to play by the rules while the other side doesn't.

00:10:12.000 And one of the great irritations on Twitter and on social media these days is you see all of these fools on the left tweeting out stuff about how the biggest scandal under Obama was that he wore a tan suit one time at a briefing. 0.94

00:10:23.000 That is nonsense. 0.78

00:10:24.000 There's a list as long as my arm of scandals in which the Obama administration was involved, ranging from the IRS to Benghazi to Fast and Furious to the Health and Human Services corruption,

00:10:34.000 To the Veterans Affairs scandal.

00:10:36.000 I mean, there are a bevy of scandals under Barack Obama.

00:10:39.000 A bevy of them.

00:10:41.000 And yet, they were treated as nothing by the media.

00:10:43.000 And so the natural tendency of human beings is to fight back against that by saying, okay, well, if you guys aren't going to play by the rules, we're not going to play by the rules either.

00:10:49.000 Why should we abide by the law if you guys are not going to abide by the law?

00:10:53.000 And then when you look at the way the media treat these issues, you also feel a certain sense of unfairness.

00:10:58.000 Because the media are all over American media, right?

00:11:01.000 This National Enquirer.

00:11:03.000 Tabloid paper that had a close relationship with Trump.

00:11:06.000 But how many newspapers were covering for Barack Obama?

00:11:09.000 How many newspapers made clear that they were going to do Obama's bidding?

00:11:12.000 The L.A.

00:11:13.000 Times in the run up to the 2008 election had a tape of Rashid Khalidi, who was an actual member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, who's a spokesman for a terrorist group, and Barack Obama honoring him at an event.

00:11:23.000 And the L.A.

00:11:24.000 Times refused to release that publicly.

00:11:26.000 So the same folks who are railing against the National Enquirer for doing Trump's dirty work, as well they should be, a lot of them were doing Obama's dirty work when Obama was president.

00:11:34.000 So it feels unfair on that end also.

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00:12:47.000 So as I say, you look at the media, and the media who are ripping on National Enquirer, as is well deserved, the same media who rip on Fox News all day for being quote-unquote in the pocket of President Trump, those media are in the pocket of the left and have been for decades.

00:13:02.000 And it feels unfair.

00:13:03.000 All of this feels unfair.

00:13:04.000 And that's driving a level of support for President Trump in spite of the credible allegations of corruption inside the Trump campaign.

00:13:12.000 I have sympathy for this position.

00:13:13.000 I do.

00:13:13.000 There's an emotional sympathy that accrues to this.

00:13:15.000 It feels like the DOJ let Hillary Clinton off the hook. 0.88

00:13:19.000 It feels like the DOJ let Barack Obama off the hook.

00:13:21.000 It feels like Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch basically acted as Barack Obama's great protectors while Jeff Sessions is not doing the same for the President of the United States.

00:13:29.000 And so why can't we just play by their rules?

00:13:31.000 Right.

00:13:31.000 That was, in fact, one of the premises of the of the Trump campaign was they're not going to play by the rules of the Marcus of Queensbury rules.

00:13:38.000 Let's just nominate the guy who's not going to play by any rules at all, who smashes every rule.

00:13:42.000 We'll get the bull in the China shop.

00:13:43.000 He'll go in there.

00:13:44.000 He will destroy all the rules.

00:13:45.000 And then Trump won.

00:13:46.000 And it felt like destroying the rules was the only way to win.

00:13:49.000 And I think that that is a predictable effect of the left's decision to basically buck every rule for decades, for as long as I've been alive, and then insist that the right be held to precisely those rules.

00:13:59.000 We're seeing the same thing with the impeachment talk today.

00:14:01.000 All the same folks who are against Bill Clinton's impeachment have now turned around and said they are very much in favor of Donald Trump's impeachment on similar or lesser grounds.

00:14:12.000 It feels unfair.

00:14:13.000 It feels like partisan hackery.

00:14:15.000 But the question is, is the solution to partisan hackery more partisan hackery?

00:14:18.000 Is the country better off if Republicans, if conservatives, start basically shying away from the notion of law enforcement doing its job just because the left has shied away from that?

00:14:29.000 Is that a recipe for a better politics?

00:14:31.000 Is that a recipe for a better country?

00:14:33.000 Is the way that we heal from all of this to basically go along with the left's premise that law enforcement should be used as a tool of those in power?

00:14:40.000 Or should we recognize that law enforcement should have a certain level of independence?

00:14:44.000 That law enforcement should prosecute crimes as they come up?

00:14:47.000 Maybe that's the case we should be making to the American people.

00:14:49.000 Maybe the case we should be making is, look, if this were under Obama, he would have shut this stuff down already. 0.98

00:14:53.000 Because the Democrats are more corrupt.

00:14:56.000 But when Republicans get in power, then Republicans get prosecuted.

00:14:59.000 Because Republicans are willing to let law enforcement go forward.

00:15:02.000 That seems to me like a fairly moral case that ought to be made.

00:15:05.000 And, honestly, if the American people want to stand up against corruption, the answer to that is to elect people who you know are not going to stand in the way of investigation of corruption.

00:15:12.000 That means don't elect Democrats.

00:15:15.000 I want to talk about President Trump's response to all of this, because President Trump, representing, as he does, the sort of id of the Republican Party, and also representing a guy who really loves himself a lot, he's very angry at Jeff Sessions.

00:15:27.000 Jeff Sessions is the Attorney General, and he's angry at Jeff Sessions because Jeff Sessions has not acted as Eric Holder or Loretta Lynch did.

00:15:33.000 He has not stood there and protected President Trump and President Trump's associates from investigation into corrupt activities.

00:15:39.000 So yesterday, President Trump was on TV with Fox and Friends, and he went off on Jeff Sessions in pretty

00:15:45.000 Harsh terms.

00:15:46.000 It's a very, very sad day.

00:15:47.000 Jeff Sessions recused himself, which he shouldn't have done, or he should have told me.

00:15:52.000 Even my enemies say that Jeff Sessions should have told you that he was going to recuse himself and then you wouldn't have put him in.

00:16:01.000 He took the job and then he said, I'm going to recuse myself.

00:16:05.000 I said, what kind of a man is this?

00:16:08.000 And by the way, he was on the campaign.

00:16:10.000 You know, the only reason I gave him the job, because I felt loyalty.

00:16:13.000 He was an original supporter.

00:16:15.000 Okay, the answer is, he's the kind of man who does the honorable thing by recusing himself.

00:16:19.000 I'm very much in Jeff Sessions' corner here.

00:16:21.000 As the Attorney General of the United States, your job is to uphold the law of the land and the Constitution of the United States.

00:16:26.000 It is not to be the President's protector.

00:16:28.000 I don't see how we on the conservative right can complain about Eric Holder if we just want our own Eric Holder.

00:16:33.000 I don't see how we can complain about Loretta Lynch meeting with Bill Clinton if we just want our own Loretta Lynch. 0.98

00:16:37.000 And I understand the tendency to say, listen, they're corrupt.

00:16:40.000 Why can't we play by their rules?

00:16:41.000 They're not playing by our rules, so why can't we play by their rules?

00:16:44.000 But I don't think that that is a recipe for a better country.

00:16:46.000 I think that's a recipe for a worse country.

00:16:48.000 Jeff Sessions finally fired back against the president.

00:16:50.000 He issued a statement on the basis of these statements.

00:16:52.000 He says,

00:17:08.000 While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.

00:17:13.000 I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action.

00:17:16.000 However, no nation has a more talented, more dedicated group of law enforcement investigators and prosecutors than the United States.

00:17:22.000 I am proud to serve with them, and proud of the work we have done in successfully advancing the rule of law.

00:17:26.000 The key line here is, while I am Attorney General, the actions of the DOJ will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.

00:17:33.000 That's Jeff Sessions doing what he is supposed to do, which is he is saying, listen, I'm not going to be pressured into doing anything here, right?

00:17:39.000 The way this works is that I abide by the law.

00:17:42.000 And this is correct.

00:17:43.000 But again, I think there's a battle that's now been breaking out on the right.

00:17:46.000 I think it's a years long battle at this point as to how much of your morality, how much of decency are you going to sacrifice for victory?

00:17:54.000 If you feel like we have to, and is it really a victory if you sacrifice that morality?

00:17:59.000 Have we won anything?

00:18:00.000 Let's say that Jeff Sessions became a flak for President Trump.

00:18:02.000 Let's say that he fired Robert Mueller and he became a flak for President Trump just defending him against all comers.

00:18:08.000 Is that a win for the country?

00:18:09.000 Is that a win for the right? 0.81

00:18:10.000 In one sense it's a win for the right because President Trump

00:18:13.000 experiences less blowback, presumably.

00:18:16.000 Although, I'm not even sure that's true because the media is so much to the left.

00:18:19.000 But on the other hand, what exactly is the right fighting for if not the idea that the rule of law applies to everyone?

00:18:25.000 This is why I'm sympathetic to Kimberly Strassel's argument more than I am to President Trump's argument.

00:18:29.000 I don't think the solution here is for Jeff Sessions to suddenly become a political actor.

00:18:33.000 I do think the solution here is for the DOJ to look into malfeasance on all sides.

00:18:38.000 That it shouldn't just be on one side, and that if that requires more investigators, it requires more investigators.

00:18:44.000 The case against unfairness is a strong one, but the solution to unfairness I don't think is more unfairness.

00:18:50.000 Unfortunately, there are some on the right who really believe that they have to go along with the president's whims here.

00:18:56.000 Lindsey Graham is one of these folks, senator from South Carolina, who a long time ago was very anti-Trump, now he's very pro-Trump, obviously, and he came out and he sort of split the difference.

00:19:04.000 He says he thinks that Sessions did the right thing by recusing, but if the president fires Sessions, he'll go along with it.

00:19:10.000 Every president deserves an attorney general they have confidence in.

00:19:14.000 As to Jeff Sessions, I've never met a finer man.

00:19:16.000 He was a great senator.

00:19:17.000 He's a great lawyer.

00:19:18.000 I think he's been a good attorney general.

00:19:20.000 But this is not working.

00:19:22.000 So I hope the relationship gets better.

00:19:25.000 If it doesn't, I would imagine the president is going to look for a new attorney general.

00:19:29.000 Because what's going on is unsustainable.

00:19:32.000 I'm not blaming anybody.

00:19:33.000 I love Jeff Sessions.

00:19:35.000 But from my point of view, the country is not being well served with this much friction.

00:19:39.000 I mean, that's a breach in the wall right there, because Republican senators were basically saying, if Jeff Sessions goes, we're not appointing a new Attorney General.

00:19:45.000 It's just going to be whatever happens from there.

00:19:47.000 But there's Lindsey Graham basically saying, if Trump fires Sessions, then we'll go along with that.

00:19:53.000 Which, again, do you think that's going to redounce Republicans' electoral benefit?

00:19:56.000 The American people consent when it feels like people are being corrupt.

00:19:59.000 I think that, you know, we have the sense on the right that Barack Obama didn't pay a price for his corruption, that Barack Obama didn't pay a price for Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, except for the fact that Republicans have been in control of Congress since 2010 and now run the presidency.

00:20:11.000 So the American people can, in fact, feel corruption, and extending the corruption to the other side of the aisle is not an actual solution.

00:20:18.000 Speaking of which, we'll talk about Duncan Hunter and the case against Duncan Hunter.

00:20:22.000 I also want to talk a little bit about media malfeasance and corruption because it's pretty insane.

00:20:26.000 In just a second, we'll talk a little more about President Trump as well.

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00:21:35.000 Okay, so President Trump is

00:21:38.000 You know, very much in line with Lindsey Graham.

00:21:40.000 Obviously, he's very upset with Jeff Sessions.

00:21:41.000 He had a bunch of tweets this morning about Jeff Sessions, so this is going to come to a head.

00:21:45.000 Here's what President Trump had to tweet.

00:21:47.000 He tweeted,

00:22:02.000 A few things that are actually necessary to mention about here is that we only know about Peter Strzok.

00:22:07.000 We only know about McCabe.

00:22:09.000 We only know about Lisa Page.

00:22:12.000 We only know about all of this stuff because of an Inspector General report from the Department of Justice.

00:22:16.000 So it's not like the DOJ isn't looking into this stuff or hasn't looked into this stuff.

00:22:20.000 And if Trump wants to order an investigation, he does have the capacity to do that.

00:22:23.000 Now, I haven't seen the information Jeff Sessions has seen.

00:22:26.000 I assume that President Trump has.

00:22:28.000 If President Trump feels the evidence is that strong, he should order an investigation right now.

00:22:31.000 Also, if the president really feels like all this stuff was really criminal, you know what he can do?

00:22:36.000 Declassify all of it.

00:22:37.000 Remember, the president does have the power to declassify all of this information.

00:22:40.000 So when he complains about FISA abuse, Christopher Steele and his phony and corrupt dossier, the Clinton Foundation, illegal surveillance of Trump campaign, Russian collusion by Dems, and so much more, open up the papers and documents without redaction.

00:22:53.000 Come on, Jeff, you can do it.

00:22:54.000 The country is waiting.

00:22:56.000 Jeff Sessions is not the head of the executive branch.

00:22:57.000 Donald J. Trump is the head of the executive branch.

00:22:59.000 If he wants the papers opened up without redaction, all he has to do is declassify them.

00:23:03.000 He's not doing that, which suggests to me that his legal advisors have seen this stuff, and it doesn't all cut in the direction that President Trump actually wants it to cut in.

00:23:12.000 So, how much of this is fulmination for public purposes?

00:23:15.000 I don't know, but I'm getting, frankly, a little frustrated with all of the abuse of Jeff Sessions from the right, particularly.

00:23:21.000 I don't think Jeff Sessions is doing a bad job.

00:23:23.000 I think he's doing a fine job.

00:23:24.000 And this notion that Jeff Sessions is somehow a tool of the left, when he was the first senator to endorse Donald Trump, the first, okay?

00:23:32.000 Don't talk about he's not loyal to Trump.

00:23:33.000 He was the first senator to endorse Donald Trump, back when Donald Trump didn't look like he had a prayer.

00:23:39.000 This idea that Sessions is some sort of stool pigeon for Hillary Clinton, I find it insulting.

00:23:45.000 Meanwhile, the corruption on the right side of the aisle continues to be a public issue.

00:23:51.000 Duncan Hunter, the representative from California,

00:23:55.000 So are you saying that it's more her fault than your fault?

00:24:16.000 Well, I'm saying, when I went to Iraq in 2003, the first time, I gave her power of attorney, and she handled my finances throughout my entire military career, and that continued on when I got into Congress, because I'm gone five days a week, I'm home for two, and she was also the campaign manager, so whatever she did, that'll be looked at too, I'm sure, but I didn't do it.

00:24:38.000 I didn't spend any money illegally, I did not use campaign money, especially for Wounded Warrior stuff.

00:24:45.000 So this is going great.

00:24:46.000 So I'm going to blame my wife.

00:24:47.000 Perfect.

00:24:47.000 That's going to be the excuse.

00:24:49.000 Yeah, I can't see how this goes off the rails.

00:24:50.000 How about this?

00:24:51.000 How about we praise law enforcement for doing its job and we recommend that law enforcement, when Democrats take power or are in power, ought to be doing the same job?

00:24:59.000 Again, there are electoral consequences to not abiding by the law.

00:25:02.000 Democrats found that out in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016.

00:25:07.000 Republicans are going to find that out if they go the way of Democrats and start using law enforcement in order to shield all of their friends.

00:25:12.000 Meanwhile, let's talk about the hypocrisy of some in the media, because it truly is astonishing.

00:25:17.000 So over the last few days, there's been a lot of talk about Mollie Tibbetts.

00:25:20.000 Mollie Tibbetts is a 20-year-old college student in Iowa who was essentially picked up off the street and murdered by an illegal immigrant.

00:25:26.000 She was just jogging.

00:25:27.000 This illegal immigrant drove up alongside her in a truck. 0.79

00:25:29.000 He actually cat called her.

00:25:31.000 She tried to run away from him.

00:25:33.000 She threatened to call the police.

00:25:34.000 He grabbed her.

00:25:35.000 He killed her.

00:25:35.000 He threw her in the trunk and then he dumped her in a cornfield in the middle of Iowa.

00:25:38.000 It's just an awful, awful story.

00:25:40.000 And this has become a national issue for a couple of reasons, some good and some bad.

00:25:44.000 And I want to discuss whether it's moral to make this a national issue because when there's a school shooting, there's some of us on the right who say,

00:25:51.000 The media's attempt to make every school shooting into the jumping off point for a gun control discussion without any of the facts being in, that's immoral.

00:25:58.000 When we have these town hall events in Parkland where Marco Rubio is called a murderer in front of a throng of people all cheering and baying for his blood, that is a bad thing.

00:26:08.000 There are a bunch of us who say that that is inappropriate.

00:26:11.000 But when it comes to the Mollie Tibbetts case, then we're a little softer.

00:26:14.000 Well, I think that there are some distinctions to be drawn between the Mollie Tibbetts case and some of the school shooting stuff.

00:26:19.000 Here's the basic analysis.

00:26:20.000 I think that there are a couple reasons why you should talk about cases like Mollie Tibbetts.

00:26:24.000 One case is obviously that people who are murdered ought to be talked about.

00:26:27.000 And this holds true whether it's somebody who's murdered in Chicago or whether it is a girl who was murdered in Iowa.

00:26:31.000 The media tend to focus on more attractive victims.

00:26:34.000 That's just the way the media works.

00:26:36.000 This is a pretty young woman who was killed.

00:26:38.000 And unfortunately, the media feel they can get more clicks when they cover Mollie Tibbetts.

00:26:42.000 That's one reason.

00:26:43.000 The other reason that, but the reason that she really deserves attention is because the media pay outsized attention to victims they think push their particular narrative, and then they ignore victims they think do not push that particular narrative.

00:26:54.000 So they covered Mollie Tibbetts wall to wall until it turned out that the illegal, that the killer was an illegal immigrant, at which point they still covered Mollie Tibbetts, but they mostly covered the fact that the right was pointing out that Mollie Tibbetts' killer was an illegal immigrant.

00:27:07.000 They're not going to have any town halls in Iowa about illegal immigration after Molly Tibbetts was killed by an illegal immigrant. 1.00

00:27:12.000 They're not going to do that.

00:27:13.000 If she'd been killed in a school shooting, there would be a town hall in Iowa tomorrow with CNN in the lead.

00:27:17.000 There's no question that that would be the case.

00:27:19.000 So when is it actually appropriate to talk about policy?

00:27:22.000 Well, it's appropriate to talk about policy when three factors have been fulfilled, I think.

00:27:27.000 First, when we know the actual circumstance of a given incident, so we actually know what happened, one of the problems with a lot of the school shooting talk is that we don't actually know what happened.

00:27:34.000 Somebody shoots up a school, we don't know where they got the gun, we don't know anything about the shooter, and before the bodies are even culled, before we even know other people are alive or dead, everybody jumps to a gun control conversation on Twitter.

00:27:45.000 That's inappropriate because you actually need more facts to talk about policy.

00:27:49.000 In this case, the fact that this guy was an illegal immigrant 0.91

00:27:52.000 It does raise one policy issue, which is, are we properly enforcing our laws?

00:27:56.000 But we actually don't know why he was in the country, how he got into the country, what laws would have had to be more strictly enforced in order to keep him out of the country.

00:28:03.000 We don't know any of those things.

00:28:04.000 So I think that it is premature to talk policy with regard to this guy.

00:28:08.000 Second,

00:28:09.000 You should talk about an instance when the circumstances are representative of a broader trend.

00:28:13.000 There is crime among illegal immigrants. 1.00

00:28:16.000 There's arguments about whether that crime rate is higher or lower than the domestic population.

00:28:20.000 But the bottom line is that if one crime is committed by an illegal immigrant, then that is one crime too many, considering that that illegal immigrant should not be in the country. 1.00

00:28:27.000 So I think it's fair to talk about it from that perspective.

00:28:29.000 And third, you can talk about policy when the policy recommended logically concerns the trend and would have stopped the incident in question.

00:28:35.000 This is where I say I'm not sure we have enough information about Malia Tibbetts yet.

00:28:39.000 In what situation should we cover the Mollye Tibbetts thing?

00:28:42.000 We should cover it by recognizing that the media are completely unjust in their own coverage of these issues.

00:28:47.000 That Mollye Tibbetts will not be covered by CNN in the same way a school shooting would be covered by CNN.

00:28:51.000 I think that's a perfectly fair political point to make on the back of the Mollye Tibbetts case.

00:28:55.000 I think it is also perfectly fair to talk about

00:28:57.000 Illegal immigration and the costs thereof in terms of crime because we know this guy was an illegal immigrant. 1.00

00:29:03.000 However, when it comes to policymaking, I'm not sure we can actually talk about what policies ought to be implemented yet because we don't know how the guy got in the country, how long he'd been in the country, had he been deported previously, had he committed other crimes.

00:29:13.000 We don't know enough about that at this point.

00:29:16.000 However, the media's anger at even discussing the issue is wildly outsized and hypocritical considering how much they are willing to cover every single school shooting up the wazoo.

00:29:24.000 So,

00:29:25.000 Here's Chris Cuomo on CNN going after President Trump for talking about Mollie Tibbetts. 0.73

00:29:30.000 Kate Steinle, now Mollie Tibbetts.

00:29:34.000 They put their faces out there almost like campaign posters.

00:29:37.000 And the political pitch follows soon thereafter.

00:29:40.000 If you're not with the president on how to deal with a legal entrance, and really his hostility toward all immigrants,

00:29:46.000 You are disrespecting these victims and their families and you're putting others in danger.

00:29:52.000 I don't accept that. 0.96

00:30:05.000 He sounds like a hypocrite because Chris Cuomo and CNN have said that if you don't agree with them on gun control, it's because you don't care enough about the dead kids. 0.97

00:30:13.000 This is one of my pet peeves in politics is when people do this routine. 0.99

00:30:16.000 So I think that it's a mistake to say that folks on the left don't care about people who are killed by illegal immigrants.

00:30:21.000 But it is fair to talk about border policy once all the facts are in, and it's certainly fair to point out the hypocrisy of a media that is willing to ignore crimes like this in order to focus in on crimes that push their political agenda in a more thorough going way.

00:30:34.000 Geraldo Rivera does the same thing on Fox News.

00:30:37.000 Obviously, he's a pro-illegal immigrant figure, and so he's very upset that people are talking about illegal immigration.

00:30:42.000 He's not here legally.

00:30:44.000 We are putting that spin.

00:30:46.000 We at this network are putting that spin on this story.

00:30:49.000 It's not spin.

00:30:49.000 It's a fact.

00:30:50.000 This is a murder story.

00:30:51.000 This is not an immigration story.

00:30:53.000 This is feeding the false impression that this population increases violent crime.

00:30:59.000 It is a falsehood.

00:31:00.000 I understand where you're coming from.

00:31:01.000 And to use this case to make that point is wrong.

00:31:03.000 Okay, well, you can use this case to make the point that any crime committed by an illegal immigrant who shouldn't be here is a mistake by federal law enforcement.

00:31:10.000 We already have laws on the books, right?

00:31:11.000 And by the way, people on the right make the same argument about guns.

00:31:15.000 We already have gun control laws on the books.

00:31:16.000 So if there's a shooting and somebody violated the law in order to get a gun, then law enforcement should have done its job.

00:31:21.000 So the right is actually relatively consistent here.

00:31:23.000 There are a group of people on the right who are making hay while the sun shines.

00:31:27.000 They're turning this into a, well, if we can make Molly Tibbetts a household name, and if we can claim that Democrats don't care about the death of Molly Tibbetts, well, then we can make political hay. 1.00

00:31:35.000 I don't think that the evidence is in for that, and I don't like that tactic very much.

00:31:38.000 I don't like that tactic.

00:31:39.000 That said, there are some people on the left who have demonstrated some pretty cold-hearted stuff when it comes to Mollie Tibbetts.

00:31:45.000 I talked about a commentator on MSNBC who basically just dismissed her death as some girl, but I think that's a minority viewpoint.

00:31:52.000 There are political differences on this issue, and those are political differences we should hash out, but I want to be careful about how we handle stories like Mollie Tibbetts.

00:31:58.000 She deserves coverage because every murder victim deserves coverage. 0.99

00:32:01.000 We can discuss illegal immigration, but we have to wait for all the facts to come in.

00:32:05.000 But we should certainly point out the hypocrisy of the media that will jump to discussing any issue so long as it is not an issue with which they disagree.

00:32:12.000 Okay, in just a second, I want to talk about some actual serious issues in America, like trend lines that look really bad that are being obscured by sort of the daily headlines.

00:32:20.000 Then we'll get to the mailbag.

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00:33:15.000 By the way, final point on the media.

00:33:16.000 If you don't believe in the political bias of the media, all you had to do is watch Chris Cuomo make a fool of himself last night interviewing Kellyanne Conway.

00:33:22.000 So, Kellyanne Conway was out there making the case for the president on a variety of issues, and Chris Cuomo just will not allow her to get a word in edgewise.

00:33:30.000 It's really a horrible performance by Cuomo, who's now considering himself sort of Jim Acosta, but bigger and weirder.

00:33:37.000 And here's what he had to say.

00:33:38.000 What are you talking about?

00:33:39.000 We play him all the time.

00:33:40.000 I'll play his voice saying to Michael Cohen, what are we going to do?

00:33:43.000 And then how are you going to do it?

00:33:44.000 What do you mean about financing?

00:33:45.000 And Christopher, what else is it?

00:33:47.000 Play the tape.

00:33:48.000 Play the tape.

00:33:48.000 Remind everybody what he said to Michael Cohen.

00:33:50.000 No, no, no.

00:33:50.000 Play the tape.

00:33:52.000 No, that's the tape.

00:33:53.000 Play the tape.

00:33:54.000 Okay, so he's just great.

00:33:55.000 You know, just great interviewing skills by Chris Cuomo.

00:33:57.000 I can't imagine why people think that he is biased.

00:34:00.000 All of this sort of back and forth in American politics is obscuring some relatively big stories that we are missing because these are the trend lines we should be watching.

00:34:06.000 Terrence Jeffrey has a piece over at cnsnews.com today that says that 52.1% of children in America live in households getting means-tested government assistance.

00:34:17.000 He says, in 2016, according to the most recent data from the Census Bureau, there were approximately 74 million people in the United States under 18, 38 million of them, 52.1%, resided in households in which one or more persons received benefits from a means-tested government program.

00:34:33.000 That would include Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, that's food stamps, Medicaid, public housing, supplemental security income, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and the National School Lunch Program.

00:34:47.000 This table indicates...

00:34:49.000 That there are approximately 320 million people living in the United States.

00:34:53.000 Of these, 115 million people lived in a household that received means-tested assistance.

00:34:57.000 That doesn't mean every person in the household received the aid, but it means that one or more persons living in the household did.

00:35:02.000 People under 18 were the most likely to receive all of this aid.

00:35:06.000 We are creating a system of government dependence that's going to be very difficult for us to recover from, and it is not sustainable long run.

00:35:12.000 The only way that you're going to be able to sustain anything resembling a free market economy is if we

00:35:19.000 Lower the burden on public services.

00:35:21.000 And the way to do that is not only a thriving economy, but deregulation and also an increase in public charity, a bettering of our education system, attempts by private industry to actually go into underprivileged areas and hire people and educate people.

00:35:37.000 If that doesn't happen, then we are moving very quickly toward a huge government, soft socialism.

00:35:44.000 A lot of socialist systems built on top of a fading capitalist system.

00:35:47.000 Think of the American system, not as a socialist system or a capitalist system, but as basically a clown on stilts.

00:35:53.000 The stilts are capitalism, the clown is socialist programs. 0.86

00:35:55.000 And at a certain point, if the clown gets too fat, the stilts just break.

00:35:59.000 And that's basically what we are on the verge of here in the United States.

00:36:02.000 We're not quite there yet.

00:36:03.000 Thank God capitalism is incredibly robust.

00:36:05.000 Thank God business is still able to generate enough revenue to cover some of this, although we are borrowing at extraordinary, exorbitant rates.

00:36:12.000 But there will come a time when those stilts break and the socialism just starts to cripple the economy in a major way.

00:36:18.000 And we're accelerating that.

00:36:19.000 We're moving in the wrong direction.

00:36:20.000 There's a poll out today showing a vast majority of Americans, 70%, support Medicare for all.

00:36:24.000 They don't know what that means.

00:36:25.000 They don't understand what the cost of that is.

00:36:27.000 But we continue to think that government is the solution to all of our problems.

00:36:30.000 That is a bigger, broader trend than any of the stuff that's happening with regard to corruption or any of the rest of it.

00:36:36.000 Okay.

00:36:37.000 So in a second, let's do, let's, you know, let's jump in the mailbag.

00:36:39.000 So let's do some mailbag right here. 0.97

00:36:41.000 Okay.

00:36:43.000 Go to John.

00:36:44.000 Okay, John says, Hi Ben, I'm a freshman at Purdue University with a question on socialism.

00:36:48.000 Yes, I know it's evil and horrible.

00:36:50.000 Anyway, in my experience in middle and high school, I was taught in detail about the horrors of far right wing Nazi Germany, but never in the same detail about those of other socialist regimes like China or the USSR.

00:36:59.000 Considering that those powers were just as oppressive for often the same motivations, why was I never taught this in school?

00:37:04.000 Is there actually a significant difference between Nazi socialism and Soviet Chinese socialism?

00:37:08.000 When did the notion that Nazi Germany was far right wing become widely distributed?

00:37:11.000 I know that history is often written by the winners, but if this is true, how come the USSR and China are not vilified in the same way as Nazi Germany?

00:37:18.000 Any answers to one or all of these questions is appreciated.

00:37:20.000 Okay, so...

00:37:21.000 Here's the answer, and I've puzzled over this too. 1.00

00:37:24.000 People will still wear Che Guevara t-shirts, but if they wore a Himmler t-shirt, people would rightly say, that person is a piece of crap. 0.99

00:37:29.000 Che Guevara was a communist terrorist who murdered innocent people. 0.99

00:37:32.000 And people wear his t-shirt around on college campuses.

00:37:34.000 Communism is not seen in the same way as Nazism, specifically because of the racial components of Nazism.

00:37:39.000 That is why.

00:37:40.000 That is the real answer. 0.69

00:37:42.000 The reason that Mussolini is seen as a buffoon and not as a tyrannical evil dictator so much is because he was less racist than Hitler, basically.

00:37:50.000 The racism that was embedded in the Nazi program 0.66

00:37:54.000 is what made Nazism particularly toxic to those on the left.

00:37:56.000 The reason for this is that the media actually have a soft spot for socialism.

00:38:00.000 Up until the Soviet Union collapsed, there were a lot of people in the United States on the left who were quite warm toward the idea of a more Marxist American government.

00:38:08.000 They might have wanted a socialist check on full-on communism, but they were kind of warm toward the USSR.

00:38:13.000 Remember, in the 1930s, the USSR was promoted by the left in the United States as the wave of the future. 0.69

00:38:19.000 HG Wells in Britain was talking about how the USSR was going to be the new way that we did things.

00:38:24.000 That scientific socialism was the way that the world was going to run.

00:38:27.000 And they never really quite gave up on that.

00:38:29.000 I was talking about this with a friend of mine who happens to be kind of on the left, and we were discussing the fact that on the right,

00:38:35.000 The right will actually excise Nazis from its ranks.

00:38:38.000 There's a story this week about the Claremont Institute.

00:38:40.000 There's a guy named Charles Johnson who was basically expressing white supremacist sentiments on one of their listservs and Claremont just shut it down.

00:38:47.000 They shut down the entire listserv because they said we're not interacting with this guy.

00:38:51.000 And the left said, look at these white supremacists who have infiltrated Claremont.

00:38:54.000 Well, Claremont shut down the listserv.

00:38:55.000 When's the last time somebody on the left was actually excised for their ideas?

00:38:59.000 Not for promoting violence.

00:39:01.000 For their ideas.

00:39:01.000 They're open communists who write for major publications on the left.

00:39:05.000 They're no open Nazis writing for major publications on the right.

00:39:08.000 They're not.

00:39:09.000 That's because the right does a better job of policing its own ideology.

00:39:13.000 The right does a better job of policing the folks who are sort of on the fringes.

00:39:17.000 Now, I still think we should do a better job, but the left has never policed any of this stuff.

00:39:20.000 Now, the reason that Nazi Germany is considered quote-unquote far-right is because the Nazis arose in a context in Europe in which the left was the Reds, like the actual communists, backed by the Soviet Union.

00:39:31.000 And in Germany, the coalition government that was put together and that led to Hitler's rise was a coalition of anti-communists.

00:39:38.000 And Hitler was anti-communist, the Nazis were anti-communist, but they also believed in this big government redistributionist program. 0.54

00:39:45.000 They believed in also what was called basically economic fascism, this idea that the government could regulate business incredibly heavily, that it could benefit certain businesses at the expense of other businesses, that it would run business from the top without actually nationalizing all the resources of those businesses.

00:39:58.000 That's the difference between economic fascism or state-sponsored capitalism as you now see in China.

00:40:03.000 China's economic system now

00:40:05.000 Looks a lot more like Nazi Germany's economic system than like the Soviet Union's economic system.

00:40:09.000 And that's because they're using capitalism, but it's state-sponsored capitalism.

00:40:13.000 Nationalization of resources, regulations on certain businesses, benefiting friends of government, and all the rest.

00:40:18.000 So, Nazi Germany was considered right-wing by European standards, but it is deeply dishonest when folks on the left in the United States say that Nazi Germany was a right-wing

00:40:27.000 Group by American standards, that's just nonsense.

00:40:30.000 The right in the United States is not for nationalization of industry or top-down control of industry.

00:40:35.000 The right in the United States is not for racial classification.

00:40:39.000 The right in the United States is about limited government and God-given rights, none of which were any part of the Nazi platform.

00:40:44.000 Should communism be treated with the same toxicity as Nazism?

00:40:47.000 You bet it should.

00:40:49.000 The only real difference in terms of the in terms of the

00:40:52.000 Classification of evil is that you could say Nazi Germany was more evil because there was this heavy racial component Which is an additional?

00:40:58.000 Evil and particularly relevant to evil in the United States where racial issues have divided America for a very long time Patrick says hey Ben I love listening to music in my free time, but I've come to realize lately I could be listening to an audiobook or podcast instead.

00:41:09.000 How do you balance learning and leisure?

00:41:11.000 Well, you know what?

00:41:12.000 I realize I tend to lean toward learning but at the same time

00:41:17.000 I'll go for a week without listening to music and I'll realize I'm depressed.

00:41:20.000 And then I realize the reason I'm depressed is because I haven't actually taken enough time for music.

00:41:24.000 So I think that you have to let your brain rest sometimes and that's what music is for.

00:41:27.000 I have met Matt Walsh in person, I think once.

00:41:35.000 He came out to our offices a few months ago.

00:41:37.000 I'm trying to remember when I first met Andrew Klavan.

00:41:39.000 I believe I first met Andrew Klavan when he was working at PJTV doing these short videos.

00:41:43.000 And Klavan's a really literate guy.

00:41:45.000 We got to talking.

00:41:47.000 And we became quite friendly from there.

00:41:49.000 I met Knowles at a dinner party at Clavin's house.

00:41:52.000 And Knowles was particularly pretentious, talking a lot about Yale that night.

00:41:56.000 And so I decided, hey, why not give that guy a show?

00:41:58.000 It's my everlasting regret.

00:41:59.000 So that's basically how I met those guys.

00:42:01.000 And Daniel says, Hey Ben, huge fan.

00:42:03.000 I want to ask, is there a benefit to using executive privilege on Michael Cohen?

00:42:06.000 Just like Obama used it on Eric Holder, I believe.

00:42:08.000 Hoping to see you run for president one day.

00:42:09.000 Well, executive privilege only applies to folks who are operating under the auspices of the president.

00:42:15.000 It doesn't actually apply to anyone the president deals with.

00:42:18.000 So the office of the presidency does not cover everything that the president does in his life.

00:42:22.000 So if I

00:42:24.000 I am committing some sort of drug crime with somebody as the President of the United States.

00:42:29.000 And that person is operating not as a member of the government.

00:42:32.000 Executive privilege doesn't extend to those crimes that are happening outside of government.

00:42:36.000 It really extends, my understanding is, to the constitutional purview of the presidency.

00:42:41.000 Michael Cohen was not an employee of the government.

00:42:43.000 He was working for Donald J. Trump in his private capacity, not in Donald J. Trump as President of the United States.

00:42:49.000 I appreciate it.

00:42:50.000 There are a couple of good books that I really like about evolution and the Big Bang and God.

00:42:52.000 Gerald Schroeder is one of my favorite authors on this.

00:42:54.000 I do believe that the theory of evolution

00:43:12.000 Fits actually quite well with sort of the story of creation that's laid out in Genesis in terms of the ordering and the timing.

00:43:18.000 And as far as the Big Bang, the Big Bang lays out much closer to the beginning of Genesis than it did to Aristotelian physics that suggests that the universe has always existed in its current state.

00:43:27.000 The Big Bang suggests that out of nothing, God created everything.

00:43:31.000 And that looks a lot like the Big Bang, which is why there are so many people now trying to create theories of multiple universes, because they don't like the consequences of the fact that science looks a lot like what the Bible lays out.

00:43:41.000 As far as knowing which parts of the Bible to interpret as poetic, I think that the stuff that deals with human action particularly is not poetic.

00:43:49.000 The stuff that deals with nature, I think you can fairly say is poetic.

00:43:53.000 I think that the beginning of Genesis is pretty clearly meant in a far more metaphorical sense.

00:44:01.000 I don't believe there was an actual garden where a snake talked to a man.

00:44:04.000 Like, I don't think that's actually what happened in a literal sense.

00:44:08.000 There's a lot of debate in Jewish circles, actually, about where the Bible begins to get historically accurate.

00:44:12.000 Like, where it's actually now talking about historically accurate people.

00:44:16.000 In the general consensus, from what I understand, I know Jonathan Sachs has said, this is basically, once you get to Abraham, now you're talking about an actual historical story, and before that, a certain level of metaphor that's kind of interwoven throughout the story.

00:44:28.000 I tend to believe that myself.

00:44:30.000 All right, Jessica says, Good morning, legal question.

00:44:33.000 It is always my understanding that ignorance of the law is not an excuse in committing a crime, certainly not for a common citizen.

00:44:38.000 Why is it that in the political sphere, there's a focus on need for intent or awareness as in the recent examples with Hillary or Trump?

00:44:43.000 Thanks for all you do and your team do in the era of fake news.

00:44:46.000 She asked me to read fake news in a Trump voice.

00:44:49.000 Okay, so the answer is that there are certain crimes that require intent.

00:44:53.000 The level of requisite intent is always a matter of debate.

00:44:57.000 So it's not that you have to have had subjective intent to do things.

00:45:00.000 It's that a reasonably, a reasonable person could determine that you had intent to commit the crime.

00:45:05.000 So we use intent in all sorts of crimes, particularly in the criminal sphere.

00:45:09.000 So when it comes to torts, you generally don't have to have as much intent.

00:45:12.000 Like if I'm just walking around swinging my arm in front of me and I hit you, then that is not something that you have to show intent.

00:45:19.000 If I'm negligent, you don't have to show intent.

00:45:21.000 That's more of a strict liability standard.

00:45:23.000 If, however, I commit... Let's say that I kill somebody.

00:45:27.000 We now have to determine what level of intent I was using. 0.95

00:45:30.000 Did I kill somebody by accident, like I was just walking around and suddenly I tripped forward and in order to stop my fall I pushed somebody into oncoming traffic?

00:45:38.000 That looks like manslaughter.

00:45:40.000 It may not even be a crime at all.

00:45:41.000 Whereas if I just walked up behind the guy and shoved him in front of a subway, that is first-degree murder.

00:45:45.000 So intent is an element of a lot of crimes, particularly in criminal law, and you have to determine whether there was intent to violate the law.

00:45:51.000 Now, ignorance of the law is not necessarily sufficient to get rid of the intent question.

00:45:57.000 You can also have reckless ignorance of the law, and that's more where Trump would lie.

00:46:02.000 It's not that Trump didn't know about campaign finance.

00:46:04.000 So let's say this.

00:46:04.000 Let's say that Trump went to Michael Cohen and he said, listen, I want you to take care of this.

00:46:08.000 And the implication was Michael Cohen's a lawyer.

00:46:10.000 He's going to abide by the law.

00:46:11.000 It's his job to make sure that I'm abiding by the law.

00:46:14.000 Well, then Trump has not demonstrated the requisite intent.

00:46:16.000 Let's say that Trump went to Michael Cohen and he said to Michael Cohen, listen, I don't care how you do this.

00:46:20.000 It doesn't matter to me how you do this, right?

00:46:23.000 Legally, illegally, whatever you do, don't tell me about it.

00:46:25.000 Just go ahead and do it.

00:46:26.000 That is now intent to violate the law.

00:46:28.000 So it's not that you have to know everything about the law.

00:46:30.000 It's that did Donald Trump have a right to trust in his lawyer to abide by the law?

00:46:34.000 That's actually a fairly solid defense.

00:46:36.000 As far as intent in the Hillary case, it's a pet peeve of mine that there are so many folks who pretend that intent was a requisite part of the crime.

00:46:45.000 It was not a requisite part of the crime.

00:46:46.000 She obviously intended to set up a server. 0.87

00:46:47.000 She obviously intended to put information on there.

00:46:50.000 They added this element of intent that she had to intend to expose information to foreign powers.

00:46:55.000 That is not part of the law.

00:46:56.000 That is not part of the law, and that's why I think Hillary should have been prosecuted. 1.00

00:46:59.000 Mike says, Hey Ben, I'm a devoted member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a Mormon.

00:47:04.000 I deeply respect your example of religious strength and courage.

00:47:06.000 I was wondering what experiences you've had in your life that have made you so strong religiously.

00:47:10.000 I love the show.

00:47:11.000 Keep up the good work.

00:47:12.000 So, you know, I've always had sort of a deep and abiding faith in God.

00:47:16.000 I can't really explain specific instances.

00:47:20.000 I don't really think there are a lot of instances

00:47:23.000 That, you know, I'd want to talk about.

00:47:25.000 They're kind of private to me.

00:47:26.000 That I'd want to talk about where I was suddenly like, oh wow, God exists.

00:47:31.000 I don't think that's really how it was.

00:47:32.000 I've always just had... I think we all walk around with a baseline level of beliefs in certain things.

00:47:36.000 The consistency of the laws of the universe, for example.

00:47:38.000 You know that gravity exists.

00:47:39.000 You know that there are certain consequences to certain actions.

00:47:42.000 My belief in God lies in the idea that there is a rulebook from God that tells you that if you act in a certain way, you are much more likely to succeed than if you act in a different way.

00:47:50.000 I would have the faith in an author who told me that if I eat certain things, I was more likely to be healthy.

00:47:55.000 I have a lot of faith in an author who says that if human beings act in a particular way, they are more likely to succeed in life.

00:48:02.000 If they act in a non-particular way, they are more likely to fail.

00:48:04.000 And if they act in one way, they're more likely to be moral human beings, better human beings.

00:48:09.000 Yeah.

00:48:26.000 The Quran on the show. 0.85

00:48:27.000 I don't talk about when I talk about radical Islam, I don't start citing Quranic verses because I think that we can fairly adjudicate the relevance and decency of religion by the action of its practitioners over time.

00:48:40.000 That that's that's a better way of gauging the veracity of religion.

00:48:43.000 And I think the way that you gauge veracity and faith in God is not just faith in faith in God is different from the belief that God exists.

00:48:51.000 Belief that God exists, you can rationalize intellectually, and I think there's some good arguments for it.

00:48:56.000 Faith in God is a belief that God has a plan for the universe, whether you understand it or not.

00:49:02.000 And you have faith in God just like you have faith in your spouse, or you have faith in your father, or you have faith in your business partner.

00:49:08.000 And that is that there's a cause and effect in the universe, and that God does what he promises he is going to do.

00:49:12.000 That's what faith in God really means.

00:49:13.000 And to me, I've always felt that, I've always believed that,

00:49:17.000 You know, it's not up to God to let me down.

00:49:20.000 It's whether I let God down.

00:49:21.000 Final question here.

00:49:23.000 Let's see.

00:49:24.000 Rachel says, Hi, Ben.

00:49:25.000 First off, only love your show.

00:49:27.000 One thing that gets me through the day.

00:49:28.000 So I think your impressions are hilarious.

00:49:30.000 I was wondering what your favorite impression to do is.

00:49:32.000 My personal favorite is Bernie Sanders.

00:49:33.000 So yeah, Bernie is a lot of fun.

00:49:35.000 I really like doing Bernie Sanders.

00:49:36.000 Senya also is a big fan of the Bernie Sanders.

00:49:38.000 Whenever we talk about the pudding and the sugary treats and the redistribution of.

00:49:43.000 It's always fun to riff on Bernie Sanders because he says crazy things.

00:49:47.000 But he also looks kind of crazy doing it, and his hands move in various different directions.

00:49:52.000 So Bernie Sanders is... I do enjoy Bernie Sanders.

00:49:55.000 I enjoy doing Chris Matthews.

00:49:57.000 Chris Matthews is a lot of fun to do.

00:49:58.000 So... Hey, here we are, Chris Matthews!

00:50:01.000 Got up in the morning, coming to the show, running all rumpled, looking all crazy.

00:50:05.000 And I just got a steak thing.

00:50:06.000 And Michael Itzikoff, what do you say?

00:50:07.000 What do you say? 0.98

00:50:08.000 Should Trump be burned to steak as a witch? 0.98

00:50:09.000 I don't know. 0.99

00:50:10.000 Kind of like witches.

00:50:12.000 Once I saw a witch in a movie. 0.61

00:50:13.000 Blair Witch Project, good movie.

00:50:14.000 It's a...

00:50:15.000 Anything you can do sort of stream of consciousness is a lot of fun, but... I love all of my... I won't say I love all of my impressions equally, because I think some of them are just bad.

00:50:26.000 I think that my Trump is mediocre at best.

00:50:28.000 I think my Obama is quite good.

00:50:29.000 It's very underrated, my Obama.

00:50:30.000 My Obama is pretty strong.

00:50:32.000 My Obama is... Thank you, Alex.

00:50:34.000 Alex just piped in from the back saying that my Obama is strong.

00:50:36.000 Thank you, Alex.

00:50:37.000 And Alex's beard.

00:50:38.000 I appreciate it.

00:50:39.000 With Obama, the key to doing an Obama impersonation is that you first start off speaking

00:50:44.000 A little bit clipped, a little bit slowly.

00:50:47.000 And then as you approach the end of the sentence, you sort of gradually speed up, and your voice goes up.

00:50:53.000 Just kind of gradually, slowly, speed it up.

00:50:55.000 Right, that's how you do a good impersonation.

00:51:00.000 There's also, with Trump, the fun with Trump is always trying to get down the actual patter of President Trump.

00:51:08.000 That's the part with Trump.

00:51:08.000 So, doing his voice is actually kind of difficult.

00:51:11.000 Because he actually has some variation in his voice.

00:51:13.000 And he pronounces his P's sort of as B's.

00:51:16.000 So he says, Beeper.

00:51:17.000 Right?

00:51:18.000 Not people.

00:51:19.000 Beeper.

00:51:20.000 Like Bieber.

00:51:21.000 And also, with President Trump, you can also, you can rip.

00:51:25.000 So earlier this week, the outtakes from the show, by the way, are phenomenal.

00:51:28.000 I mean, we really at some point should start making outtakes available to subscribers because they're so good.

00:51:33.000 So earlier this week, the president was talking about flipping.

00:51:36.000 And for legitimately 15 minutes after the show, I just did a President Trump impersonation, him talking about all the things that I do not like about flipping.

00:51:45.000 I do not like, one time I was on a trampoline, and I was jumping, jumping better, better jumping than anyone else, the highest jumps, the best, most spectacular jumps you have ever seen.

00:51:55.000 And I tried to do a flip, but I failed, and I landed on my hair.

00:51:59.000 Ever since, I have been very much against flipping.

00:52:02.000 Also,

00:52:03.000 I once flipped a house, did not make a profit, but created an open concept kitchen with Formica countertops in Atlantic City.

00:52:11.000 It was great.

00:52:12.000 Also, I like flips.

00:52:14.000 The pretzels with chocolate on top of them.

00:52:17.000 They are quite delicious.

00:52:18.000 Flipping is... Some flips are good, some flips are bad.

00:52:21.000 Michael Cohen is bad because he flipped.

00:52:23.000 I don't like flippers.

00:52:24.000 I do like flipper the dolphin.

00:52:26.000 That was a good dolphin. 1.00

00:52:27.000 Very smart dolphin.

00:52:29.000 Very, very with it, that dolphin.

00:52:31.000 Maybe the best often.

00:52:33.000 Some people say.

00:52:34.000 Some people say.

00:52:35.000 Maybe the best often.

00:52:37.000 The fun of President Trump lies in the batter.

00:52:41.000 Whenever I get to do my impersonations, it makes me happy.

00:52:44.000 And I think it makes other people happy, too.

00:52:46.000 Jerry Brown is also a personal favorite.

00:52:48.000 Very underused, Jerry Brown, because he's really not in the news all that much.

00:52:51.000 But Jerry Brown, the governor of California, is 1,000 years old.

00:52:54.000 And every so often,

00:52:56.000 Every one of my Jerry Brown impersonations ends the same way.

00:52:59.000 I'm here talking about the wildfires in California and those fires are very hot and I haven't had enough water!

00:53:13.000 They always end with him, and then he sort of just falls over.

00:53:16.000 Every sort of Jerry Brown impersonation ends with him falling over.

00:53:19.000 So, are my impersonations all that great?

00:53:20.000 No.

00:53:20.000 But are they fun?

00:53:22.000 Yeah, I kind of enjoy them.

00:53:23.000 So thank you for that.

00:53:24.000 Okay, time for some things I like, and then we'll do some things that I hate.

00:53:27.000 Things that I like.

00:53:28.000 There's a great book by Mona Chern.

00:53:30.000 It's called Sex Matters. 0.59

00:53:31.000 Now, the only problem with this book is the same problem I had with my second book, Porn Generation, which is that when you put it on your shelf, people think you're weird.

00:53:37.000 Because the name of the book is Sex Matters, right?

00:53:40.000 I remember when we came up with the title for Porn Generation, I thought to myself, does someone want to put that on their coffee table?

00:53:45.000 The answer, it turns out, was no.

00:53:47.000 But Sex Matters is actually a really good book.

00:53:49.000 How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense. 1.00

00:53:52.000 Monis has some really controversial stuff here, and she can get away with it because she is, in fact, a woman with a career. 0.57

00:53:57.000 But she's also a person who was very high-powered in the 90s and early 2000s, and she took some breaks from her life in public, specifically in order to take care of her kids.

00:54:07.000 She talks about how feminism has corrupted views of sex, views of relationships, how it's made people unhappy, and how to undercut some basic scientific truths. 0.94

00:54:16.000 The book is really good and really useful, and Mona is a really clear and compelling writer.

00:54:20.000 You should go check it out.

00:54:22.000 Sex Matters by Mona Charon.

00:54:24.000 Definitely well worth the time. 0.85

00:54:25.000 Okay, time for some things that I hate. 0.75

00:54:31.000 So the social media policing is just astonishingly ridiculous at this point.

00:54:35.000 So there's apparently a guy named Israel Broussard.

00:54:38.000 He's in a Netflix series called To All the Boys I've Loved Before.

00:54:41.000 I guess he's one of the stars of that.

00:54:42.000 I don't know if anybody in the room has seen it.

00:54:43.000 But in any case, he had to officially apologize for his quote, inappropriate and insensitive words and likes on social media.

00:54:50.000 So we're not just policing people for what they say on social media, we are policing people for retweeting or liking certain tweets.

00:54:56.000 What were his great sins? 1.00

00:54:57.000 Well, he did tweet out some stupid stuff about Japanese folks, right? 1.00

00:55:00.000 After there was an earthquake in Japan, he tweeted something out about Japanese people eating dogs or something silly like that. 1.00

00:55:07.000 But here is the part from the Daily Beast that was truly bad.

00:55:11.000 Here's the part from the Daily Beast that was truly, truly awful, okay?

00:55:15.000 While those tweets are bad enough, Broussard's likes were apparently even messier.

00:55:18.000 Shared screenshots show that his recent likes included Trump and Marco Rubio tweets. 0.84

00:55:23.000 No, not Marco Rubio, that radical Republican Nazi.

00:55:27.000 Not Marco Rubio. 0.93

00:55:29.000 Ooh! 0.96

00:55:30.000 Run for the hills, Israel Broussard.

00:55:32.000 My God, that man is a covert. 0.99

00:55:34.000 He's a covert white supremacist. 0.98

00:55:35.000 He liked the tweets of a Hispanic senator from Florida. 0.91

00:55:38.000 No, how could we possi-

00:55:39.000 Also, multiple gems from me.

00:55:42.000 Oh no, he liked some of my tweets.

00:55:43.000 This means he's a very bad person.

00:55:45.000 And just like Mark Duplass, who had to be shamed into apologizing for ever having met me, now Israel Broussard has been forced to apologize for having liked tweets by Trump, Marco Rubio, the President of the United States, a Senator from Florida, and me.

00:55:57.000 What were my bad, bad tweets?

00:55:59.000 Here's one of my bad, bad tweets.

00:56:00.000 This is the worst one that Daily Beast could find that he liked.

00:56:03.000 Okay, you ready?

00:56:05.000 The travel ban is not Japanese internment.

00:56:07.000 Immigration enforcement is not Nazi Germany.

00:56:09.000 Read an effing book.

00:56:12.000 That's really bad.

00:56:12.000 He shouldn't have liked that.

00:56:13.000 Because it turns out that the travel ban is Japanese internment.

00:56:16.000 Immigration enforcement is Nazi Germany.

00:56:18.000 How dare Israel Broussard?

00:56:21.000 By the way, that tweet, just so we can note this, that tweet was seconded by a bunch of folks on the left who still have the honesty to recognize that Nazi Germany is not actually us arresting people illegally crossing our border.

00:56:34.000 By the way, worth noting, not a lot of folks attempting to illegally cross into Nazi Germany.

00:56:38.000 That was not actually their big problem.

00:56:39.000 A lot of folks attempting to leave.

00:56:41.000 Not a lot of folks attempting, like, you know what, honey?

00:56:43.000 We need to move to Nazi Germany. 0.90

00:56:45.000 Sounds awesome.

00:56:46.000 That was actually not their big problem, as it turns out.

00:56:50.000 And then, I love this.

00:56:52.000 A Twitter user captioned their post, look at this.

00:56:54.000 These are some of Israel Broussard's most recent likes.

00:56:57.000 Seriously, Israel Broussard's likes are the biggest.

00:56:59.000 Pro-gun, pro-Trump, pro-effing Shapiro.

00:57:01.000 Pro-Ben-effing Shapiro. 0.99

00:57:03.000 Anti-Muslims, blacks, and women. 1.00

00:57:05.000 Mess. 1.00

00:57:06.000 And so he's compelled to apologize.

00:57:07.000 This is the world we live in now.

00:57:08.000 If you like a tweet from me, you'll be forced to apologize.

00:57:11.000 Hollywood, beware.

00:57:12.000 The scourge of Hollywood lurks on your doorstep.

00:57:14.000 Here I am. 1.00

00:57:18.000 So ridiculous. 0.97

00:57:19.000 Okay. 0.97

00:57:19.000 Meanwhile, CNN demonstrating once again. 0.97

00:57:22.000 It's non-biased.

00:57:23.000 It's total objective journalisming.

00:57:25.000 They are now running a documentary.

00:57:26.000 It's like a 10-part documentary on Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the most important justice who has ever lived.

00:57:31.000 What important decisions has she been involved in? 1.00

00:57:33.000 The answer is not many.

00:57:34.000 She really hasn't written many important decisions at all.

00:57:37.000 Virtually all important decisions of the Supreme Court written over the last 20 years, particularly on social issues, have been written by other justices.

00:57:43.000 But she's very important because she is a woman and a feminist 0.94

00:57:48.000 And oh my god, so CNN is running, I kid you not, a documentary from CNN Films called RBG Beyond Notorious.

00:58:00.000 Did they ever run anything like this about Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas?

00:58:04.000 No, of course not.

00:58:05.000 They only do it about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but they are objective.

00:58:06.000 They are totally objective.

00:58:07.000 Most liberal justice, leftist justice, on the bench.

00:58:10.000 The notorious RBG.

00:58:12.000 I hate this kind of stuff so much.

00:58:13.000 The kind of worship of judicial figures.

00:58:16.000 Like Antonin Scalia, great justice.

00:58:18.000 Clarence Thomas, even better justice.

00:58:20.000 Are we supposed to, like, do we call him, like, the Notorious Clarence Thomas?

00:58:24.000 The Notorious Antonin Scalia?

00:58:25.000 The Notorious RBG? 0.95

00:58:26.000 But they say it's supposed to be ironic because, of course, she's a nerdy white lady. 1.00

00:58:30.000 A nerdy white Jewish lady. 1.00

00:58:31.000 But here's a little bit of their documentary.

00:58:33.000 Don't worry, this is all objective journalisming.

00:58:35.000 She had the theory that, right from early on, she had the theory that injustices or the special privileges that women had hurt everybody. 1.00

00:58:47.000 Put the women on a pedestal, but it hurt men also. 0.75

00:58:51.000 I mean, what a hero Ruth Bader Ginsburg is.

00:58:54.000 What a heroine. 1.00

00:58:55.000 Standing up for abortion? 0.82

00:58:57.000 What a heroine. 1.00

00:58:58.000 Yeah, don't worry, CNN's objective.

00:59:00.000 You can definitely, definitely trust them.

00:59:02.000 So, well done, CNN, once more.

00:59:05.000 Okay, final thing that I hate for this week. 0.87

00:59:07.000 So, we have to pervert Shakespeare in every way possible, and make it suck, also.

00:59:11.000 So, apparently, Out Magazine is now promoting a version of Romeo and Juliet 0.97

00:59:16.000 That takes place 50 years after society has exterminated cisgender men.

00:59:20.000 So cisgender men will no longer exist.

00:59:22.000 Cisgender men are men who identify as their actual sex. 0.81

00:59:26.000 In other words, like men. 0.60

00:59:28.000 Right?

00:59:29.000 Cisgender men are just men. 1.00

00:59:30.000 So I'm confused as to how the society exists 50 years after cisgender men have been exterminated.

00:59:36.000 I assume the baby-making rates have gone down rather dramatically.

00:59:39.000 Cisgender men, it turns out, are sort of necessary. 1.00

00:59:42.000 And let's just put it this way. 0.95

00:59:44.000 If cisgender men were completely eliminated in Western civilization, I think pretty soon Western civilization would no longer exist. 0.99

00:59:51.000 For both internal and external reasons. 0.89

00:59:53.000 There'd be a lot of people at the gates, a lot of barbarians at the gates, who would be attempting to destroy what was left of Western civilization. 0.93

00:59:58.000 And also, turns out you need some cisgender men on that wall, and you need some cisgender men to make babies and be fathers and take care of families. 0.99

01:00:05.000 Again, none of this is to say that transgender people can't perform relevant and great functions in American society, but to pretend that cisgender men are the enemy is ridiculous. 0.90

01:00:14.000 Anyway, they're going to do this routine where Romeo and Juliet, it includes six female and gender non-conforming actors as well as a fully female and gender non-conforming crew.

01:00:24.000 So I'm confused as to why fully female is okay, but not fully male. 0.87

01:00:27.000 So males are very bad.

01:00:29.000 Here is what their pitch says.

01:00:30.000 As the government still relies on martial law to keep the factions in check, two young heirs unexpectedly fall in love.

01:00:36.000 One is from the Montagues, the militaristic warmongers responsible for the purge of society's men.

01:00:40.000 The other is the Capulets, controllers of information in the media, fighting to regain independence from a sovereign state. 0.87

01:00:45.000 The genderqueer version of the play, the magazine says, explores mainstream feminism, patriarchal structures, and a society struggling to rebuild in their wake.

01:00:53.000 Sounds awesome.

01:00:55.000 Sounds awesome.

01:00:56.000 Forget about the fact that Romeo and Juliet is probably one of the most explicitly gendered plays in Shakespeare.

01:01:02.000 It is specifically built on the idea that young teenage men are reckless and young teenage girls are romantics.

01:01:09.000 It's a very, very gender-specific play.

01:01:13.000 And this is the thing about good writing.

01:01:14.000 What good writing is, is writing of the character.

01:01:17.000 You want to write a quote-unquote genderqueer character?

01:01:19.000 Go for it.

01:01:20.000 That's your problem.

01:01:21.000 But to hijack the words of Shakespeare that are specifically written for a man or for a woman and then to pretend that those are equally applicable to people who do not identify as a man or identify as a woman is really

01:01:30.000 It's really amazing.

01:01:31.000 The same people who say Scarlett Johansson cannot play a transgender person will now say that Shakespeare's words that were written for a specific character should be read by somebody who does not resemble those characters in any ways and is not trying to act as the character, but is acting as a completely different character saying those words.

01:01:45.000 It just doesn't make any sense on an artistic level, but I guess it's forward thinking, so who cares?

01:01:50.000 Forward thinking just means having nothing to do with the original intent of the author.

01:01:53.000 So glad we're doing that.

01:01:54.000 All right.

01:01:55.000 Well, we will be back here on Monday.

01:01:56.000 Try to survive over the weekend.

01:01:57.000 It's been a long week.

01:01:58.000 We'll be back here on Monday, and we will break it all down for you.

01:02:00.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

01:02:01.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

01:02:06.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Senya Villareal, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay.

01:02:12.000 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

01:02:16.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

01:02:17.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.

01:02:19.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.

01:02:21.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Ford Publishing production.

01:02:24.000 Copyright Ford Publishing 2018.

The Ben Shapiro Show - August 24, 2018

The Actual Big Issue | Ep. 610

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