Ben Shapiro reacts to the cloture vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanuagh, and explains why the vote is likely to be close, and why it's a good thing there was only one Democratic vote. He also explains why Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted no on cloture and why she should be fired if she s a closeted serial killer. Ben Shapiro is the host of the conservative podcast "The Weekly Standard" and host of "The Ben Shapiro Show" on Fox News Channel. He is also host of The Weekly Standard's "Politics with Ben Shapiro" and is a regular contributor on CNN's "The Situation Room" and the New York Times' "Meet the Press." He's also a frequent contributor on ABC's "Good Morning America" and CBS' "The Early Edition of CBS Radio's Morning Joe" and hosts the conservative radio show "The FiveThirtyEight" on CBS Radio in Washington, D.C. and CNN Radio in Los Angeles, and on NPR Radio in Boston, MA and NPR in New York City, NY and in the District of New York, NY, among other places around the country, and gives his thoughts on all the latest news and notes from the past 24 hours in Washington and elsewhere in the world. Also, he talks about the latest on the Alabama Roy Moore pick-up truckers and what's happening in Alabama. and gives you the inside scoop on what he's been up to in his life in Alabama on the past week in Alabama and the latest in his new book, "Alabama Joneses' new novel, "The Good, the Good, Bad, the Bad, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, the Beautiful, the Great, the U.S. Good, and The Ugly and the Beautiful... and the Rest, the Worst, the Real, the Most Beautiful, The Real, The Great, The Best, the Best, The Worst, The Most Beautiful... the Real and the Most Authentic, the Really Good and the Realest, the Greatest, the REALEST, the MOST REAL ESTEPSYCHOLOGY! and much, much, MUCH, MUCH MORE! and more! -- including the fact that he's not even joking about it all of that! -- and much more! -- on this episode of The Ben Shapiro's thoughts on Brett's new book "Kavanaugh's Confirmation hearing, "KAVNER'S BUMP"
00:00:00.000Republicans and one Democrat vote for cloture on Brett Kavanaugh, leftists take to the streets, Kavanaugh defends himself, and Chuck Grassley unleashes.
00:00:20.000I mean, let's just say that lots of stuff is happening and tomorrow is going to be fascinating because the vote is now set on Brett Kavanaugh for Saturday.
00:00:29.000We'll get to all of that news in just a second.
00:00:48.000It does indeed help us out in those iTunes rankings, which is a lot of fun, so go check that out.
00:00:52.000Also, let's say you need to upgrade your business.
00:00:54.000Let's say that you are unhappy with your employees for any reason under the sun.
00:00:58.000Let's say that your producer is a closeted serial killer, and you find that out, and then you actually have to let her go.
00:01:03.000Senya, let's say that all that happens.
00:01:05.000Well, if that were to happen, then you'd need to replace said person with a person who was not a serial killer, as much as she's competent.
00:01:12.000You know, serial killers probably shouldn't have them in your company.
00:01:17.000ZipRecruiter.com has powerful matching technology, which scans thousands of resumes, identifies people with the right skills, education, and experience for your job, and actively invites them to apply.
00:02:22.000In his prescient, turtle-like fashion, said at the time, you will come to regret this sooner than you think.
00:02:28.000And oh boy, do Democrats regret it right now, because all it takes is 51 votes, not 60 votes, in order to elevate someone to the Supreme Court.
00:02:36.000The vote on Brett Kavanaugh was closer than expected, and that is because of the politically traitorous behavior of Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
00:02:44.000Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted no on cloture.
00:02:46.000Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who wishes to retain his seat in the Senate, voted yes.
00:02:51.000That means that it is now bipartisan opposition because of one vote.
00:02:55.000It's bipartisan opposition to Kavanaugh and also bipartisan support for Kavanaugh because of one vote.
00:02:59.000Basically, one Democrat voted yes, one Republican voted no on cloture.
00:03:04.000But this thing is too close for comfort.
00:03:06.000Wouldn't it be nice right about now if the Alabama GOP had not nominated Roy Moore to fill a Senate seat?
00:03:11.000That would give me a little bit more breathing room.
00:03:13.000I think I'd feel a little bit happier about life right now.
00:03:16.000Suffice it to say, the odds are very much
00:03:18.000I'm Brett Kavanaugh's side in terms of being confirmed.
00:03:24.000In order for Kavanaugh to go down right now, basically both those people have to switch their votes or Joe Manchin has to switch his vote between cloture and a final vote.
00:03:31.000The final vote is designed to take place on Saturday.
00:03:39.000And Lisa Murkowski obviously is in the crosshairs because Lisa Murkowski, who lost her primary in 2016 and then won a write-in vote and won about 44% of the vote in her election before that in 2010 against a libertarian candidate, she's not wildly popular in Alaska or anything like that, but she feels pretty secure because she's not up for re-election until 2022 and now she gets to burnish her feminist bona fides
00:04:02.000It would not be particularly surprising if the Democrats at some point win back the Senate, say in 2020.
00:04:07.000It would not be particularly surprising to see somebody like Lisa Murkowski switch to independent a la Jim Jeffords and then caucus with the Democrats in order to preserve her seat.
00:04:27.000If she were to vote in favor of cloture and then vote against the actual measure being taken, then you would see a 50-50 tie in the Senate broken by Vice President Pence, which is about the thinnest margin that you could put somebody on the court by.
00:04:40.000But hey, almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, and this is neither.
00:04:44.000So as long as he gets confirmed, that's all that matters in the end.
00:04:47.000Joe Manchin, of course, has a lot of pressure on him, but he also understands that if he votes against Kavanaugh, he loses his seat.
00:04:53.000He is up for reelection in five minutes here.
00:04:55.000And the folks in West Virginia are not going to go along with Joe Manchin if he were to undercut Brett Kavanaugh on this matter.
00:05:04.000Also, in other breaking news this morning...
00:05:07.000This is an insane story that underscores the vagaries of the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh in the first place.
00:05:13.000Christine Blasey Ford was the woman who made those allegations.
00:05:16.000There's a new story from the Wall Street Journal that is truly a shocking story and is getting undercovered, of course, by a lot of folks in the mainstream.
00:05:23.000They're saying, well, a lot of people in right-wing media, they're picking up on it.
00:05:26.000Everyone should be picking up on it because it's a kind of crazy story.
00:05:29.000Here's the story from the Wall Street Journal.
00:05:31.000A friend of Christine Blasey Ford told FBI investigators that she felt pressured by Dr. Ford's allies to revisit her initial statement that she knew nothing about an alleged sexual assault by a teenage Brett Kavanaugh, which she later updated to say she believed but couldn't corroborate Dr. Ford's accounts, according to people familiar with the matter.
00:05:50.000That means that people close to Christine Blasey Ford called up Leland Kaiser, who was the only witness that essentially Ford brought forth, and who had denied that she knew anything about the party or knew Brett Kavanaugh at all.
00:06:03.000And Ford's people called up Kaiser and tried to get her to change her story.
00:06:08.000They pressured her to change her story in order to go after Brett Kavanaugh.
00:06:14.000And if it happened on the other side, if it was Brett Kavanaugh calling people up saying, I need you to change your story and say that you denied it, people would be saying, wow, that guy is evil, okay?
00:06:25.000To try and pressure somebody to change a story in order to convict someone, either in the court of public opinion or in court, may in fact be criminal activity, right?
00:06:32.000I mean, to get somebody to change their story for the FBI, that's putting pressure on an actual witness.
00:07:07.000Quick quiz on whether you've been up on the news and listening to the show.
00:07:10.000Monica McLean was the woman who was mentioned by Christine Blasey Ford's ex-boyfriend in his letter when he said that Christine Blasey Ford trained somebody to pass a polygraph.
00:07:23.000Monica McLean, when she was trying out for a job with the federal government,
00:07:27.000She then said that that had never happened.
00:07:30.000It also turns out that Monica McLean is probably the quote-unquote beach friend that Christine Blasey Ford was talking about who urged her to approach Democrats.
00:07:38.000So Monica McLean, who's a Democratic activist, was involved in this thing basically from inception.
00:07:44.000The statement to the FBI offers a glimpse into how Dr. Ford's allies were working behind the scenes to lobby old classmates to bolster their versions of the alleged incident, as were Judge Kavanaugh's.
00:07:54.000Judge Kavanaugh, whose Supreme Court nomination will be debated in the Senate Friday, has denied the allegations of sexual misconduct.
00:07:59.000On Thursday, a day after sending to the White House the report on its investigation into the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, the FBI sent the White House and Senate an additional package of information that included text messages from Ms.
00:08:26.000Kaiser's lawyer, on September 23rd, said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee she had no recollection of attending a party with Judge Kavanaugh.
00:08:32.000That same day, she told the Washington Post she believed Dr. Ford.
00:08:35.000On September 29th, two days after Dr. Ford and the judge testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee,
00:08:41.000Kaiser's attorney sent a letter to the panel saying his client wasn't refuting Dr. Ford's account and that she believed it but couldn't corroborate it.
00:08:48.000A person close to the former classmate said it was her understanding that mutual friends of Dr. Ford and Ms.
00:08:56.000Kaiser after her initial statement to warn her that her statement was being used by Republicans to rebut the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh.
00:09:03.000Kaiser that if she had intended to say she didn't remember the party, not that it had never happened, she should clarify her statement, the person said, adding that the friends had not, in fact, pressured Ms.
00:09:58.000Why won't you turn over any of that stuff?
00:10:00.000Here's what Chuck Grassley wrote to Christine Blasey Ford's lawyers, quote, You have repeatedly refused to produce this evidence to the Senate.
00:10:06.000In doing so, you are preventing the Senate from considering the evidence most crucial to Dr. Ford's allegations.
00:10:11.000I don't know what other interference we should draw from inference we should draw from your refusal, but that the withheld evidence does not support Dr. Ford's allegations in quite the way you have claimed.
00:10:20.000I urge you once again, now for the third time in writing, to turn over the therapy notes, polygraph materials, and communications with the Washington Post that Dr. Ford has relied upon as evidence.
00:10:30.000And here's where it starts to get real dicey for Legal Team Ford.
00:10:33.000In addition to the evidence I requested in my October 2nd letter, in light of recently uncovered information, please turn over records and descriptions of direct or indirect communications between Dr. Ford or her representatives in any of the following.
00:10:46.000Senators or their staffs, particularly the offices of Senators Feinstein and Hirono, other than your communications with me and my staff in preparation for the September 27th hearing.
00:10:55.000In other words, were you coordinating with Democrats in order to trot out a particular PR line?
00:11:00.000Two, the alleged witnesses identified by Dr. Ford, Leland Kaiser, Mark Judge, and Patrick Smith.
00:11:06.000In other words, we think that you've been corresponding with witnesses, including Leland Kaiser, about what they ought to be saying on this.
00:11:14.000In other words, were you coordinating with other people making allegations against Judge Kavanaugh?
00:11:22.000Chuck Grassley does not actually release that letter unless he's got something in his back pocket.
00:11:26.000Chuck Grassley is a very cautious senator, and this is not a guy who's going to go out there on a ledge and then suggest that
00:11:34.000All this is some giant conspiracy without some evidence.
00:11:39.000So we will see what arises from all of that.
00:11:43.000By the way, Grassley's office did release an executive summary of the FBI findings.
00:11:48.000The FBI findings basically said that there was nothing.
00:11:51.000So they talked to 11 different individuals, 10 of whom agreed to be interviewed.
00:11:54.000That includes Mark Judge, PJ Smith, and Leland Kaiser, as well as two other individuals included on Judge Kavanaugh's July 1st, 1982 calendar entry.
00:12:02.000Remember, Democrats were suggesting that on
00:12:05.000On Kavanaugh's calendar, there was a party for July 1st, 1982, in which he listed some people.
00:12:10.000Some of those people had crossover with some of the people mentioned by Blasey Ford.
00:12:14.000Even Blasey Ford's lawyers are now saying it wasn't the July 1st party.
00:12:17.000Funny how they only say that after the FBI interviews all these folks.
00:12:21.000The FBI interviews all these folks, and then, and then, Ford's lawyers come out and say, she would never have said that it was July 1st as a possible date.
00:12:28.000Some of the people listed on his calendar, she knew well and would have remembered.
00:12:32.000Interesting, interesting how all of that works.
00:12:34.000So again, I've never suggested, not once, that she was lying or making this up.
00:14:03.000First, I think it is worthwhile noting that having lost on all counts here, the Democrats have turned to their final gambit.
00:14:08.000They said that Brett Kavanaugh was a perjurer, and then they said that Brett Kavanaugh was a rapist, and now they are saying Brett Kavanaugh cried, and that makes him a baby.
00:14:18.000This is an article in the New Yorker by a person named Michael Lista, who apparently is kind of a, well, a person who repeats garbage on a regular basis.
00:14:28.000Brett Kavanaugh's cheers make a kind of sense.
00:14:30.000From a single phrase by Thomas Jefferson, that public life is about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the fulfillment of the white American man's atomized desires assumed the force of a fiat and became the ultimate purpose of this country's society.
00:14:44.000So, if you don't understand what he's talking about, that's because you have a brain.
00:14:47.000What he's trying to say here is that the phrase, pursuit of happiness, means that white men get to pursue happiness, but everybody else is a giant victim.
00:14:56.000And therefore, if you believe in the Declaration of Independence, it's because you're a racist, which is an insane statement.
00:15:02.000And then he says, if a white man didn't get what he wanted, it was nothing short of a constitutional crisis in his body and his body politic both.
00:15:28.000He says, in this, he's less a citizen of his society than one of its disgruntled customers who are always right.
00:15:33.000There's an originalist argument to be made for being a crybaby.
00:15:36.000So it's bad that Brett Kavanaugh got emotional.
00:15:38.000Now, what I would love is a reverse article from this guy on Christine Blasey Ford, right, who was considered credible largely because she was emotional during her testimony.
00:15:51.000And this is the most common argument that I'm seeing is that Brett Kavanaugh's judicial temperament is the real problem here.
00:15:55.000We're going to get to more of that argument in just a second.
00:15:59.000There's a — John Paul Stevens, who hasn't been relevant for years and years and years and years, thank God, because he was appointed by a Republican, but he was the most liberal justice on the court.
00:16:09.000Well, he now said — he's 98 years old — he was speaking to a crowd of retirees in Boca Raton, and he said that Brett Kavanaugh's performance during a Senate confirmation hearing suggested that he lacks the temperament for the job.
00:17:06.000Let's say that you had spent the last 40 years of your life in public service, and that somebody you never knew came forward with an allegation against you, accusing you of gang rape.
00:17:16.000And that people who opposed you politically, the same people who said that they opposed you because you're a textualist, then came forward and said, we think that you are also a gang rapist.
00:17:25.000Might you say, wait a second, this feels like a partisan hit job.
00:18:13.000Remember, there was a whole set of Senate hearings before this whole garbage news cycle began.
00:18:18.000There's a whole set of Senate hearings where he went through silly questions from Senators, and you had the grandstanding by Kamala Harris and Corey Potato Head Booker, and they went through the entire hearing, and he was placid, right?
00:19:00.000If you massage me and you're a masseuse, and I consent to your touch, then I am probably going to be placid and happy.
00:19:06.000If, however, you clock me in the back of the head with a 2x4, I might be justifiably angry, and I might be, you know, miffed enough to turn around and try to clock you back in the face.
00:19:16.000That's what happened to Brett Kavanaugh, but apparently that's no good.
00:19:19.000Showing who Brett Kavanaugh really is, he wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal.
00:19:24.000Trying to defend his behavior and apologizing for being too emotional.
00:19:27.000As I said at the time, he owes no apology to anyone on any of this.
00:20:32.000He's a guy who then wrote a full op-ed for the Wall Street Journal apologizing for his brutish behavior.
00:20:37.000I'll read you some of it in just a second.
00:20:39.000But first, let's talk about your window covering.
00:20:41.000So, are there days when you feel like you just want to shut out the world?
00:20:44.000Days when you look out the window and you say, everyone's crazy?
00:20:48.000Let's say you work in a congressional office, and right now there are a bunch of protesters outside your office shouting that you're pro-rape because you think the due process should still apply.
00:20:55.000And all you really want to do is just shut those blinds.
00:20:57.000But unfortunately, you have government-era 1982 blinds.
00:21:01.000Well, that's because you need better window coverings, okay?
00:21:03.000And this is true in your home as well.
00:21:05.000You really want to elevate the look of your home, go check out blinds.com.
00:21:08.000Now, taking the time to pick out and buy blinds, it's expensive, it's kind of boring, and selling them yourself sounds harder than you want to admit.
00:21:15.000But blinds.com makes it easy for you because not only
00:21:18.000Do they help you pick out your blinds?
00:21:19.000You get a free online design consultation, which you send them pictures of your house.
00:21:23.000They send out custom recommendations from a professional for what'll work with your color scheme.
00:21:27.000They even send you free samples to make sure that everything looks as good in person as it does online.
00:22:18.000My mom, Martha, one of the first women to serve as a Maryland prosecutor and trial judge, and my inspiration to become a lawyer, sat in the audience with my dad, Ed.
00:22:25.000That night, I told the American people who I am and what I believe.
00:22:27.000I talked about my 28-year career as a lawyer, almost all of which has been in public service.
00:22:31.000I talked about my 12 years as a judge on the U.S.
00:22:34.000Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, often called the second most important court in the country, and my five years of service in the White House for President George W. Bush.
00:22:42.000I talked about my long record of advancing and promoting women, including as a judge,
00:22:45.000A majority of my 48 law clerks have been women and as a longtime coach of girls' basketball teams.
00:22:50.000As I explained that night, a good judge must be an umpire, a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no political party, litigant, or policy.
00:22:58.000As Justice Kennedy has stated, judges do not make decisions to reach a preferred result.
00:23:02.000Judges make decisions because the law and Constitution compel the result.
00:23:06.000And he talks about how he has ruled in the past.
00:23:08.000And then he says, And then he gets into his sort of mea culpa.
00:23:29.000He says, During the confirmation process, I met with 65 senators and explained my approach to the law.
00:23:34.000I participated in more than 30 hours of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I submitted written answers to nearly 1,300 additional questions.
00:23:43.000After all those meetings and after my initial hearing concluded, I was subjected to wrongful and sometimes vicious allegations.
00:23:49.000My time in high school and college more than 30 years ago has been ridiculously distorted.
00:23:53.000My wife and daughters have faced violent, violent threats.
00:23:56.000Against that backdrop, I testified before the Judiciary Committee last Thursday to defend my family, my good name, and my lifetime of public service.
00:24:19.000It's never happened to you on a job interview, because that's not a job interview.
00:24:22.000That's an actual prosecution, in all likelihood.
00:24:24.000My hearing testimony was forceful and passionate.
00:24:27.000That is because I forcefully and passionately denied the allegation against me.
00:24:30.000At times, my testimony, both in my opening statement and in response to questions, reflected my overwhelming frustration at being wrongly accused without corroboration of horrible conduct, completely contrary to my record and character.
00:24:41.000My statement and answers also reflected my deep distress at the unfairness of how this allegation has been handled.
00:24:46.000I was very emotional last Thursday, more so than I have ever been.
00:24:49.000I might have been too emotional at times.
00:24:51.000I know my tone was sharp, and I said a few things I should not have said.
00:24:54.000I hope everyone can understand that I was there as a son, husband, and dad.
00:24:57.000I testified with five people foremost in my mind.
00:24:59.000My mom, my dad, my wife, and most of all, my daughters.
00:25:01.000And then he talks about going forward.
00:25:03.000I can always be counted on to do what I've always done.
00:25:12.000And the fact that people on the left, you know, the creature, by the way, the left, the same people who suggest that I should not be allowed to speak at UCLA or USC or Berkeley because I might hurt people's feelings, these are the same people who are saying that feelings are unjustified when accused of rape.
00:25:26.000So in other words, feelings are justified, anger is justified, protest is justified when I say a man is a man and a woman is a woman, but feelings are not justified if I were to accuse you of gang rape in a public setting.
00:26:04.000It's pretty amazing that we've reached this point in American public life with regard to Supreme Court seats.
00:26:08.000This did, in fact, start with the Democratic left that decided that the court was a tool for the promulgation of public policy and not merely an impartial arbiter of constitutional meaning.
00:26:18.000The reason that the stakes are so high is because the court became something it never was before during the Warren era and afterward.
00:26:25.000And that was an actual political institution dedicated to a specific set of policy goals.
00:26:32.000The reason people care about the Supreme Court, the reason that the people think that the Supreme Court matters, is because of things like Roe v. Wade, when the court decided that it was going to make national policy on the basis of left-wing viewpoints, having nothing to do with the Constitution.
00:26:47.000And the left believed that the court was going to be its final bastion of leftism.
00:26:50.000No matter what happened, they could always count on the court to step in and defend leftist policy priorities.
00:26:56.000And for a long time, that was basically correct.
00:26:59.000And now it turns out that when Republicans want to restore the judiciary to its proper role, namely reading the Constitution as it is written, as it was meant, then the left says, wait, hold up a second.
00:27:22.000They care about the Supreme Court because they think the Supreme Court is important.
00:27:25.000The only people the only reason people think the Supreme Court is important is because the left has turned it into a political tool and has used it as a club to beat senseless people who actually believe in the text of the Constitution for the last
00:27:53.000I wrote my entire Harvard Law School third-year paper on the idea that judicial review should be significantly curtailed because the founders never intended for the Supreme Court to be a superior political branch, and yet that's exactly what's happened.
00:28:05.000In any case, the passions were running high yesterday and today.
00:28:09.000Marco Rubio was talking about Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination in the halls of the Senate, the Senate Hart building, and he was drowned out immediately by protesters because this is the way our politics goes now.
00:28:20.000The way everybody's reacting to this now, you know, every Supreme Court Justice hearing coming forth that's going to be going on after this.
00:28:29.000Well, we had one a few months ago and it didn't work out that way.
00:28:56.000I don't recall a Republican staffer trying to dox members of Congress and release their children's health records, which is a thing that actually happened.
00:29:03.000An intern for Representative Sheila Jackson Lee tried to reveal senators' children's health information.
00:29:18.000And protesters didn't stop, of course, in Marco Rubio.
00:29:20.000Here's a protester berating Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
00:29:23.000They're going to just try to do the same thing they did to Senator Flake, buttonhole somebody in an elevator and then yell at them about how they obviously hate women because they believe in due process.
00:29:30.000Ben Sasse was kind of ripped up and down by the right the other day for a speech that he gave on the floor of the Senate.
00:29:35.000And that's because people were taking one line kind of out of context when he said he would have preferred Amy Coney Barrett.
00:29:41.000So would I. My original pick was Amy Coney Barrett, if you recall.
00:29:45.000But the bottom line is that Ben Sasse is voting for Kavanaugh.
00:29:48.000The point that he made is this false dichotomy that's being drawn by the left, particularly, between this case and the MeToo movement, in which they say that if you support Brett Kavanaugh, you therefore hate MeToo.
00:30:00.000If you support Brett Kavanaugh's due process and presumption of innocence, therefore you don't take women seriously.
00:30:04.000He said that's garbage and that's nonsense.
00:31:58.000Plus, this coming Monday, Daily Wire is launching the next chapter in Andrew Klavan's podcast series, Another Kingdom, performed by the exquirable Michael Knowles.
00:34:01.000But this is the protesters sort of story.
00:34:04.000It is worth noting, you know, there are there's a lot of hubbub today because President Trump tweeted out that some of these protesters are being paid.
00:35:33.000There's an article in The New Yorker today, or yesterday, saying that rape does not require corroboration.
00:35:40.000Because most crimes don't require corroboration.
00:35:43.000What the legal standard means by that is that if I were to allege that I witnessed a murder, there's not a second witness that has to corroborate my story.
00:35:53.000If I just say, I witnessed a murder, I walk into a police station, I say, someone in this room, this very room killed someone.
00:36:00.000Right, let's say that, I won't name names, but if I were to walk into a police station and say that, the police would say, okay, is there a body?
00:36:14.000Okay, there doesn't need to be a second person in the room for a rape to watch it and then tell you, yep, it was a rape.
00:36:19.000There has to be some sort of corroborative evidence, which is why there are so many cases that the police simply does not take up because there is no corroborative evidence.
00:36:27.000By the way, Michelle Malkin has a terrific video today about the number of cases of sexual assault and rape that are either falsely reported or misremembered.
00:38:26.000That is because there are a bunch of people who still have an iota of sanity in this country and recognize you can't destroy people's lives based on non-corroborated allegations.
00:38:36.000All of which is driving Republicans to actually find a spine for the first time in a long time.
00:38:55.000I don't know where this came from, but it's pretty spectacular.
00:38:57.000So, Bob Menendez, who is the Democratic Senator from New Jersey, he's had some of his own allegations brought against him.
00:39:05.000I remember that there were allegations against Bob Menendez that he was flying out to, I think it was Puerto Rico, and that he was making time with prostitutes, and they'd investigated the allegations, and they really couldn't come up with anything.
00:39:15.000Well, Bob Menendez is very upset with the FBI report on Brett Kavanaugh, and here's what Bob Menendez had to say about it.
00:39:21.000Okay, and then Lindsey Graham 2.0 shows up.
00:41:36.000I mean, and then Senator Hatch, as he's getting in the elevator, if you can't see this, Senator Hatch, he just starts waving at them, right?
00:41:45.000Bye, see you later, because the elevator door's gonna close.
00:42:07.000Alison Camerata, who I used to have more respect for as a reporter, she's really, I mean, she's like the Titanic that hit the iceberg on this story.
00:42:15.000Here she was, talking on CNN last night.
00:42:18.000Wouldn't it just be easier to go with a different nominee?
00:42:20.000You know, after all of this, after we've, you know, gone after this guy, and made a bunch of unverified allegations, and reported Julie Swetnick as a real story, and put Michael Avenatti on this network every five seconds, and set up a pup tent for him in the green room.
00:42:31.000You know, after all that, wouldn't it just be better if you guys, you know, just did what we wanted and got rid of Kavanaugh as a nominee?
00:43:02.000Wow, did you hear all the journalism in that question?
00:43:05.000All the journalism where why won't you just do what we want?
00:43:07.000We've been trying to trump up this story for months here.
00:43:10.000Why won't you just do what we want you to do?
00:43:13.000And then I love this from Jim Sciutto, who's another reporter, another objective reporter over at CNN, saying, you know, when people accuse people of gang rape, that's just politics.
00:45:17.000Why, how convenient that you suddenly discovered that Bill Clinton was a credibly accused rapist.
00:45:24.000How convenient that you finally figured out after like 25 years that maybe it would have been a good idea to, you know, look at like the stuff Bill Clinton did.
00:45:34.000Weird how that just occurred to you now in the last 24 hours after people discovered one of your old tweets.
00:45:40.000Here she is on CNN rewriting her own history.
00:45:44.000No, and I don't think Bill Clinton should have gotten that benefit of the doubt in hindsight.
00:45:49.000I think that as a nation we were in a different time.
00:45:52.000I think that women were continually being silenced and I think we gave him the benefit of the doubt and we probably should have investigated the allegations against him as well.
00:47:13.000Like, black people have had it slightly harder than women.
00:47:18.000I think historically it's fair to say that
00:47:20.000You know, millions of black people shipped over from Africa to South America and to North America and then forcibly enslaved and then used as chattel.
00:47:29.000Probably a little worse than that time that Bette Midler didn't get a job in Hollywood at an audition.
00:47:37.000And I love that, I love when she says, for thousands of years, women have been treated as chattel.
00:47:40.000For thousands of years, people died at 35 too, okay?
00:47:42.000Can we talk about, like, things that have been relevant in the last, say, couple generations?
00:48:10.000Well, I've been told that Woman is the N-Word of the World is a song written by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the songwriting duo most responsible for, imagine, the worst atrocity ever perpetuated against art in the history of mankind.
00:48:43.000And what I found is that black girls actually have significantly, that black girls who are raised in the same situation as white girls actually have exactly the same sort of income trajectory.
00:48:51.000Black boys, if you're going to talk about who actually has it worse in American society for whatever reason, and there are probably some good ones and some bad ones, black boys have it a lot worse in American society than black girls do.
00:49:01.000Just by income statistics from Harvard University.
00:49:12.000Amir says, Ben, I have a very Islamic name.
00:49:14.000I want to have my name legally changed to something more American, but people have accused me of trying to run for my ethnicity.
00:49:18.000I was wondering what your take on this was.
00:49:20.000Well, you know, Amir, in the Jewish community, it's not uncommon and it hasn't been uncommon for generations for Jews to have two names, basically.
00:49:30.000One that you have in Hebrew and one that you have in English.
00:49:39.000There are a lot of Jews in the community who will go by like, it's Yechezkel in Hebrew, and then it's Ezekiel in English, which sounds very different.
00:49:46.000Or you have folks whose name is actually completely, completely different.
00:49:50.000Like my mom's name in Hebrew is Kayla, her English name is Cynthia.
00:49:52.000So I think there's a, if you have the name for religious reasons, then I think maintaining that name for religious reasons and in religious contexts is acceptable.
00:50:02.000You can choose whatever name you want, obviously.
00:50:04.000You should ask your parents how they feel about it, honestly.
00:50:07.000I think that your parents gave you a name for a reason, and as a tribute to someone or something that's meaningful, I think names have power.
00:50:14.000I wouldn't change my name just out of outside pressure, honestly, if I could avoid it.
00:50:18.000Instead, I'd be calling out people who treat you in discriminatory fashion because of your name.
00:50:21.000I think that changing names in order to avoid discrimination
00:50:25.000I would rather work on calling out folks who are discriminating against you because of name.
00:50:35.000I'm a 15-year-old conservative from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
00:50:37.000My question is a moral dilemma I've been faced with.
00:50:39.000I was actually inspired by you to become more active in politics, and I joined the debate team at my school.
00:50:44.000When I joined, I found that you don't always get to pick which side of an argument you're supposed to argue for.
00:50:47.000What I want to know is whether or not it's morally acceptable to attempt to argue a point I do not agree with.
00:50:51.000I'm a huge fan of the show, thanks for your time.
00:50:53.000So, yes, the answer is yes, because these are all mock debates.
00:50:56.000So, when I was at Harvard Law School, we actually had this exact situation.
00:50:59.000We had mock trial, we had like a moot court.
00:51:02.000And I was assigned for the criminal defense.
00:51:05.000And I remember that the professor knew who I was and came up to me like, I'm so sorry, you gotta sign this.
00:51:59.000Yeah, it was not actually the blood of my enemies.
00:52:02.000It says, Seth, with the recent events and resultant response from Republicans, what do you think are the chances in November, Republicans gain in the House and win a supermajority in the Senate?
00:52:10.000It's unlikely they win a supermajority in the Senate.
00:52:12.000I feel they will pick up probably three to four seats.
00:52:15.000I think Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota is done, done-zo, gone.
00:52:18.000I think Claire McCaskill in Missouri is in serious trouble.
00:52:21.000I think that there are some other seats that are really on the verge, and I think the Democrats have really destroyed themselves here.
00:52:27.000And I think there is now a significant possibility that Republicans retain the House.
00:52:32.000I would not have thought that possible even three weeks ago.
00:52:34.000I think that is much more of a possibility now.
00:52:56.000Should employers be allowed to use them on employees?
00:52:58.000Well, I mean, if you sign a consensual form saying that you're okay with it, then sure.
00:53:02.000I mean, if your employer decides to give you an implicit bias test and you sign on to that, then they should be allowed to do whatever they want.
00:54:24.000Well, apparently on Twitter she was saying beforehand she was going to take a shot at Israel.
00:54:28.000Ariel Gold, I believe, has been banned from the state of Israel because she supports boycott of the state of Israel.
00:54:33.000And so she decided to raise that for no apparent reason.
00:54:36.000Which is bizarre to me, because obviously I am Zionistic and pro-Israel, and obviously I'm an Orthodox Jew, but since I wasn't discussing the topic, it felt very out of context, to say the least, for this, you know, winged topic to fly in from left field.
00:55:40.000But if you want to talk about the reduction of global poverty by half in the last 30 years, that is due almost solely and completely to the rise of free trade principles in conjunction with a powerful American engine driving that car.
00:55:57.000I think that this thing is over by Monday, in all likelihood.
00:55:59.000And then everybody goes on to the next battle, which presumably will be making tax cuts permanent or whatever stupid thing we decide to fight about tomorrow.
00:57:11.000Also, I was a big fan of Rababa Stark, so I call him Rababa because there are two Bs at the end of his name.
00:57:19.000I'm one of the people who's actually read the books, so I will admit that when they hit the Red Wedding, there's a great gif that shows, I think it's from Survivor, where there are a bunch of women who get some news and they're all crying, they put their hands to their face.
00:57:32.000And behind them, there's a guy who just breaks into a massive grin.
00:57:35.000That was everybody who read the Game of Thrones books versus everybody watching the Game of Thrones series when they got to the Red Wedding, because we all knew what was coming.
00:57:42.000But the killing of Rob was really messed up, right?
00:57:46.000I mean, these are all based on real historical circumstances.
00:57:49.000The assassination of princes at weddings and all this stuff.
00:57:53.000There were actual real historical antecedents for this.
00:58:07.000And I will say that I liked early, pre-Child Sacrifice Stannis Baratheon.
00:58:11.000So I had a sneaking fondness for him because I too am a religious prude.
00:58:17.000And although Stannis, you know, making time with the Red Woman, not my favorite, but I thought that he was at least an interesting character and I feel that he sort of got short shrift.
00:58:26.000So that sort of gives you where I stand.
00:58:45.000My great hope was that Hodor was eventually going to take over the country and run things as they ought to be run, just as we would in the United States.
00:59:44.000I hate to do this to Senator Cruz, but I really like Senator Cruz, but there is something to the guy who actually has a legit claim on the throne and then just gets short shrift and gets increasingly frustrated by life.
01:00:02.000I think there's maybe some of that going on.
01:00:04.000I think Senator Cruz will take that well.
01:00:06.000He likes himself some fantasy TV, so I think that's fine.
01:00:51.000He doesn't do a lot of breaking new ground in history, but he does a great job of summing up how history has worked and he tells a great tale.
01:00:59.000He has a book about the history of the papacy called The Absolute Monarchs.
01:01:06.000It kind of gives you a history of the ups and downs of the papacy.
01:01:09.000Whether you're Catholic or non-Catholic, tends to be more skeptical of Catholicism, this particular book, but it is worth checking out.
01:01:14.000Absolute Monarchs, A History of the Papacy.
01:01:16.000I picked it up because my favorite thing, I should actually do this as a separate thing I like, my favorite thing legitimately
01:01:22.000One of my favorite things in the world is on Shabbat, my parents bring over the Wall Street Journal and I read the review section cover to cover because it is the best section in journalism.
01:01:37.000If you have a chance, I wish I could only subscribe to the review section of the Wall Street Journal because I would do that, really.
01:01:41.000I don't get a newspaper because the news moves too fast, but the review section of the Wall Street Journal is the best thing in print media.
01:02:02.000So a story that is getting just very little coverage, but actually is kind of important, is that China has apparently been infiltrating U.S.
01:02:12.000And this is why when President Trump says that for national security reasons he's tariffing China, I have a lot less problems with that than him saying that he's using national security to try and start trade wars with the EU or Mexico or Canada, which I think is silly.
01:02:24.000Him talking about China as a national security threat, that's an actual real thing.
01:02:27.000In 2015, according to Bloomberg, Amazon began quietly evaluating a startup called Elemental Technologies, a potential acquisition to help with a major expansion of its streaming video service, known today as Amazon Prime Video.
01:02:40.000Its technology had helped stream the Olympic Games online, communicate with the International Space Station, and funnel drone footage to the CIA.
01:02:47.000So, they were looking at this particular company to help with due diligence.
01:02:51.000AWS, which was overseeing the prospective acquisition, hired a third-party company to scrutinize Elemental's security.
01:02:57.000The first pass uncovered troubling issues, prompting AWS, that's Amazon's web services, to take a closer look at Elemental's main product, the expensive services that customers installed in their networks to handle video compression.
01:03:10.000These servers were assembled by a company called Supermicrocomputer.
01:03:13.000It's one of the biggest suppliers of server motherboards.
01:03:16.000In late spring of 2015, Elemental staff boxed up several servers, sent them to Ontario, Canada for a third-party security company to test.
01:03:23.000Nesting on the server's motherboards, the testers found a tiny microchip
01:03:27.000Not much bigger than a grain of rice that wasn't part of the board's original design.
01:03:32.000authorities, sending a shutter through the intelligence community.
01:03:35.000Elemental's service could be found in DOD Department of Defense data centers, the CIA's drone operations, the onboard networks of Navy warships.
01:03:43.000Elemental was just one of hundreds of Supermicro customers.
01:03:46.000During the ensuing probe, investigators determined the chips allowed attackers to create a stealth doorway into any network that included the altered machines.
01:03:54.000Multiple people familiar with the matter say investigators found the chips had been inserted at factories run by manufacturing subcontractors in China.
01:04:02.000So China was putting little, essentially, these tiny microchips in virtually every piece of technology that was being sold in the United States, or at least a huge percentage of technology sold in the United States, and it allowed them to basically hijack the technology.