The Ben Shapiro Show - The January 6 Indictment Is HERE – And It’s Bulls***

00:00:00.000 So finally, the other shoe dropped.

00:00:01.000 Yesterday, Jack Smith, the special counsel who was appointed to investigate Donald Trump's activities surrounding the election of 2020 and January 6th, and also appointed to look into his handling of classified documents, he has now filed a second case against Donald Trump.

00:00:16.000 The classified documents case is going to be held down in Florida.

00:00:19.000 Now, he has filed a federal indictment Alleging multiple crimes with regard to January 6th and election 2020.

00:00:25.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump was indicted Tuesday in an unprecedented criminal case accusing the former president of trying to subvert the will of American voters through his attempts to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election.

00:00:35.000 Here was Jack Smith yesterday announcing the indictment and making it all about January 6th.

00:00:40.000 And as we'll see, this is sort of fascinating because it's political.

00:00:44.000 I mean, when I say it's political, I don't just mean that he is saying things that are political in nature.

00:00:48.000 I mean that this indictment itself is political.

00:00:51.000 See, in order for an indictment to actually have any teeth, the crimes that are statutory in nature, the elements of the crimes must be fulfilled.

00:00:59.000 Alleging that somebody did a bad thing to you doesn't make it a crime.

00:01:02.000 If I say something mean to you, you may not like it. 0.96

00:01:04.000 I may be being a jerk, but that doesn't mean that I just committed a crime. 0.93

00:01:07.000 A crime is a statutorily defined thing, and you have to hit the elements of that crime In order for him to go to jail over that crime. 0.97

00:01:15.000 The problem in this particular case is that there are a lot of things that a lot of people don't like about what Donald Trump did between the election of 2020 and January 6th.

00:01:23.000 I think, for example, he was not telling the truth when he suggested that the election had actually been won by him, that formal voter fraud, not just, you know, media rigging the election through informal means or changing of voter rules, but actual formal voter fraud changed the outcome of the 2020 election.

00:01:38.000 I think he knew that was not true and I think that he was lying about that, but I can't prove it.

00:01:42.000 Not only can I not prove it, the evidence, you know, again, is somewhat speculative because maybe he truly believed, this is gonna be his defense, that voter fraud did decide the 2020 election.

00:01:52.000 I think that Donald Trump did something that was, frankly, false.

00:01:55.000 And I think that he was lying to people when he suggested, between the election and January 6th, that Mike Pence had the unilateral ability to overturn election results.

00:02:02.000 That's not the way the Constitution is written.

00:02:04.000 However, could there be a legal theory to that extent that Donald Trump actually believed?

00:02:08.000 Sure, there could be.

00:02:11.000 Me thinking that Donald Trump did a bad thing does not make the bad thing a crime.

00:02:14.000 And when you start making bad things a crime, things you don't like a crime, free speech a crime, specious legal theory is a crime, now you are encroaching on actual American freedoms just to get Donald Trump.

00:02:23.000 And that's what Jack Smith is doing here.

00:02:25.000 Because as we will see, and we're going to go through the indictment in great detail today, as we will see, the things that Jack Smith is alleging are mainly things that are just, like, not good.

00:02:35.000 Like, not good things that are not provable crimes.

00:02:37.000 And he is stretching the definition of crimes to fit those not good things because he had a mandate, as all special counsels do, which is indict.

00:02:45.000 And as the old saying goes, once you get a case in front of a grand jury, they'll indict a ham sandwich.

00:02:49.000 And for Jack Smith, who's bringing this case in Washington, DC, it's almost being treated,

00:02:54.000 I think, legally as a backup to the classified documents case in Florida.

00:02:57.000 The classified documents case in Florida is the most significant legal threat to Donald Trump

00:03:00.000 because he appears to have fulfilled the elements of the crime.

00:03:02.000 Leave aside the double standard with Hillary Clinton, if you are just a jury looking at whether Donald Trump

00:03:06.000 did the things alleged in the indictment and do those fulfill the elements of the crime

00:03:09.000 with regard to classified documents, the answer is likely yes in the state of Florida.

00:03:12.000 The problem for Jack Smith is it's in the state of Florida.

00:03:15.000 You may get a juror who's willing to basically say, I don't think it's fair that you're trying him at all.

00:03:20.000 So the backup is file a bunch of real stretch charges in Washington DC where everybody hates Donald Trump's guts and hope that they're going to send him to jail on those bases.

00:03:30.000 Same thing that Manhattan DA is doing over in Manhattan with regards to these ridiculous Stormy Daniels charges. 0.87

00:03:35.000 He's figuring it's a Manhattan jury. 0.98

00:03:37.000 They hate Donald Trump.

00:03:38.000 They'll put him in jail.

00:03:39.000 And this is where it starts to seem incredibly political.

00:03:42.000 Again, not just political because everything is political, but political in the sense that there is an overt attempt at this point to stretch the law to get Donald Trump.

00:03:50.000 Here's Jack Smith yesterday announcing the charges.

00:03:54.000 Today, an indictment was unsealed, charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding.

00:04:10.000 The indictment was issued by a grand jury of citizens here in the District of Columbia, and it sets forth the crimes charged in detail.

00:04:19.000 I encourage everyone to read it in full.

00:04:24.000 The attack on our nation's capital on January 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy.

00:04:33.000 As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies.

00:04:39.000 Lies by the defendant, Targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the US government, the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.

00:04:53.000 Okay, what he just alleged right there is not a crime.

00:04:54.000 Okay, January 6th, I agree, was really bad.

00:04:58.000 I think January 6th was terrible for America.

00:05:00.000 I'm not somebody who actually, you know, whitewashes January 6th or pretends that riots in general are okay as long as they're coming from my side.

00:05:06.000 I don't like riots.

00:05:07.000 I don't like violence against police officers.

00:05:09.000 I don't think that the riots in the Capitol were Going to achieve anything that was remotely approached by constitutional law.

00:05:18.000 I do think that the attempt to label everybody who's at the protest a rioter and everybody who is at the riot a rioter because a lot of people are just kind of wandering through the halls of Congress there.

00:05:26.000 Do I think that that's overblown?

00:05:28.000 Yes.

00:05:29.000 Am I somebody who has whitewashed or downplayed the egregious sight of people assaulting people on January 6th at the Capitol building?

00:05:36.000 No.

00:05:37.000 Do I think that it matches up against the 2020 riots, the most damaging riots in American history, the BLM riots across America? 0.92

00:05:42.000 No, I don't actually.

00:05:43.000 But, put all of that aside, what Jack Smith is saying, which is January 6th is bad and Donald Trump lied and that's the thing that's bad and therefore it's a crime, that is not a crime.

00:05:52.000 Even if you believe that Donald Trump's words fueled people into believing that they could overthrow the election and that therefore they went and they did the thing.

00:06:01.000 That is not a crime.

00:06:02.000 They're not charging him with incitement.

00:06:04.000 If they actually wanted to charge that crime, you'd have to charge incitement.

00:06:06.000 That's an actual crime.

00:06:07.000 If I incite a riot, that means that I go to a crowd and I say, let's go storm that building right there, right now, let's do it.

00:06:13.000 That's incitement.

00:06:14.000 There were some people who have been charged with incitement on January 6th.

00:06:16.000 Donald Trump is not one of those people.

00:06:18.000 That is not in this incitement.

00:06:19.000 And yet it's very clear that that's what Jack Smith is trying to charge him with, which means that it's political.

00:06:25.000 He's charging him for a crime that he is not alleging.

00:06:28.000 That is a serious, serious legal problem.

00:06:31.000 Now, the procedure in this case, and then we'll get to the actual content of the indictment, which I say is highly, highly political.

00:06:37.000 This thing is going to move fast.

00:06:38.000 Jack Smith says they're going to seek a speedy trial.

00:06:39.000 They're going to try and do it before the election.

00:06:41.000 Donald Trump is presumably going to claim that this needs to happen after the election because he's already facing two legal legal cases.

00:06:46.000 He's likely to face a fourth.

00:06:48.000 Right?

00:06:49.000 He's going to be, before the election, facing down charges in Georgia, in Washington, D.C., in Florida, and in New York.

00:06:55.000 And so he's going to argue, and his lawyers are going to argue, as Andy McCarthy has pointed out, that that makes him kind of a busy man as he's running a presidential election, so maybe they ought to delay the trial beyond the election.

00:07:03.000 We'll see if a judge buys that or not.

00:07:04.000 The judge in this particular case, it ought to be noted, is a U.S.

00:07:07.000 District Court judge named Tanya Chutkin, who's an Obama appointee.

00:07:11.000 She also happens to be the only federal judge in Washington, D.C.

00:07:13.000 who has sentenced January 6th defendants to sentences longer than the government request.

00:07:18.000 She's also the same person who, as a lawyer, represented Theranos at Boies Schiller and presided as a judge in the U.S.

00:07:25.000 House lawsuit against Fusion GPS.

00:07:26.000 This is a very left-wing judge.

00:07:28.000 There's been a point in this case, and it's fair for the left to point out that a Trump appointee is presiding over the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

00:07:35.000 It is certainly fair to point out that Jack Smith is filing in a court in Washington, D.C.

00:07:39.000 with probably the most Trump-hating judge in Washington, D.C.

00:07:43.000 In Washington, D.C., with a Trump-hating jury, presumably, which is why he feels that he can get away with this.

00:07:48.000 Here he says they're going to seek a speedy trial and see if they can get Trump in the dock before the election.

00:07:53.000 Since the attack on our Capitol, the Department of Justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day.

00:08:04.000 This case is brought consistent with that commitment, and our investigation of other individuals continues.

00:08:11.000 In this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens.

00:08:22.000 OK, so here is here is the problem with with all of this.

00:08:26.000 Trump is going to come to court in Washington, D.C.

00:08:29.000 on Thursday.

00:08:30.000 So tomorrow he's going to show up in court.

00:08:31.000 We're going to get the whole.

00:08:33.000 OJ Simpson-style media coverage of the cars leaving Mar-a-Lago, of the plane arriving in Washington, D.C., and Trump going to the courthouse.

00:08:40.000 And when you aggregate all these charges, attempting to obstruct an official proceeding, for example, carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

00:08:45.000 I mean, these are really, really serious charges.

00:08:47.000 Will he be sentenced to that, even if he is convicted of those things?

00:08:50.000 Who the hell knows?

00:08:51.000 But the big problem here is that this is a political prosecution, and you can tell by the charges.

00:08:56.000 You can tell by the charges.

00:08:56.000 Again, this is coming from somebody who has a legal analyst, right?

00:08:59.000 As a lawyer.

00:09:01.000 I think that the charges against Trump in Florida are actually pretty strong.

00:09:04.000 The charges here are beyond weak, which means this is highly political for Merrick Garland's DOJ.

00:09:09.000 We'll get to that in just one moment.

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00:10:14.000 Okay, so let's go through this actual indictment.

00:10:15.000 So, there are essentially three criminal conspiracies that Jack Smith accuses Donald Trump of participation in.

00:10:23.000 This is page two of the indictment.

00:10:24.000 quote, shortly after election day, the defendant pursued unlawful means

00:10:28.000 of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.

00:10:30.000 In doing so, the defendant perpetrated three criminal conspiracies.

00:10:33.000 One, a conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit

00:10:38.000 to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function

00:10:40.000 by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified

00:10:43.000 by the federal government in violation of 18 U.S. Code section 371.

00:10:48.000 Okay, that is not what the statute is for.

00:10:51.000 That's not what the statute is for.

00:10:52.000 This statute, historically speaking, has been about stealing money from the federal government.

00:10:57.000 So this is a real stretch charge.

00:10:59.000 Hey, if you are going to accuse Donald Trump of fraud, this is not criminal fraud.

00:11:03.000 As National Review points out, quote, As the Supreme Court reaffirmed just a few weeks ago, fraud in federal criminal law is a scheme to swindle victims out of money or tangible property.

00:11:11.000 Mandacious rhetoric in seeking to retain political office is damnable, but it is not criminal fraud, although that is what Smith has charged.

00:11:18.000 Indeed, assuming a prosecutor could prove beyond a reasonable doubt Trump hadn't actually convinced himself the election was stolen from him, hyperbole, and even worse, our protected political speech.

00:11:26.000 So, again, the notion that it is defrauding the United States, not like you stole money from the post office, like, or embezzled from the EPA, but him actively challenging the election beyond the time when the Constitution says the states certify, that that amounts to fraud?

00:11:45.000 Nope, it doesn't fulfill that criminal statute.

00:11:47.000 Okay, that's conspiracy number one they're alleging.

00:11:49.000 Conspiracy number two.

00:11:50.000 A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6th congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified in violation of 18 U.S.

00:11:57.000 Code 1512K.

00:12:00.000 Okay, so here the idea is that he was attempting to obstruct and impede a process of justice going forward.

00:12:07.000 Obstruction of justice.

00:12:08.000 When they said obstruction of justice, I thought that the charges, you know, before they released them, I thought maybe what the charges were going to be is that Donald Trump called up witnesses and threatened them to lie.

00:12:16.000 He said, I want you to lie to the January 6th committee, or I want you to lie to the Jack Smith office in this proceeding.

00:12:23.000 They don't allege any of that.

00:12:25.000 When they say obstruction of justice here, what they mean is that he was attempting to obstruct the legal counting of the votes.

00:12:31.000 But they don't have evidence for that.

00:12:33.000 What they say is that he had a specious legal theory and he articulated a lot.

00:12:38.000 That does not amount to obstruction.

00:12:40.000 Obstruction would be, I will threaten you with a thing. 1.00

00:12:43.000 I'm going to threaten you with death. 1.00

00:12:44.000 I'm going to threaten your family. 0.99

00:12:45.000 I'm going to threaten things in order to stop you from doing the thing.

00:12:49.000 What's the threat?

00:12:50.000 Where is it?

00:12:51.000 Okay, the elements are not fulfilled here.

00:12:53.000 We'll go through the indictment.

00:12:54.000 They're not even alleged, right?

00:12:56.000 This is my biggest problem.

00:12:57.000 You can tell when a case is bullcrap by what exactly is being alleged.

00:13:01.000 And so, for example, if you go back to the Derek Chauvin criminal case, I kept pointing out that the entire media, the entire country, kept saying this is a case about race.

00:13:09.000 And I kept saying, it's not even alleged in court that this is a case about race.

00:13:13.000 So when there's a gap between the public perception of a case and what's actually being alleged, well, then you can tell that the case is specious.

00:13:19.000 The same thing is true with regard to Donald Trump's case about election fraud.

00:13:23.000 I kept pointing out that Donald Trump did not even legally allege the fraud that he kept saying to the American public over and over in court, which means there's a gap, which means somebody is not being honest.

00:13:32.000 Okay, well, they are alleging here that Donald Trump obstructed justice, and then they provide no evidence of the actual obstruction.

00:13:39.000 There's no allegation that matches the crime that they're actually attempting to indict him on.

00:13:44.000 That gap means somebody is being dishonest, and in this case, it's Jack Smith.

00:13:47.000 And finally, a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one's vote counted in violation of 18 U.S.

00:13:52.000 Code 241.

00:13:52.000 Again, this is not the right interpretation of the law, not even remotely.

00:13:57.000 This law was written, it was a civil rights law.

00:13:58.000 It was written in the aftermath of the Civil War to stop, essentially, white racists from preventing black people from voting or throwing their votes in the river or something.

00:14:07.000 That's not what happened here.

00:14:08.000 If you have a specious legal case and it ends up not being verified by a court, That does not mean you violated the law if the basic idea is that every time I advance a legal theory and the legal theory ends up not being justified by a court, somehow I have conspired against the right to vote.

00:14:25.000 Like, that means I can't ever file a voter case.

00:14:28.000 I mean, by this particular case.

00:14:30.000 Every time Democrats file a gerrymandering case on some legal theory, And they get overruled.

00:14:36.000 Then, presumably, they have now conspired to prevent somebody's right to vote, because the gerrymandering was legal, and they said the gerrymandering was illegal, but then that was turned down, so obviously they were trying to deprive somebody of their right to vote in accordance with the law.

00:14:49.000 That's not how any of that works.

00:14:50.000 Advancing specious legal theories is fully protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

00:14:55.000 We'll get to more of the indictment in just one second.

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00:16:01.000 Okay, so.

00:16:03.000 Back to the indictment.

00:16:04.000 So, the three criminal conspiracies alleged are not fulfilled.

00:16:08.000 Again, they were a conspiracy to defraud the United States.

00:16:10.000 The fraud statute doesn't apply.

00:16:12.000 A conspiracy to obstruct justice.

00:16:13.000 That doesn't apply because specious legal theories that you attempt to advance, that's not obstructing justice.

00:16:19.000 And a conspiracy against the right to vote and stopping people from having their votes counted, again, a specious legal theory does not mean that you have now violated somebody's right to vote.

00:16:27.000 That's not what any of that means.

00:16:29.000 And then we get to some of the actual allegations in the indictment.

00:16:33.000 So, they say the defendant's conspiracy to impair, obstruct, and defeat the federal government function through dishonesty, fraud, and deceit included the following manner and means.

00:16:41.000 First, the defendant and co-conspirators used knowingly false claims of election fraud to get state legislators and election officials to subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes for the defendant's opponent, Joe Biden, to electoral votes for the defendant.

00:16:53.000 That is, on the pretext of baseless fraud claims, the defendant pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote, disenfranchised millions of voters, dismissed legitimate electors, and ultimately caused the ascertainment of and voting by illegitimate electors in favor of defendant.

00:17:05.000 Okay, so there's a key word in that particular paragraph, knowingly.

00:17:10.000 Knowingly false claims of election fraud.

00:17:12.000 So, they're gonna have a real tough time with this one.

00:17:14.000 They have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump absolutely knew that the election fraud claims were false?

00:17:20.000 Not that he should have known, not that people told him, but that he actively knew that the election fraud claims were false and he promoted them anyway for his own personal benefit.

00:17:28.000 Now, there are people around Trump who have basically said as much, right?

00:17:32.000 Bill Stepien, former campaign manager, a bunch of people around Trump have said, yeah, we knew that this kind of stuff was not true and we were still promoting it to the public.

00:17:41.000 But by we, do they mean that Donald Trump personally told them?

00:17:44.000 That allegation is not included in the indictment.

00:17:45.000 If it were, if there were some allegation here, a witness said, Donald Trump told me, yeah, I lost the election, do it anyway.

00:17:51.000 That would be a problem for Donald Trump.

00:17:53.000 If they said, if there were a tape like there is in the classified documents case where he's like, I know I lost the election. 0.99

00:17:58.000 The election front stuff is crap. 0.94

00:17:59.000 Let's do it anyway. 0.99

00:18:00.000 Joe Biden can't be president.

00:18:01.000 That would be a problem for him.

00:18:03.000 Knowingly is a very high standard.

00:18:04.000 It requires intent.

00:18:05.000 And as I've said for a very long time about the president of the United States, it is very difficult to establish intent for Donald Trump on intent crimes.

00:18:11.000 Very tough.

00:18:12.000 Because again, his intent shifts moment to moment.

00:18:15.000 Like almost every day, he shifts his intent.

00:18:18.000 And he fully believes the thing that he is saying today.

00:18:20.000 And he fully believed the thing that he was saying yesterday.

00:18:22.000 Okay, B. The defendant and co-conspirators organized fraudulent slates of electors in seven targeted states attempting to mimic the procedures that the legitimate electors were supposed to follow under the Constitution and other federal and state laws.

00:18:33.000 This included causing the fraudulent electors to meet on the day appointed by federal law on which legitimate electors were to gather and cast their votes, cast fraudulent votes for the defendant, And signed certificates falsely representing they were the legitimate electors.

00:18:44.000 Some fraudulent electors were tricked into participating based on the understanding their votes would be used only if the defendant succeeded in outcome-determinative lawsuits within their state, which the defendant never did.

00:18:53.000 The defendant and co-conspirators then caused these fraudulent electors to transmit their false certificates to the VP.

00:18:58.000 Okay, again, that's a specious legal claim.

00:19:01.000 And you know what?

00:19:02.000 It means nothing.

00:19:04.000 Nothing.

00:19:05.000 If Donald Trump convinces me to write a letter to my congressperson threatening that if my congressperson does not do X, Y, or Z, I become the legal congressperson from that district, that is a fraudulent legal claim that has no merit.

00:19:18.000 Is that a crime?

00:19:21.000 Hard to say that that's a crime.

00:19:23.000 It's a specious legal theory.

00:19:24.000 Specious legal theories are fully protected here in the United States of America, or they were until five minutes ago.

00:19:28.000 C. The defendant and co-conspirators attempted to use the power and authority of the DOJ to conduct sham election crime investigations and to send a letter to the targeted states that falsely claimed that the DOJ had identified significant concerns that may have impacted the election outcome.

00:19:41.000 Now again, all of this is really bad stuff, right?

00:19:43.000 It's not just specious legal theory, it's pretty obvious specious legal theory, in absence of evidence.

00:19:46.000 fraudulent electors as a valid alternative and urged on behalf of the DOJ the targeted

00:19:50.000 state's legislatures to convene to create the opportunity to choose the fraudulent

00:19:53.000 electors over the legitimate electors.

00:19:55.000 Now again, all this is really bad stuff, right?

00:19:57.000 It's been, it's not just specious legal theory.

00:19:59.000 It's pretty obvious specious legal theory in absence of evidence.

00:20:04.000 Also, did any of this constitute a crime?

00:20:07.000 If Donald Trump says to a lower level member of the DOJ, because this is what's actually alleged, I want you to send a letter to the state of Michigan and tell them that there was fraud.

00:20:14.000 And then that lower level member of the DOJ went to Attorney General Bill Barr and said, let's do it.

00:20:18.000 And Bill Barr says, no, there's no evidence of that.

00:20:21.000 And then the letter never gets sent.

00:20:23.000 Is that a crime?

00:20:25.000 Is it?

00:20:26.000 Very difficult to say that that's a crime, that that fulfills the elements of, for example, obstruction of justice.

00:20:31.000 D. The defendant and co-conspirators attempted to enlist the VP to use his ceremonial role at the January 6th certification proceeding to fraudulently alter the election results.

00:20:40.000 And this is my favorite part.

00:20:42.000 It says that they used knowingly false claims of election fraud.

00:20:45.000 Okay, so again, they keep going to knowingly.

00:20:46.000 That's very hard to establish.

00:20:48.000 When that failed on the morning of January 6th, the defendant and co-conspirators repeated knowingly false claims of election fraud to gathered supporters, falsely told them the VP had the authority to and might alter the election results, and directed them to the Capitol to obstruct the certification proceeding and exert pressure on the vice president.

00:21:02.000 They don't have evidence of this.

00:21:04.000 They don't have evidence that he directed them to obstruct the certification proceeding, right?

00:21:08.000 He never told them to go into the Capitol building.

00:21:10.000 He obviously did not tell them to go into the Capitol.

00:21:12.000 We saw it.

00:21:13.000 We were all there, right?

00:21:14.000 And finally, after it became public on the afternoon of January 6th, the VP would not fraudulently alter the election results.

00:21:19.000 A large and angry crowd, including many individuals defendant had deceived into believing the VP could and might change the election results, violently attacked the Capitol and halted the proceedings.

00:21:27.000 As violence ensued, the defendant and co-conspirators exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims.

00:21:36.000 Again, not a crime.

00:21:38.000 Not a crime.

00:21:39.000 Bad.

00:21:39.000 Ugly.

00:21:41.000 Unpresidential. 0.81

00:21:42.000 Not a crime.

00:21:42.000 And we'll get to more of this in just one second.

00:21:45.000 First...

00:21:47.000 I had a late night last night.

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00:22:51.000 Okay, so some of the allegations here are things like Donald Trump wanted to fire somebody and then didn't, right?

00:22:59.000 This is one of the allegations that is made about the DOJ, that he was putting pressure on the DOJ to send certain letters and he threatened to fire his AG.

00:23:07.000 Honestly, one of the things that Trump did repeatedly throughout his administration is threatened to fire people, and then when it turned out that he couldn't legally fire the person or create significant blowback, he would just not fire them.

00:23:17.000 So for example, on page 31 of the indictment, It says, quote, Okay, and so?

00:23:23.000 in the Oval Office on the night of January 3rd, co-conspirator four suggested

00:23:26.000 the Justice Department should opine the VP could exceed his lawful authority

00:23:29.000 during the certification proceeding and change the election outcome.

00:23:32.000 When the assistant AG for the Office of Legal Counsel began to explain why the DOJ should not do so,

00:23:36.000 the defendant said, no one here should be talking to the vice president,

00:23:38.000 I'm talking to the vice president and ended the conversation.

00:23:41.000 Okay, and so?

00:23:44.000 Like, all right, so?

00:23:46.000 And at a certain point here on January 3rd, the defendant met with a briefing

00:23:50.000 on an overseas national security issue with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

00:23:54.000 and other national security advisors.

00:23:55.000 The chairman briefed the defendants on that particular issue.

00:23:57.000 When the chairman and another advisor recommended the defendant take no action because the inauguration was 17 days away, the defendant said, quote, yeah, you're right.

00:24:04.000 It's too late for us.

00:24:04.000 We're going to give that to the next guy.

00:24:08.000 That's a crime?

00:24:10.000 Where's the crime?

00:24:11.000 At some point, you have to describe the criming.

00:24:14.000 Not the bad stuff.

00:24:15.000 I agree that a lot of the stuff was bad.

00:24:17.000 The criming.

00:24:18.000 I need an explanation of the crime.

00:24:20.000 And again, over and over, this is just like, here's a list of bad things that Donald Trump did.

00:24:25.000 I agree, a lot of those things are really bad.

00:24:27.000 I don't think they are worthy of a President of the United States.

00:24:30.000 Also, not a crime.

00:24:33.000 So, the most specious part of this particular indictment is when you get to the actual events of January 6th.

00:24:38.000 Listen to the description in the indictment of January 6th and see if you can tell me where the crime occurs.

00:24:43.000 Okay, because remember, this is an indictment.

00:24:45.000 It's not a description of the bad stuff.

00:24:47.000 We know about the bad stuff.

00:24:48.000 In fact, the bad stuff is probably the reason that Republicans had a real tough time in the last midterm election.

00:24:52.000 There are political consequences to all of this.

00:24:54.000 It's also the reason why he was nearly impeached and convicted in the Senate.

00:24:56.000 Okay, here we go.

00:24:58.000 Shortly before 1 p.m., The Vice President issued a public statement explaining that his role as President of the Senate at the certification proceeding was about to begin, and did not include unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.

00:25:10.000 Before the defendant had finished speaking, a crowd began to gather at the Capitol.

00:25:13.000 Thereafter, a mass of people, including individuals who had traveled to Washington and to the Capitol at the defendant's direction, broke through barriers cordoning off the Capitol grounds and advanced on the building, including by violently attacking law enforcement officers trying to secure it.

00:25:25.000 The defendant watched events at the Capitol unfold on the TV in the dining room next to the Oval Office.

00:25:29.000 Hey now, there's been no allegation anywhere in this indictment that Donald Trump told people to break into the Capitol and violently assault police officers.

00:25:36.000 That's why he's not being charged with incitement.

00:25:38.000 If he had, that's an actual crime he is not being charged with.

00:25:42.000 At 2.13, after more than an hour of steady violence advancement, the crowd at the Capitol broke into the building.

00:25:46.000 Upon receiving news that individuals had breached the Capitol, the defendant's advisors told them there was a riot there and rioters had breached the building.

00:25:52.000 When advisors urged the defendant to issue a calming message aimed at the rioters, the defendant refused, instead repeatedly remarking that the people at the Capitol were angry because the election had been stolen.

00:26:02.000 Now, I have a question.

00:26:03.000 Bad.

00:26:04.000 Is that a crime?

00:26:06.000 Is that a crime that he didn't say a thing on Twitter?

00:26:10.000 I'm wondering how.

00:26:11.000 So, I mean, there are descriptions of activities here about things like Donald Trump retweeting things.

00:26:17.000 Retweeting things is not a crime, as you may know.

00:26:20.000 If retweeting things were a crime, I'd be in jail for life.

00:26:23.000 I retweet things all the time.

00:26:26.000 Again, it's a description of a lot of bad stuff, and it's not a description of crime.

00:26:31.000 And that is the nature of this particular indictment.

00:26:33.000 Which is, honestly, Jack Smith should be ashamed of himself.

00:26:36.000 It's egregious.

00:26:38.000 And it is, in fact, an assault on particular rights.

00:26:40.000 Because when you overcharge, and those charges violate things like the First Amendment, or the right to purvey legal theories, even if they are specious, what you are doing is you are saying to everybody else that their First Amendment activities may not be protected.

00:26:55.000 This is going to be the defense, by the way, that the Trump campaign is going to roll out.

00:26:59.000 They're going to roll out essentially two defenses.

00:27:01.000 One, when it comes to did Trump knowingly attempt to Purvey election fraud.

00:27:08.000 They're going to say knowingly is a real strong word.

00:27:11.000 And in fact, what they're going to do is they're going to relitigate the 2020 election, and they're going to say there are a lot of reasons for Donald Trump to believe that there was election fraud.

00:27:19.000 Now, it may be that there was no election fraud to the extent that Donald Trump was talking about, but to pretend that no credible person could have ever believed that there was any election fraud, that's a stretch.

00:27:27.000 This is exactly what John Laurel, his lawyer, is saying.

00:27:29.000 Here he was yesterday.

00:27:31.000 What about the stories that these campaign funds are now paying for legal fees and you're running out of cash in that front?

00:27:39.000 Well, I'm not involved in that, but the bottom line is the way that they're trying to take out Donald Trump is through the legal process.

00:27:44.000 So he's being forced to spend money on legal defense, which should be spent on the discussion of critical ideas and critical issues.

00:27:53.000 People want to hear the issues.

00:27:55.000 They don't want to relitigate 2020.

00:27:56.000 And that's exactly what the special counsel, I should say Merrick Garland, Merrick Garland and the Biden administration had to sign off on this indictment.

00:28:05.000 And what they've really done is invited now a relitigation of 2020, but this time in a criminal court, which is unprecedented.

00:28:13.000 Okay, so what are they going to do?

00:28:16.000 They're going to bring up a bunch of charges that Trump made in 2020, and the defense is going to be, well, I mean, would he have to be crazy to actually, you know, consider the possibility of those charges?

00:28:25.000 What the indictment says is a bunch of people told Donald Trump that the election fraud thing wasn't true.

00:28:31.000 Does that mean that Donald Trump had to believe them?

00:28:34.000 How many times have you been told that a thing isn't true?

00:28:36.000 Many times, I would imagine, across the course of your life.

00:28:38.000 Did you believe it every time somebody told you a thing wasn't true?

00:28:41.000 Presumably, sometimes you believed it, and sometimes you didn't.

00:28:44.000 They have to prove intent.

00:28:45.000 So that is point number one.

00:28:46.000 Point number two is he's gonna say, like, a lot of the activity is just protected free speech, which is clearly true.

00:28:50.000 Here's Laurel explaining. 0.97

00:28:52.000 Go ahead.

00:28:52.000 He was asking for the Secretary of State to identify votes that were not counted properly and factor that in.

00:28:56.000 find him one more vote than he would need to win the state.

00:29:00.000 That's not asking for a pause.

00:29:01.000 He's asking for votes that he did not get in that election.

00:29:03.000 He was asking for the Secretary of State to identify votes that were not counted properly

00:29:09.000 and factor that in.

00:29:10.000 And by the way, that discussion took place with dozens of people on a phone call with

00:29:17.000 lawyers involved and no one was suggesting doing anything illegal.

00:29:21.000 And no one during that call said, Mr. President, that's beyond the bounds.

00:29:24.000 This is politics.

00:29:26.000 This indictment is about pure politics.

00:29:28.000 We engage in vigorous debate in this country about politics.

00:29:32.000 What we don't do is criminalize political speech.

00:29:35.000 This indictment is a game changer.

00:29:37.000 It's the first time that we've taken political speech and said, We're going to criminalize it by the party that's in control against the party that's contesting the next election where the two individuals involved are going to be running for office.

00:29:51.000 That is an incredible set of circumstances.

00:29:56.000 I mean, it is, in fact, incredible.

00:29:57.000 And the DOJ being weaponized against the chief political opponent of the current president of the United States, while that same DOJ was trying to cut a backdoor sweetheart deal with the president's son, is a wild spectacle.

00:30:08.000 And it is going to be the centerpiece of the 2024 election if Donald Trump ends up being the nominee.

00:30:12.000 And we'll get to sort of the effects of this on both the primary and the general election in a little bit.

00:30:16.000 But the fact remains that this indictment is really specious.

00:30:20.000 It's really, really specious.

00:30:21.000 Again, National Review, which is not exactly a publication known for being Trump friendly.

00:30:26.000 National Review has a full editorial today talking about how this indictment should be tossed.

00:30:30.000 And by the way, even if Trump were convicted on some of these charges, there's a good shot the Supreme Court overturns the charges themselves because they are not properly formulated.

00:30:37.000 Jack Smith's entire indicting strategy here is January 6th is super bad. 0.96

00:30:41.000 Here's a bunch of crap I'm going to throw against the wall. 0.84

00:30:43.000 That is not an indictment strategy. 0.99

00:30:45.000 And here's the thing, Jack Smith knows better.

00:30:47.000 So up until this point, I've said with regard to Jack Smith, Jack Smith is a special prosecutor.

00:30:51.000 It's his job to identify crimes and charge them.

00:30:53.000 If he sees overwhelming evidence of a crime happening, it's not his job to undo what James Comey did wrongly in allowing Hillary Clinton off the hook in 2016 over classified documents.

00:31:01.000 It's his job to determine whether the elements of a crime are fulfilled and then to charge them.

00:31:05.000 So when it comes to, for example, the classified documents case in Florida, I can't blame Jack Smith for the indictment.

00:31:09.000 That's literally his job.

00:31:11.000 But this is not his job.

00:31:12.000 This is now political.

00:31:13.000 And this is pretty obviously coming from a Biden DOJ that, again, is politically biased.

00:31:18.000 It is impossible to read this current Trump indictment without at the same time reading the fact that the DOJ did not set up a special counsel for the Hunter Biden prosecution, that the DOJ appears to have attempted a sweetheart deal with Hunter, that the DOJ pretty obviously is attempting to avoid any further investigation into Hunter Biden's finances, specifically with regard to his own dad.

00:31:39.000 When you read those two in juxtaposition to one another, it looks like the current president of the United States is prosecuting the former president of the United States.

00:31:45.000 That's what it looks like.

00:31:46.000 That's what it smells like.

00:31:48.000 And by the way, this would now make it the second time.

00:31:50.000 Because remember, it was under Barack Obama that the FBI and the DOJ were targeting Donald Trump in 2016.

00:31:56.000 So it'd be the second time that Democrats in charge of the government and the auspices of legal power were essentially targeting Donald Trump.

00:32:05.000 That's Trump's entire case.

00:32:06.000 It's why he's going to be promoted in the primaries, by the way.

00:32:09.000 Every time he gets indicted, every Republican rushes to his defense, and they should on this particular indictment, because the feeling, quite properly, is this is a weaponization of law enforcement against the former president of the United States for political reasons.

00:32:22.000 That's what this is.

00:32:25.000 And it's pretty incredible.

00:32:26.000 We'll get to the actual consequences of this in just one second, politically speaking first.

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00:34:12.000 Okay, meanwhile...

00:34:13.000 So the media response to these indictments is obviously members of the media are ecstatic about all this.

00:34:18.000 Caitlin Collins of CNN, she tried to deny that the First Amendment protects any of Donald Trump's activity here.

00:34:24.000 And it's a very, very weak case that she's making.

00:34:25.000 But what does that matter?

00:34:27.000 She's CNN. 0.54

00:34:29.000 The President was told, given advice, that under these circumstances, the state legislatures have the ultimate ability to qualify electors.

00:34:38.000 He followed that advice.

00:34:40.000 Now, you may disagree as to whether or not those things actually occurred or not.

00:34:44.000 That's why we have political debate.

00:34:46.000 We don't have criminal trials over that.

00:34:48.000 We have the discussion like we're just having.

00:34:50.000 But it matters if those things actually occurred or not, John.

00:34:52.000 Not under the First Amendment.

00:34:53.000 But it matters if those things actually occurred because... No.

00:34:55.000 Not at all.

00:34:56.000 Because under the First Amendment... It does matter if it was actually fraud.

00:34:59.000 No, the First Amendment allows... John, let me stop you there because if he's saying that there was fraud, the First Amendment doesn't allow the President of the United States to go and claim there was fraud when he was told there was not fraud and then try to subvert the election by overturning legitimate electors.

00:35:14.000 I mean, it says it right here in the actual indictment.

00:35:19.000 Okay, so in other words, if she doesn't like what you say, the First Amendment doesn't protect it. 0.98

00:35:23.000 That's a hell of a standard for the First Amendment.

00:35:25.000 Obviously untrue.

00:35:26.000 Again, this is a very significant First Amendment development.

00:35:28.000 If it turns out you can advance a spurious legal theory, or advance an opinion which turns out to be wrong, or even if you believe a thing that is false.

00:35:37.000 Now you're not allowed to articulate a thing that others have told you is false but you believe to be true?

00:35:42.000 That's now the standard.

00:35:43.000 Neal Katyal, who is a legal analyst as well, he says this is one of the most significant cases in American history.

00:35:47.000 It is, but not for the reasons that the left believes it is.

00:35:51.000 Why do you think it was so important to do that for so many pages in this indictment?

00:35:58.000 Yeah, so it's a shouting indictment, Joy.

00:36:00.000 It's not just one of the most significant indictments.

00:36:04.000 It is the most significant indictment against Donald Trump.

00:36:08.000 It is the most significant legal case of our lifetimes.

00:36:13.000 It is One of, if not the most significant case in United States history.

00:36:18.000 It is up there with Dred Scott.

00:36:21.000 It is up there with Brown vs. Board of Education.

00:36:23.000 Because this goes to the essential question of who we are as a people.

00:36:29.000 Do we let someone, the President, act in this way?

00:36:35.000 That is so insane.

00:36:37.000 It's up there with Dred Scott, a case that led to the Civil War and declared that black people were not American citizens and could not be American citizens.

00:36:43.000 It's up there with Brown v. Board, which ended segregation in the United States.

00:36:47.000 It's up there with that?

00:36:48.000 Really?

00:36:49.000 And notice his language.

00:36:51.000 It's, are we going to let a man get away with this as president?

00:36:55.000 Get away with what exactly?

00:36:56.000 He's no longer the president of the United States, I noticed.

00:36:59.000 And he was impeached.

00:37:01.000 Twice.

00:37:02.000 And also, what's the crime?

00:37:04.000 You're gonna have to describe the crime in order for it to be legal.

00:37:07.000 One of the most significant... Man, these people are way out over their skis.

00:37:10.000 Here's the biggest problem, you know, in terms of kind of long-term interests of the United States.

00:37:13.000 So there's the short-term problem, which is don't bring spurious indictments that may land a person in jail for not committing the crime.

00:37:19.000 Because the fact is that if he does end in jail time at all, the president of the United... former president is 77 years old right now.

00:37:24.000 Presumably by the time this trial ends, he'll be 78 years old.

00:37:27.000 Which means that if he ends up in jail for 10 years, then that's a life sentence.

00:37:31.000 He's an elderly gentleman, lest we forget.

00:37:34.000 But put that aside.

00:37:36.000 One of the things that's going to happen here, and you can see it happening, is let's say that this indictment goes forward.

00:37:41.000 Let's say the judge lets it go forward.

00:37:42.000 Let's say that the jury convicts.

00:37:44.000 It will go to the Supreme Court.

00:37:45.000 The Supreme Court will look at these charges.

00:37:47.000 And the Supreme Court is very likely to say, by a 5-4 vote, That these charges are spurious and it is likely to overturn them.

00:37:54.000 That's exactly what happened to Jack Smith's case against, for example, the former Virginia governor Bob McDonald.

00:37:59.000 Turned out that was a spurious case, got thrown out.

00:38:02.000 It's quite possible this case gets thrown out.

00:38:03.000 Now imagine the political fallout from a Supreme Court on which three United States justices were appointed by President Trump, throwing out a case in which Donald Trump was convicted of conspiring to overturn an election.

00:38:15.000 Can you imagine what the political fallout is going to be?

00:38:17.000 You worry about the credibility of America's institutions and you pretend that you care about that if you're Joe Biden?

00:38:22.000 The only reason to set this up is to undermine the credibility of America's institutions either way.

00:38:26.000 It's a catch-22.

00:38:28.000 If they convict on spurious charges, half the country believes that it's bullcrap and indicts the entire justice system.

00:38:35.000 That's already on the table.

00:38:36.000 And now if it gets overturned, the other half also believes that.

00:38:39.000 So well done.

00:38:40.000 This is why you should not charge things that do not exist as crimes.

00:38:44.000 And well, the political fallout has been immediate.

00:38:45.000 President Trump immediately went to a level 11, which you can understand on an emotional level, although I don't think the comparison is correct.

00:38:52.000 President Trump put out a statement.

00:38:54.000 Why did they wait two and a half years to bring these fake charges right in the middle of President Trump's winning campaign for 2024?

00:38:58.000 Why was it announced the day after big crooked Joe Biden scandal broke out from the halls of Congress?

00:39:02.000 All that's fair.

00:39:03.000 The answer is election interference.

00:39:05.000 The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian dictatorial regimes.

00:39:14.000 President Trump has always followed the law and the Constitution with advice from many highly accomplished attorneys.

00:39:19.000 So, again, not a huge fan of Nazi Germany comparisons because the truth is the Nazis didn't actually just trump up legal charges.

00:39:25.000 They literally just killed you or put you in a concentration camp.

00:39:27.000 And so did the former Soviet Union.

00:39:29.000 If they did trump up legal charges, it was like a full-on show trial in which you were forced to confess because they beat you in the back room.

00:39:33.000 So, is the United States Nazi Germany or Soviet?

00:39:36.000 No. 0.99

00:39:36.000 But is it banana republic type crap? 0.99

00:39:37.000 Absolutely. 1.00

00:39:39.000 I mean, this indictment is Banana Republic-type garbage. 0.99

00:39:41.000 For sure, for sure. 0.98

00:39:42.000 Kevin McCarthy, the House Speaker, he put out a tweet, quote,

00:39:44.000 We've recently learned Hunter received money from China, contradicting President Biden's claim.

00:39:48.000 President Biden spoke with Hunter's business associates over 20 times,

00:39:51.000 contradicting what Biden previously claimed.

00:39:53.000 Biden's DOJ tried to secretly give Hunter broad immunity and admitted the sweetheart deal was unprecedented.

00:39:58.000 And just yesterday, a new poll showed President Trump is without a doubt

00:40:00.000 Biden's leading political opponent.

00:40:01.000 Everyone in America could see what was going to come next.

00:40:04.000 GOJ's attempt to distract from the news and attack the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, President Trump.

00:40:08.000 House Republicans will continue to uncover the truth about Biden, Inc.

00:40:11.000 and the two-tiered system of justice.

00:40:13.000 Other Republican lawmakers came out in defense of President Trump.

00:40:18.000 That included people like Ron DeSantis, who put out a statement pointing out that this is a double standard of justice.

00:40:24.000 That didn't stop Trump supporters from attacking Ron DeSantis as insufficiently submissive to the former president of the United States.

00:40:30.000 Representative Jim Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said when you drain the swamp, the swamp fights back.

00:40:35.000 President Trump did nothing wrong.

00:40:37.000 There's some staunch Trump defenders who called for cutting off money for the Smith investigation.

00:40:41.000 It would be a little bit late for that at this point.

00:40:43.000 Tim Scott suggested he was concerned about the weaponization of Biden's DOJ and its immense power used against political opponents.

00:40:50.000 Democrats, of course, were celebratory.

00:40:52.000 Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, No one is above the law, including Donald Trump, unless your name is Hunter Biden or Hillary Clinton, in which case you're totally above the law.

00:40:58.000 We love you.

00:40:58.000 You're the best, even if you're like Jeffrey Epstein.

00:41:02.000 Man, didn't commit suicide.

00:41:03.000 In any case, this indictment must now play out through the legal process without any outside political or ideological interference.

00:41:09.000 We encourage Mr. Trump supporters and critics alike to let this case proceed peacefully in court.

00:41:12.000 Oh, now for peaceful.

00:41:16.000 Aw, isn't that cute?

00:41:17.000 I mean, forget all of 2020.

00:41:19.000 Forget the railroading of people like Derek Chauvin.

00:41:24.000 Now the legal process is totally fair and above board.

00:41:26.000 Meanwhile, Rashida Tlaib, a terrible human, she posted a similar account to X, which is Twitter, saying, quote, Trump must be held accountable for conspiring to overturn an election and inciting a violent fascist insurrection, giving away the quiet part right there that he wasn't charged with incitement.

00:41:41.000 You may have noticed.

00:41:42.000 Which is an actual crime.

00:41:43.000 Again, I point that out.

00:41:44.000 The entire incitement is about incitement.

00:41:45.000 They didn't charge him with incitement.

00:41:47.000 So, there is that.

00:41:48.000 Okay, so, what is the actual impact on the election?

00:41:51.000 Well, there's a pretty obvious impact, which is that if Trump is the nominee, the entire election is going to be about his legal troubles.

00:41:56.000 The entire election.

00:41:57.000 Because listen to this calendar, okay?

00:41:59.000 Here's the calendar from here on out.

00:42:02.000 Tomorrow, he has a January 6th D.C.

00:42:05.000 court appearance.

00:42:07.000 The first GOP debate happens August 23rd, 2023.

00:42:10.000 October 2nd, the Trump Organization civil suit begins.

00:42:13.000 January 15th, the E. Jean Carroll civil defamation suit begins.

00:42:17.000 January 29th, the Pyramid Scheme class action suit begins.

00:42:20.000 March 25th, the Hush Money suit brought by the Manhattan DA begins.

00:42:24.000 That's March 25th.

00:42:25.000 May 20th, the Classified Documents trial begins.

00:42:29.000 And now we don't know when this particular trial is going to begin.

00:42:31.000 I would assume that it's going to be somewhere in that timeline.

00:42:33.000 So the entire next year is going to be taken up by Donald Trump's trials.

00:42:37.000 He's going to be focused on it like a laser beam.

00:42:39.000 And that's going to be the strategy.

00:42:40.000 The strategy for Joe Biden is going to be just crowd out all other media coverage.

00:42:44.000 All of it.

00:42:45.000 That's going to be the strategy.

00:42:47.000 And Trump's going to be using all his money on his legal defense.

00:42:48.000 He already has.

00:42:49.000 He's already tapped into all of the election funds in order to pay his legal bills.

00:42:53.000 So that has two particularly strong ramifications for a general election.

00:42:58.000 Ramification number one. 0.90

00:42:59.000 If the entire election is about Trump's legal problems, very difficult for him to win.

00:43:02.000 Very, very difficult.

00:43:03.000 Because again, everybody's going to be focused in on the problems with Trump. 0.72

00:43:06.000 They're not going to be focused in on the problems with the current president of the United States, who is both corrupt and terrible at his job.

00:43:11.000 Problem number two is, if Donald Trump uses every dollar that is coming in to fight all of these spurious legal actions against him, you know where that money isn't going?

00:43:18.000 It's not going toward ballot harvesting.

00:43:20.000 It's not going toward the knocking on doors campaign.

00:43:23.000 It's not going to the on-the-ground things you need to win a tight election.

00:43:26.000 That's all part of the strategy here.

00:43:28.000 So, the fact is that all this stuff does hamstring Donald Trump in a general election in pretty incredible and dramatic ways.

00:43:36.000 Obviously.

00:43:37.000 And those are challenges that are gonna be hard for Trump.

00:43:40.000 Forget about all the other candidates.

00:43:41.000 Forget about all the Republican primary candidates.

00:43:42.000 Just on a practical level, these are serious obstacles for Trump.

00:43:45.000 Now, I understand the emotional appeal for Republicans.

00:43:48.000 Give him the chance.

00:43:49.000 His only chance is we have to give it to him.

00:43:51.000 We have to let him run for the presidency because that way he can pardon himself in the federal cases or if he wins then he has powers that he wouldn't normally have.

00:43:59.000 Also, we need to see the conclusion of this movie where Trump takes revenge or at least has the opportunity to take revenge against the DOJ that has been plaguing him.

00:44:06.000 I get it.

00:44:06.000 I get the emotional appeal.

00:44:07.000 I feel it myself.

00:44:08.000 I totally understand it.

00:44:10.000 Also, who is the most likely to win?

00:44:12.000 Because the only way you actually win and defeat the Joe Biden political machine and the DOJ run by Joe Biden is to make him not the president anymore.

00:44:19.000 And the only way to make him not the president anymore is to replace him with a Republican.

00:44:22.000 And the only way to replace him with a Republican is to run somebody who presumably is not going to be hampered for the next year by massive legal issues, spending every dollar on his legal defense and spending no time actually campaigning because he's too busy doing depots.

00:44:35.000 Depositions.

00:44:36.000 These are real on the ground concerns and that is not excusing any of the attacks on Donald Trump.

00:44:40.000 It isn't.

00:44:41.000 It's just a practical, real-life appraisal of the political situation on the ground.

00:44:45.000 Now, despite all those on-the-ground concerns, the real concerns about the general, in the primary, there's no question this dynamic helps Trump.

00:44:51.000 There's just no question about it.

00:44:52.000 Good evidence of this is Mike Pence's response.

00:44:54.000 So, Mike Pence, the former vice president, who actually was the guy who had to certify the election, which he had to legally do, okay?

00:45:00.000 There was no actual legal argument that he could overturn the election, that the vice president can simply throw out state-certified electoral votes.

00:45:05.000 If you think that's the case, wait until Kamala Harris does it, if Trump wins the election, and then see how you feel about it.

00:45:09.000 That's not the way the Constitution works, but Mike Pence put out a statement saying,

00:45:14.000 quote, today's indictment serves as an important reminder.

00:45:17.000 Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.

00:45:20.000 I'll have more to say about the government's case after reviewing the indictment.

00:45:22.000 The former president is entitled to the presumption of innocence,

00:45:25.000 but with this indictment, his candidacy means more talk about January 6th and more distractions.

00:45:28.000 As Americans, his candidacy means less attention paid to Joe Biden's disastrous economic policies,

00:45:32.000 afflicting millions across the United States and to the pattern of corruption with Hunter.

00:45:37.000 And I think for some good reason and some bad reason.

00:45:38.000 constitution is more important than any one man's career.

00:45:40.000 On January 6th, former President Trump demanded I choose between him and the

00:45:43.000 Constitution. I chose the Constitution and I always will. Okay, so the blowback

00:45:46.000 to Pence's statement has been extraordinary and I think for some good reason and

00:45:50.000 some bad reason. So he is saying two things and they are distinct things. Thing

00:45:55.000 number one is he is saying that Donald Trump's activities leading up to January 6th

00:45:59.000 were egregious and that he shouldn't be the nominee because somebody who displays

00:46:02.000 that sort of judgment should not be the nominee.

00:46:05.000 I have a lot of agreement with that sentiment.

00:46:07.000 I think that Trump's behavior between the election and January 6th was in fact egregious.

00:46:10.000 I think that the pressure he put on Mike Pence to take unconstitutional action was egregious and spurious.

00:46:15.000 I think all of those things.

00:46:16.000 Also, that's not the issue today.

00:46:18.000 Because the second thing that he should have said is the thing he should have said but didn't, which is still, this indictment is obviously a put-up job.

00:46:26.000 As always, two things can be true at once.

00:46:29.000 I don't know how often I can say this.

00:46:30.000 Donald Trump's behavior between the election and January 6th was unpalatable.

00:46:34.000 It was wrong.

00:46:35.000 He was saying things that were not true.

00:46:37.000 He was lying to people about those things, whether he believed that he was lying or whether he didn't believe it.

00:46:41.000 In fact, he was making allegations that were not even alleged by his own lawyers in court.

00:46:46.000 He was advancing a legal theory.

00:46:48.000 Absolutely.

00:46:49.000 It's an insane legal theory.

00:46:50.000 The vice president of the United States has the singular power to overturn electoral results that are certified by the states.

00:46:55.000 That's just it's a nutty theory.

00:46:56.000 OK, all of that can be true and also not a crime.

00:47:01.000 Also not a crime.

00:47:02.000 And right now, the issue is whether things that are not crimes should be charged as crimes, not whether Donald Trump's behavior during the election was good.

00:47:10.000 Donald Trump's behavior during the election was good has been litigated and relitigated one million times.

00:47:14.000 In the court of public opinion, it was litigated in impeachment.

00:47:16.000 It was litigated in elections that took place in January of 2021.

00:47:19.000 It was litigated in the midterm elections of 2022.

00:47:22.000 It will be litigated again, presumably, in 2024 if Donald Trump is the nominee.

00:47:27.000 But that's not the question.

00:47:28.000 The question of today, because that's when the indictment comes down, is does the DOJ have the power to charge people with non-crimes?

00:47:35.000 And that is a much broader issue than Donald Trump's activities on January 6th.

00:47:39.000 And that's the thing that Mike Pence is missing, and that is why people are shellacking him today.

00:47:44.000 Okay, meanwhile...

00:47:45.000 The double standard of justice that has become quite apparent to everybody continues.

00:47:50.000 The media continued to just studiously avoid any implication that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden had some sort of a corrupt bargain going on, which they pretty obviously did.

00:47:57.000 Here was CNN's Dana Bash trying to defend Hunter and Joe Biden's activities, despite the fact that we now have open testimony from Devin Archer to Congress suggesting that Joe Biden was on 20 phone calls with Hunter Biden's business partners, that Hunter and Joe obviously, I mean, Joe obviously knew about the businesses.

00:48:15.000 We know all these things, but here's CNN's Dana Bash trying to, you know, wave her hand away at it. 1.00

00:48:21.000 Does that mean that the president was involved in Hunter Biden's business dealings?

00:48:28.000 No, but we all understand Washington and we all understand that a lot of these relationships operate in the gray areas intentionally, especially when you have somebody who is either Related to a famous person or a powerful person or used to work for a powerful person, you want your clients to know that you can get them on the phone.

00:48:54.000 Okay, he's operating the gray areas.

00:48:56.000 They're gray.

00:48:57.000 No biggie.

00:48:58.000 It's the gray areas.

00:48:59.000 Meanwhile, you have Morning Joe.

00:49:02.000 One of their hosts, Jonathan the Liar, basically trotting out what is going to be the final form of the argument, which is, all of this is just because Joe Biden is such a nice guy.

00:49:09.000 This is going to be the final form of the argument.

00:49:10.000 It's going to go from, he knew nothing about Hunter's business dealings, and Hunter did nothing wrong and never took Chinese money, to, sure, Hunter did something wrong and took Chinese money, but he wasn't involved in the business, to, well, he was involved in the business and knew what was going on, on a general level, but he's an amazing father.

00:49:25.000 And that's where Jonathan the Liar is just going right forward here on MSNBC.

00:49:29.000 As far as Hunter Biden goes, there's no doubt.

00:49:31.000 I mean, it's pretty clear even those close to the Biden family suggest that some of his behavior is pretty unseemly.

00:49:36.000 That doesn't make it illegal.

00:49:38.000 And it also means we don't know the role that then Vice President Biden may have played.

00:49:43.000 And it seems like no, they haven't proven that he had anything to do with it.

00:49:46.000 They haven't proved that he profited from this at all.

00:49:49.000 Yet maybe he is guilty of turning a blind eye to some of his son's behavior.

00:49:53.000 And we should put this in context.

00:49:55.000 This is a time when Bo Biden, the president's other son, was ill and then dying and then passed away.

00:50:01.000 So perhaps he was not as attentive to what he should have been here?

00:50:05.000 The context is that this was a sort of very fraught and sad time for the Biden family.

00:50:15.000 And we know how important family is to the president.

00:50:19.000 And so do you hang up on your phone on your son?

00:50:24.000 Anytime, but certainly at a moment like that, and probably the answer is no. 0.99

00:50:30.000 He loves his family, which is why he's a corrupt elderly gent taking cash from his crack son, his crack snorting son, who schtups prostitutes on the regular. 0.98

00:50:40.000 Because he loves his family, guys. 0.99

00:50:43.000 That's gonna be the final... I do love Jonathan Lemire's argument right there, which is, unseemly doesn't mean illegal.

00:50:48.000 Meanwhile, over here, Donald Trump doesn't unseemly... That is certainly illegal!

00:50:51.000 Can you name the crime?

00:50:52.000 No!

00:50:52.000 But it's very unseemly, which means it's illegal.

00:50:55.000 The double standard here is perfectly obvious to everyone, perfectly clear at this point.

00:51:00.000 This is why, again, I think a lot of Republicans are wish-casting here.

00:51:03.000 Because we feel, and I think correctly, that the double standard of justice must be vitiated.

00:51:07.000 That it must be stopped.

00:51:09.000 Most Americans will feel that way.

00:51:10.000 We'll get to a general, and independents will say, this can't happen.

00:51:13.000 This injustice will not stand.

00:51:14.000 I don't know that's how independents are gonna react.

00:51:17.000 I think independents may just react by saying, okay, well, I'm hearing a lot of allegations about Trump, and I remember that guy, and I didn't like that guy that much the first time, and nobody's talking about Biden, so I'm gonna focus in on Trump, and I don't like Trump that much.

00:51:28.000 In order for Donald Trump to win the election, turnout for Joe Biden has to be low.

00:51:33.000 It cannot be even remotely high.

00:51:35.000 That's just the reality.

00:51:37.000 And so, again, I recommend that Republicans try to get out of their own heads a little bit and think about what independents might be interested in a general election.

00:51:45.000 And again, it would be very satisfying.

00:51:47.000 I will admit that the denouement of Trump's Season 8 here Would be utterly fascinating if he gets the nomination.

00:51:56.000 I have serious doubts as to whether the man can win a general election while he's under four simultaneous indictments.

00:52:00.000 Just on a practical level, even if I think those indictments are politically motivated and spurious in many of those cases.

00:52:06.000 All right, time for a couple of things.

00:52:08.000 I'm just going with things I hate here.

00:52:09.000 So a couple of things that I hate.

00:52:14.000 Okay, thing that I hate, number one. 0.99

00:52:17.000 So Lizzo, great heroine of the Republic because she's a fat lady. 1.00

00:52:24.000 Everyone is very high on Lizzo in the mainstream media because she is proudly very, very, very large.

00:52:32.000 And I'm not the one who made that an issue.

00:52:33.000 She made that an issue because she literally talks about it nonstop, how big she is. 1.00

00:52:39.000 Well, apparently, even Lizzo fat shames her own dancers. 1.00

00:52:45.000 Oh no.

00:52:45.000 In fact, this scandal that broke yesterday is so bad that Queen Bey herself, the Bey, the Beyoncé, she has a song in which she supposedly mentions, she mentions Lizzo.

00:52:55.000 It's in the lyrics.

00:52:56.000 And she skipped over Lizzo last night in her song. 0.77

00:52:58.000 We still are beating hearts.

00:53:00.000 What are the allegations against Lizzo?

00:53:02.000 Um, they're a little raunchy, folks.

00:53:04.000 But remember, she is all class, which is why she played a flute, a glass flute, owned by James Madison.

00:53:11.000 So, um, here is, uh, here is the latest allegation, courtesy of the New York Post.

00:53:16.000 Three of Lizzo's former dancers are suing the good-as-hell performer, as well as big girl Big Touring and Charlene Quigley.

00:53:23.000 Ooh, that's not so good.

00:53:44.000 to Amsterdam in February 2023, the plaintiffs claim Lizzo invited them

00:53:48.000 for a night out on the town, which ended in the city's red light district.

00:53:52.000 By the way, always an HR problem.

00:53:54.000 Bambi.com.

00:53:55.000 Okay, let me just recommend right now that, um, if you are an employer, don't take your employees to the Red Light District in Amsterdam.

00:54:04.000 That's not gonna go amazing for you.

00:54:06.000 The area is known for its sex theaters, sex shops, and clubs and bars where nudity is on full display.

00:54:11.000 So, um, apparently, the lawsuit states things quickly got out of hand.

00:54:16.000 Lizzo began inviting cast members to take turns touching the nude performers. 0.99

00:54:20.000 Catching dildos launched from the performer's vaginas and eating bananas protruding from the performer's vaginas. 0.99

00:54:30.000 So, first of all, hell of an act, it sounds like. 0.99

00:54:34.000 Catching dildos launched from the performer's- what is this, like Tom Brady? 0.50

00:54:39.000 The suit also claims that Lizzo allegedly pressured and goaded Davidson into touching one nude performer's breasts, which is excellent employer behavior. 0.99

00:54:46.000 Employers let it be known that Lizzo, who is a great heroine to us all, is a wonderful person who causes her employees to have to perform sex acts with prostitutes. 0.99

00:54:52.000 That's exciting. 0.94

00:54:54.000 The plaintiffs claim that just a month later, Lizzo deceived them into once again attending a nude show, thereby robbing them of the choice not to participate.

00:55:01.000 So first of all, I feel like after she deceived you the first time, that you might be suspicious. 0.98

00:55:06.000 If Lizzo, like, the first time she took you to the red light district and was like, eat that banana from that person's vagina. 1.00

00:55:11.000 And then the second time she's like, we're going to Chuck E. Cheese, gang! 0.99

00:55:14.000 Get in the van!

00:55:15.000 Like at that point you might be like, do you mean like the children's restaurant or is that a euphemism?

00:55:22.000 Davis claims in the lawsuit that at one point she had no choice but to soil herself on stage during an excruciating re-audition, fearing the repercussions of excusing herself to go to the restroom. 0.86

00:55:32.000 Eventually, Lizzo allegedly fired Davis on the spot after learning Davis had recorded one of their meetings, even though it was in order to have a copy of the notes the artist provided.

00:55:40.000 Rodriguez then resigned shortly thereafter, out of solidarity.

00:55:44.000 The lawsuit claims she feared Lizzo intended to hit her, and would have done so if one of the other dancers had not intervened.

00:55:51.000 Apparently, again, she weight shames her dancers, like claiming that they have gained too much weight. 1.00

00:55:58.000 Which, I gotta say, is like OJ claiming that you're too violent with women.

00:56:05.000 Lizzo claiming that you have gained too much weight, Lizzo has her own gravitational pull independent of the earth sufficient to draw in large barges. 1.00

00:56:18.000 Her weight shaming people is pretty egregious. 1.00

00:56:23.000 So yeah, not great there.

00:56:26.000 Not great stuff there from the Lizzo.

00:56:31.000 Well, what a sad story.

00:56:35.000 But Orange, you glad?

00:56:37.000 Orange, you glad that you don't work for Lizzo?

00:56:39.000 All right, guys, the rest of the show is continuing right now.

00:56:41.000 You're not going to want to miss it.

00:56:42.000 We'll be joined by Trump lawyer and constitutional expert Jesse Binal.

00:56:45.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

00:56:47.000 Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - August 02, 2023

The January 6 Indictment Is HERE – And It’s Bulls***

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