The Ben Shapiro Show - The Race Rape Hoax That Started It All…COLLAPSES

00:00:00.000 Folks, one of the things that's sort of amazing about the industry that I inhabit, the news industry, the news commentary industry, is that so many stories that have an outsized national impact turn out to be completely the other way upon further review.

00:00:12.000 And one of the sort of incentive structures for the news business is being firstest with the mostest.

00:00:18.000 Get to the story fast, report it incredibly quickly.

00:00:20.000 And then it turns out that much of the reporting ends up being false.

00:00:23.000 And then in retrospect, it has done significant damage.

00:00:26.000 This is true with a lot of the reporting about, say, COVID or Black Lives Matter.

00:00:30.000 One of the signal examples of this is now being exposed for all the world to see.

00:00:35.000 If you remember all the way back to 2006, this is 18 years ago, so a lot of my listeners or younger people don't remember this case.

00:00:41.000 This case, the Duke Lacrosse rape case, was actually the inciting event for a wide variety of movements that would come into full flower over the course of the subsequent 10 years, particularly over the course of the Obama era.

00:00:53.000 The Duke Lacrosse case was an inciting incident for things like Black Lives Matter. 0.61

00:00:57.000 This idea that black people in America had a boot on their throat from a justice system that did not care about it.

00:01:04.000 That white privileged people were beating up on underprivileged black people. 0.63

00:01:09.000 This was the source of an enormous amount of the Me Too movement, this idea that a stripper who accused a series of rich, white Duke lacrosse players of having sexually assaulted her, that she had not been given a fair shake, the sort of Believe All Women movement.

00:01:25.000 This is one of the biggest cases in American criminal justice history, specifically because of all of its ripple effect.

00:01:32.000 Well now, the stripper at the center of that case, a woman named Crystal Mangum, Is admitting that she lied back in 2006. She had never publicly admitted that she fabricated the rape allegation before the revelation now, which again is 18 years after the original allegations.

00:01:52.000 There were three men who were actually arrested and then put on trial briefly before the case was dismissed.

00:01:57.000 Their names were David Evans, Colin Finnerty, and Reed Seligman.

00:02:01.000 Well, this woman obviously had tons of holes in her story. 0.99

00:02:05.000 Huge problems with her story. 0.67

00:02:08.000 So her original allegation was that she had been performing at a team party off campus in March of 2006 and that she had then been sexually assaulted, raped by a series of white Duke lacrosse players.

00:02:22.000 And it turns out that the facts were not there for any of this.

00:02:25.000 She was indeed at this party, but apparently she engaged in none of her sort of Career activity, shall we say, because she was apparently high on drugs or on alcohol or on prescription medications.

00:02:37.000 And she ended up leaving early.

00:02:40.000 And then these accusations were filed.

00:02:43.000 And there are many problems with this story.

00:02:45.000 One was that there is no DNA on her.

00:02:48.000 She had claimed that she'd been raped by a bunch of men, none of whom used protection.

00:02:53.000 And there was no DNA on her.

00:02:55.000 Other problems included the fact that she could not identify any of the Duke lacrosse players except for one in a photo array, and that one ended up not having been there.

00:03:03.000 So there are tons of problems with this entire process, but that did not stop everyone, everyone in elite media, everyone on the university campuses from jumping to conclusions.

00:03:15.000 The attorney, the district attorney from Durham County, a man named Mike Nyfong, said in a March 2006 interview with CBS News, quote, there's no doubt a sexual assault took place and that the assault was racially motivated.

00:03:27.000 Here was Mike Nyfong, the Durham County district attorney back in 2006. I am not going to allow Durham's view and the mind of the world to be a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl in Durham. 0.69

00:03:46.000 Nifeng obviously had other political motivations. 0.87

00:03:48.000 He wanted to possibly run for higher office at some point.

00:03:52.000 At this time, Nifeng said, quote, the circumstances of the rape indicated a deep racial motivation for some of the things that were done.

00:03:57.000 It makes it a crime that is by nature one of the most offensive and invasive, even more so.

00:04:02.000 So he said this wasn't just a rape. 0.95

00:04:04.000 It was, in fact, a racist rape. 0.95

00:04:07.000 The former Duke University president, a person named Richard Broadhead, actually took immediate action against the team following just the allegations.

00:04:16.000 He accepted the resignation of the men's lacrosse coach, a man named Mike Pressler.

00:04:21.000 He canceled the remainder of their season.

00:04:23.000 He suspended the three players from school after they were indicted for rape, according to the New York Post, despite having asked the public not to prejudge the criminal case.

00:04:32.000 Eventually, this case was dismissed.

00:04:36.000 David Evans, one of the players, stridently denied the allegations at the time.

00:04:40.000 Here he was.

00:04:42.000 I'm absolutely innocent of all the charges that have been brought against me today that Reed Seligman and Colin Farney are innocent of all the charges that were brought against them.

00:04:51.000 These allegations are lies.

00:04:54.000 Now again, that did not stop the New York Times from running a hundred pieces about the Duke Lacrosse allegations.

00:05:00.000 Many of them were think pieces about the deep embedded nature of American racism and sexism.

00:05:06.000 A tremendous number of Duke faculty actually paid for an ad that was put in the Duke Chronicle talking about this particular case.

00:05:16.000 The following departments at Duke University signed on to this paid advertisement.

00:05:22.000 The African and African American Studies Department, Romance Studies, Psychology, Social and Health Sciences, Franklin Humanities Institute, Critical U.S. Studies, Art, Art History, Visual Studies, Classical Studies, Asian and African Languages and Literature, Women's Studies, Latina Studies, Latin American and Caribbean.

00:05:36.000 Studies, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, European Studies, Center for Democracy Studies.

00:05:41.000 Almost 100 professors at Duke University signed on to this statement.

00:05:46.000 What did the statement say?

00:05:47.000 We are listening to our students.

00:05:49.000 We're also listening to the Durham community, to Duke staff, and to each other.

00:05:52.000 Regardless of the results of the police investigation, what is apparent every day now is the anger and fear of many students who know themselves to be objects of racism and sexism, who see illuminated in this moment's extraordinary spotlight what they live with every day.

00:06:03.000 They know it isn't just Duke, it isn't everybody, and it isn't individuals making this disaster.

00:06:07.000 but it is a disaster nonetheless.

00:06:09.000 These students are shouting and whispering about what happened to this young woman and to themselves.

00:06:13.000 We want the absence of terror but we don't really know what that means.

00:06:16.000 We can't think.

00:06:17.000 That's why we're so silent.

00:06:18.000 We can't think about what on the other side of this.

00:06:21.000 Terror robs you of language and you need language for healing to begin.

00:06:23.000 This is not a different experience for us here at Duke University.

00:06:26.000 We go to class with racist classmates.

00:06:29.000 We go to gym with people who are racist.

00:06:31.000 It's part of the experience.

00:06:33.000 If it turns out these students are guilty, I want them expelled.

00:06:35.000 But their expulsion will only bring resolution to this case and not the bigger problem.

00:06:38.000 This is much bigger than them, and throwing them out will not solve the problem.

00:06:41.000 I want the administration to acknowledge what is going on and how bad it is.

00:06:46.000 Everything seems up for grabs.

00:06:47.000 These are all quotes from anonymous students.

00:06:49.000 Everything seems up for grabs.

00:06:51.000 I'm only comfortable talking about this event in my room with close friends.

00:06:54.000 I'm actually afraid to even bring it up in public.

00:06:56.000 But worse, I wonder now about everything.

00:06:58.000 If something like this happens to me, what would be used against me?

00:07:01.000 My clothing?

00:07:01.000 Where I was?

00:07:05.000 I was talking to a white woman student who was asking me, quote, why do people, and she meant black people, make race such a big issue?

00:07:10.000 They don't see race.

00:07:11.000 They just don't see it.

00:07:12.000 Again, you can see here the seedbed for the entire DEI woke movement that would reach its full flower in 2020 with the Black Lives Matter riots. 0.74

00:07:23.000 The staff at Duke University took out this ad.

00:07:26.000 They put out this ad, again, signed by dozens and dozens and dozens of members of the faculty, I'm sure many of whom are still working at Duke University.

00:07:34.000 The ad says, what does a social disaster sound like?

00:07:37.000 The students know that disaster didn't begin on March 13th and won't end with what the police say or the court decides.

00:07:43.000 It doesn't matter what the truth is.

00:07:45.000 Like all disasters, this one has a history.

00:07:46.000 And what lies beneath what we're hearing from our students are questions about the future.

00:07:50.000 This ad printed in the most easily seen venue on campus is just one way for us to say that we're hearing what our students are saying.

00:07:57.000 We are turning up the volume in a moment when some of the most vulnerable among us are being asked to quiet down while we wait.

00:08:02.000 To the students speaking individually and to the protesters making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard.

00:08:09.000 Again, you can see the seedbed here.

00:08:11.000 And it turns out it was all lies.

00:08:13.000 It was all lies beginning to end.

00:08:16.000 Eventually, the North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper would announce that the charges had in fact been dropped.

00:08:22.000 Roy Cooper would go on to become the governor of the state of North Carolina.

00:08:27.000 Our attorneys and SBI agents have interviewed numerous people who were at the party, DNA and other experts, the Durham County District Attorney, Durham police officers, defense attorneys, and the accusing witness on several occasions.

00:08:45.000 We have reviewed statements given over the year, photographs, records, and other evidence.

00:08:55.000 The result of our review and investigation shows clearly that there is insufficient evidence to proceed on any of the charges.

00:09:06.000 Today, we are filing notices of dismissal for all charges against Reed Seligman, Colin Finnerty, and David Evans.

00:09:18.000 The result is that these cases are over.

00:09:22.000 And no more criminal proceedings will occur.

00:09:26.000 The problem is, where do you go to get your life back?

00:09:29.000 Philip Seligman, who is the father of one of the Duke La Crosse students, spoke about this, spoke about what happens when false allegations are lodged and they become national news stories.

00:09:37.000 And again, this is the way the left-wing media run with pretty much every allegation.

00:09:41.000 Now, here is Philip Seligman talking about this, about his son Reed, who is falsely accused.

00:09:46.000 If you had a chance to say something to Mr. Nifong today, what would it be? 0.93

00:09:54.000 What he did and the fraud, which he perpetuated for nearly a year, was it all that important to be the district attorney of Durham, North Carolina, to throw three kids to the wolves, ruin their lives, ruin their families' lives, all for what?

00:10:14.000 For what?

00:10:15.000 I'll never understand.

00:10:17.000 Never understand.

00:10:20.000 Nifong himself ended up being disbarred for making false statements and for hiding evidence from the defense.

00:10:25.000 We'll get back to this in a moment.

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00:12:34.000 The president of Duke University, who again had involved himself in the hamstringing of these players, in the rounding up of these players, in the targeting of these players, he would later come out and offer an apology.

00:12:47.000 First and foremost, I regret our failure to reach out to the lacrosse players and their families in a time of extraordinary peril.

00:12:55.000 Given the complexities of this case, getting the communication right would never have been easy.

00:13:01.000 But the fact is that we did not get it right, causing the families to feel abandoned when they were most in need of support.

00:13:08.000 This was a mistake.

00:13:10.000 I take responsibility for it, and I apologize for it.

00:13:14.000 But here's the thing.

00:13:15.000 What was the fallout from this case?

00:13:16.000 Was the fallout a lesson learned about people making false allegations?

00:13:20.000 Of course not.

00:13:21.000 Was the fallout about the rush to judgment by a media deeply desperate for a race case that they could actually magnify?

00:13:29.000 Of course not, because we've had dozens of those since then.

00:13:33.000 The actual fallout in terms of policy was that in 2011, the Obama administration changed Title IX regulations that basically made it so that you could not actually defend yourself against a sexual harassment or sexual assault allegation on campus.

00:13:49.000 In 2011, the Obama administration had outlined guidelines for schools on how to handle sexual assault allegations in a Dear Colleague letter.

00:13:56.000 It's from CNN. The letter reminded schools of their legal obligations to address sexual violence amid concern.

00:14:01.000 Schools were not taking the issue seriously enough and called on schools to step up investigations of reports.

00:14:06.000 It also provided guidelines for investigations and hearings.

00:14:09.000 And it gave the actual accused no due process.

00:14:14.000 It made it so that you didn't actually have a right to face down the person who was accusing you.

00:14:19.000 That was the actual legal implication that was drawn from the false allegations of the Duke Lacrosse case.

00:14:25.000 And again, this would repeat itself later with similar allegations that were made about the University of Virginia frat members in 2014 accused by Rolling Stone of engaging in a gang rape.

00:14:38.000 And it turns out that that was completely false as well.

00:14:40.000 But that didn't stop the momentum of the MeToo movement.

00:14:44.000 See, false allegations are unfortunately the lifeblood of movements that require gas when there is no gas in the tank.

00:14:54.000 So, as I say, yesterday, why is this in the news?

00:14:56.000 Because yesterday, the accuser in that Duke Lacrosse case, who again is serving time for murder right now, and who has serious mental health problems, she came out, Crystal Mangum, and finally admitted nearly 20 years later that it was all made up and it was all a lie.

00:15:10.000 And... 0.83

00:15:13.000 I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn't. 0.92

00:15:19.000 And that was wrong.

00:15:22.000 And I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me and made up a story that wasn't true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.

00:15:42.000 And that was wrong.

00:15:43.000 And I hope that they can forgive me.

00:15:49.000 Again, the fact that it was false and everyone knew it was false at the time.

00:15:53.000 And yet it led to another string of these sorts of cases, ranging from, yes, the University of Virginia false rape allegations to the false allegations regarding Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri, which led to riots in 2014, to the case of George Floyd, which is, in fact, a false case.

00:16:13.000 This idea that Derek Chauvin, in racist fashion, attempted to murder George Floyd.

00:16:17.000 Okay, that...

00:16:19.000 To the Daniel Penny case, it stretches forward.

00:16:21.000 It stretches forward because the media need these opportunities.

00:16:25.000 They spin up these opportunities.

00:16:27.000 They rely on these opportunities in order to, quote-unquote, have the discussion.

00:16:31.000 They're constantly looking for a news hook to have discussions on the issues that they find most interesting.

00:16:37.000 Regardless of whether the underlying data is there or whether the underlying data is not.

00:16:43.000 And it's quite terrible.

00:16:45.000 You see this in pretty much every aspect of how the news media covers stories.

00:16:50.000 So to take another example that's seemingly unrelated, this case of the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter.

00:16:58.000 So this person, it now turns out, Luigi Mangione, 26 years old.

00:17:03.000 The original allegation was that this person had had an unsuccessful back surgery and maybe was covered by UnitedHealthcare and got denied.

00:17:10.000 Turns out this person never had UnitedHealthcare coverage.

00:17:12.000 It also turns out that this person may have had successful back surgery.

00:17:16.000 According to his social media posts, at this time, it was not about pain in his back.

00:17:20.000 He'd had a successful surgery.

00:17:21.000 Now, the story may turn out that the person got high on psychedelics and it screwed with We still don't know the full story.

00:17:27.000 But what has this spurred?

00:17:29.000 It has spurred a broader conversation about the healthcare system.

00:17:32.000 Now, that's precisely what terrorists want. 0.95

00:17:34.000 What terrorists would like is to quote-unquote start a conversation about the topic that they think is important by killing people.

00:17:41.000 And the media are perfectly willing to jump into that particular conversation.

00:17:46.000 However, there are conversations the media are not willing to jump into.

00:17:50.000 If there is, for example, a false allegation of rape after Duke Lacrosse, was there a widespread Was there a full-scale media blitz on the question of race hoaxes, which is what happened at Duke Lacrosse?

00:18:08.000 Absolutely not.

00:18:09.000 The way that the mainstream media work, their way of deciding whether something is a national story or not, is not based on the truth or falsity of the statement or the good or bad action of the people in question.

00:18:18.000 They have a preset narrative, and then they look for a hook for that narrative.

00:18:23.000 And that is how you end up spinning movements up out of nothing, out of a lack of evidence.

00:18:28.000 This is how you end up polarizing the American body politic.

00:18:31.000 You want to know why Americans are sick and tired of the national legacy media?

00:18:35.000 Because going back for decades at this point, the national media have a preset narrative agenda, and then they look for a news hook for that agenda that allows them to spin it up into a national story.

00:18:46.000 And you can see that pattern everywhere.

00:18:48.000 That, by the way, is precisely how, for example, Russiagate happened.

00:18:51.000 If you recall, the so-called Steele dossier, this compendium of absolute sheer garbage nonsense that was put together by Fusion GPS at the behest of the Hillary Clinton campaign and then laundered through America's law enforcement mechanisms, that only became a national story and became public.

00:19:08.000 Why?

00:19:08.000 Because James Comey, then the head of the FBI, went to Donald Trump to present him with the allegations, and then that was used as a news hook by BuzzFeed in order to print the full Steele dossier, and that became the subject of a four-year investigation.

00:19:23.000 Now, if there are false allegations that were made in a compendium about Joe Biden, do you think that would become a national news story for four years?

00:19:30.000 I highly doubt it.

00:19:32.000 And this is why the national legacy media are completely falling apart.

00:19:36.000 This is why.

00:19:38.000 But this is, again, the goal here is take an incident, regardless of who's guilty or who's innocent, who's lying or who's telling the truth, and spin it into a broader narrative that you want to talk about.

00:19:49.000 So again, with regards to this United Healthcare CEO, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, for example, she's speaking the way that left-wingers speak when it comes to these questions.

00:19:59.000 She says, sure, murder is never justified, but now we can finally have those crucial conversations about nationalizing American healthcare.

00:20:06.000 Here's Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez effectively justifying murder because, after all, our healthcare system is so flawed that it's just predictable if people decide to go kill people.

00:20:15.000 It's really important that we take a step back.

00:20:18.000 This is not to comment and this is not to say that an act of violence is justified.

00:20:25.000 But I think for anyone who is confused or shocked or appalled, they need to understand that people interpret and feel and experience denied claims as an act of violence against them.

00:20:42.000 People go homeless.

00:20:44.000 Over the financial devastation of a diagnosis that doesn't get addressed or, you know, the amount that they're going to have to cover with a surprise bill and things like that.

00:20:55.000 And when we kind of talk about how systems are violent in this country in this passive way, our privatized healthcare system is like that for a huge amount of Americans.

00:21:10.000 Okay, first of all, it's psychotic to suggest that there's no denial of care in nationalized healthcare countries.

00:21:14.000 That isn't true.

00:21:15.000 These are very complex issues, as we've been discussing for the last several days, but that's not the point.

00:21:18.000 The point is, she's using the murder of an innocent man, regardless of what you think about how he ran his business.

00:21:24.000 This guy did not commit a criminal offense.

00:21:26.000 You're talking about the murder on the street by a person who was a very upper-class, very rich, white Ivy League graduate on the streets.

00:21:35.000 You're using that as a lever to talk about the issue you want to talk about.

00:21:40.000 This is the way the left wing uses issues like Duke Lacrosse.

00:21:44.000 Again, the normal outcome of a Duke Lacrosse case, when you have a person who is presumably psychotic, who commits a false rape allegation, the conversation should then be about due process.

00:21:57.000 How is it carried out?

00:21:58.000 Maybe we need to strengthen due process so we actually don't have cases like this again.

00:22:01.000 That's never the conversation that takes place.

00:22:03.000 It is always the preset narrative that takes place.

00:22:07.000 And I think all of that is going to change.

00:22:09.000 I think it's all going to change because I think that the American people are tired of this.

00:22:12.000 They're tired of being told that left-wing priorities are always the priorities no matter what happens.

00:22:19.000 That no matter what the antecedent, the conclusion is the same.

00:22:23.000 No matter what happens, we now have to have a conversation about what the left wants to have a conversation about.

00:22:27.000 So if a left-winger shoots a right-winger, then the conversation is about how the left-winger is somehow victimized by the system.

00:22:35.000 If a right-winger shoots a left-winger, then the conversation is about how right-wing ideas are wrong and terrible.

00:22:40.000 If you have a false rape allegation, then the conversation is about why America is over-sexualized and why we need to take claims of rape more seriously if they are cross-racial.

00:22:51.000 And if the rape allegation is true, then the conversation is exactly the same.

00:22:56.000 Now, that is the lesson from what happened here.

00:22:59.000 That for the media, individual victims don't matter whatsoever.

00:23:03.000 They don't matter at all.

00:23:04.000 The only thing that matters is the story.

00:23:06.000 The only thing that matters is the narrative.

00:23:08.000 I don't know what happened to these Duke lacrosse players.

00:23:10.000 I know that some of them ended up going to different colleges.

00:23:12.000 I don't know what they do now.

00:23:13.000 But the bottom line is for literally the rest of their life, they will be linked to that false allegation.

00:23:18.000 And meanwhile, people who make false allegations, they go on to fame and fortune as well.

00:23:23.000 Al Sharpton still has a show on MSNBC. He is visited by presidential candidates after leading the greatest race rape hoax of the latter half of the 20th century in the Tawana-Browley case.

00:23:33.000 That dude is still a well-respected public figure who receives donations from Kamala Harris right before he interviews her on national TV. That entire infrastructure needs to be destroyed.

00:23:44.000 That entire media democratic human centipede needs to be destroyed full scale.

00:23:48.000 And this is just another example of why.

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00:25:00.000 Also, this election season, I visited six states.

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00:25:08.000 Somewhere in between all that travel, I needed to maintain my health, hit the gym, spend time with my family.

00:25:12.000 When I was younger, I used to think I could just power right through on the conservative willpower and caffeine, but I learned pretty quickly that actually peak performance requires peak nutrition.

00:25:20.000 That means eating enough veggies.

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00:26:02.000 Okay, meanwhile...

00:26:04.000 President Trump has been declared the Time Magazine Man of the Year.

00:26:07.000 He's on the cover again.

00:26:09.000 That, of course, makes perfect sense since he led the greatest political comeback literally of all time.

00:26:14.000 If you lose a presidential race and then you are basically cast out into the nether regions and then you somehow make a comeback all the way back to the presidency, that's pretty incredible.

00:26:22.000 The interview that he did with Time Magazine is kind of fascinating.

00:26:25.000 Again, the thing to notice about how Donald Trump is actually approaching the issues is that he's being quite moderate about it.

00:26:31.000 Donald Trump is not interested in promoting what the media would term an extremist agenda.

00:26:36.000 He's interested in metrics of success.

00:26:38.000 And so that means that much of what he says in this interview seems more moderate than many of the stuff, many, many of the things that his opponents are saying about him.

00:26:47.000 So, for example, when it comes to immigration, he says the country was angry because of immigration, because of the people, you know, millions and millions of people.

00:26:56.000 It could be 21 million people.

00:26:58.000 They were saying a much less number, but it wasn't a much lesser number.

00:27:01.000 Even if it was, it was irrelevant because they were allowing anybody to come into our country. 1.00

00:27:04.000 They are right now.

00:27:05.000 They opened it up again.

00:27:06.000 They're coming.

00:27:06.000 You see what's going on.

00:27:07.000 They're pouring up through Mexico and other places, and they weren't using common sense. 0.92

00:27:10.000 And then later in the interview.

00:27:13.000 he said, It doesn't stop the military if it's an invasion of our country, and I consider it an invasion of our country. 0.78

00:27:20.000 We have criminals coming into our country that we've never seen.

00:27:22.000 We've never seen before.

00:27:23.000 We have people coming in at levels and at record numbers we've never seen before.

00:27:26.000 I'll only do what the law allows, but I will go up to the maximum level of what the law allows.

00:27:32.000 Okay, that does not sound particularly extremist to me.

00:27:37.000 As far as family separations, he says, it wasn't my policy, it was Obama's policy.

00:27:42.000 I didn't build jail cells for children, he did, which of course is true. 1.00

00:27:46.000 And then asked about deportations.

00:27:48.000 He said, well, I mean, if you're talking about family separations and you're talking about kids who could stay here and their families are going to be deported, I'd rather just keep the family together.

00:27:57.000 He said, we have 325,000 children here during Democrats, but right now, sex slaves dead, they were allowed. 0.95

00:28:02.000 What he's talking about there is the fact that the Department of Homeland Security and ICE basically put children into the system and now they don't know where the kids are.

00:28:11.000 Many of those people are with family, but some of those people, we have no idea where they are.

00:28:15.000 When it came to inflation, one of the things that he talked about is that the grocery prices, he's going to bring those down.

00:28:24.000 The left is trying to claim that he lied about inflation because he says that inflation is difficult to reduce.

00:28:32.000 But he does say that that is his goal, is reducing inflation.

00:28:38.000 He says energy prices were going through the roof, and now people just want to go back to Trump's policy.

00:28:45.000 He says tax reductions are going to reduce inflation as well because people will have more competition in the marketplace.

00:28:51.000 Again, this interview with Time Magazine is fascinating mainly because of the moderation of the interview.

00:28:57.000 He is taking a very pro-markets stance, for example.

00:29:00.000 So President Trump says, for example, that he's going to lower the corporate tax rates if you build in the United States, which seems like a pretty sensible proposal.

00:29:07.000 We're going to do things, I think, that haven't been really done before.

00:29:09.000 We're going to be cutting taxes still further.

00:29:12.000 You know, we got it down to 21 percent.

00:29:14.000 We're going to bring it down even below that.

00:29:16.000 You pay 21 if you don't build here and meaning your product or whatever it is you're building.

00:29:21.000 And if you do, we're going to try getting it down to 15 percent.

00:29:24.000 But you have to build your product, make your product in the USA. Again, this seems fairly commonsensical.

00:29:32.000 Right now, Donald Trump is enjoying a polling honeymoon like he has never seen before in his entire political career.

00:29:39.000 He's even seeing Democrats who are starting to come around to his side on some of these issues, particularly immigration.

00:29:44.000 Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, he says, listen, there are 500,000 migrant children in this country we cannot find.

00:29:52.000 We have 500,000 children who have sponsors in this country that we can't find.

00:30:01.000 We can't find them.

00:30:02.000 We don't know if they're doing child labor. 0.99

00:30:04.000 We don't know if they're doing sex crimes. 0.86

00:30:06.000 We don't know if they've been exploited.

00:30:09.000 500,000 children.

00:30:11.000 There's a level of hypocrisy that everyone in the States, they want to protect everyone, but innocent individuals who are victims of crimes and children.

00:30:18.000 I want to support and protect children and innocent people that are victims of crime.

00:30:23.000 And those who don't understand that, it's not up to me to try to convince them.

00:30:28.000 I know where my job is, my goal is, and I was clear of that while running and when I became mayor.

00:30:34.000 Safety means everything to me.

00:30:36.000 500,000 children, we don't know where they are right now in this country.

00:30:43.000 Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to pursue an insane policy that is utterly disconnected from reality.

00:30:50.000 So, for example, yesterday, Joe Biden launched the greatest wave of commutations in American history.

00:30:55.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, President Biden is commuting the sentences around 1,500 people while he considers more clemency actions before he leaves office, including possible preemptive pardons of officials who have clashed with President-elect Donald Trump.

00:31:08.000 The White House said the commutations were for people who were released from prison and placed in home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic.

00:31:15.000 He pardoned 39 Americans convicted of non-violent crimes, but we're talking here about drug offenses, which means that they are now considering drug distribution a non-violent crime, which is kind of an amazing thing.

00:31:24.000 Some of the people who are having their sentences commuted are pretty controversial.

00:31:31.000 I mean, you have people who are connected with terrorism, people who are convicted of connections with, for example, the Holy Land Foundation, a front group for Hamas.

00:31:41.000 You are looking at, for example...

00:31:43.000 People who have completely robbed, I mean legitimately robbed, entire municipalities of money who are now being given commutations by the Biden administration.

00:31:55.000 I don't even know what the logic here is.

00:31:57.000 It makes zero sense at all why Joe Biden would do this.

00:32:01.000 He, for example, has now commuted the sentence of the notorious Kids for Cash judge convicted of imprisoning juveniles for $2.1 million in kickbacks.

00:32:09.000 This would be former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan That was, again, among the 1,500 commutations.

00:32:17.000 He had pled guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges for his role in the scheme.

00:32:21.000 He was sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison in 2011, and he was released to home confinement.

00:32:26.000 So Biden is now commuting the rest of his sentence.

00:32:29.000 Again, I don't know if Joe Biden's desire here is to actually destroy the entire credibility of the party that threw him out of office, but if not, he's doing an amazing job of it.

00:32:39.000 Karine Jean-Pierre is cheering the fact that Biden has issued more commutations than anyone.

00:32:44.000 So today, President Biden announced that he is granting clemency to approximately 1,500 Americans, the largest act in a single day, who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, as well as a strong commitment to making their communities The president is commuting the sentences of 1,500 individuals who were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into

00:33:15.000 their families and communities.

00:33:16.000 He's also pardoning 39 individuals who were convicted of nine nonviolent crimes.

00:33:23.000 The president has issued more sentence commutations at this point in his presidency than any I mean, what the hell is Joe Biden doing?

00:33:37.000 Why is this supposed to be a good thing?

00:33:39.000 Speaking of terrible things that Joe Biden is doing, a blockbuster story from Daily Wire.

00:33:43.000 Apparently, Joe Biden has been racing to sell off parts of the border wall before they can be erected.

00:33:49.000 Here's some of the report from our friends at the Daily Wire.

00:33:55.000 You can see here trucks that are literally hauling away unused border wall materials.

00:34:00.000 They're being hauled away from the Arizona border.

00:34:03.000 You can actually see this happening.

00:34:04.000 It's being taken north to a government auction site where bidding for an entire segment of wall starts at just $5.

00:34:11.000 Again, the goal here is just to hamstring the Trump administration from coming in and completing the actual border wall.

00:34:17.000 One Border Patrol agent estimates up to half a mile worth of wall is being transported every single day away from the wall.

00:34:26.000 You can see this border wall lined up along the road, just stacked up along the road.

00:34:26.000 It's insane.

00:34:33.000 Unreal.

00:34:35.000 What exactly is the logic here?

00:34:38.000 I mean, the logic can only be to hamstring the Trump administration's efforts to actually, you know, build the wall.

00:34:43.000 According to one Border Patrol agent, they're taking it from three stations, Nogales, Tucson, and Three Points.

00:34:47.000 The goal is to move it all off the border before Christmas.

00:34:51.000 The government contractor, DP Trucking LLC, is transporting the pieces of the wall north on Interstate 19 to Penal Air Park in Mariana, Arizona, where it is being auctioned through Government Planet, a surplus government equipment auction marketplace.

00:35:02.000 The agent said, quote, they just started taking all that wall that was not used, which is still totally good and usable, and they started taking it northbound.

00:35:08.000 They're pulling it all off the border.

00:35:10.000 Harold Lambeth, the owner of the trucking company, confirmed to the Daily Wire in a phone call his company is transporting the unused border wall sections north away from the construction sites.

00:35:19.000 The auction website shows that sales occurred as recently as December 4th for precisely the types of material being pulled off the border.

00:35:25.000 The bidding for each section of wall panels is set to begin at $5, according to the website.

00:35:30.000 Representative Eli Crane, whose congressional district borders the penal air park where the material is being sold, said the Biden administration is purposefully hamstringing Trump before he takes office.

00:35:39.000 He said they're well aware they shouldn't have reversed the construction of the border wall.

00:35:42.000 If it's true, they're purposefully hamstringing an incoming president.

00:35:44.000 It wouldn't be shocking.

00:35:45.000 Why would they want to see President Trump succeed with policies they aggressively sabotaged?

00:35:50.000 An absolutely insane story.

00:35:51.000 Trump is expected to use an executive order to unlock the funds to restart construction of the border wall pretty much immediately.

00:35:57.000 So it appears that the Biden administration is actively attempting to prevent the building of the border wall as sort of a final FU to Donald Trump as he enters office.

00:36:05.000 Absolutely unbelievable stuff, but just another indicator of how badly Joe Biden has screwed up the country. 0.98

00:36:10.000 In just a second, we'll get to Joe Biden's foreign policy, which continues to be absolute trash. 0.94

00:36:14.000 Plus, new details on January 6th. 0.57

00:36:17.000 First, time is running out.

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00:37:21.000 Meanwhile, Joe Biden's foreign policy continues to be a complete scrap heap.

00:37:25.000 It's awful.

00:37:26.000 John Kirby, who is his national security spokesperson...

00:37:30.000 He says, guys, you know what the thing is?

00:37:32.000 We're handing over a better world to Donald Trump.

00:37:33.000 That's weird because the world is getting better as soon as people know Trump is coming into office.

00:37:37.000 Here is Kirby suggesting that we're handing over a great relationship with China.

00:37:41.000 We believe that as we get ready to turn over things to the Trump team, that we're turning over a U.S.-China relationship that is in better shape than the one we founded in.

00:37:52.000 That doesn't mean that we don't have disagreements.

00:37:54.000 We do, and we will, and I'm sure they will too.

00:37:57.000 But we're working hard on this relationship, and we'll do that right to the end.

00:38:02.000 Well, with that said, Donald Trump has invited Xi Jinping to the actual inauguration.

00:38:07.000 Xi turned it down.

00:38:08.000 It's an attempt, presumably, to get other world leaders to come and recognize that he is, in fact, the most powerful man on Earth.

00:38:16.000 And again, the world is reshaping itself because Donald Trump is coming.

00:38:20.000 So, for example, the chief of NATO, he is now saying something that is obviously true, which is that Europe needs to start taking the lead on its own continent.

00:38:29.000 Here, for example, is the NATO chief, Mark Rudy, saying, you know, it's about time for us to shift to a wartime mindset.

00:38:34.000 You mean now it's time?

00:38:35.000 Where have you been the last, you know, couple of decades, my friend?

00:38:40.000 We are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years.

00:38:46.000 Danger is moving towards us at full speed.

00:38:51.000 We must not look the other way.

00:38:53.000 We must face it.

00:38:55.000 What is happening in Ukraine could happen here too.

00:38:59.000 And regardless of the outcome of this war, we will not be safe in the future unless we are prepared to deal with danger.

00:39:07.000 We can do that.

00:39:09.000 We can prevent the next big war on NATO territory and preserve our way of life.

00:39:17.000 This requires us all to be faster and fiercer.

00:39:21.000 It is time to shift to a wartime mindset and turbocharge our defense production and defense spending.

00:39:31.000 Again, why exactly is that happening?

00:39:35.000 The answer is pretty obvious.

00:39:36.000 It's because Donald Trump is coming into office.

00:39:38.000 In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, the outlines of President-elect Donald Trump's initial efforts to end the war in Ukraine last week are starting to emerge for the first time.

00:39:45.000 The main takeaway?

00:39:46.000 Europe would have to shoulder most of the burden of supporting Kiev with troops to oversee a ceasefire and weapons to deter Russia.

00:39:52.000 Which makes perfect sense since Europe is actually quite a rich continent.

00:39:54.000 It turns out the GDP of all of Europe combined is about that of the United States.

00:39:59.000 At a meeting in Paris on December 7th, Trump told Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron he doesn't support Ukrainian membership in NATO, but he wants to see a strong, well-armed Ukraine emerge from any cessation of fighting.

00:40:10.000 That is the exact proper response.

00:40:13.000 Okay, all of this talk about Donald Trump is going to completely abandon Ukraine to Russian predations, that's not true.

00:40:17.000 It was never true.

00:40:18.000 He just says Europe should take a lead since, you know, this is happening in Europe.

00:40:22.000 That is not a crazy statement at all.

00:40:25.000 It is one thing for the United States to lend a helping hand to our allies.

00:40:28.000 It is another thing for us to take the lead when our allies should be doing so.

00:40:31.000 Trump said Europe should play the main role in defending and supporting Ukraine.

00:40:34.000 And he wanted European troops present in Ukraine to monitor a ceasefire.

00:40:37.000 He hasn't ruled out U.S. support for such an arrangement, even though no U.S. troops would be involved.

00:40:42.000 That makes perfect sense, of course.

00:40:44.000 And Europe is immediately responding as well they should.

00:40:48.000 Okay, meanwhile, a piece of breaking news courtesy of the Department of Justice.

00:40:53.000 So there are two ways to read a report that was put out by the Department of Justice yesterday.

00:40:57.000 This would be an Inspector General report from Michael Horowitz, who's done some interesting work before at the DOJ. There are two ways to read the report.

00:41:05.000 It's all about FBI understanding and oversight with regard to January 6th.

00:41:11.000 One way to read the report is the way that some people in the Twitterverse are reading the report Which is the idea that there are lots and lots of FBI, quote unquote, sources in the crowd.

00:41:20.000 So a lot of this comes down to the definition of what a confidential human source is.

00:41:24.000 A confidential human source is CHS. According to the Justice Department, that is a person believed to be providing useful and credible information to the FBI and whose identity, information, or relationship with the FBI warrants confidential handling.

00:41:36.000 So the claim has been made by a lot of people on the right side of the aisle that January 6th was essentially a put-up job, that it was either entrapment or that there were people who were working with or for the FBI who were encouraging people to commit criminal activity.

00:41:48.000 So this DOJ report says this, quote, We also determined the FBI did not take a step that could have helped the FBI and its law enforcement partners with their preparations in advance of January 6th.

00:42:07.000 Specifically, the FBI did not canvas its field offices in advance of January 6th, 2021, to identify any intelligence, including CHS, that's Confidential Human Source, reporting, about potential threats to the January 6th electoral certification.

00:42:20.000 Several FBI officials told the OIG, the Office of Inspector General, it is common practice for the FBI to ask field offices to canvas their sources for information in advance of a large event, such as the inauguration, Super Bowl, or other events with significant attendance, and to report that information to the requesting field office.

00:42:35.000 FBI Deputy Director Paul Abaddy, who was the Associate Deputy Director at the time, described the lack of a canvas prior to January 6th as a basic step that was missed and told the OIG he would have expected a formal canvassing of sources to have occurred through the issue of an intelligence collection product because it would have been the most thorough approach to understanding the threat picture prior to January 6th.

00:42:53.000 So, in other words, the FBI did not go to its field offices and ask them to canvas their confidential human sources, people who, say, were members of the crowd on January 6th, or were going to be, About what they thought was going to happen on January 6th.

00:43:06.000 At the same time, quote, we found no evidence in the materials reviewed or the testimony received showing or suggesting the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds or at the Capitol on January 6th.

00:43:16.000 And so that's been the accusations that you actually had members of the FBI, like hired members of the FBI in the crowd, spurring people to go into the Capitol.

00:43:25.000 The OIG says we have no evidence of that.

00:43:27.000 We reviewed the documented CHS reporting the FBI had prior to the riot and breach of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. We determined that three confidential human sources had been tasked by FBI field officials in the days leading up to the January 6th electoral certification with the required approval of the WFO to travel to D.C. for the events of January 6th to report on domestic terrorism subjects who were possibly attending the event.

00:43:48.000 So they had people who were effectively informers in the crowd, who they had told at least three of them to go there and monitor people who were in the crowd.

00:43:55.000 Specifically, one FBI field office tasked a confidential human source to travel to D.C. to report on the activities of a predicated domestic terrorism subject who is separately planning to travel to D.C. for the January 6th electoral certification.

00:44:06.000 A second FBI field office tasked a confidential human source to travel to D.C. to potentially report on two domestic terrorism subjects from another FBI field office who are planning to travel to D.C. for the events of January 6th.

00:44:17.000 And a third confidential human source who had informed their handling agent that they intended to travel to D.C. on their own initiative for the events of January 6th was similarly tasked by their field office to potentially report on two domestic terrorism subjects.

00:44:29.000 Our review concluded none of these three FBI confidential human sources were authorized to enter the Capitol or a restricted area or to otherwise break the law on January 6th, nor was any CHS directed by the FBI to encourage others to commit illegal acts on January 6th.

00:44:41.000 In addition to those three confidential human sources, again, this is the Inspector General report, we found that 23 other FBI confidential human sources were in D.C. on January 6th in connection with the events planned for January 6th.

00:44:53.000 None of these confidential human sources were authorized to enter the Capitol or a restricted area or to otherwise break the law on January 6th.

00:44:59.000 Apparently, 13 entered the restricted area around the Capitol.

00:45:04.000 Nine did not enter a restricted area or enter the Capitol or otherwise engage in illegal activity.

00:45:09.000 Four entered the Capitol itself.

00:45:11.000 None of the CHSs who entered the Capitol or restricted area were prosecuted.

00:45:16.000 So possible reasons are that they are confidential human sources.

00:45:19.000 The FBI is still using them for information and all the rest.

00:45:22.000 So two things as always can be true at once.

00:45:24.000 The FBI had people who worked with them, not for them, in the crowd.

00:45:28.000 Those people...

00:45:29.000 At least three of them were told to go to January 6th and monitor what was going on.

00:45:33.000 There were a bunch of other people who the FBI used as informers who were in the crowd.

00:45:36.000 Some of those people entered the Capitol building and none were arrested.

00:45:40.000 Those are the facts we know.

00:45:41.000 And whatever speculation you draw from that, that is your own opinion.

00:45:44.000 That is the thing that we know from the OIG report, unless you think that they're just plain lying and there actually were paid agents in the crowd.

00:45:50.000 Again, there is no evidence of that.

00:45:51.000 We do know that there were informers in the crowd en masse.

00:45:56.000 So that is what we know.

00:45:57.000 And again, it was true that there were lots of informers in the crowd.

00:46:00.000 And that is not exactly a shock.

00:46:01.000 It turns out that FBI informants, FBI confidential human sources, have in fact been involved in really spicy ops before.

00:46:09.000 Of course, the supposed alleged kidnapping of Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, which was actually spurred.

00:46:16.000 That wasn't an entrapment case.

00:46:17.000 It was actually spurred by people associated with the FBI who are attempting to spin up the entire plot itself.

00:46:23.000 The evidence is still lacking.

00:46:25.000 These confidential human sources were apparently getting people to go into the Capitol.

00:46:28.000 This is why Ray Epps has come up so much, right?

00:46:30.000 Ray Epps was suspected by many people of being a confidential human source working with the FBI, which they say is the reason he wasn't prosecuted.

00:46:38.000 He says he was not a confidential human source.

00:46:39.000 People say that he wasn't a member of the FBI. And I'm just giving you what we know from the report.

00:46:44.000 You can draw your own conclusions.

00:46:45.000 Meanwhile, the FBI is about to be taken over by President Trump.

00:46:50.000 He's going to put Kash Patel in position.

00:46:53.000 As you can see, there are lots of questions about the FBI. The biggest question that emerges just directly from the text of that FBI report, the report about the FBI from the Office of Inspector General, Is that they made a huge signal error, at the very least, in not canvassing their confidential human sources on what they thought was going to happen on January 6th.

00:47:09.000 And I can say they overlooked it deliberately.

00:47:10.000 They didn't make that obvious step, if you're going to speculate, because they knew something bad was going to happen and they were fine with that bad thing happening.

00:47:17.000 You can also say that, just like everything else, they effed it up.

00:47:19.000 That is possible as well.

00:47:21.000 Bottom line is that the FBI under Christopher Wray has made an enormous number of mistakes.

00:47:26.000 Wray himself is stepping down.

00:47:27.000 He announced that he is going to avoid the fray for the FBI by leaving.

00:47:32.000 After weeks of careful thought, I've decided the right thing for the Bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down.

00:47:44.000 My goal is to keep the focus on our mission, on the indispensable work each of you is doing every single day.

00:47:53.000 And in my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the Bureau deeper into the fray while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important in how we do our work.

00:48:09.000 One of the big problems here is that really he should stick around until he's fired.

00:48:12.000 Actually, what you could see here is something very much akin to what happened with Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Sally Yates.

00:48:18.000 So if you recall, after Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 20th, 2017, The Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, resigned specifically so that a deputy could take over briefly and then do a bunch of dirty work.

00:48:32.000 That would have been Sally Yates. 0.52

00:48:33.000 Donald Trump then came in and then fired Sally Yates, but not before she'd done some damage. 1.00

00:48:37.000 So this could be one of the problems that is being set up here by Chris Wray.

00:48:41.000 And it can all be undone, but it could be a problem.

00:48:44.000 This gap that's now being created.

00:48:45.000 House Democrats, for their part, they're mad.

00:48:46.000 They wanted Trump to actually have to fire Chris Wray so that they could fuss about it.

00:48:50.000 Here, for example, is Jerry Connolly of Virginia, very angry at Christopher Wray for leaving.

00:48:56.000 I think for the rank and file FBI, I think his decision to resign prematurely under pressure is tantamount to abandonment.

00:49:06.000 Abandonment of the FBI and abandonment of them and their protections, exposing them to a political purge.

00:49:15.000 Okay, yeah, again, like, of course they want him to stick around.

00:49:18.000 Why not?

00:49:18.000 I mean, he's done such a bang-up job.

00:49:20.000 Faith in the FBI is at all-time lows and for pretty good reason.

00:49:23.000 Meanwhile, we do bid a fond farewell to Cori Bush.

00:49:26.000 Cori Bush is the St. Louis congressperson who is a Black Lives Matter congressperson. 0.95

00:49:32.000 She was elected on the back of that movement.

00:49:34.000 No one showed up for her finale speech.

00:49:37.000 Literally, the entire chamber was empty except for Rashida Tlaib, Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, and friends.

00:49:42.000 And here's Cori Bush paying homage to Hamas in her farewell speech. 0.65

00:49:48.000 From St. Louis to Gaza and everywhere beyond and in between, always remember this congresswoman loves you and will always have your back, even if it means I lose something.

00:50:04.000 So until we rise again, St. Louis, I love you.

00:50:10.000 I yield back my time to the chair.

00:50:14.000 And Rashida Tlaib is in tears in the back. 0.88

00:50:16.000 Oh my gosh, so much.

00:50:17.000 Look at the chamber.

00:50:18.000 Everyone's like, bye.

00:50:19.000 Catch you later.

00:50:20.000 So many good things happen in politics this year.

00:50:22.000 Alrighty, coming up.

00:50:24.000 Speaking of good things happening in politics, Javier Mille in Argentina, he's having the last laugh.

00:50:28.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

00:50:29.000 Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - December 13, 2024

The Race Rape Hoax That Started It All…COLLAPSES

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