The Ben Shapiro Show - The Second Whistleblower | Ep. 874

00:00:00.000 A second whistleblower comes forward in the Trump impeachment saga, Rudy Giuliani and President Trump play defense, and Chuck Todd goes off.

00:00:07.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

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

00:00:09.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN Podcasts.

00:00:17.000 Protect your online privacy today at ExpressVPN.com slash Ben.

00:00:22.000 Alrighty, so the big news of the day is that a second whistleblower has now come forward.

00:00:26.000 Ooh, everyone is so excited!

00:00:27.000 A second whistleblower!

00:00:29.000 The first whistleblower didn't have a lot to say other than what was actually in the transcript of the Ukraine phone call.

00:00:34.000 Remember, this whistleblower, the first whistleblower, turned out to be a registered Democrat who was working inside the intelligence community.

00:00:39.000 He was a CIA officer, and it looks a lot like that whistleblower was working in cahoots with Adam Schiff on the House Intelligence Committee, and that the two of them were sort of playing an inside-outside game.

00:00:50.000 Now, Whether that's the fault of the whistleblower or whether that just means that the aide to Adam Schiff was passing the information along to Adam Schiff and he was then pressing for information from the outside, the whole thing looked at least a little bit fishy.

00:01:02.000 Well, now we have a second whistleblower.

00:01:04.000 Ooh, how exciting!

00:01:06.000 So what do we know about this second whistleblower?

00:01:08.000 As it turns out, Not much.

00:01:10.000 Here's what the Associated Press reports today.

00:01:12.000 Now, here's the thing.

00:01:27.000 What could a whistleblower even say at this point that would radically shift the case?

00:01:31.000 Well, presumably the whistleblower could say that they have evidence that Donald Trump specifically said that he was creating a quid pro quo for the purposes of getting Joe Biden, not merely targeting corruption generally and Joe Biden as an aspect of that, but to get Joe Biden regardless as to whether Joe Biden was guilty or not.

00:01:47.000 And that this whistleblower had actual firsthand or hearsay knowledge that Trump had said this directly to somebody.

00:01:54.000 That's not what the whistleblower is saying.

00:01:56.000 However, remember the first whistleblower, we already have the transcript.

00:01:58.000 So what is the second whistleblower going to say that the first one didn't?

00:02:01.000 Attorney Mark Zaid represents both whistleblowers.

00:02:03.000 He said in a text message to the AP that the second person has spoken to the ICs, that's the intelligence community's internal watchdog, and can corroborate information in the original whistleblower complaint.

00:02:13.000 Which, like, what is in there aside from the transcript of the phone call and stuff that we already sort of know from the text messages between Kurt Volker, who is the Special Envoy to Ukraine, and Gordon Sondland, who is the U.S.

00:02:25.000 Ambassador to the European Union, and Bill Taylor, who is the...

00:02:29.000 Temporary ambassador to the Ukraine like we already know all that stuff because all those texts were released So what can the second whistleblower actually do other than just sort of add fuel to the fire because whoo whistleblower whistleblower?

00:02:39.000 We're all we are all very fond of this term whistleblower and so that means that they must have something relevant to say well what if there's not all that much there we're gonna find out because Who the hell knows what this whistleblower has to say.

00:02:50.000 I'll explain in just one second.

00:02:51.000 First, there's a lot of talk of impeachment, obviously, in Washington.

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00:03:59.000 Okay, so as the Associated Press reports, the new whistleblower is apparently just going to corroborate Well, we already have all the documents, so I'm not sure exactly what the new whistleblower is going to say.

00:04:10.000 Apparently, the new whistleblower works in the intelligence field and has first-hand knowledge of key events.

00:04:14.000 So, I guess that could change things.

00:04:16.000 I mean, if the whistleblower is not just speaking on third-hand knowledge like the first whistleblower, but actually has heard Trump say something, that might change something.

00:04:23.000 The emergence of the second whistleblower threatened to undermine arguments from Trump and his allies to discredit the original complaint.

00:04:28.000 They have called it politically motivated, claimed it was filed improperly, and dismissed it as unreliable because it was based on second-hand or third-hand information.

00:04:36.000 Now, as you'll know from listening to this show, I have never claimed that the actual whistleblower complaint was deeply unreliable.

00:04:42.000 In fact, it seemed mostly accurate.

00:04:44.000 The big problem with the whistleblower complaint is whether it actually Whether it represented something that was truly impeachable.

00:04:53.000 I shouldn't say truly troubling, because I am troubled by it.

00:04:55.000 I'm troubled by President Trump going to Ukraine and then throwing Joe Biden's name out there because obviously it raises the ugly specter of the President of the United States, even possibly.

00:04:55.000 I am.

00:05:05.000 Putting pressure on a foreign country to investigate a domestic political opponent?

00:05:09.000 That's not something you want to do lightly.

00:05:11.000 And then when President Trump goes out there and doubles down on it, and says things like, like, that doesn't help.

00:05:17.000 That doesn't help.

00:05:18.000 The reason it doesn't help is because Trump's entire defense right now, his entire defense, rests on something very simple, which is he is saying, I was targeting corruption in Ukraine, and thus all of my threats to withhold aid, all of my threats to keep Vice President Pence from meeting with Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, all of my threats not to meet with Zelensky myself, all of that was predicated on my desire to fight corruption.

00:05:40.000 And Joe Biden, well, that's because, you know, listen, that stuff's corrupt, right?

00:05:43.000 Hunter Biden, I think it's corrupt. 0.81

00:05:45.000 Burisma, it's corrupt. 1.00

00:05:46.000 And so I told them, investigate that as an aspect of broader corruption investigations.

00:05:51.000 Now, that only works if you believe that Trump's primary or main or even admixed motivation has to do with corruption.

00:06:00.000 If you actually believe that Trump wanted to go after Biden and that all the corruption stuff is basically just nonsense that he added on top, it's sort of a facade, and you rip away the facade and all that's there is his desire to get Biden, well, that's impeachable.

00:06:13.000 But if he's ripping on corruption, well, Frankly, that is what Joe Biden did, right?

00:06:18.000 I mean, Joe Biden did, in fact, threaten to withhold $1 billion in loan aid to Ukraine contingent on Ukraine fighting corruption.

00:06:27.000 And one of the aspects of corruption that Ukraine was supposed to fight was getting rid of a prosecutor who may or may not have been investigating Burisma, the oil and natural gas company on which Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, was sitting.

00:06:39.000 He was sitting on the board at the time, taking down $50,000 a month for basically being a person with the last name Biden.

00:06:45.000 According to the Associated Press, Democrats have zeroed in on the State Department in the opening phase of their impeachment investigation.

00:06:51.000 The Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs Committees have already interviewed Kurt Volker, a former Special Envoy to Ukraine who provided the text messages.

00:06:58.000 At least two other witnesses are set for depositions this week.

00:07:01.000 Gordon Sondland, the U.S.

00:07:02.000 Ambassador to the European Union, and Marie Yovanovitch, who was abruptly ousted as the U.S.

00:07:06.000 Ambassador to Ukraine in May.

00:07:08.000 Now, Volker's testimony did not actually help President Trump a whole hell of a lot.

00:07:12.000 There were some people who were trying to spin it that way.

00:07:14.000 It helped Volker.

00:07:15.000 Because what Volcker said is, listen, I didn't talk to the Trump administration about Biden.

00:07:19.000 In fact, I told Rudy that I thought that the Biden stuff was way overblown.

00:07:23.000 And I encouraged the United States to work with Ukraine to root out corruption and to get them their aid.

00:07:30.000 But Volcker didn't actually say that nobody inside the administration ever said anything about Biden.

00:07:36.000 He never suggested that Giuliani was not whispering sweet nothings into Donald Trump's ears.

00:07:41.000 In fact, Volker sort of suggested the opposite.

00:07:43.000 He sort of suggested that Rudy Giuliani, as the chief envoy to Ukraine, basically, for the Trump campaign, was in fact the go-between that the Ukrainians were having to please.

00:07:55.000 Right, so Volker's testimony was not particularly helpful.

00:07:58.000 Gordon Sondland, he's gonna be showing up to testify.

00:08:01.000 The reason Gordon Sondland is important is because Bill Taylor, who was the acting U.S.

00:08:05.000 ambassador to Ukraine, texted Gordon Sondland and said, this sounds like a quid pro quo to go after Biden.

00:08:10.000 And Gordon Sondland texted back, no, that's not true.

00:08:12.000 Give me a call.

00:08:13.000 Democrats presumably will hone in on that and suggest that the reason that Sondland wanted this to be a call as opposed to a text message is because he was going to explain offline that maybe in fact, this was in fact a quid pro quo to go after Joe Biden.

00:08:26.000 And finally, Marie Yovanovitch, who was the U.S.

00:08:29.000 ambassador to Ukraine, she was ousted, and the claim has been that it's because she was not going to pressure the Ukrainian government to go after Biden, although that is still, again, unclear, because she was ousted based on general belief that she was a pro-Democrat And you have to understand that a lot of what President Trump does on a daily basis is coming from a lack of security in his own administration.

00:08:56.000 It's coming from a belief that inside the administration there are people who are leaking against him, which is true.

00:09:01.000 There's a belief that there are people inside the administration who are looking for excuses to come after him to undermine his presidency.

00:09:08.000 That's kind of true.

00:09:10.000 And it does make one suspicious if it turns out that this is now what the third whistleblower inside of a week and a half who's now using the whistleblower status in order to pump some sort of quasi scandal into the public viewpoint without proper information being made public in the first place.

00:09:26.000 According to the Associated Press, Trump and his supporters deny that he did anything improper, but the White House has struggled to come up with a unified response.

00:09:32.000 No administration officials appeared on the Sunday news shows to defend the president, while other Republicans focused mainly on attacking Democrats.

00:09:38.000 A few Republicans suggested that Trump was only joking this past week when he publicly called on China to investigate the Bidens.

00:09:44.000 Well, as we will discuss in just a little while, there is a reason why Republicans are not appearing on national television, and it is not really fear of the media.

00:09:51.000 It is fear that President Trump will reverse course on them.

00:09:54.000 In a matter of a heartbeat, and then they'll be stuck holding the short end of the broom, and things are not going to go great for them at that point.

00:10:01.000 They'll go out there, they'll defend President Trump, and then he will just go on Twitter and completely blow up that defense.

00:10:05.000 He has done that repeatedly.

00:10:07.000 President Trump himself is tweeting.

00:10:10.000 He wrote, the great scam is being revealed.

00:10:12.000 He painted himself as the victim of the deep state.

00:10:15.000 Again, there may be a case that there are people inside his own government who are who are militating against the success of his administration.

00:10:23.000 After all, the FBI was in fact investigating him for two years on the Mueller stuff and came up with basically nothing that was criminal in terms of behavior.

00:10:33.000 Trump also decided to go after Nancy Pelosi.

00:10:35.000 He tweeted out, Nancy Pelosi knew of all of the many shifty Adam Schiff lies and massive frauds perpetrated upon Congress and the American people in the form of a fraudulent speech knowingly delivered as a ruthless con and the illegal meetings with a highly partisan whistleblower and lawyer.

00:10:51.000 This makes Nancy nervous every bit, nervous Nancy every bit as guilty as little Adam Schiff.

00:10:56.000 He always puts it like a little apostrophe at the end of little, which that's not how English works.

00:11:00.000 Little Adam Schiff for high crimes and misdemeanors and even treason.

00:11:02.000 I guess that means that they, along with all of those that evilly colluded with them must all be immediately impeached.

00:11:09.000 Yeah, he also would later go after Chuck Todd, as we'll see in just a few minutes.

00:11:14.000 So, this is the real reason why Republicans are sort of all over the place with President Trump.

00:11:20.000 The answer is because how exactly are they supposed to defend a guy who has a series of shifting defenses every five seconds?

00:11:27.000 It's very difficult.

00:11:29.000 Imagine that you're a Republican who went out there like, you know what?

00:11:31.000 President Trump definitely, definitely was not calling on governments to investigate Joe Biden specifically.

00:11:36.000 And then the next day he comes out and he's like, I would like for China to investigate Joe Biden specifically.

00:11:41.000 What are you supposed to do with that if you're a Republican?

00:11:44.000 Put you in such an awkward position.

00:11:45.000 We'll get to more of this in just a second.

00:11:48.000 We'll get to, again, why the Democrats seem to be so reliant on whistleblowers.

00:11:52.000 And part of the reason is because they think there's criminal activity inside the administration.

00:11:56.000 That's the obvious reason.

00:11:57.000 Then there's the non-obvious reason, which is they won't use their investigative power as members of Congress.

00:12:01.000 Instead, they're waiting for people inside the administration to militate against the administration from within, which is driving Trump's paranoia, which in turn is driving him to Believe in certain conspiracy theories that he is then seeking to justify, that he is seeking to evidence by sending people like Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine.

00:12:19.000 We'll get to more of that in just one second.

00:12:20.000 First.

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00:13:35.000 Right now.

00:13:35.000 So as I say, the Democrats are over the moon about this whole whistleblower thing.

00:13:39.000 Dr. Allison Stranger has a piece in the New York Times today called, Well, sometimes they're partisans, sometimes they're stewards of our constitutional democracy, and sometimes they're both.

00:13:51.000 Sometimes they're stewards of our constitutional democracy, and sometimes they're both.

00:13:56.000 The question is, what are these whistleblowers?

00:13:59.000 It's just not true that everybody who claims to be blowing a whistle is doing a grand public Sometimes the person blowing the whistle is alleging a crime that doesn't actually end up being fulfilled.

00:14:10.000 This is why Trump is so paranoid about people inside his administration.

00:14:13.000 This is why he was putting his conversations, his transcripts with foreign leaders in this classified file.

00:14:20.000 This electronic file that nobody was able to get access to.

00:14:22.000 Why?

00:14:22.000 Because there were people inside his administration who kept running the media every five seconds.

00:14:27.000 That, by the way, has prompted a federal judge to order the White House to preserve a wide range of evidence about President Trump's dealings with foreign leaders, including his interactions related to Ukraine that have fueled an impeachment investigation in the House.

00:14:39.000 U.S.

00:14:39.000 District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued the order on Thursday, directing that White House officials not destroy records of meetings, phone calls, and other communications with foreign leaders.

00:14:50.000 The judge's order also appears to specifically address reports that the Trump White House set up a special system to limit access to certain records of presidential conversations with foreign leaders.

00:14:59.000 Jackson, of course, is an appointee of Barack Obama.

00:15:01.000 It is a very weird thing, by the way, to suggest that the White House has to preserve records of foreign conversations with foreign leaders.

00:15:09.000 That is a strange thing.

00:15:11.000 It's one thing to suggest that if they are under subpoena, you have to preserve the records.

00:15:15.000 It's another thing to suggest that they have to preserve the records even when they're not under subpoena.

00:15:20.000 I think it's probably a good thing as a general rule that these things are preserved, but if the idea is that the executive branch must turn that stuff over to the legislative branch, I'm not sure that's always the case.

00:15:31.000 The president does have plenary power over foreign policy, whether you're Barack Obama signing a crappy deal with Iran or whether you are Donald Trump saying ill-advised things to foreign leaders.

00:15:41.000 Meanwhile, the Democrats are expanding their rage against William Barr, who's the attorney general, obviously.

00:15:47.000 There's a piece in the Wall Street Journal today talking about Attorney General Barr going to various foreign capitals to seek help in reviewing the origins of the U.S.

00:15:57.000 counterintelligence investigation begun during the 2016 presidential campaign.

00:16:00.000 And this is where we start getting into this very dicey territory.

00:16:03.000 And a lot of people on the left today, and they keep saying, why are so many Republicans not just saying impeach already?

00:16:09.000 Why aren't they saying impeach already?

00:16:11.000 And the answer is twofold.

00:16:13.000 One, you actually have to prove the elements of the crime.

00:16:16.000 And two, you also have to prove that the elements of the crime committed are beyond any crime committed before by a president that was not used as the basis for impeachment.

00:16:28.000 In other words, there is the legal standard for impeachment, which is basically anything.

00:16:33.000 And then there's the criminal standard for impeachment, which is you must commit a crime.

00:16:36.000 And then there's the James Comey standard for impeachment.

00:16:38.000 Remember the James Comey, when he was talking about Hillary Clinton, he said, listen, yes, intent was not an element of the crime, of misuse of classified information.

00:16:47.000 But our history of prosecution suggests that we don't have any similar cases like Hillary's, where we actually went forward with prosecution.

00:16:53.000 Precedent suggests that she not be prosecuted.

00:16:56.000 And people like me who said, whoa, hold up, that's not right.

00:16:58.000 You're supposed to stick with the statute.

00:17:00.000 OK, well, that is that is generally true.

00:17:04.000 I will, however, point out that there is a case to be made that what Comey was saying was at least correct in terms of prosecutorial discretion.

00:17:10.000 And when you're talking about impeachment and you're talking about impeachable offenses, here's the reality.

00:17:14.000 Nearly every president commits some sort of impeachable offense.

00:17:18.000 I mean, there's a good case to be made that Barack Obama, the IRS droning American citizens.

00:17:22.000 There's a lot of stuff that Barack Obama was doing that at the very least fell into the category of criminality.

00:17:29.000 Right, whether it required more proof to actually prove it for impeachment purposes, probably.

00:17:33.000 But I mean, I wrote an entire book called The People vs. Barack Obama, where I talked about the various activities that bordered on the criminal inside the Obama administration.

00:17:41.000 Was he impeached over any of that?

00:17:42.000 No.

00:17:42.000 So, in order for Democrats to now claim, here's the thing, in order for Democrats to claim that Republicans should get on board for an impeachment, what they must show is not merely that a crime has been committed, they must show that the crime is different in kind than anything that they justified themselves.

00:17:59.000 That was the difference between the Nixon activities and activities by prior presidents.

00:18:04.000 The fact is there were prior presidents, like I believe LBJ actually, bugged Barry Goldwater's headquarters in 64.

00:18:10.000 But the reality is that it was proved with Nixon, the cover-up was proved with Nixon, and Republicans said, listen, this is beyond anything that we've actually seen before, so we're jumping on board.

00:18:19.000 Democrats are holding a standard, and that standard should be upheld. 0.96

00:18:23.000 We saw with Bill Clinton committing perjury, that it was completely partisan.

00:18:27.000 There was nobody on the Democratic side of the aisle who actually supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

00:18:33.000 But Republicans at least could make the case that the president had committed perjury, and this was a new standard of low.

00:18:39.000 So, you need two things.

00:18:40.000 You need to prove one criminal activity, in my opinion.

00:18:44.000 Right, again, this is all opinion, because the fact is you don't have to prove anything for an impeachment.

00:18:47.000 An impeachment is completely political.

00:18:50.000 The provisions about impeachment say nothing about an actual crime being committed.

00:18:54.000 It says high crimes and misdemeanors, but that is a political term.

00:18:57.000 With that said, I think the standard for impeachment should be twofold.

00:19:00.000 One, criminal activity occurred, and we can all agree criminal activity occurred.

00:19:04.000 And two, that criminal activity was so far and above beyond what had come before and was not the basis of impeachment that it justifies impeachment.

00:19:12.000 That would be the twofold standard.

00:19:14.000 So when Democrats are going after Attorney General Barr and saying that Attorney General Barr is doing something deeply wrong in talking with foreign allies to review the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, and they say by meeting directly with foreign leaders rather than relying on investigator-to-investigator channels, Mr. Barr has stirred up domestic politics in some of the countries he has tapped for assistance because he talked with Italy and he talked with Australia and people were getting super uptight.

00:19:41.000 Is that impeachable stuff?

00:19:43.000 I struggle to see why it is, considering that three Democratic senators earlier this year called on the government of Ukraine to cooperate with the Mueller report and in fact investigate allegations regarding Russian election interference.

00:19:58.000 So when it comes to impeachment, if you want a bipartisan impeachment, then it really does have to be what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

00:20:04.000 In other words, it's got to be some sort of standard that rises beyond partisanship.

00:20:08.000 And that is exactly what we are not seeing at this point from the Democrats.

00:20:13.000 First of all, we don't see the full extension of the crime.

00:20:16.000 Because as they say, in order to prove the crime here, in order to prove the quid pro quo that is criminal in nature, Not just a quid pro quo, but a quid pro quo for something criminal.

00:20:23.000 You have to prove that it wasn't about corruption at all.

00:20:26.000 It was just about getting Joe Biden.

00:20:28.000 Rudy Giuliani is a very awkward human being, but Rudy Giuliani did in fact make this point.

00:20:33.000 He said, listen, we have a mandate to investigate corruption.

00:20:36.000 And just because Joe Biden gets caught up in that does not mean that Joe Biden is the target or that it is improper to investigate Joe Biden in the first place.

00:20:45.000 No, not at all.

00:20:46.000 There's nothing wrong with her doing it.

00:20:47.000 I mean, the fact is the President of the United States has every right to ask countries to help us in a criminal investigation that should be undertaken.

00:20:56.000 That happens to involve a political opponent.

00:20:59.000 Well, I can't help that.

00:21:00.000 I mean, suppose the political opponent committed murder.

00:21:04.000 What are we going to do?

00:21:04.000 He's a political opponent, so you don't investigate him?

00:21:07.000 OK, well, there's some truth to that.

00:21:09.000 It is also true that Joe Biden is not the nominee.

00:21:11.000 Joe Biden is not the nominee.

00:21:12.000 The Trump, the Obama administration.

00:21:15.000 Actively investigated Paul Manafort in Ukraine.

00:21:18.000 They didn't stop that investigation when Paul Manafort became the Trump campaign manager.

00:21:22.000 In fact, they intensified the investigation into the Trump campaign overall.

00:21:25.000 They didn't go to Trump and warn him.

00:21:27.000 They didn't say, by the way, you're a campaign manager.

00:21:29.000 He's under investigation for the possibility of criminal activity in Ukraine.

00:21:32.000 Instead, they broadened out the investigation to include the entire Trump campaign.

00:21:37.000 Right?

00:21:37.000 To include Trump himself.

00:21:39.000 So before we get into like, this is something completely different in kind, I don't really see how it's something completely different in kind unless, unless, unless this thing, and this is what we have yet to see, unless this thing was solely about getting Joe Biden and it was not at all about corruption.

00:21:55.000 I'll show you another example in a second of the media trying to pretend that certain activity that may be something you don't like is somehow only bad when one side of the aisle does it.

00:22:06.000 We'll get to that in just one second.

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00:22:50.000 Well, since it is the time of year when you're getting ready for Halloween and thinking about ghouls and demons and your own moldering corpse, well, maybe now would be a good time to prepare for that eventuality with a little bit of life insurance.

00:23:01.000 Go be an adult.

00:23:02.000 Go to policygenius.com, get quotes, apply minutes.

00:23:04.000 You can do the whole thing on your phone right now.

00:23:06.000 And then you can enjoy the candy because, hey, if you die early from some sort of horrible Okay, so, as I say, one of the reasons why Republicans are not jumping on the bandwagon is because every piece of news seems directed toward ignoring Democrats doing sort of the same thing.

00:23:28.000 So, let me give you a perfect example.

00:23:30.000 Big headline from NBC News today.

00:23:33.000 Trump blames Energy Secretary Rick Perry for Ukraine call at Center of Impeachment Inquiry.

00:23:37.000 So President Trump is mad at Rick Perry.

00:23:39.000 Why?

00:23:39.000 Because Rick Perry was pushing for the call.

00:23:41.000 Why was Rick Perry pushing for the call?

00:23:43.000 Because he wanted to open up natural gas and oil development in Ukraine to the West.

00:23:48.000 Why does this matter?

00:23:49.000 Because then the AP has a piece called Profit Not Politics, what some Trump allies did in Ukraine.

00:23:57.000 As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump's main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet Republic.

00:24:08.000 Their aims were profit, not politics.

00:24:10.000 This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine's massive state gas company.

00:24:19.000 Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.

00:24:26.000 The effort to install a friendlier management team at the helm of a gas company called Naftogaz would be taken up by Ukraine's new president, with Ukraine's new president, by U.S.

00:24:35.000 Energy Secretary Rick Perry, whose slate of candidates included a fellow Texan who is one of Perry's past political donors.

00:24:41.000 Now, you may be saying to yourself, hold up a second.

00:24:45.000 Am I supposed to be suspicious of Rick Perry because Rick Perry has friends who are in the Ukrainian natural oil and gas sector and maybe are using, dropping names in order to get ahead?

00:24:56.000 What if I switched that name for you, and instead of Rick Perry, I just said Joe Biden?

00:25:00.000 Are we allowed to be suspicious anymore, or does the suspicion disappear?

00:25:03.000 Poof! 0.99

00:25:03.000 We're supposed to pretend it's not suspicious at all when Hunter Biden ends up with no oil or natural gas experience, pulling down 50 grand a month, because his daddy is the Vice President of the United States. 0.99

00:25:13.000 Right, like that, is that really?

00:25:16.000 Is it, like, this is why people are going nuts.

00:25:18.000 Like, okay, so you're gonna tell me it's super corrupt when friends of Trump are doing business in Ukraine with oil and natural gas, but when it's Joe Biden's son, then we're supposed to pretend that none of this matters at all.

00:25:28.000 Like, at all, at all.

00:25:30.000 We're supposed to pretend that Joe Biden is pure as the driven snow, and so is Hunter Biden, and any questions you ask about them are fully illegitimate.

00:25:36.000 Now again, for the 1,000th time, if Donald Trump has no evidence and no serious questions to be asked about Joe Biden or Hunter Biden, he's just going after them for political purposes by leveraging military aid to a country under the threat of the Russians in order to go after his political opponents solely and completely because of not corruption, and not because of 2016, and election interference, not because of any of that, but simply because he doesn't like Joe Biden, not only is that wrong, that's impeachable, but are we there yet?

00:26:06.000 I think we have a ways to go there at first.

00:26:08.000 I do find it somewhat hilarious that you get people like Cory Booker, who says that the minute you ask him a question about Joe Biden, it is completely unfair.

00:26:17.000 Cory Booker, which show was he on?

00:26:20.000 I'm trying to remember.

00:26:20.000 He said that even asking questions about Joe Biden is unfair at this point.

00:26:26.000 If you could just stop it, stop asking those questions.

00:26:29.000 Are questions about Hunter Biden fair in the context of a president who is accused of doing really what I would think were unimaginable things?

00:26:39.000 As I said, shocking me?

00:26:41.000 Is it questions about Hunter Biden in this context?

00:26:44.000 Somebody who has been investigated, somebody who from the Ukrainians to Americans to Europeans, there's no evidence whatsoever.

00:26:52.000 So no, it is not fair that the president of the United States is trying to get all of us to be talking about someone else Other than him.

00:27:01.000 Okay, and then it'll be fun to watch CNN immediately shift in the next segment to let's talk about Rick Perry's energy connections in Ukraine, guys.

00:27:07.000 Let's talk about the Trump administration's energy connections in Ukraine.

00:27:11.000 And by the way, the Washington Post will give a full op-ed to Joe Biden called Trump Won't Destroy Me and He Won't Destroy My Family.

00:27:19.000 And it's all about how Joe Biden is a wonderful dude and anybody who asks questions about Hunter Biden is just wrong and it's all mean and it's all terrible.

00:27:27.000 He says end to Trump and those who facilitate his abuses of power and all the special interests funding his attacks against me.

00:27:31.000 Please, no.

00:27:32.000 I'm not going anywhere.

00:27:33.000 You won't destroy me.

00:27:34.000 You won't destroy my family.

00:27:36.000 Come November 2020, I intend to beat you like a drum.

00:27:38.000 Come November 2020, dude, you are going to be eating early bird dinner at Denny's because you are not the nominee.

00:27:43.000 Elizabeth Warren is going to win this nomination. 0.98

00:27:45.000 So that is not a thing that is going to happen.

00:27:48.000 Okay, I'm going to get back into this double standard.

00:27:49.000 And again, this is not whataboutism.

00:27:51.000 It's very bad for Trump to say things like China should investigate Joe Biden.

00:27:54.000 It's very bad for Trump to say that Ukraine should investigate Joe Biden and not be clear that he's talking about corruption more broadly.

00:28:02.000 The question is twofold.

00:28:02.000 Did he commit a criminal act?

00:28:04.000 Two, is that criminal act impeachable?

00:28:07.000 Because not every criminal act is impeachable.

00:28:09.000 So we're going to get back to the double standard, which sets the standard for that second question, right?

00:28:14.000 Is this something brand new and beyond the pale?

00:28:16.000 And why Republicans seem to be kicking back so hard against the idea that this is something brand new and beyond the pale.

00:28:22.000 It's funny, Democrats seem to believe that the world began spinning with Trump.

00:28:25.000 And so you have all these articles today about, well, the unworkability of American government and this feeling of cynicism that is spread across the country.

00:28:33.000 I'm old enough to remember a president before Trump named Barack Obama.

00:28:35.000 Some of us are pretty cynical about politics because of that sort of manipulation.

00:28:38.000 We'll get to more of this in just one second.

00:28:41.000 First, sometimes you just need to pray, okay?

00:28:45.000 Not just on politics, but, you know, just on life.

00:28:48.000 Prayer is something that I do thrice daily.

00:28:50.000 In fact, I'm about to spend an entire day at prayer on Yom Kippur.

00:28:53.000 Prayer is very important to my life because not only does it help Comfort you and give you an ability to focus and create for yourself the intense sort of agenda for the coming day.

00:29:07.000 It helps you coordinate with something beyond yourself.

00:29:09.000 And this is why we here at The Ben Shapiro Show are partnering with Pray.com.

00:29:12.000 It is the number one app for prayer and sleep.

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00:29:56.000 Okay, in just a second, we're gonna continue discussing these double standards and the media's outrage at Republicans who refuse to immediately cave in to, it's time to impeach, it's time to impeach.

00:30:05.000 By the way, They asked Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat in the Senate, about whether she would impeach, and she was like, I'm not going to answer it.

00:30:11.000 We'll get to that in just one second.

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00:30:47.000 So as I say, when you're talking about the double standard in which the left engages, So John Brennan, I mean, this is just insane.

00:31:03.000 So John Brennan, the former head of the CIA, he was on the news over the weekend being newsy.

00:31:10.000 And I don't even know why exactly this dude is considered a reliable pundit in any way.

00:31:15.000 He's on Meet the Press, and he says the CIA would literally not assess America as a democracy any longer.

00:31:21.000 We're supposed to take John Brennan seriously about this.

00:31:23.000 This is gaslighting of the highest order.

00:31:25.000 We would look at it as a very corrupt government that is under the sway right now of this powerful individual who has been able to just corrupt the institutions and the laws of that country.

00:31:39.000 What would you say about the stability of the democracy?

00:31:42.000 I think it's no longer, you know, a democracy if an autocrat has it in his hands.

00:31:47.000 And people like Johnson and others are putty in his hands, which means that the democratic principles upon which this country was founded are eroding right now.

00:31:56.000 Okay, they're eroding?

00:31:57.000 You know what?

00:31:57.000 ...tended to erode the democratic principles when you lied in front of the Senate repeatedly.

00:32:01.000 In 2014, John Brennan, who is the CIA director, lied emphatically, according to Victor Davis Hanson, that the CIA had not illegally accessed the computers of U.S.

00:32:09.000 Senate staffers who were then exploring a CIA role in torturing detainees.

00:32:13.000 Liberal senators started going after him, and Brennan had to apologize.

00:32:17.000 In May 2017, as an ex-CIA director, he again almost certainly did not tell the truth to Congress when he testified and answered to Representative Trey Gowdy's questions that he neither knew who had commissioned the Steele dossier, nor had the CIA relied on its contents for any action.

00:32:31.000 Then he spent two years Claiming that he had secret information that the other shoe was about to drop in the Russia investigation.

00:32:37.000 Like, that dude did more to undermine confidence in America's institutions than virtually anybody in American public life for the last five to ten years.

00:32:46.000 And yet, you got Chuck Todd, that wonderful Do you understand how we got here?

00:32:52.000 creator yeah i mean chuck todd just really sterling stuff over the weekend saying you know john brennan does he ask him a follow-up about that you know when you talk about destruction of american institutions were you instrumental in any of that mr mr no it's why is everyone so mean to you john brennan why are people so mean to you do you understand how we got here and how would you explain to somebody you've been completely character assassinated and eviscerated and And it doesn't matter whether people like you or hate you.

00:33:19.000 I think everybody can agree, you've been put through this.

00:33:23.000 Do you understand how you got here?

00:33:25.000 Now, come on!

00:33:26.000 That was the question.

00:33:27.000 That was the question that led to, oh, now the institutions have been led awry.

00:33:31.000 Again, you think the Republicans are immediately going to cave to, yes, I think that the Democrats are not pursuing a partisan impeachment.

00:33:37.000 I think they're being completely above board.

00:33:39.000 Listen, Amy Klobuchar, the senator from Minnesota running for president, she was asked straight up, would you vote to remove the president from office today?

00:33:46.000 And even Amy Klobuchar was like, eh, I'm not sure I can say that because Amy Klobuchar is the only non-crazy person running for president. 0.95

00:33:52.000 Jake, I have been very clear.

00:33:54.000 I think this is impeachable, that the case should be heard by the House and it should come over to the Senate.

00:34:00.000 Now, I don't know what counts they're going to have or how they're going to do this.

00:34:05.000 Okay, so again, she's kind of unclear there.

00:34:07.000 Don't know exactly what's going to happen there.

00:34:09.000 Maybe it'll be this, maybe it'll be that.

00:34:12.000 Now, we get to the Republican response.

00:34:14.000 Now, over the weekend, the big hubbub, of course, was that Republicans were apparently just covering for Trump.

00:34:18.000 Now, here is the biggest problem for Republicans, and it is a problem.

00:34:21.000 There's a very... The most convincing defense of President Trump is that President Trump says dumb crap repeatedly. 1.00

00:34:29.000 That has always been the most convincing defense of President Trump. 0.99

00:34:32.000 You know why?

00:34:33.000 Because it is highly plausible.

00:34:35.000 You know how we know that?

00:34:35.000 Because we watch him.

00:34:38.000 Because he has a Twitter account in which he doesn't spell things correctly and in which he capitalizes random words. 1.00

00:34:46.000 Says dumb crap repeatedly. 1.00

00:34:48.000 It's pretty much his motto, right? 1.00

00:34:50.000 It's like on his business card.

00:34:52.000 And then I became famous, like, what are we talking about?

00:34:54.000 And yet, and so when it comes to scandals, when it comes to, President Trump came up with a plan.

00:34:59.000 The plan was deploy Rudy Giuliani to uncover the specific corruption of Joe Biden, and then leverage the Ukrainian government to help Rudy Giuliani to go after the specific corruption of Joe Biden because the man, he has a gimlet-eyed, sharp-eyed, steely, steely-missile-man-eyed plan.

00:35:18.000 He is just gonna carry that.

00:35:20.000 Here's the best defense.

00:35:22.000 No.

00:35:23.000 That's the best defense?

00:35:23.000 Right?

00:35:24.000 No.

00:35:25.000 This is not a dude with a plan.

00:35:25.000 You gotta be kidding.

00:35:25.000 No.

00:35:28.000 And the problem for Republicans is that you're not allowed to say that.

00:35:31.000 That's the problem for Republicans.

00:35:33.000 Is that if you're a Republican Senator and you say that, Trump might attack you.

00:35:36.000 Trump might go after you.

00:35:37.000 So instead, you have to somehow plan that you have to say this is all 4D chess.

00:35:41.000 But the problem is if you say it's 4D chess, then he's capable of seeing what he's doing.

00:35:45.000 And if he's capable of seeing what he's doing, it makes him look more guilty, not less guilty.

00:35:49.000 So, here's the thing.

00:35:51.000 As every good defense lawyer knows, there are a few defenses that are available when it comes to crimes of intent.

00:35:56.000 And when it comes to a bribery situation like this, like a bribery case that they're trying to make, or a quid pro quo, or a targeting case, which is what they're talking about, an abuse of power, you sort of require intent as an element of the crime.

00:36:10.000 The quick answer for a defense lawyer is intent was not here.

00:36:14.000 There was no intent.

00:36:15.000 The intent was not present.

00:36:16.000 And here's the beautiful thing about Trump as a client.

00:36:18.000 The intent is almost never there.

00:36:20.000 Because Trump doesn't have requisite intent for nearly anything.

00:36:23.000 The man has the attention span of a gnat.

00:36:25.000 That doesn't mean that he can't actually do wonderful things as president.

00:36:28.000 He's done many wonderful things that I appreciate.

00:36:30.000 It's why I'm more likely to vote for him now than I was in 2016.

00:36:32.000 I get all that.

00:36:34.000 I get that he's delegated a lot of stuff.

00:36:36.000 That's great.

00:36:37.000 He's done a lot of things I think no other Republican would do.

00:36:40.000 Sometimes it's great that he's punching back at the media.

00:36:42.000 All of that is granted.

00:36:44.000 Taken for granted.

00:36:45.000 If you are his defense lawyer, his best defense too, he had a plan in Ukraine to go after Joe Biden is, dude doesn't have plans.

00:36:53.000 Here's the evidence.

00:36:54.000 He doesn't plan things.

00:36:56.000 Ever.

00:36:57.000 When is the last time Trump had like a four-step plan?

00:37:00.000 He just doesn't, and he has great instincts, great political, no plan.

00:37:05.000 And this is why, so I'm gonna give you an example.

00:37:07.000 So Jim Jordan, the Republican from the House from Ohio, he was on with, what was it, with Chuck Todd, was it?

00:37:18.000 And Jim Jordan, yeah, sorry, he was on with Stephanopoulos, rather, and Jim Jordan, He was asked about Trump's China comments. 0.99

00:37:28.000 Now the obvious answer to Trump's China comments is, dude says a lot of dumb stuff. 0.97

00:37:33.000 Right? 0.99

00:37:34.000 Says a lot of dumb stuff. 0.99

00:37:35.000 Like my first response was, right. 0.98

00:37:37.000 And he asked for, and he asked for the DOJ to investigate Netflix because Obama signed the deal with Netflix.

00:37:43.000 And then he asked the DOJ to investigate SNL and the FCC to investigate SNL.

00:37:47.000 Like, come on.

00:37:48.000 Like if you asked Trump, any random country, like if you just put, if you said to him five minutes before he went out on the South lawn, the country of Malaysia.

00:37:58.000 He would just be like, sure, Malaysia should investigate Biden.

00:38:01.000 Why not?

00:38:02.000 Why not?

00:38:02.000 I don't know what Biden did in Malaysia.

00:38:04.000 It doesn't matter to him.

00:38:05.000 He doesn't care.

00:38:06.000 It's just somebody had said to him that Biden did something corrupt in China.

00:38:10.000 And so he mentioned Biden in China.

00:38:12.000 The answer is there's no plan, right?

00:38:14.000 Jim Jordan tries to say that, but what it comes off as is Jim Jordan saying that he's joking, but that's not what Jim Jordan even means.

00:38:20.000 George, you really think he was serious about thinking that China's going to investigate the Biden family.

00:38:27.000 He said it right there in public.

00:38:29.000 I think he's getting, as I think Senator Rubio said a couple days ago, I think he's getting the press all spun up about this.

00:38:34.000 Remember, this is the president who's been tougher on China than any other president.

00:38:39.000 He wants to make sure China quits stealing America's intellectual property.

00:38:42.000 He wants to make sure they start abiding by international trade norms.

00:38:46.000 Okay, now what Jordan is saying here, what Representative Jordan is saying here is true.

00:38:50.000 It's also not the convincing defense, right?

00:38:52.000 He starts off right, and then he doesn't go to the obvious place.

00:38:55.000 When he says, you think he was serious there?

00:38:56.000 You think he was serious?

00:38:57.000 And then he's like, he's really tough on China.

00:38:59.000 That wasn't the answer.

00:39:01.000 The answer was, you think he was serious there?

00:39:05.000 When's the last time you heard President Trump being serious about investigating anybody?

00:39:08.000 He said that people should investigate Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Hillary Clinton, the congressman from Baltimore, Elijah Cummings.

00:39:14.000 He said Elijah Cummings should be investigated.

00:39:16.000 He said SNL should be investigated and Netflix shouldn't be investigated.

00:39:19.000 He has said that, I believe he has said that the NBA should be investigated.

00:39:24.000 He said pretty much every major organization in the United States should be investigated.

00:39:28.000 That's the proper answer here.

00:39:29.000 So this is the one where you choose to take him super seriously, George?

00:39:32.000 Like, you know better than that, right?

00:39:34.000 That's the proper... But the problem is, Trump watches TV.

00:39:36.000 So if Jordan says that, then Trump might tweet out against Jordan.

00:39:40.000 And you get this from all the Republicans.

00:39:42.000 So Republicans are not allowed to make the proper defense.

00:39:46.000 They're not allowed to make the proper defense.

00:39:48.000 And so they end up in this kind of weird Neverland where they're making half the proper defense and half the not proper defense.

00:39:52.000 So here is Senator Ron Johnson with Chuck Todd.

00:39:54.000 So this got all sorts of press over the weekend because apparently Johnson was just in over his head and Chuck Todd just destroyed him because this is what journalisming is all about.

00:40:04.000 You've got John Brennan on.

00:40:05.000 You ought to ask Director Brennan, what did Peter Strzok mean when he texted Lisa Page on December 15, 2016?

00:40:11.000 Senator... Can we... Senator... No, no, no.

00:40:14.000 Chuck, Chuck, let me finish.

00:40:15.000 What does this have to do with Ukraine?

00:40:22.000 It has everything to do with Ukraine.

00:40:24.000 Now listen, talked about in that text message.

00:40:26.000 Senator, I have no idea why... No, that's a setup.

00:40:29.000 It is entirely relevant to this point.

00:40:31.000 Why a Fox News conspiracy propaganda stuff is popping up on here, I have no idea.

00:40:36.000 I have no idea why we're going here.

00:40:38.000 Senator, I'm asking about... Because this is underlying exactly why President Trump is upset.

00:40:43.000 Okay, so what Johnson is trying to say in that whole exchange, if you actually watch the whole exchange, what he's trying to say is President Trump is very upset with members of his own administration who are in the executive branch who keep leaking on him and so he's taking stuff and he is putting stuff Basically in a secret vault so that they cannot leak it.

00:41:02.000 And he is also deeply suspicious that there are members of the intelligence committee who are coordinating with whistleblowers.

00:41:09.000 And he is deeply suspicious that members of the intelligence community are not working on his behalf with regards to the investigation of interference in the 2016 election in Ukraine, which we do know happened according to Politico in 2017.

00:41:23.000 And so that's why he's deploying Rudy Giuliani, right?

00:41:24.000 That's what Johnson is trying to say.

00:41:26.000 But Chuck Todd has his questions that he wants to ask.

00:41:29.000 And so Chuck Todd is going to ask those questions no matter what.

00:41:33.000 Now, with all of this said, is Trump in an enviable position anywhere here?

00:41:38.000 No, none of this is enviable.

00:41:41.000 We already know that President Trump has done things that are not good.

00:41:44.000 The question is whether they are in the criminal territory and whether they are in the unprecedented territory.

00:41:49.000 And when it comes to unprecedented, that one is actually even easier than criminal.

00:41:53.000 Because for a lot of Republicans, the answer is absolutely not.

00:41:57.000 For a lot of Republicans, they are looking at the fact that Hillary Clinton worked with the DNC and the Ukrainian embassy to try and dig up dirt on Donald Trump And they funneled a bunch of bad information to the FBI, to Barack Obama's FBI, in the middle of the election cycle.

00:42:13.000 They're looking at the fact that there was a two-year investigation of Donald Trump by his own intelligence services.

00:42:19.000 They're looking at the fact that the Obama administration did not let up on Paul Manafort when it found out that Paul Manafort was gonna become Trump's campaign manager and didn't warn Trump about it.

00:42:27.000 Instead, they broadened the investigation to include Trump.

00:42:29.000 Again, all of this is backdrop for, do we think that you're partisan hacks or do we think that you honestly are bothered by Trump?

00:42:36.000 Now, motivations normally should not matter, but when it comes to impeachment, they kind of do.

00:42:40.000 The reason being, if you're trying to build a bipartisan consensus, then people have to feel that there is a standard, and the standard must be upheld on both sides.

00:42:47.000 It can't be a standard that is upheld on one side.

00:42:49.000 As I say, if you have a double standard, then you have no standard, because nobody is going to abide by a double standard.

00:42:55.000 If you feel that somebody else is not playing by the rules, why would you play by the rules?

00:42:59.000 And that is where we end up right now.

00:43:02.000 That is a separate question from whether Trump actually did something criminal.

00:43:07.000 That question is still outstanding.

00:43:09.000 That one is the one that is still outstanding.

00:43:12.000 And by the way, it doesn't help when President Trump goes after Mitt Romney.

00:43:16.000 The media are trying to conflate, by the way, Republicans who are critical of Trump on the China comments and on the Ukraine comments with saying that they would vote for impeachment.

00:43:24.000 Mitt Romney has never said that he would vote for impeachment.

00:43:27.000 You know, Trump should just deal with the fact that he said something bad about China.

00:43:31.000 It is bad to call on the Chinese communist to investigate an American citizen based on scanty evidence.

00:43:38.000 We have a DOJ for that.

00:43:39.000 I mean, Lindsey Graham is right about this.

00:43:41.000 He says, listen, we have a special counsel.

00:43:42.000 We could have a special counsel investigate Biden if we really want to.

00:43:45.000 Why the hell are we going to foreign countries?

00:43:46.000 This is correct.

00:43:48.000 Well, let's look at it this way.

00:43:49.000 Everybody said Mueller would be an independent guy, and I think he was.

00:43:52.000 And what happened?

00:43:53.000 He cleared Trump.

00:43:54.000 There was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

00:43:58.000 And why do we know that?

00:43:59.000 Because Mueller spent two years and $25 million looking at it.

00:44:03.000 Has anybody looked at the DNC-Ukraine connection?

00:44:06.000 No, they have not.

00:44:07.000 And I love Rudy Giuliani.

00:44:09.000 He's a good lawyer for the president.

00:44:10.000 He's defending the president's interests.

00:44:13.000 But the Mueller investigation's over.

00:44:14.000 It's not Rudy's job to find out if the Bidens did something wrong.

00:44:19.000 I'd like somebody outside of politics to look at the Bidens like Mueller looked at the Trumps.

00:44:24.000 Remember the Trump Tower deal with Russia?

00:44:28.000 Yeah.

00:44:28.000 That was looked at by Mueller.

00:44:29.000 Somebody needs to look at the Bidens regarding the Ukraine and China.

00:44:33.000 Okay, that is not out of the realm of possibility, nor is that improper.

00:44:38.000 One of the big problems here is that the Trump campaign can send Rudy Giuliani wherever they want to dig up oppo, obviously.

00:44:43.000 Hillary Clinton did the same thing. 1.00

00:44:44.000 Did the president, in his capacity as president, basically act as campaign president and dictate that the auspices of the government should be used to do Rudy Giuliani's dirty work?

00:44:56.000 And that's really what this is all about.

00:44:57.000 That remains the open question.

00:44:59.000 Okay, time for a quick thing that I like and then a thing that I hate.

00:45:03.000 Things that I like.

00:45:05.000 So, as you may notice, I am not broadcasting from my usual studio.

00:45:08.000 I am instead over here in Israel, in an unspecified location.

00:45:13.000 So, that means that if I'm looking a little peaked, that is because I was just on a 13-hour flight with a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old, which means I got no sleep, and I'm kinda tired.

00:45:24.000 So, if I've been bumbling and stumbling over my words a little bit today, that is because I'm half-dead.

00:45:29.000 That also means that I watched 1,000 movies on the plane because it's a 13-hour flight.

00:45:34.000 One of the movies that I had a chance to watch was a movie that I like to call Liam Neeson Has a Gun, which is like every Liam Neeson movie, basically.

00:45:40.000 And I will watch all of them because I don't really care what he's doing as long as Liam Neeson has a gun.

00:45:45.000 In this one, Liam Neeson plays a man who has a gun.

00:45:47.000 And in this movie, he is a man who has a gun who is the father of a man who does not really have a gun and doesn't know how to use a gun.

00:45:53.000 Here is a little bit of the trailer for Run All Night.

00:45:55.000 It's got to be 15 years since I've been in here.

00:46:03.000 Place looks different.

00:46:05.000 All the old places look different now.

00:46:08.000 I'm the only one ever cared about you.

00:46:12.000 And all of that ended an hour ago when you killed my son.

00:46:15.000 Okay, so the movie is actually quite good.

00:46:18.000 Joel Kinnaman has become one of my favorite actors.

00:46:20.000 I really like Joel Kinnaman a lot.

00:46:22.000 They've talked about him a little bit for Bond, possibly.

00:46:24.000 He was in Hannah, which is a pretty good series.

00:46:27.000 And he was also in The Killing, where he is a completely different character.

00:46:31.000 And then in this one, he plays sort of an upright citizen who's the son of a drunk hitman, who is Liam Neeson's character.

00:46:38.000 The movie's pretty good.

00:46:38.000 I'm not gonna say it's like an incredible movie, but it is a fairly good movie and I think worth the watch.

00:46:44.000 Or maybe I was just up all night, man.

00:46:46.000 I would watch anything.

00:46:47.000 So go check out Run All Night if you are up all night and have nothing else to watch.

00:46:50.000 Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.

00:46:56.000 So, you know, people are always proclaiming that corporations should involve themselves in politics.

00:47:01.000 And corporation... The Democrats, people on the left, they want it both ways.

00:47:04.000 On the one hand, corporations should never involve themselves in politics.

00:47:07.000 Ever, ever, ever, ever.

00:47:08.000 They should stay out.

00:47:09.000 Because corporate heads who are involved in politics are bad, bad humans.

00:47:13.000 On the other hand...

00:47:14.000 Their silence is deafening on LGBT rights.

00:47:17.000 Their silence is deafening on the animal rights movement.

00:47:22.000 Every time there's some sort of political controversy, we have to hijack major corporations and use them to cram down particular political agendas.

00:47:30.000 Here's the fact.

00:47:31.000 Major corporations are after the cash, and that means that very often, they have no actual moral interest, and treating them as moral entities is quite silly, in fact.

00:47:42.000 And proof of this comes this week from the NBA.

00:47:46.000 So apparently the general manager of the Houston Rockets, according to the New York Times, sought to quell an outcry in China on Sunday night after the support he expressed on Twitter for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong upset sponsors, media outlets, and basketball officials in a country that invests billions in the NBA.

00:48:00.000 The initial and quickly deleted message by the general manager, Daryl Morey, on Friday night to stand with Hong Kong put the NBA at odds with its largest and highest priority international market.

00:48:10.000 But he tried to mitigate the damage with two clarifying tweets from Tokyo, where the Rockets are scheduled to play two exhibition games against the Toronto Raptors.

00:48:16.000 I did not intend my tweet to cause any offense to Rocket fans and friends of mine in China, Mori wrote.

00:48:21.000 I was merely voicing one thought based on one interpretation of one complicated event.

00:48:25.000 I've had the opportunity since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives.

00:48:28.000 In other words, the NBA called him and got very angry at him because they thought that he was threatening their Chinese market by talking about the fact that the Chinese Communist regime is evil and terrible.

00:48:38.000 How dare he?

00:48:39.000 How dare he?

00:48:40.000 I've seen other corporations, like for example, Google, go out of their way to try and work with the Chinese government, even if it means doing their dirty work for them.

00:48:48.000 Now, this is why when people say, big business is Republican, big business is for free markets.

00:48:53.000 No, big business is for profits.

00:48:55.000 Profits very often can be had with the cooperation of big government.

00:48:59.000 In fact, big government and big business are not actually at odds.

00:49:04.000 In many cases, it is big business that is propping up big government and vice versa.

00:49:09.000 So, just gonna point out here that Daryl Morey said the right thing.

00:49:13.000 He got blasted by the supposedly all moral NBA.

00:49:17.000 And nobody seems to care all that much about it.

00:49:20.000 Like, where is Adam Silver now?

00:49:23.000 Like, why isn't Adam Silver being called on the carpet by the American people for not standing with Hong Kong, by the way, just because he wants to sell a few more sneakers and basketball jerseys in China?

00:49:32.000 Alrighty, we'll be back here tomorrow with all of the latest.

00:49:35.000 I'm sure there will be a lot there.

00:49:36.000 Hopefully I'll have had some sleep and won't slur my words quite as much.

00:49:38.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:49:39.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:49:44.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Robert Sterling.

00:49:47.000 Directed by Mike Joyner.

00:49:48.000 Executive Producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:49:51.000 Senior Producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:49:52.000 Our Supervising Producer is Mathis Glover.

00:49:55.000 And our Technical Producer is Austin Stevens.

00:49:57.000 Assistant Director, Paweł Wajdowski.

00:49:59.000 Edited by Adam Sajewicz.

00:50:01.000 Audio is Mixed by Mike Koromina.

00:50:02.000 Hair and Makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:50:04.000 Production Assistant, Nick Sheehan.

00:50:06.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.

00:50:08.000 Copyright Daily Wire 2019.

00:50:10.000 Hey everyone, it's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show. 0.89

00:50:14.000 One of about a million ways politics makes us stupid is by attacking people's personal piccadillos as a way of supporting massively destructive ideas. 0.99

00:50:22.000 Donald Trump is a loudmouth, so let's get rid of him and give the country to baby-killing socialists who hate both the First and Second Amendment. 0.99

00:50:28.000 Luckily, I'm here to laugh uproariously at that idea. 0.98

00:50:31.000 Plus, Norris and I will discuss Joker.

00:50:33.000 Be there on The Andrew Klavan Show.

The Ben Shapiro Show - October 07, 2019

The Second Whistleblower | Ep. 874

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