All Episodes
Previous Next
June 8, 2017 - The Ben Shapiro Show
25:09
Ep. 315 - Comey Saves Trump's Bacon, Democrats Weep
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Okay, let's begin with the basics.
Wonder Woman is an awesome film.
I saw it on opening night with my wife.
As a DC Comics fan, Wonder Woman has become one of their three most iconic characters, along with Batman and Superman.
She's a driving force in their universe, as she should be.
The film does an excellent job of laying out her origin story, and it beautifully balances the feminist underpinnings of her character.
She comes from a society in which men are disdained and is eminently more powerful than any man she comes across.
In the non-themescular world with obvious femininity.
She's a true heroine in the film.
She fights for the innocent.
She's willing to kill in order to do so.
She is far harder core than Batman, for example.
She's a feminist for certain.
She scoffs at the notion of a secretary as a sort of modern form slavery.
At the same time, she goes out of her way to coo at babies.
Yes.
Feminists.
Women like babies.
And she falls head over heels for a heroic man, despite her own statements about men being unnecessary for pleasure.
Early in the film, she tut-tuts the notion of marriage, as does he.
By the end of the film, they're both on board.
Plus, she's played by the wonderful Gal Gadot, a two-time mother who was pregnant during filming and just happens to be Israeli.
She also served in the Israeli Defense Force for two years.
All of this makes her character unpalatable to hardcore feminists, who base feminism not on equality of rights, but on abortion and man-hating and forceful opposition to Western standards of beauty.
Here's Christina Cauterici at Slate, quote, To me, whatever chance Wonder Woman had of being some kind of feminist antidote to the overabundance of superhero movies made by and for bros was blown by its prevailing occupation with the titular heroine's sex appeal.
Calderici even implies that Chris Pine's character quasi-rapes Diana because, quote, her capacity for consent is somewhat blurry, her never having met a man and all.
Here's dude feminist Stephen Rose at The Guardian, quote, Plus, Wonder Woman fights against the Germans in World War I. This makes her an emissary of American militarism.
They're still essential for big-budget action movies, it seems.
Plus, Wonder Woman fights against the Germans in World War I.
This makes her an emissary of American militarism.
On Tuesday, Josephine Livingstone wrote at the New Republic, quote, Oh, no!
We mustn't teach the young ones about the fact that the United States saved Europe from fascism.
Twice.
That would be terrible.
Most feminists seem pretty enthused about the movie overall.
It should be said.
But the fact that many are not should show how out of touch the radical feminist movement has become.
The film is great for teenage girls, and while it's clearly a fantasy, nobody, man or woman, could rush through bullets of World War I in the way Wonder Woman does, but it's men who typically do the fighting in war, and for rational reasons, it does demonstrate that strong women need not be anti-baby or anti-male.
One of the reasons the movie went over so big is that its brand of feminism is taken for granted in the West.
Sexism is no longer a major issue in American society.
It's hard to imagine anyone seriously objecting to a fantasy female character fighting baddies while kissing babies and falling in love with a strong male character in traditional fashion.
That's what feminism should be, but not according to the more militant feminists, which is why they're so mad.
For no reason at all.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
Okay, so lots to get to today.
We're going to get to everything Comey related in just a second.
But first, I want to say thank you to our friends over at Lyft.
So, it's not just for people who are looking for a ride anymore.
Now they're looking for drivers because so many people are riding Lyft that they actually have a shortage of people who can drive.
And so they're asking you to join the ride-sharing company that believes in treating its people better.
When you drive to the right ride-sharing app, Every trip feels great.
And with Lyft, you can pick your own hours, you can work when you want.
There's tipping in the app so you get paid better.
When you drive for Lyft, you keep 100% of the tips.
Drivers have been paid over $150 million in tips since this feature was introduced.
Express Pay means that drivers get paid almost instantly instead of waiting for weeks for a check to come.
In the mail.
And right now, they've even taken the guesswork out of pickups.
They have an AMP device that uses color coding to help passengers find their drivers.
You can earn hundreds of dollars a week, plus tips.
If you want to make more money, drive more.
It's never been easier to give yourself a raise.
So, go use Lyft.
My wife uses Lyft.
I use Lyft.
It's the only ride-sharing app that we use.
And I know the drivers seem happier.
The drivers are always very friendly.
They're always really good.
And you can be one of those drivers earning really good money if you go to Lyft.com slash Shapiro today.
And right now, if you do that, if you go to Lyft.com, You can get a $500 new driver bonus right off the bat.
That's Lyft.com slash Shapiro.
Lyft.com slash Shapiro.
It's a limited time only.
Terms apply.
Again, use Shapiro so that you know that we sent you and also because that means you'll get that $500 new driver bonus.
Okay, tons to get to today with regard to the Comey hearing.
So, I will get to what exactly Comey said in the hearing that is relevant and interesting, but first I want to go through the part that actually is most important, and that is the seven-page piece of testimony that he released yesterday.
So yesterday he releases text of testimony that he wanted admitted into the congressional record.
What he says happened between him and President Trump.
Now, in order to understand this, what you have to understand first and foremost is that the Democratic narrative going into this entire Comey hearing is that President Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election in order to swing the election to himself, and then he fired Comey in an attempt to cut it off.
To cover it up.
That was the entire narrative.
The narrative was that, okay?
It wasn't just Trump acted badly.
It wasn't just Trump obstructed justice about unrelated matters.
It was that Trump was in bed with the Russians, and then in order to cover it up, he fired James Comey in order to obstruct the investigation.
That was the case Democrats were making.
And the reason they were making this case is because they didn't want it to seem like Hillary Clinton legitimately lost the election.
They wanted it to seem like Hillary actually won the election, if not for Trump moving with Putin in concert.
And therefore, he had to move with Putin in concert, they were colluding together, the election was rigged, and then Trump fired Comey to prevent all of that from coming out.
That was their narrative.
So, yesterday, James Comey releases this seven-page document, and it totally destroys that narrative.
It totally destroys that narrative.
So, the right is pointing out that it totally destroyed that narrative.
On the other hand, it also points out that President Trump is Wildly in over his head when it comes to dealing with his own people that he acted really badly with regard to James Comey the FBI director on a Variety of matters in ways that would tick us off if we were on the left It would take us off and I'll explain how we know that in just a second But first I think it's important to go through the actual documents.
We're now going to go through The text of the opening statement that Comey gave on Thursday.
Okay, so today he was supposed to give it.
He didn't actually read it into the record.
He didn't have to.
It had already been read by everybody in America.
So, he started in this document by describing his first meeting with then-president-elect Trump on January 6th at Trump Tower, at which he personally briefed Trump about an intelligence community assessment concerning Russian interference in the 2016 election.
This is this famed BuzzFeed dossier That was supposed to have the pee tapes in it and all of this.
So Comey comes to the White House, or rather to Trump Tower, and he tells Trump about this dossier.
He says he briefed Trump on the details himself, alone, out of respect for Trump's privacy.
Comey explained he was worried that the briefing might lead Trump to believe that the FBI was investigating him, so he wanted to assure Trump that Trump was not being personally investigated.
Now, as you recall, when Trump fired Comey, He had in his letter that Comey had said he was not being personally investigated three times.
That was true.
Comey says that in this document.
Comey told Trump over and over and over again he was not being personally investigated.
So that part is actually true in what Trump had to say.
Okay, so this confirms Trump's account.
Then, according to Comey, he spoke with Trump one-on-one nine separate times in four months, three in person, six on the phone.
The next meeting that Comey discusses in detail is that January 27th dinner.
You remember, Trump went on national TV, he said that Comey basically came in and begged for his job, and then there were reports that Trump had asked Comey for a loyalty oath.
He wanted Trump Trump wanted Comey to pledge his loyalty to Trump.
Here is Comey's account, quote, "It turned out to be just the two of us seated at a small oval table in the center of the green room.
Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.
The president began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to.
He said that lots of people wanted my job, job and given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.
My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship.
This concerned me greatly given the FBI's traditionally independent status in the executive branch.
Okay, so this is the part where Trump gets into dicey territory.
So on January 27th, he meets with Comey and he says to him, you really love your job, you?
It would be a pity if that job went away, wouldn't it?
And Comey took that as, you're basically asking me to do something for you.
The president said, quote, I need loyalty.
I expect loyalty.
I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed.
We simply looked at each other in silence.
The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner.
At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House.
I'd like to I said it was a paradox.
Throughout history, some presidents have decided that because problems come from justice, they should try to hold the department close, but blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problem worse.
Near the end of our dinner, the president returned to the subject of my job.
He then said, I need loyalty.
I replied, you will always get honesty from me.
He paused and then said, that's what I want.
Honest loyalty.
I paused and then said, you will get that from me.
As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase honest loyalty differently, but I decided it wouldn't be productive to push it further.
So, this is obviously not good for Trump, right?
It looks like there's some sort of quid pro quo here.
He wants Comey's loyalty in exchange for Comey staying on the job.
Okay, next meeting Comey discusses, and we're just gonna go through Comey's testimony, and then we're gonna talk about what it means.
Comey moves on to his February 14th counterterrorism briefing with Trump.
This is the one where Trump apparently shoes everybody out of the room.
He shoes Attorney General Sessions out of the room.
He shoes Rod Rosenstein out of the room.
He shoes out the NSA Rogers.
He shoes out the DNI.
He shoes out everybody.
And then he talks to Flynn.
He talks to Comey one-on-one.
And here's Comey's document.
He says, Trump repeated that Flynn hadn't done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but he had misled the vice president.
He then said, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go here.
He is a good guy.
I hope you can let this go.
I replied only that he is a good guy.
He said, I did not say I would let this go.
The president returned briefly to the problem of leaks.
It goes on and then he says, I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership.
I had understood the president to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December.
I did not understand the president to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible law enforcement.
So, Comey says he wanted him to stop talking about Flynn generally.
words, the democratic narrative that Trump was trying to fire Comey or pressure Comey to stop the Russia investigation altogether, just not true, even according to Comey.
That's Comey's testimony.
So Comey says he wanted him to stop talking about Flynn generally.
He wanted him to stop investigating Flynn over his Russian phone calls in December, but nothing to do with the So the press is trying to say that, again, this is a cover-up, it's obstruction of justice, but the question is what exactly is being obstructed?
So if you want to say that there is some sort of pressure going on with regard to Flynn and the December phone calls, which, again, there's no underlying evidence that anything wrong happened in those phone calls.
But if you want to say that Trump was upset with the investigation of those phone calls and he was pressuring Comey, that seems fair.
But the media were not making that case.
The media were making the far different and more brutal case, basically, that President Trump was trying to shut down the entirety of the Trump-Russia investigation by pressuring Comey.
This means there is still no evidence that Trump cares about quashing an investigation into campaign collusion, according to Comey.
The conversation was not reported to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Comey says, because Sessions was about to recuse himself.
And then he says, quote, the investigation moved ahead at full speed.
So again, Trump may have pressured Comey, but Comey obviously didn't take it sitting down and didn't just stop investigating.
Shortly thereafter, according to Comey, he asked Sessions to provide a barrier between Comey and Trump.
He said, I told the AG that what had happened, him being asked to leave while the FBI director who reports to the AG remained behind, was inappropriate and should never happen.
He did not reply.
And then he said, I did not talk about the General Flynn stuff.
Okay.
Next, Comey talks about a March 30th phone call.
Here is his description.
Quote, on the morning of March 30th, the president called me at the FBI.
He described the Russia investigation as a quote, cloud that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country.
He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia.
He asked what we could do to lift the cloud.
I responded we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could and that there would be great benefit if we didn't find anything to our having done the work well.
He agreed but then re-emphasized the problems that this was causing him.
Now, here is the key.
So, that in and of itself sounds damning, right?
It sounds like Trump wants Comey to lift the cloud by killing the Russia investigation.
But that's not what Comey goes on to say.
What Comey goes on to say is, quote, The president went on to say that if there were some satellite associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadn't done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we were not investigating him.
He finished by stressing the cloud that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country.
So, this has been my theory since May, and I was right all along.
My theory since Comey was fired was very, very simple.
President Trump wanted Comey to come out and publicly say that President Trump himself was not guilty of anything or under investigation.
Comey wouldn't do it.
The reason that Comey said he wouldn't do it is he was afraid that in the course of the bigger investigation, Trump's name would come out and then he would have to correct himself the same way he did with Hillary Clinton Back in 2016, so better to say nothing right now than to come out and say Trump's not under investigation, then come out later and say Trump is under investigation.
Okay, that being the case, that means that Trump was not firing Comey because he wanted Comey to stop the investigation into Trump.
He was firing Comey because he was just mad that Comey wouldn't come out and say publicly what Comey had already told him privately, which is that Trump was not personally under investigation.
I theorized that all the way back on May 10th.
That is exactly correct.
That is exactly correct.
Okay, so again, is this Trump behaving well?
No, it's not Trump behaving well, okay?
But does it jive with the left's narrative that Trump was colluding with Russia and then fired Comey to cover it up?
No, that does not jive in any way.
There's no evidence of collusion.
That entire narrative is destroyed by James Comey.
Okay, finally, Comey turns to a phone call that took place on April 11th.
Here is what he says, quote, Trump replied that the cloud was getting in the way of his ability to do his job.
He said perhaps he would have his people reach out to the acting Deputy Attorney General.
I said that was the way his request should be handled.
I said the White House should contact the leadership of the DOJ.
He said he would do that and added, because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal, we had that thing you know.
I did not ask him or reply what he meant by that thing.
I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House counsel call the acting deputy attorney general.
Okay, again, the conversation about that thing sounds dirty.
It sounds like Trump is trying to get something out of Comey in exchange for something else, right?
That is the thing that they have.
Okay, and one of the speculations is that Trump had mentioned Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Trump retaining him, even though McCabe has links to Democrats, as sort of a favor to Comey and then Comey treating him nice because he was nice to Comey by allowing him to keep his job and keeping McCabe in his job.
But again, there is no actual evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia.
And once again, there is no evidence that Trump was trying to quash the investigation into Trump.
What Trump wanted out of this whole thing was something very simple.
He wanted Comey to come out publicly and say what he had said privately, which is that Trump was not personally under investigation.
That is the entirety of this whole thing.
Trump fired him because he wouldn't do it.
He fired him because he wouldn't do it.
Now, that is the issue with regard to Trump-Russia, and that's why the right today is chortling, and they're saying, okay, you guys have been making the case for half a year now.
About the Trump-Russia collusion, and you were saying that Trump is at fault for trying to fire Comey as some sort of giant cover-up or something.
Okay, you say all of that, but then there's no actual evidence of any of that.
So Comey just destroyed you.
Now here is what the left is saying.
What the left is saying is we know that Trump basically quasi-offered Comey a quid pro quo.
We put pressure on him.
He mentioned his job.
He's putting pressure on him to leave the Flynn investigation.
Alone, he was doing all of these things, and if Obama had done all this, he would be really, really ticked off.
They're not wrong about this, okay?
If Obama had done this, we would be really ticked off.
How do I know?
Because today, Comey, in his actual testimony, said that Loretta Lynch told James Comey that she didn't want the Hillary investigation referred to as an investigation, she wanted it referred to as a matter.
And Comey said that created the appearance of impropriety between Loretta Lynch and Hillary Clinton's campaign.
It certainly did, right?
All of us on the right were livid about the fact that Loretta Lynch met with Bill Clinton on the tarmac and they talked about the Hillary investigation.
We're all livid.
We said this creates impropriety.
It does create impropriety, just like it creates impropriety for President Trump to meet with the acting FBI director, James Comey, and tell him he wants a Flynn investigation dropped, or I hope the Flynn investigation will be dropped.
Now, is that obstruction of justice?
No, it's not technically obstruction of justice because, again, there was no actual threat to Comey that if you don't drop this, I'm going to do X.
And it was not an actual, you know, real attempt to get Flynn to get Comey to stop investigating Flynn.
It was more like, I hope you stop that.
So there are two ways to read that, right?
One is, I really hope you stop that.
It would be a terrible thing if something bad were to happen to your children.
And the other way to read that is, I hope you can stop this because it's really, you know, a pain in the butt for me and for Flynn.
Two ways to read that.
You know, again, it is not impossible to read it in the most innocuous way, but it is a little bit strange.
If you're a Democrat and you're watching this, you're saying, okay, Donald Trump is obviously doing dirty things.
If you are a Republican watching this, you're saying it's not so obvious that Trump is doing terrible obstruction of justice things, but he's acting inappropriately.
For President of the United States.
I want to talk about what actually got said during the hearing and how the media is going to shift the narrative from its original narrative in just a second.
But first, I want to say thank you to our advertisers over at Mack Weldon.
So, Mack Weldon is better than whatever you are wearing right now.
Mack Weldon makes underwear.
They make shirts that are naturally antimicrobial, which eliminate odor.
They make socks and hoodies and sweatpants.
It is the most comfortable stuff you are ever going to wear.
They believe in smart design, premium fabrics, simple shopping.
You know, if you go to Mack Weldon, you check out their gear.
Very easy to shop there.
Very simple to shop there.
And I can tell you, you know, I wear their underwear and the underwear really hold up.
I mean, you wash other brands of underwear 10 times and they're already falling apart.
I've worn my Mack Weldon underwear just a thousand times at this point and they are pretty much exactly the same as when I bought them.
Super duper comfortable.
All of their gear looks fantastic.
You can wear it out.
You can wear it in.
It performs well.
It's great for working out.
It's great for going out.
Go to MackWeldon.com and get 20% off when you use the promo code Shapiro, S-H-A-P-I-R-O.
That's Shapiro, S-H-A-P-I-R-O.
Go to MackWeldon.com, M-A-C-K-W-E-L-D-O-N.com.
Get 20% off using that promo code Shapiro and let them know that you use the promo code Shapiro, obviously, so that they know that we sent you and also so that you can get that 20% off best underwear in the world.
I mean, really, it doesn't get better than Mack Weldon stuff.
Okay, so that is what Comey released in his seven pages of testimonies.
It explodes the Democrat narratives that Trump was pressuring Comey to drop the Trump-Russia investigation, and it explodes the Democrat narrative that there was something deeply nefarious going on with regard to Trump being under personal investigation.
Trump is not under personal investigation.
Comey came out, he said when he left today, he said that Trump was not under personal investigation.
Now, all of that said, here is some of what Comey had to say today.
So Comey came out, and he didn't read the seven-page statement that had already been entered into testimony.
So instead, he came out with this very short statement where he ripped Trump basically for firing him, and here's what he had to say.
This is clip 13.
The administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader.
Those were lies, plain and simple.
Okay, so there he is saying that basically Trump is a liar and he lies about things all the time.
He's a big, big, big fat liar.
Okay, so I think objectively speaking, Trump fibs a lot, but this is really more about Comey's ego, right?
So this is him saying, well, he was mean to me.
He was mean to the FBI.
He says the FBI is in disarray and that's really terrible.
It's a lie about me.
I do my job.
The FBI does its job and that's really terrible.
This is going to be the headline the media gloms onto is that Trump is a liar.
And Comey reiterates that Trump is a liar.
In clip 14, again, this is all opinion type stuff, but the media, which is now trying to build Comey up as some sort of great truth teller again, they're going to leap on this to say that Trump is just a liar in total.
This is clip 14.
I want to go through a number of the meetings that you referenced in your testimony.
And let's start with the January 6th meeting in Trump Tower, where you went up with a series of officials to brief the President-elect on the Russia investigation.
My understanding is you remained afterwards to brief him on, again, quote, some personally sensitive aspects of the information you relayed.
Now, you said after that briefing, you felt compelled to document that conversation that you actually started documenting it soon as you got into the car.
Now, you've had extensive experience at the Department of Justice and at the FBI.
You've worked under presidents of both parties.
What was it about that meeting that led you to determine that you needed to start putting down a written record?
A combination of things.
I think the circumstances, the subject matter and the person I was interacting with.
Circumstances first, I was alone with the President of the United States, or the President-Elect, soon to be President.
The subject matter, I was talking about matters that touch on the FBI's core responsibility and that relate to the President, President-Elect personally.
And then the nature of the person.
I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document.
That combination of things I'd never experienced before, but it led me to believe I've got to write it down, and I've got to write it down in a very detailed way.
Okay, so there's James Comey explaining that he thought that Trump's a big liar, so we have to keep all of the, uh, that we have to keep all of these notes, and that's his explanation.
So the media's jumping on the idea that Comey thought Trump was a liar.
Who cares whether Comey thought Trump was a liar?
Like, he kept these notes, and then Trump either lied or he didn't.
So, the media's jumping on conclusions without looking at the underlying evidence as usual.
I thought Marco Rubio actually asked one of the better questions of the hearing thus far.
He said, it's kind of amazing that all of this material has leaked about Trump, We've learned more from the newspapers sometimes than we do from our open hearings, for sure.
Do you ever wonder why, of all the things in this investigation, the only thing that's never been leaked is the fact that the president was not personally under investigation, despite the fact that both Democrats and Republicans and the leadership of Congress knew that and have known that for weeks?
I don't know.
I find matters that are brief to the gang of eight are pretty tightly held in my experience.
Okay, so again, I think that Rubio making this point is the right one.
It just demonstrates that when it comes to these leaks and it comes to the media, this is a motivated attempt to destroy President Trump.
Okay, I want to talk about how the left is going to pivot off of their original narrative in just a second, right?
Their original narrative, again, was that it was Trump-Russia collusion.
They did all this to save Hillary, of course.
That it was Trump-Russia collusion, and that's why Hillary lost the election, and that's why Trump attempted to fire James Comey, was all as a cover-up.
Comey totally destroys that entire narrative.
He explodes the entire narrative.
But he comes out and he says he thinks Trump is a liar and a bad guy.
Okay, whatever.
But we'll talk about how the left is gonna pivot to their new line of accusations, which is a very different line of accusations than the ones that they've already made.
But for that, you're gonna have to go over to dailywire.com.
And sign up.
$8 a month gets you a subscription to dailywire.com.
That means that you get the rest of this show live.
It means that you can be part of the mailbag, which we'll be doing tomorrow.
We are now five days a week this show.
Yay!
Also means you get Clavin's show live.
You get to be part of Clavin's mailbag.
Plus, it means that we've got all sorts of great benefits that are coming for members that are going to be rolled out in the next couple of months.
So stick around for that.
If you're an annual subscriber, you get a signed copy of this very book.
Say It's So.
It's a book about baseball and me and my dad.
There it is.
You know, there's my pops and there's me.
And you can get a free signed copy of Say It's So right now.
It's available at Amazon for sale, but you can get a free and signed right now.
You become an annual subscriber.
So go over to dailywire.com and sign up as an annual subscriber.
Or if you just want to listen to the show later, go over to iTunes and become a subscriber over there.
And make sure you leave a review.
We always appreciate it.
▲
Export Selection