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Sept. 1, 2017 - The Ben Shapiro Show

53:52

The Democrats’ Last, Best Hope | Ep. 375

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	Politico reveals a bombshell new report about the left's treatment of Antifa under President Obama.
	We will talk about that.
	We will also be getting to Donald Trump giving a million dollars to Hurricane Harvey victims and why the left is now desperate for the Russia investigation to pan out, even more desperate than they were before.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
	Many a thing to talk about today, plus we're going to get to the mailbag.
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	So, President Trump, he made a statement yesterday that I was kind of surprised he hadn't done earlier, actually.
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	Okay, so President Trump, he made a statement yesterday that I was kind of surprised he hadn't done earlier, actually.
	He said that he was going to give a bunch of money to the Hurricane Harvey victims, which makes an awful lot of sense.
	The man's incredibly wealthy.
	And Sarah Huckabee Sanders made that announcement yesterday, and so here is what Sarah Huckabee Sanders had to say about it.
	Had a chance to speak directly with the president earlier, and I'm happy to tell you that he would like to join in the efforts that a lot of the people that we've seen across this country do.
	And he's pledging a million dollars of personal money to the fund, and he's actually asked that I check with the folks in this room Since you are very good at research and have been doing a lot of reporting into the groups and organizations that are best and most effective in helping and providing aid and he'd love some suggestions from the folks here and I'd be happy to take those if any of you have them.
	Okay, so this is all good stuff.
	Okay, and it's smart for President Trump to do this, obviously.
	It's good PR.
	It makes a lot of sense.
	Meanwhile, the Democrats are looking at this and they're realizing that Trump's handling of Hurricane Harvey is actually pretty good.
	Most Americans are going to be pretty happy with how he's handled this natural disaster.
	It's better, frankly, than I thought he was going to handle a natural disaster.
	I thought his administration did a better job than I thought that they might do.
	So, I really have no major complaints with President Trump here.
	I think that he's doing a pretty good job unifying the country around the Hurricane Harvey victims.
	Again, easy thing to unify around, but I think that he's done a good job with it.
	Democrats, however, are still focused on how do we stop Trump?
	How do we stop the Republicans?
	And so, the way they're attempting to do this is by painting the Republicans as divisive.
	Bernie Sanders came out yesterday.
	He says that he hopes that President Trump stops dividing, and also he hopes that someone That in Houston right now, people don't care whether you're black, or you're white, or you're Latino, or you're gay, or you're straight.
	People are helping each other, which is what this country is supposed to be about.
	People in Houston are coming together and hope Trump stops dividing up the American people.
	Okay, so let's point something out.
	It's not Trump at this point who's dividing the American people.
	Trump is responding the way he's supposed to be responding, and it's Sanders who's suggesting the divisions.
	And when it comes to the divisive rhetoric stuff, when it comes to the idea that Trump is the only one who's engaged in divisive rhetoric, this is not whataboutism, okay?
	I've been very, very critical of President Trump's rhetoric.
	I've criticized him for not disassociating himself from the alt-right.
	I think I've been pretty clear on this for the last two years at this point.
	That I think a lot of President Trump's rhetoric is designed to divide rather than to unite, and I don't like that part of his rhetoric that it is designed to do that without actually naming an enemy.
	So I've been clear about that.
	That said, the idea that the left has proposed that Trump is the divider and they are the great uniters is absolute nonsense.
	This is a report from Politico, and it's an amazing report that's going to go under-noticed today, which is why we're going to bring attention to it on this, the most popular podcast on the right in America.
	So here is the story from Politico.
	They reported on Friday, the federal government has been worrying about the rise of Antifa, this is this leftist quasi-domestic terror group, since early 2016.
	Not 2017, like most people became aware of Antifa in 2017 when Antifa burned a bunch of crap at a Yiannopoulos speech at Berkeley.
	But Antifa had been very active in 2016.
	They had engaged in violent riots in Sacramento.
	There was a riot in Sacramento We talked to a member of one of the groups that was attending that rally.
	It was a white supremacist rally.
	There were a bunch of people who showed up to quote-unquote defend the rights of the white supremacists, and Antifa showed up ready to do violence.
	When this happened, it was not covered by the media, but that happened in the middle of 2016 in Sacramento at the state capitol.
	Apparently, the federal government has had reports on Antifa since early 2016, even labeled their activities domestic terrorist violence.
	Do you remember Obama saying anything about it in 2016?
	Anything?
	Did he say one word about Antifa or left-wing violence in 2016?
	No, I didn't think so.
	So we've gotten two years of President Trump must disassociate himself from the alt-right and white supremacist violence.
	Of course, I agree, everyone should have no problem doing that, right or left.
	But the left, including President Obama, hasn't had to do anything until now, right?
	Nancy Pelosi gave a statement this week talking about how Antifa was bad.
	Where were they last year?
	Why didn't they stop this thing when it was rising?
	According to Politico, quote, Okay, again, that language.
	unreported documents disclose that by April 2016, authorities believed that anarchist extremists were the primary instigators of violence at public rallies against a range of targets.
	Okay, again, that language.
	Primary instigators.
	So the left has played It's a cycle of violence.
	It's the white supremacists show up with a brick, and the Antifa people show up with a bat, and they go at each other.
	It is Antifa that has provoked these clashes, and then a lot of these white supremacist groups, a lot of these alt-right groups show up, and they look for violence as well.
	But the ones who are instigating this largely are Antifa.
	That's not according to me, that's according to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
	They were blamed by authorities for attacks on the police, government, and political institutions, along with symbols of the capitalist system, racism, social injustice, and fascism, according to a confidential 2016 joint intelligence assessment by the DHS and the FBI.
	The violence ratcheted up as President Trump's campaign swung into full gear.
	The FBI noted violence by Antifa in Texas, Oregon, California.
	Law enforcement put particular focus on a white supremacist rally in Sacramento.
	At their Sacramento rally, Antifa protesters came looking for violence and, quote, engaged in several activities indicating proficiency in pre-operational planning, to include organizing carpools, to travel from different locations, raising bail money in preparation for arrests, counter-surveilling law enforcement using three-man scout teams, using handheld radios for communication, coordinating the event via social media, according to the DHS.
	That's planning.
	That's planning.
	This isn't just spontaneous violence.
	This is people on handheld radios warning each other when the cops are showing up.
	They've raised bail money in anticipation of arrests.
	They were organizing carpools to get to and from places.
	They were organizing how to get weapons.
	The FBI and DHS issued a report in April 2016 openly saying that Antifa was prepping for violence.
	New Jersey law enforcement reportedly stated that Antifa had cropped up in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Philly.
	Shockingly, some members of Antifa, quote, have gone overseas to train and fight with fellow anarchist organizations.
	Okay, sounds like a terrorist hell.
	Going overseas to train and fight with anarchist organizations.
	So, here is the question.
	This was happening in the middle of 2016.
	Where the hell was President Obama?
	He had the violence in Charlottesville.
	President Trump was asked repeatedly, as well he should have been, to denounce this violence.
	And he did repeatedly denounce the violence.
	And then he said there was violence on both sides and the media went nuts over that particular statement.
	There was a lot more in the press conference that was bad, but that was correct.
	There was violence on both sides and Antifa was causing a lot of it.
	Where was Obama for a year?
	Anytime there was a violent incident, Obama tended to downplay the violence and instead talk about the underlying root causes of the violence.
	And he got away with it.
	Remember, in April 2009, it's amazing the double standard that holds for the right and the left, okay?
	So there's this report that comes out from the FBI and DHS, April 2016, talking about the violence of Antifa.
	Flashback before that seven years, okay?
	It's now April 2009, shortly after Obama takes office, and the Department of Homeland Security, under the auspices of Janet Napolitano, who's now in charge of the University of California system, issued a report saying that white right-wing extremism was on the rise, labeling anti-abortion, anti-immigration groups a suspect.
	The report specifically called out the prospect of lone wolf terrorism from those who agreed with quote-unquote right-wing viewpoints.
	The report was really vague, but the Obama administration stood by it.
	So, how about his apparently very specific report regarding Antifa from the year of the election?
	Not a word from the Obama administration.
	We're only finding out about it a year and a half after it happened.
	A year and a half.
	And let's contrast the language of that 2009 memo with the language of the Obama administration regarding political violence.
	The 2009 memo about right-wing violence, it says, quote, debates over appropriate immigration levels and enforcement policy generally fall within the realm of protected political speech under the First Amendment.
	But in some cases, anti-immigration or strident pro-enforcement fervor has been directed against specific groups and has the potential to turn violent.
	Has the potential to turn violent?
	What does that even mean?
	Has the potential to turn violent?
	That's vague, but the Obama administration stood by it.
	But when left-wing rhetoric actually turned violent, what did Obama do?
	He said, oh, the violence is bad, but they do have some grievances, don't they?
	I'm speaking specifically about President Obama's speech in July 2016 after a black radical parroting Black Lives Matter talking points went out and murdered five police officers and wounded seven others in Dallas.
	The officers were protecting a Black Lives Matter march at the time.
	Obama actually spent an inordinate amount of time echoing BLM's message at their funeral service.
	At their funeral service.
	Imagine if President Trump had actually gone out after Charlottesville and he had said, and he sort of did do this to a certain extent, the media went nuts.
	You remember that he went out and he said, listen, this violence is terrible, but confederate statues...
	There's a legit argument to be had over Confederate statues.
	The media went completely nuts.
	Here's what Obama said at the funeral for people who were murdered by a Black Lives Matter supporter, a black radical who is echoing the talking points of Black Lives Matter.
	Here's what he said, quote, We know that bias remains.
	We know it, whether you're black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or of Middle Eastern descent.
	We've all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point.
	We've heard at it.
	We've heard it at times in our homes.
	If we're honest, perhaps we've heard prejudice in our own heads and felt it in our own hearts.
	And then he talks about how the cops were a bunch of racists.
	Amazing, the treatment, okay?
	But not one peep about Antifa, not one peep about Antifa.
	I want to talk a little bit more about that, and how the Democrats are really split now between their radicals and their moderates, and their only hope left is getting President Trump and how they hope to do that.
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	Okay, so again, The left needs to be asked.
	Every Democrat needs to be asked about Antifa at this point.
	They should have been asked about it a year ago.
	They should have been grilled about it a year ago.
	They should have been grilled about it after what happened in Sacramento.
	But the media was too ensconced in its narrative of Antifa as Normandy fighters to actually go out and fight violence.
	That's despicable.
	That's truly despicable.
	And you can see the split that's happening now inside the Democratic Party between the so-called Moderates and the Radicals.
	The Radicals are still saying, well, Antifa has a point.
	They're not so bad.
	And the Moderates, who are now being led by Nancy Pelosi, of all people, they're saying Antifa's really bad.
	If the Democrats don't come together around this, I think it's indicative of a broader split inside the Democratic Party.
	The far left of the Democratic Party is even further left than Bernie Sanders.
	They're moving left at an increasingly rapid pace.
	The Democratic Party has split.
	And the old school Hillary Clinton, quote unquote, moderate Democratic Party, which was never moderate.
	They're being left in the wake.
	Even Bernie Sanders is now being seen increasingly as a guy who's not radical enough.
	I've never seen a party move this far to one extreme this fast, and you can see it happening in real time.
	Antifa's accelerating that.
	Trump is certainly accelerating that.
	The left's hatred for Trump is driving them off the rails.
	Every Democrat should now be asked, will you denounce Antifa?
	Will he denounce them?
	I think Martheeson has a great piece at Washington Post, and it is interesting.
	It's fascinating how white supremacists who get violent, white supremacists who get violent, they are seen as the ultimate evil.
	Totally fair.
	They are an ultimate evil.
	Left-wing extremists who get violent, you know, I'm talking about communists and anarchists, they're seen as somehow superior to Nazis.
	Which is weird to me.
	I mean, the communists were responsible for a couple hundred million deaths over the course of the last century.
	As Mark Thiessen said, I'm not sure why it is that somebody who gets violent in American streets carrying the flag of Stalin is better than somebody who gets violent in American streets carrying the flag of Hitler.
	These both seem like terrible people.
	There is a moral equivalence there, and I think that's right.
	Communism is an ideology that is just as evil as Nazism in its own way.
	It's not racist the way that Nazism was, but it is certainly classist.
	I mean, these are people who suggested that people who are bourgeois be murdered.
	You could separate people based on class.
	It's funny how both of these groups seem to center when it comes down to it.
	They both come down on the same side when it comes to the Jewish question.
	Neither of them really liked the Jews very much.
	Stalin wasn't really fond and neither was Hitler.
	But it is amazing how we in the United States, we've taken the sort of sanguine view of communism in a way that we never have with Nazism.
	Even though they were both at the time cheered by by Democrats at the time the the Nazi movement was seen as sort of a proto-fascist Or fascist proto forerunner of a more sophisticated movement that eventually could be used for good by a lot of people Including some mainstays of the Democratic Party back in the day.
	So again, the only point to be made here is Is that we ought to be looking at the violence on both sides and condemning it and condemning the ideology that underlies it, but instead what we're seeing is some people on the left condemning the violence, not all, and very few people on the left condemning the ideology at all, whereas everybody on the right who has any brain at all is condemning white supremacists in the alt-right.
	Okay, so what does this mean?
	Democrats have to know this stuff doesn't make them popular.
	The Antifa stuff is not going to make them popular.
	It's not going to make them well-loved.
	It makes them seem extreme and crazy because they're being extreme and crazy.
	And so instead, what they are focusing in on is their final hope.
	The last hope.
	Their very last hope of all is beyond Trump destroying himself, is Robert Mueller.
	So Robert Mueller is the special investigator, and now there's some new developments in Robert Mueller's case.
	Again, they need to shut down these leaks.
	These leaks are just ridiculous.
	So here is the report from Mediaite.
	This is from yesterday, from Joseph Wolfson.
	The team of Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly collaborating with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in its ongoing investigation.
	According to a new report from Politico, Mueller's team and Schneiderman's office have been in contact in recent weeks exchanging information and evidence on former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his financial transactions.
	Anonymous sources familiar with the collaboration have said they're potentially building a criminal case, possibly for money laundering, but no decision has been made whether or not charges will be filed.
	Nothing is imminent, one source told Politico.
	As Politico reports, Schneiderman could potentially provide Mueller additional leverage to get Manafort to cooperate with his investigation, noting that President Trump does not have pardoning power over state crime.
	So here is the difficulty here.
	So everybody has been talking about Trump can always just pardon anybody who is convicted or anybody who's indicted.
	Not true of state crimes.
	If you are condemned of murder in a state court, you cannot be pardoned by the president.
	You can only be pardoned by the governor.
	So what does that mean?
	What it looks like, it looks like Robert Mueller is coordinating with Eric Schneiderman, the very political, very left attorney general of the state of New York, to go after Paul Manafort, who, as I've said before, is pretty corrupt, and then use those state charges as a way to get Manafort to flip on Trump.
	That could be what's happening here.
	You have Schneiderman charge Manafort in state court, and then say, we'll drop those charges if you testify against Trump, and Trump can't pardon Manafort and just get out of that conundrum.
	That'd be very clever by Mueller if that's what he intends on doing.
	But it's very dangerous for President Trump, obviously, because sitting around waiting to have your former campaign chair indicted at the state level and then see where that ends up is a very dangerous game.
	A lot of people are suggesting that based on this, Trump should fire Mueller.
	That would be the biggest disaster of all.
	Right now, there's a game of chicken going on.
	Mueller's going as far as he can, almost daring Trump to fire him.
	If Trump fires him, all hell will break loose.
	It's going to be very difficult for Republicans to stand up In the face of President Trump firing the special investigator who's looking into election corruption.
	That's not the only story involving Mueller today.
	According to Betsy Woodruff from the Daily Beast, special counsel Bob Mueller has teamed up with the IRS.
	According to sources familiar with his investigation into alleged Russian election interference, his probe has enlisted the help of agents from the IRS's criminal investigations unit.
	This unit, known as CI, is one of the federal government's most tight-knit, specialized, secretive investigative entities.
	It has 2,500 agents, focusing exclusively on financial crime, including tax evasion and money laundering.
	The IRS does have access to Trump's tax returns.
	Potential financial crimes are a central part of Mueller's probes.
	That is part of the thing.
	Trump has said in the past that that would be the red line for him, as if Mueller started looking into financial dealings of his family, and Mueller said, screw that, I'm looking wherever I please.
	There is a problem too, which is that Trump has not actually staffed up the IRS.
	Right?
	Trump has not actually staffed up the IRS.
	This is according to the Daily Beast.
	The team-up between the IRS and Mueller probe could come with political complications.
	Mueller has already taken some criticism for the number of Democratic donors on his team.
	Those critiques intensified yesterday after the announcement about Schneiderman.
	Also, it is pretty clear that Trump has not filled out a lot of the senior positions at these particular, at these particular agencies.
	Trump has not yet named his pick to run the tax division, which is a post that requires Senate confirmation, and also a post which could help out Mueller in his investigation.
	So right now, an Obama appointee is filling the slot that can work with Mueller to give him the information.
	So Mueller can get all the dirt that he wants right now.
	Trump has put himself in this situation because, remember, it was Trump's activity regarding James Comey.
	It was his dragging in of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that led to the appointment of the special counsel in the first place.
	Now if he fires the special counsel, it'll look like a cover-up.
	So it's a full-scale problem for President Trump at this point.
	A lot of people saying, well he should just fire people and get it over with, and that way they can't have grounds to impeach him.
	Again, impeachment is a political grounds.
	I think his best move here is to wait it out.
	And I honestly think that he's actually innocent of the Russia collusion.
	I don't think that Trump himself was colluding with Russia.
	I think that there is a possibility that Manafort was working with the Russians because Manafort's always worked with the Russians.
	I think there's the possibility that Flynn was doing so.
	But the idea that Trump knew about it is a whole different thing.
	So you could easily see a scenario where Trump's underlings go down and it looks more like Iran-Contra than it looks like Watergate.
	It looks a lot more like somebody underneath Trump goes down than like the president himself goes down.
	That's why I'm saying that I don't think Trump should fire Mueller.
	But what Mueller is doing is obviously provocative.
	What Mueller is doing is obviously aggressive.
	And so he must think that he's got something.
	The Democrats obviously are just ecstatic about this.
	MSNBC's Mark Halperin, he says Mueller is a ruthless opponent and is not afraid of President Trump.
	Mueller is a cyborg with a head, a heart, and a brain.
	He's a relentless opponent.
	This is an opponent unlike Donald Trump.
	I'm sorry, say that.
	Can you say that again?
	I like that.
	He's a cyborg who has a head, a heart, and a brain.
	Okay.
	He's a relentless opponent.
	And one of the underappreciated aspects of how he's building this operation, I think, is his ability, because of his vast experience, to coordinate.
	He's in sync with the congressional investigations whose investigators and members are not issuing immunity to people or bringing up witnesses who will interfere with the case.
	He's coordinating within the Justice Department and the FBI.
	You don't hear any unhappiness coming from there.
	And now he's coordinating with...
	with another guy with subpoena power, another guy who is fearless and not afraid of Donald Trump, and a guy who can bring charges that the president can't pardon for.
	None of this is an accident.
	We're seeing through a glass darkly what this Mueller operation is like.
	We see only a tiny bit of it.
	But it's clear from everything we see that there is a strategy here, there's a fearlessness, and there's a level of coordination that makes anyone trying to help the president on this be put in a very defensive position.
	Okay, so you can see the excitement from the media and all this, and we'll talk a little bit more about the excitement from some fake news people, like actual fake news people, in just a second.
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	Okay, so...
	I want to talk some more about all of this.
	Plus, I want to get to the mailbag.
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	Okay, so the Democrats are obviously ecstatic about these new developments in Mueller.
	They're placing all their hope in Mueller.
	I don't think Mueller is going to give them what they want.
	I don't think this is going to come down to some major indictment of President Trump or even anyone who is super close to him, but you can see the excitement on the left.
	They're so excited.
	They think that finally there will be a magic bullet.
	Okay, when you are relegating to hoping that a magic bullet is going to take out the president, I mean literally, when you are relegated to hope, I shouldn't say magic bullet, in association with presidents because that's actually a thing with JFK, but When you're relegated to hoping that something bad is going to take the president out, like just some random event is going to take the president out, some random story, then you're in serious trouble.
	I know this because there are a lot of people on the right who are attempting to push the birther story back in 2012, hoping that suddenly there would be evidence that Obama was not actually eligible for office and then you'd have to leave office.
	And I know a lot of good-hearted people got taken in by this because Obama wouldn't release his birth certificate.
	I always thought it was stupid.
	I always thought it was unsubstantiated.
	I always thought there was no evidence of it.
	But there are a lot of people who bought into it or at least left their mind open to it because there was a hopeful thing that, oh, maybe there will be a deus ex machina that something will come from the sky and knock Obama out.
	You can see the Democrats doing the same thing with the Mueller investigation right now.
	Dan Rather, who is the very definition of fake news, he came out yesterday and he spoke about Hurricane Vladimir.
	The Putin story is going to take out Trump.
	And what you're seeing, time after time, is a president who is, within himself, seized with fear.
	And that's going to be, you know, a political hurricane is out there at sea for him.
	We'll call it Hurricane Vladimir, if you will, the whole Russian thing.
	It's still pretty far out at sea.
	But each day, and tonight we saw it again with the two things you reported, the draft reporting from Politico and the Financial Times, This hurricane, this political hurricane, it's still far out at sea.
	It's building in intensity.
	You can say, well, it was category 1, it's gone to category 2.
	It's approaching category 4.
	Don't want to stretch that metaphor too far.
	Nothing says classy quite like in the middle of a Category 4 hurricane hitting the mainland United States, likening a political scandal to a hurricane that's going to take out the President of the United States.
	Just very classy stuff from a guy who lost his job in 2004 for legitimately making up a document or pushing a forged document about President Bush.
	He thought, this is the irony, he thought in 2004 that that was going to be the magic The magic bullet that ended up destroying the Bush presidency, that he was going to release this letter about Bush going AWOL.
	It turned out that was fake.
	Virtually anytime somebody says, I have the magic tape, I have the magic thing that's going to take out the president, only once, only once in American history, really, has there been some sort of magic document, magic tapes that ended up taking down a president.
	It was Nixon.
	And so everybody wants to go back to that model.
	That was something that was unique in American history.
	I don't think you're going to see something like that again in the near future.
	But you can see that the hopes of the Democrats are riding on this thing.
	Keith Olbermann is saying the same thing.
	He says, everyone in the cabinet is going to be impeached.
	Not only is Trump going to be impeached, everyone's going to be impeached.
	Here's Keith Olbermann broadcasting from his mother's basement.
	Republican senators and congressmen finally speaking out against Trump on Charlottesville, on Arpaio, on the response to Hurricane Harvey, on the Secretary of the Treasury watching the eclipse while standing next to 200 billion dollars in gold, on the military transgender ban, the daughter of the Secretary of the Interior herself a veteran calling for his impeachment over that, a website run by a Republican research firm noting with scorn that in one month Trump had attacked nearly one out of every seven Republican senators.
	The little tendrils are popping up through the soil, so well fertilized by seven months of this administration and the president of bulls**t. Roger Stone's insurrection may in fact be coming to pass, except it will be non-violent, and when it is over, it will not be good news for Stone or his fellow travelers.
	And when it ends, there will not be Trump.
	See, this is the great hope.
	There will not be Trump.
	I say it very seriously, just like I used to say en fuego back on SportsCenter back in the day.
	This is the great hope.
	Okay, again, if you're banking on this hope and you're on the left, let me recommend that you get a better program, stop associating with Antifa, and start providing some solutions to the American people.
	It turns out that Republicans suck at their jobs.
	The only consolation is that Democrats are even worse at theirs.
	They're even worse than theirs.
	Democrats are now, CNN is now so desperate about Trump that they're legitimately attempting to push their own presidential candidates.
	It's an amazing thing.
	I was watching yesterday at the gym, CNN was on the TV, and again, I was not, I was in the middle of working out so I couldn't go up and just throw things at the TV, but They decided to have on John Kasich and I think it's John Hickenlooper.
	I can never remember Hickenlooper's first name.
	He's the governor of Colorado.
	Yeah, it's John Hickenlooper.
	And they were both on with Brianna Keillor from CNN and Keillor actually presented to them They're presenting their joint health care plan.
	It's going nowhere because no one cares what these guys have to say because John Kasich is a watered-up piece of paper you stuck in your poppocat and it went through the wash.
	And John Hickenlooper is like a slightly weirder version of Gary Johnson.
	And so they're both sitting there and CNN actually proposes to them on the air that they should run a joint candidacy for president, a bipartisan candidacy for president.
	God, no.
	We whipped up a little something.
	For what?
	Running for what?
	Not Dog Catcher.
	What is it we're running for?
	Well, you know, the big White House.
	So, we whipped up a little something.
	It's just a little poster just to give you a taste of what it would look like.
	So, I don't know, isn't that a little enticing, Governor Kasich?
	And then Kasich went on to avoid the question.
	He said, you know, I'd have to talk to my wife about that.
	And the only reason they're even proposing these stupid health care plans is because they want to run together or they want, like, would anyone take John Hickenlooper seriously as a human running for president?
	I mean, look at the guy.
	You really think that's going to be a thing?
	The loop.
	Loop de loop, 2020.
	Like, that's gonna be a thing.
	Kasich tried to run last time and stayed in long enough to get Donald Trump nominated.
	And everyone dislikes him because he's a jerk.
	I mean, I've been told.
	I've been informed on very good information that his father is a mailman, but that's about all that I know to recommend him.
	But this is how desperate the media are.
	Now they're trying to push Kasich, Hickenlooper as an alternative to the awful crappy 2020 Trump-Kamala Harris race that is sure to come.
	Okay, so with all that happening, Trump this morning tweets out that he's basically been targeted by forces beyond his control.
	The truth is that there is some of that happening.
	There's now a story out that transcripts reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee reveal that FBI Director James Comey had decided months before the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton concluded that he would not recommend criminal prosecution.
	GOP Chairman Grassley, Senator Lindsey Graham, they all requested all the records related to Comey's firing.
	In the transcript, the FBI's Principal Deputy General Counsel of National Security and Cyber Law, Tricia Anderson, told the Office of Special Counsel that Comey had drafted a statement in early May that he would later give in July 2016 that legally exonerated Hillary Clinton.
	So he already decided he was going to exonerate Hillary Clinton long before FBI agents finished their work.
	That'd be good enough reason to fire him right there.
	Comey was always a bad FBI director, and that is just more evidence of it.
	So when Trump says that he's been victimized by a system that's in place, clearly that's the case.
	And that, by the way, will be his defense to anything that Mueller comes up with, which is why I say it's not necessary to fire Mueller, because I don't think that there are going to be enough Republicans who even jump on board, as long as it seems that His investigation has been compromised in any way.
	I don't think Trump has tons to fear from it.
	I actually really don't.
	I think there'll be a lot of bad headlines, but I don't think that he gets impeached over anything that Mueller has to bring, unless it clearly implicates the president directly.
	Okay, time for some things I like, things I hate, and then we'll do some mailbags.
	So, things I like.
	We've been doing philosophy all week.
	So, this is one of my favorite philosophical books, as you probably could have guessed.
	Machiavelli's The Prince.
	So, this is a book that has gotten a very bad rap.
	It's short.
	It's very readable.
	It's fascinating.
	Written by Niccolo Machiavelli from back during the Renaissance in Italy.
	And he was trying to get a job, basically.
	I believe it was at the Borgias.
	And he was trying to make it clear to them how he thought they should govern.
	He was trying to give his own book of little political advice.
	People identify Machiavelli as this evil, sinister guy who's trying to manipulate circumstances.
	He was actually a proponent of what he called Virtù.
	Virtù is like virtue, but it doesn't mean saints who sacrifice themselves, necessarily.
	Virtù, according to Machiavelli, means a certain quality of manliness that allows you to uphold the principles for which you stand.
	So Virtù isn't just the values that you hold, it's how you go about defending those values, and sometimes that requires a certain degree of ruthlessness This is the handbook, obviously, on political ruthlessness.
	Every political science major has read it, as every political science major should.
	It is very readable.
	It's very readable.
	So I tried to recommend philosophy that's readable, which is why I'm not recommending Hegel or Kant.
	But Machiavelli is very readable.
	The Prince, it's a terrific book, and it's a very short read.
	Again, it's like 120 pages, very short.
	Okay, time for some things that I hate.
	So, things that I hate today.
	I'm going to show you two police videos.
	I hate both of these police videos, but I want to explain why I think the media jumps on one a lot more than they jump on the other.
	So there's one police video that comes courtesy of this department.
	I believe this is in Georgia.
	There's a police officer and he pulls over a woman.
	And she won't get out of her car.
	It's in Cobb County, Georgia.
	She won't get out of it.
	This was back in July 2016.
	It just broke, I think, yesterday.
	And she won't get out of her car.
	And she says, and he says, why don't you take your phone?
	I'm arresting you.
	Why don't you take your phone and call up your, and I want you to call up your boyfriend or something to let them know that you need to be bailed out.
	And she says, I don't want to take my hands off the steering wheel because I've seen all the videos.
	I've seen all the videos and apparently she's a drunk driver and she was drunk and kind of belligerent and wouldn't get out of her car or anything and so the cop jokingly says, well you got nothing to worry about because we only shoot black people.
	Right, okay, so, idiot, idiot, idiot.
	Terrible thing to say, obviously.
	But, does he mean it literally?
	I mean, I'll let you watch the tape.
	It doesn't seem to me that he means, yes, we literally go around every day shooting black people.
	It sounds to me like he's got a drunk woman in the car who's being an idiot, and he thinks he's joking with her to try and get her off her guard, and so he says this stupid thing sarcastically, like, you got nothing to worry about, we shoot black people, ha ha ha ha ha.
	Right, the same way that Steven Crowder and I make Jewish jokes?
	Right, he's making a joke about how cops are racist.
	That seems to me what this actually is.
	He got fired over it.
	Here's the actual tape.
	Go ahead and call it down.
	I'm going to take you to jail, and I'm going to impound the car.
	Before that, can you please let me know?
	No.
	I can't call them if you don't open the door.
	Why can't you?
	Because I will not put my... Use your phone.
	It's in your lap right there.
	Okay, I just don't want to put my hands down.
	I'm really sorry.
	I'm just... It's just really long.
	No, no, no.
	I've just seen way too many videos of cops.
	But you're not black.
	Remember, we only kill black people.
	Yeah, we only kill black people, right?
	Okay, the right at the end is the dead giveaway that he's being sarcastic, but it doesn't matter.
	Obviously you can't say this sort of thing because that's asinine, but he ends up being fired and this is supposed to be some sort of indication that the police know they're institutionally racist.
	I guess you can read it that way.
	That's not how I read it.
	I mean it seems to me pretty obvious from the tape that what the guy is doing is the lady says I've looked at all these videos and he's saying yeah you've looked at the videos I know we're all terrible but we only kill black people even according to the videos so you know get out of the car.
	Right?
	or use the phone.
	So he ends up being fired for this.
	This is a national story, okay?
	This led NBC News today, this led NBC News.
	Here is a story about cop malfeasance that to me is significantly worse because this woman was a criminal and she ended up going to jail.
	This particular case comes out of, I believe, Texas.
	Oh no, I'm sorry, Salt Lake City.
	And this is a video of a woman named Alex Wubbles.
	She is a nurse.
	And there is a... I have to give the backstory.
	There was a driver who was trying to get away from the cops.
	He was speeding in his truck trying to get away from the cops.
	He crossed over the median line and he went... he plowed headlong into a Mack truck.
	He was badly burned.
	He was in a coma, basically.
	And the cops come in.
	They're trying to absolve the other driver in the crash.
	They come into the hospital and they say, we want to take his blood.
	Okay, it is illegal under Supreme Court precedent from 2016 to take somebody's blood without any sort of probable cause, without a search warrant, or without the permission of the person.
	Person's unconscious, and there's no search warrant.
	So the nurse says, listen, you know, I may like you, but I can't let you take the guy's blood because that's illegal.
	Okay, they arrest her, and they brutalize her in the process.
	Here's the actual tape.
	Okay.
	No, we're done.
	We're done.
	You're under arrest.
	We're done.
	We're done.
	You're gone away!
	I'm stressed.
	I'm stuck.
	Somebody help me!
	Stop!
	- We're done, sir.
	- Hey.
	- We're done, sir.
	I had a...
	- Oh, my God! - Hey! - Pain. - So they arrest her over nothing.
	She was never charged with a crime.
	They handcuffed her.
	They dragged her out physically.
	Okay, she was the one who was obeying the law.
	The cop wasn't.
	And here's the point of why I'm contrasting and comparing these videos.
	Most cop bad action has little or nothing to do with racism.
	It has to do with cops just being crappy at their jobs.
	Just like most of the things you do in your daily job have nothing to do with racism.
	If you do it wrong, it has to do with you being bad at your job.
	And if it happens, there's a black person in front of you and you're bad at your job, you might be accused of racism.
	The same thing happens with cops.
	Okay, Adam Carolla makes this point all the time and I think that he's exactly right.
	If you're a black person getting pulled over by a cop and the cop was a jerk, he might immediately assume that it was because he was black.
	But being a white person who's pulled over by a cop, he knows that it's just because some cops are jerks.
	Right?
	I think that's a perfectly understandable perspective.
	And when you're a member of a minority group, that is the tendency.
	You know, my father, my grandfather, I remember growing up, there'd be times where somebody would be a jerk, and my dad would say, the guy's probably an anti-Semite.
	And I'd say, Dad, it probably isn't because he's an anti-Semite, it's probably just because he's an a-hole.
	Right?
	You know?
	They're like, Dad, that happens.
	Like, people are jerks.
	I think that you're a jerk is a better explainer 95% of the time than you're a racist.
	And so even the guy in the first tape, it seems to me he's acting out of ignorance, stupidity, incompetence.
	He had 28, by the way, the evidence for that is that he had 28 years on the police force before he was fired, not a single instance in which he was accused of racism.
	So, you know, that seems to me better evidence than that tape of sarcasm.
	But the point here is that bad police action, we would be better off talking about when police exceed their mandate, when police are brutal, when police get out over what they are supposed to be doing, when police exceed The use of force.
	And when they do all those things, that seems to me a better explanation of police behavior than just blaming endemic institutional racism.
	I mean, Alex Webbles is white.
	They didn't stop the Salt Lake City cop from dragging her out for no reason.
	And if she'd been black, what would the headline have been?
	If Alex Webbles had been a black lady, the headline would have been completely different, right?
	When a white officer drags a black woman out of the ER, Black Lives Matters would have been marching.
	We would have been told that this was just unacceptable racism from the Salt Lake City Police Department.
	And we hear the same thing whenever there's a death.
	I remember out here in Los Angeles, in Orange County, there was a homeless white guy named Kelly Thomas, and he was beaten to death.
	He was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
	He was beaten to death on the streets of Fulton, California by a bunch of cops.
	He was white.
	If he'd been black, that would have been a national story.
	It was like Rodney King level.
	I mean, it was worse than Rodney King because he actually died, Kelly Thomas.
	And he actually didn't do as much wrong as Rodney King.
	And it wasn't a national headline in the same way because he was white.
	Again, I think the same cops who beat Rodney King beat Kelly Thomas.
	And I think they're both wrong, but that's a different kind of wrong than racism necessarily.
	Okay, time to do a little bit of mailbag.
	Who do you want to see sit on the Iron Throne at the end of Game of Thrones?
	So, I mean, my personal preference would be to sew Rob's head back onto his neck and make him king.
	I was a big Rob fan and it was very sad to me when they knocked him off.
	I do like the theory, it's not right, but I like the theory that Ned Stark is still alive.
	I think that's hilarious.
	That he switched places with Jaqen H'ghar in the jail at the end of season one.
	Uh, of the players who are left on the board in the Iron Throne, as I've said before, my heart says I would love to see Tormund and Brienne with their giant children bestriding the world.
	I think Tormund would be a good king because he's not interested in ruling anybody else.
	But I think that in all likelihood he'll end up being a council of advisors and a democracy and blah blah blah.
	Okay, Janet says, Hello, Ben.
	How do you think we can encourage young millennials to marry and understand the importance of the nuclear family?
	What steps would you insist on taking when you have the culture, especially Hollywood and the media, teaching us that marriage and family are unnecessary?
	Well, I think that the first step that we can take is when kids are young, model great marriages for them.
	Model great marriages for them.
	TV is modeling why it's great to be single, and it's all a lie, okay?
	How many single people do you know who are really happy about being single?
	Like, ecstatic about being single?
	Not that they're happy, they can be happy, but I mean, just like, about that aspect of their life.
	They're like, yeah, you know what?
	I love being single.
	Okay, other than a few guys who like to cat around, there are not very many people in the United States who are like, yeah, I love being single.
	A lot of people living together, a lot of people have girlfriends, but they don't get married because pop culture has told them that marriage is a patriarchal institution in which people are miserable, and they fall out of love with each other, and blah blah blah blah blah.
	The best thing you can do.
	for your kids is model a good marriage.
	And everybody who's married should model good marriages for the rest of the world.
	That's the single best way to draw people toward marriage.
	Marriage is an institution that does make people happier.
	By every pull available, both men and women are happier married than they are unmarried.
	Kids make you unhappier in some ways, but a lot happier in other ways.
	That's a different question though.
	Kids, it's really fascinating how Western civilization has made kids into dogs and dogs into kids, but that's a different question than marriage itself.
	Marriage itself is still an amazing institution and it is the lifelong commitment of somebody to you and knowing that you're going to be able to grow with that person the rest of your life.
	Is a very different thing than the idea that you have sex with random partners you get together with and blah.
	You know, I think that's garbage.
	So Nathan, I don't, I should.
	This is one area where I come up short in my own religious observance and I am moving toward it.
	I met with my financial planner the other day and we were going to start laying out some money toward that goal.
	What is your position on right-to-work laws, and what is your prediction for the future right-to-work laws in America?
	So right-to-work laws are great.
	Right-to-work laws basically state, for those who don't know, that there are a lot of laws on the books in places like California, there was in Wisconsin, there is in Ohio, that if you want to work for the police department, or the fire department, or the teachers, you have to be unionized.
	You have to work for the teachers' union.
	So you can't actually be employed by the state of California as a full-time teacher without being a member of the teachers' union.
	That's nonsense, it's garbage, it's collusion, it should be illegal.
	Right-to-work laws basically say that you do not have to be a member of any union in order for you to work, and also that they can't confiscate your wages.
	I mean, the unions have the government so sewn up.
	There's a great book called Shadow Bosses by a friend of mine named Mallory Factor and his wife Elizabeth about this.
	There are a bunch of states that actually remove, the state will do this, when they pay a paycheck to a teacher in California, they actively remove your union fee out of your paycheck and give it to the union.
	The union's a private organization.
	That's insane.
	That's like if I went to all of my employees and I said, listen, we have a charity fund over here, and we're going to use that charity fund for a bunch of nice things.
	And you have to give to the charity fund.
	And then the state says, okay, well, when we collect your taxes, we're going to take out a little extra and give it to your employer.
	It's totally nuts that this is how it works.
	Right-to-work laws are a good thing and ought to be pushed.
	Well, they haven't lost any teeth yet, so I haven't actually had to have that conversation.
	I see nothing wrong with kids believing in the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus.
	Life will disabuse you of all sorts of notions later, but I think it's kind of charming.
	I think it's kind of charming.
	And kids figure it out pretty fast.
	I mean, the fact is, the kids know that it's really Mommy and Daddy, but they like the mythology of it.
	It's fun.
	Thanks, Taylor.
	So, I've divided mine on red light traffic cameras.
	The part of me that is annoyed with getting tickets hates them.
	The part of me that says that the law should be equally applied likes them.
	So, the question is whether red light traffic cameras actually capture dangerous activity or whether these are just prophylactic rules that they are enforcing.
	There are times when somebody is going through the intersection and it's the very last second and you're going through red light and there's no one there.
	Is that somebody who deserves a $200 ticket the same way that somebody who runs a red light in the middle of somebody else's green light deserves a ticket?
	I'm not sure.
	I'm not sure.
	Like, there's some judgment calls to this.
	But if you want an equally enforced traffic law, I think that it makes sense.
	If you want a safer—presumably, if you want a safer— Let's put it this way.
	Red light traffic cameras are a much better idea than hiring cops to sit around your intersections instead of policing actual crime.
	This has been a pet peeve of mine with the police for years.
	It has nothing to do with the officers.
	I mean, the other day I was pulled over right near the office a couple months ago.
	I was pulled over near the office and I said to the police officer, thanks for everything else you do.
	And he kind of smiled and nodded at me and said, yeah, this is ridiculous, because they'd set up one of these speed traps and they had, I think, four motorcycle cops and three squad cars just on the side street over here to catch people who were making illegal rights.
	And it's like, OK, we got crime in the city, like real crime in the city.
	Even the cops don't want to be doing that.
	Dana says, Hey Ben, what's the best way to get over a heartbreak?
	The best way to get over a heartbreak is to get back out there, not to sit around moping about it.
	If you sit around moping about it, then all you're doing is you are engaging in giving the control of your feelings over to somebody else.
	That's always a mistake.
	You are in control of your own feelings.
	You're a rational human being.
	Do not give control of your feelings over to someone else.
	That empowers them.
	It does not empower you.
	Not to get all Marcus Aurelius stoic on you, but the fact is that it is up to you how you decide to treat the circumstances that surround you.
	If you get dumped, if you have a heartbreak, then I would suggest that you move on as best you can in as quick a manner as you can.
	Don't do this routine where it's like, well, if I just sit around, everything will eventually sort itself out.
	It won't.
	Why do you believe what happened to the Republican Party?
	Well, Emanuel, it sort of depends on whether the Republican Party goes along with everything Trump is willing to do.
	So let's say worst case scenario.
	Worst case scenario is that there's a direct letter from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin saying, Vlad, I need some help.
	You got any information on Hillary Clinton?
	And Vlad writing back saying, Yes, Donald.
	We have some information on Hillary Clinton.
	Here it is.
	Enjoy.
	We would like to see you elected.
	And Trump writes back saying, Thanks.
	Love it.
	Also, you can have Crimea.
	Right?
	Let's say that's the worst case scenario.
	Okay, so if that happens and the Republicans sit around and don't impeach him, then they end up going down with him.
	If they separate off from him, they don't as much.
	Remember...
	A lot of Republicans were getting ready to vote for impeachment for Richard Nixon when he resigned.
	It seemed like a disaster for the Republican Party.
	And Nixon resigns in, what, 75, I think?
	And by the time it's over, like six years later, is Ronald Reagan.
	So the idea that it was the end of the world when that happened, it was 74 when Nixon resigned, August 74 when Nixon resigned.
	Gerald Ford fills out his term.
	There's one term of Democrats and then you go right back to Ronald Reagan.
	So it doesn't kill the party to have a president who's a failure.
	It does kill the party to have a party that endorses the failure.
	Megan says, what's your number one tip for conservatives in college?
	Number one tip for conservatives in college is keep your head down and be...
	Be specific about the points that you choose to make.
	Don't always go into every argument guns-a-blazing.
	Understand what the purpose of the argument is.
	Brendan says, I want to know what your stance on cussing is.
	I know on other podcasts you have a much more colorful language than on your show, but I'd like to know how you feel about cussing in regular life.
	Thanks, Brendan.
	Well, I think you shouldn't do it in front of kids.
	I think it's impolite.
	I don't think that it is a moral failing in any serious way.
	This is where I differ from a lot of other religious people.
	I may be wrong.
	I'm fully willing to listen to that.
	I think that there are times when the use of particular language is necessary and appropriate.
	I think everybody does over curse.
	But I don't think that it's a deep abiding problem in society.
	Let's put it this way.
	I think that the overuse of the F-word by everyone now, like when I was growing up no one used the F-word ever.
	It was just a thing.
	You didn't use the F-word.
	Now everyone uses the F-word.
	I think it is a laxity in moral standards that has led to the laxity in language.
	But I think that if you're a person who drops the occasional F-bomb when you're frustrated and you're in the car alone, do I think that this makes you a lesser human being?
	No, I don't.
	I think that that's Psychological studies have actually shown that when you drop an f-bomb, it actually helps alleviate pain and anger when you're in the car alone by yourself.
	Like if you stub your toe and you yell the f-word, don't do it in front of kids, don't do it in front of other people, but if you do, it'll probably make you feel better than if you just didn't.
	Daniel says...
	Do you have any sort of special show plan for when you surpass Oprah and the iTunes ratings?
	I don't have any special show plan.
	You'll get a normal show.
	You will not get a car, and you will not get a car, and you will not get a car, and none of you will get a car.
	Go get your own damn car and get a job.
	Foxamillion Sandwich writes, is cereal a soup?
	No, cereal is not a soup.
	I have two things for soup.
	There are a bunch of things that people think are soup that I think are not soup.
	Okay, so number one, soup has to be hot.
	I know this is controversial.
	I know a lot of people think that you can have cold soup.
	Nonsense.
	There is no such thing as cold soup.
	That's called garbage.
	Okay, no one should be eating cold soup.
	Second, soup has to be cooked.
	Okay, when you make a vegetable puree and it hasn't been cooked, or you make a fruit puree, that's called a smoothie.
	Okay, a fruit smoothie is a puree.
	When you give me a bowl and it's just chopped up fruit, Okay, and then you say, "Ooh, it's a soup." No, it's not a soup.
	You're stupid.
	Okay.
	Noah says, "Ben, I was wondering if you own any guns.
	I know how scrupulous California is, and if you do what make and model.
	I do own a handgun.
	I own a shotgun.
	It's a Mossberg 500, the shotgun, and it's a Smith & Wesson 9mm is my handgun." Andrew says, "Hi, Ben.
	During the show, we only ever see you sitting behind a desk." I must know.
	Have you ever done an episode without wearing pants?
	Would you ever consider it?
	We wouldn't be able to see anyway.
	Well, first of all, Andrew, you might be lying.
	You might be able to see me.
	I just don't know, and that would be really sick and perverse of you to get me to take my pants off just for that purpose.
	How dare you?
	Second of all, uh, I was implored to wear shorts the other day because it was 101 th- It was like 197 degrees in the studio.
	It was really hot two days ago.
	Uh, I came in in pants anyway.
	Um, this is the difference between me and Michael Molls and Andrew Klavan.
	I came in in pants.
	Andrew Clavin came in in pants, Michael Mowles came in naked, and then stripped off a layer of skin so he could be more naked.
	That's just who Michael Mowles is.
	John, final question.
	He says, Hi, Ben.
	My fourth grader was reading a book written for second to third graders by an author she likes, only to discover the central theme of the book was the main character dealing with her two best friends coming out as gay and her love interest who hadn't decided whether he was bi or not.
	Sounds like a delightful book.
	This brings me to my question.
	When do you think is the optimal time to broach the birds and bees conversation with kids?
	Do you think this is also the time to bring up LGBT issues or is that a separate discussion?
	It is a separate discussion.
	The birds and the bees is about human reproduction.
	It's not about sexual pleasure.
	The birds and the bees is about what you do to make babies.
	Okay, because that is how the universe continues to operate.
	That's how the world continues to function.
	If that doesn't happen, humanity ends.
	What you do to make yourself feel good on your genitals is a different discussion than what is the purpose of marriage and procreation.
	It is.
	It's a different thing.
	Like, I remember when my dad gave me the birds and the bees talk.
	He literally sat down with an anatomy book and he said, here's how everything works.
	And if you have any questions, come to me and I'm happy to explain it to you.
	And that worked out great.
	I asked my dad any questions that I had.
	And we were never shy in our house about talking about the way that sex works.
	And so, you know, I think that being open with your child about how things work is the best.
	These issues will make themselves apparent anyway.
	I don't think it's like you have to sit around and wonder, when do I tell my kid this?
	Your kid will come to you with questions if you're open about these issues.
	Your kid will come to you with questions and ask the questions and you'll be given the opportunity to talk about them but you should think in advance about how you want to talk about these issues because there are moral issues embedded in the sexual pleasure question that are not embedded in how does sexual reproduction work questions and that's a separate conversation for my money.
	I don't think they're the same thing.
	Uh, at all.
	And I think conflating the two is one of the things society has done that's actually quite awful.
	It's conflating the value of sex with the value of physical pleasure.
	I don't think that that is the entire thing.
	And I think making the two identical has been a real disservice to children throughout the country.
	Okay, so, we'll be back here next week.
	We don't have a show on Monday, I believe, because it's Labor Day.
	So thanks, commies.
	Uh, appreciate it.
	We will be back on Tuesday, and we will have all of the news for you then.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.

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