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Jan. 17, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show

56:51

So Somber, So Serious, So Stupid | Ep. 934

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	Democrats get somber and serious about impeachment, Lev Parnas continues his media tour, and we check the mailbag.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
	Protect your online privacy today at expressvpn.com slash Ben.
	Impeachment continues apace.
	Yesterday was the big day.
	The impeachment charges were walked over from the House to the Senate in a somber, serious, and sober ceremony.
	It was really sort of like watching the coronation of a British monarch.
	You had a bunch of members of the House who sort of walked this over through an empty chamber.
	Very seriously wearing robes.
	It was pretty wild stuff.
	And we were told by the media that this was a somber and serious and sober moment.
	This was not a partisan impeachment in any way.
	That this was just the Democrats standing up for the constitutional duties to which they had sworn oath.
	And yet Adam Schiff, pretending to be somber and sober and serious and all of that yesterday in announcing the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, other congresspeople, members of the media saying that this was a very somber and serious and sober moment for a man who spent two years basically with a pup tent pitched outside the CNN green room claiming that President Trump was a Russian cat spa.
	Here is Adam Schiff, partisan par excellence, suggesting really in his manner and behavior that he was taking his constitutional duty extraordinarily seriously.
	This isn't just a hit against Trump.
	This was something that had to be done.
	House Resolution 755.
	Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
	Resolved.
	That Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate.
	Oh, the sobriety.
	Oh, the somberness and the sadness and the seriousness and all other S-words that you can find using a thesaurus.
	Basically, the media dragged all of them out.
	Wolf Blitzer talked about how somber and serious and sad all of this was.
	The media are just mouthpieces for the Democrats at this point, and they truly are.
	I won't say the entire media.
	There are certain members of the media who I think, on occasion, try to do a good job.
	I will say that the folks over at CNN, generally speaking, do not.
	Wolf Blitzer and members of the CNN team pretending that this was a serious moment in America after spending years cheerleading for Trump's impeachment, after spending years pushing the Trump-Russia collusion stuff, After years suggesting that Donald John Trump is the worst person who ever lived, they're sitting there like, oh my god, what a serious moment this is for the country.
	Yeah, I'm gonna go with, these are crocodile tears, here's Wolf Blitzer.
	Adam Schiff, the lead House impeachment manager, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, was very somber, very serious.
	He read these two articles of impeachment, abuse of power by the President of the United States, obstruction of Congress by the President of the United States, repeatedly saying that the President of the United States engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors.
	Everybody very much on point here.
	Everybody understands the somberness and the seriousness and the sobriety of the moment.
	This is why you had Nancy Pelosi trying to pretend that she was really somber and serious and sober about all of this.
	My favorite, my favorite actual instance of the somber, serious, sober moment was Kamala Harris.
	So Kamala Harris...
	She was doing an interview with MSNBC and she was on camera before she knew she was on camera.
	And she's yucking it up.
	I mean, just laughing out loud.
	And then the camera switches on.
	She realizes that the red light is on and she puts on her somber, serious, sober face and goes for it.
	It's clip 24.
	One of our colleagues, Casey Hunt, who is now with one of those senators, Casey.
	Ari, thanks so much.
	We're here with Senator Kamala Harris, who, of course, a former 2020 presidential candidate.
	I mean, this is a solemn, serious moment.
	These are the most serious charges ever brought in the history of our country against a president.
	I'm going to cough up a lung.
	That's amazing.
	Show it again.
	Show it again.
	Do it again.
	Do it again.
	That's great.
	One of our colleagues, Casey Hunt, who is now with one of those senators.
	Casey?
	Ari, thanks so much.
	We're here with Senator Kamala Harris, who, of course, a former 2020 presidential candidate.
	I mean, this is a solemn, serious moment.
	These are the most serious charges ever brought in the history of our country against a president.
	The most serious charges ever brought?
	Ever?
	Really?
	There's not a single crime alleged in the impeachment papers.
	Like, not one.
	But I'm really... I just... I really... They need to use the word sedate.
	We need stern.
	Like, all of the S words, right?
	I don't know why they picked S.
	And they could have gone with, they could have gone with portentous, weighty, right?
	There are plenty of thesaurus items they could have gone with, but it's all the S words.
	But that shift from that face, from that giant Joker grin and that crazy Joker laugh.
	I mean, I suggested after she left the presidential race that maybe she was up for the part of the Joker in the next Suicide Squad.
	But she went from that to, I mean, it's like Joaquin Phoenix in Joker who has this bizarre penchant for laughing at inappropriate times.
	because he's got an actual condition.
	Kamala Harris can't stop herself.
	She's like so happy, she's grinning.
	And then she realized the camera's on, she goes.
	And the Oscar for worst congressional actor goes to Senator Kamala Harris.
	Everybody's so serious about it.
	Guys, we ought to take this super seriously, because super serious crimes are being alleged, and it's the allegations that matter, as we will find out in a moment.
	It's not the actual proof, it's the allegations that matter, because now it's up to the Senate to investigate, which is weird, since the Senate is where you hold a trial.
	See, normally, in the impeachment procedure, You hold the investigation at the House level, and then you hold the trial at the Senate level.
	Now, I don't know about you, but if you've ever watched, like, a Law & Order episode, there's a difference between the investigation, right?
	That is the part where the guy who played Lumiere is out there on the streets walking the beat.
	And then there's the actual trial, and that's the part where you have Jerry Orbach walking the beat, and then you have the part where Sam Waterston actually tries the case.
	And they're two completely different things.
	Sam Waterston isn't the one walking the beat, gathering all the facts.
	He's the one trying the case.
	It's Jerry Orbach who's supposed to be walking the streets, finding all the evidence.
	Well, the House is supposed to be Jerry Orbach in this little analogy, and Sam Waterston is supposed to be the Senate, but turns out the House wants the Senate to be the investigative body as opposed to the House being the investigative body.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
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	Write Shapiro in their how-did-you-hear-about-us box so they know that we sent you.
	Okay, so as I say, Nancy Pelosi did a crap investigation in the House.
	They didn't call any of the relevant witnesses.
	Well, they called a bunch of people who had heard third hand about stuff happening in Ukraine.
	And now Nancy Pelosi says, well, you know, really what we're conveying to the Senate is not about the proof.
	It's not about the proof.
	It's about the allegations.
	Well, I understand that the Democrats have decided that allegations are tantamount to proof as soon as you're talking about someone you disagree with.
	That if it's Brett Kavanaugh, and there's an allegation made that he participated in a gang rape in 1832, that this is tantamount to proof.
	And therefore, Brett Kavanaugh should not sit on the Supreme Court.
	I understand this is their broad view of how due process works, but this is not how due process works.
	So when Nancy Pelosi suggests that That you don't need proof.
	You just need the allegations.
	And now it's up to the Senate to investigate the allegations.
	No, that was up to you, lady.
	And if you had just delayed this thing... We keep hearing, now it's bombshell after bombshell.
	Bombshells dropping everywhere.
	It's like the film 1917.
	Just bombshells.
	Blowing up.
	Right next to the Trump administration.
	Well, if you just waited a few weeks, you could have called all those witnesses.
	Like every single one of the ones you are now calling on the Senate to call.
	Which suggests that all of this is a put-up job.
	Nancy Pelosi basically admitting as much yesterday.
	In any case, it's not a question of saying what proof, it says what allegations have been made.
	And that has to be subjected to scrutiny as to how we go forward.
	But it should not be ignored in the context of other events that have happened that would substantiate some of that.
	I mean, we don't need proof.
	The allegations are sufficient for us to take seriously the impeachment charges.
	Again, this is like if Jerry Orbach walked into Sam Waterston's office and he was like, listen, I've got an allegation.
	A murder has been committed.
	And Sam Waterston's like, awesome.
	I'm going to go.
	I'd like to go try this thing.
	Where's your proof?
	And Jerry Orbach was like, well, I think my allegation is enough.
	Like, there's been an allegation, man.
	Don't got a body.
	Don't got a weapon.
	I've got a suspect.
	Like, I think that guy did it.
	Just call it a gut hunch.
	But I don't really have the proof.
	Waterston would laugh him out of his office.
	And he's a TV lawyer.
	So even Sam Waterston, TV lawyer, knows that if you're going to try a case in the Senate, presumably, if you're the prosecution, which the Democrats are in this particular case, then you should presumably have some proof to back you up.
	Chuck Schumer, However, is out there saying Trump broke the law.
	Now, Schumer is basing this on a general, on a government accountability office report that suggests that the Trump administration violated the Impoundment Control Act.
	We discussed this at length yesterday, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which essentially suggests that the President of the United States has to spend money that is allocated from the legislative branch to the executive branch within a certain specified period of time or issue a special message to Congress explaining why he has not done that.
	The allegation from the GAO is that the Trump administration did not explain why they had not sent over the Ukrainian aid.
	And while the aid eventually did go over, the failure to send a message was a violation of law.
	The Democrats are now suggesting that this sort of law breaking is exactly why we have to impeach Trump.
	Weird, because the GAO said that the Obama administration broke the law on a number of occasions.
	The GAO said the Bush administration broke the law on a number of occasions.
	And with Obama, they said that the Obama administration broke the law by shifting around money in order to secure the release of Bo Bergdahl.
	The GAO suggested back in September that the Trump administration violated the law by allowing national parks to stay open during the government shutdown.
	Right, so the GAO suggests that people violate the law all the time.
	None of that's impeachable.
	It's particularly not impeachable in terms of the Impoundment Control Act because there you have an actual statutory remedy that is available for failure to send a special message to Congress if you hold up, if you...
	Participate in what is called a delay or rescission of the actual money.
	And it's also true that if challenged in court, there are serious questions as to whether the Impoundment Control Act applies to foreign aid, because the president does have plenary power over how to handle foreign policy under the Constitution.
	In any case, Chuck Schumer gets up there and he's like, this is not trivial.
	The GAO, the GAO report, this is not trivial.
	Except for how it was trivial five minutes ago when it was Obama, but it's trivial.
	Now it's not trivial.
	Now it's super duper pooper scooper serious, according to Chuck Schumer.
	The GAO opinion especially makes clear that the documents we requested in our letter to Leader McConnell are even more needed now than when we requested it last month.
	Because President Trump, simply put, broke the law.
	Oh, well, he simply broke the law.
	Yeah, and so did every other administration, according to the GAO, which has been making these sorts of suggestions for literally years.
	The remedy in this particular case for the quote-unquote violation of law would have been for the Comptroller General of the United States government, an Obama appointee on a 15-year term, to actually investigate and send his own special message, which he didn't.
	So, again, this is the Democrats trying to play up What they've got.
	Listen, you don't go to war with the army you wish you had.
	You go to war with the army that you have, as Donald Rumsfeld put it.
	And apparently you don't go to Senate trial with the impeachment you wish you had.
	You go to Senate trial with the impeachment you actually have.
	And so now you have to backfill all the rationales for impeachment and grasp at any straw that is available.
	Well, President Trump, for his part, isn't taking this sitting down.
	He's not taking this quietly.
	He's taking this in all caps lock Trumpian style.
	Oh my gosh.
	Please take his phone away from him.
	Please.
	This is not helpful.
	The reason it's not helpful is because the president should basically be saying, listen, do a full investigation.
	We're cool.
	I mean, this is what I suggested throughout the Mueller investigation.
	And it turned out right.
	It turned out that if Trump had actually fired Mueller, it would have probably brought him to impeachment a year earlier.
	But instead, Trump is sort of fulminating.
	He's bouncing against the glass box in which the Democrats have attempted to push him.
	He tweeted out yesterday, all capital letters, the caps lock button got stuck.
	I just got impeached for making a perfect phone call.
	And all I got was this stupid t-shirt.
	Now, if he'd added that last part, it would've been actually funny.
	Like, he should've done that.
	And I think that would make a great t-shirt.
	But, I just got impeached for making a perfect phone call.
	I'm sorry.
	The man has a gift for me, Marie.
	What can you say?
	I recall when Richard Nixon was in the process of investigation, and he tweeted out, I just got impeached for making a perfect phone call.
	What in the world?
	Madness, the madness.
	Now, again, none of this is to suggest that the Democrats have the goods.
	They don't.
	It is also not to suggest that the Democrats actually are consistent in how they wish to approach this impeachment, because they are clearly not.
	For example, Joe Biden, who's now suggesting that we need witnesses and witnesses and witnesses back in 1999, is saying we don't need witnesses.
	The point here is that they stated the witnesses they needed.
	They said they needed Betty Curry, they said they needed Vernon Jordan, and they said they needed Monica Lewinsky, and they said why they needed them.
	I'm willing to hear them say it all over again, but they weren't very compelling when they said it the first time, in my humble opinion, so I don't think they're needed.
	Okay, they're not needed.
	So not Betty Curry, not Monica Lynn, not any of the people in the Clinton impeachment were necessary to testify in front of the Senate, according to Joe Biden.
	Now, of course, the shoe is on the other foot, and we need every witness, all the witnesses to testify, and we need it right now.
	The witness that they are most interested in bringing forth is, of course, Lev Parnas.
	We're going to get to Lev Parnas, apparently a vaunted and trustworthy witness.
	In just one second.
	It's funny, people are saying, he's like John Dean.
	He's like all of the members of the Nixon administration back during the Nixon impeachment move.
	Well, except for John Dean not being under indictment for falsifying documents and lying, that's exactly true.
	So, in other words, it's not true.
	Like, at all.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
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	Okay, so.
	The Democrats have now decided to place their faith in a guy named Lev Parnas.
	Who the hell is Lev Parnas?
	Well, he's sort of a Ukrainian fixer who was going around Ukraine on behalf of Ukrainian oligarchs trying to get Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch fired.
	That's not according to me.
	That's according to the Department of Justice.
	The Southern District of New York has Parnas under indictment right now for attempting to funnel money through straw donors into the U.S.
	into congressional elections in order to try and skew the process against U.S.
	Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch on behalf of the Ukrainian oligarch.
	That is according to the actual DOJ indictment papers.
	Okay?
	And the DOJ indictment papers are coming from the Southern District of New York, which of course is the same Southern District of New York which was investigating the whole Michael Cohen thing.
	So this is not like Trump's DOJ William Barr trying to go after people to silence them.
	That's not what this is at all, right?
	Lev Parnas is in all likelihood guilty as sin, and was accused of falsifying documents in that process.
	He's accused of lying in that process.
	He's accused of a bevy of crimes in that process.
	Well, he and Igor Fruman became sort of Rudy Giuliani's Sherpa guides around Ukraine.
	Rudy would go to Ukraine in search of information about the CrowdStrike server.
	He'd go to Ukraine in search of information about Ukrainian election interference.
	And shock of shocks, there's Lev Parnas and Egor Fruman, both of whom are apparently working on behalf of Ukrainian oligarchs, saying to Rudy, you know, Rudy, you know, we can help you out.
	And you know what we'd love?
	What we would love, and let me give you some bad information about this Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
	You're out here trying to investigate what was happening in Ukraine.
	Let me tell you, this Ambassador Yovanovitch, bad lady.
	She's trying to obstruct exactly what you are trying to do.
	You should tell the president to fire her.
	That's what was really going on.
	Well, now Lev Parnas is being trotted out.
	He's under indictment.
	He's on bail.
	He's out on bail right now.
	He's being trotted out, and he is appearing on all the media.
	He's doing a full-on media tour in the same way that Michael Cohen did a full-on media tour.
	He's become a hero of the resistance.
	Why?
	Well, he appeared on Rachel Maddow the other night, and while he was on Rachel Maddow, he suggested this was all top-down, that Trump was instructing him to dig up dirt on Marie Yovanovitch, that Trump was instructing him To falsify information about Joe Biden and trying to convince Lev Parnas to act as a go-between to the Ukrainian administration to try and get them to announce some investigation into Joe Biden.
	Now, do you think that he was working for Trump or do you think that he was playing both sides?
	The indictment suggests that he was certainly not working specifically for Trump, that he was doing all of this stuff years in advance of Trump, but now he's trying to lay it all at Trump's feet, because if it's Trump's fault, it's not his fault.
	If he was just following orders, then it's all on Trump, the impeached president, and now Lev Parnas is just an innocent, an innocent abroad in Ukraine, being caught up in the wily schemes of President Trump and Rudy Giuliani.
	Now, that's a convenient narrative.
	It's a very convenient narrative for the Democrats, but It happens not to remotely resemble anything credible.
	Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey has a piece on this.
	He points out that Maddow asked Parnas, do you believe that part of the motivation to get rid of Ambassador Yovanovitch was that she was in the way of an effort to get the government of Ukraine to announce investigations of Joe Biden?
	And Parnas says that was the only motivation.
	There was no other motivation.
	Well, as Ed Morrissey points out, no, the pending indictment against Parnas put his efforts against Yovanovitch at least a year earlier on behalf of a Ukrainian official.
	The indictment is absolutely clear on this point.
	Furthermore, last November, Parnas put the effort in April 2018 rather than spring of 2019.
	So before, in other words, he was attempting to push Trump or push Giuliani on behalf of Trump.
	Maddow didn't bother to ask about the incitement or Parnas' own previous account when Parnas claimed that the Biden probe was the only motivation.
	The Department of Justice never alleged this had anything to do with an investigation of any other U.S.
	person, but only intended for the removal of Yovanovitch for the purposes of one or more officials in the Ukrainian government at the time, the government of Petro Poroshenko.
	But the timing and the specifics of Parnas' strawman actions tend to corroborate that point far more than they do.
	Parnas has later claimed that this had to do with Trump's 2019 interest in getting Vladimir Zelensky to pursue a Biden probe.
	So in other words, Lev Parnas is probably lying.
	Not only is Lev Parnas probably lying, the man is indicted on charges of falsifying documents.
	And the Democrats are out there like, well, he presented us with documents.
	You mean the guy who's under indictment for falsifying documents gave you documents?
	I cannot believe this.
	Wow.
	What are those documents, by the way?
	They're handwritten contemporaneous notes by Lev Parnas on hotel stationery.
	So, by the way, there's no way to check the metadata to find out when he input this stuff.
	There's no way to find out whether he was on the phone with Rudy Giuliani when all this stuff was happening.
	In other words, a guy who is being tried for lying and falsifying documents And acting on behalf of Ukrainian oligarchs claiming that Trump made him do it.
	And the media are just lapping this up, lapping this stuff up.
	Well, folks in Ukraine who know Parnas and know Fruman are like, nah, I'm not going to buy this stuff.
	Vadim Prishtiko is the foreign minister of Ukraine.
	He's like, no, I don't believe a word that Parnas says.
	Why would anybody believe a word that Parnas says?
	Frankly, I never spoke with this individual.
	And again, frankly, I don't trust any word he is now saying.
	The assistance, which he is referring to, was reviewed each and every year, annually, at least twice, and half a year at the end of the year.
	So we knew that this assistance is to be reviewed sometimes.
	It would be cut because of some political understanding of what is to be done in Ukraine, sometimes being erased, which is now we're observing.
	Do you believe that Lev Parnas should be a witness at the trial?
	of Ukraine, current foreign minister of Ukraine, says, I don't believe a word that Parnas is saying.
	And now over here in the United States, you get all of the Democrats and their allies in the media, but I repeat myself, who are out there talking about how credible Parnas is.
	So here's Nancy Pelosi, a very serious, somber, sober, and solemn person, talking about how Lev Parnas is unbelievably credible, incredibly credible.
	We should take him super duper pooper scooper seriously.
	Do you believe that Lev Parnas should be a witness of the trial?
	And if so, do you believe he would be credible?
	Well, credible, it relates to the documents and the rest.
	it's not It certainly raises questions.
	He'd be a credible witness if what he's testifying to relates to the issue at hand, the president's behavior.
	Why would he be a credible witness as to the president's behavior when he, even in his interviews with MSNBC and CNN, is not saying, and so the president said to me.
	He keeps saying, I know the president.
	Yeah, there are some pictures of him with the president.
	The president also takes pictures of a lot of folks.
	The question is not, Whether he's in a picture with Trump.
	The question is whether Trump actually instructed Parnas to do anything, and even Parnas has not alleged that Trump directly instructed him to do anything.
	At best, Parnas alleges that Giuliani instructed him to do things, which again creates a gap in communication between Trump and Parnas.
	It also creates the question of whether Parnas was told by Giuliani, for example, to try and obtain an announcement of a Biden investigation or whether he was told by Giuliani to obtain a Biden investigation and Parnas wrote down, all we need is an announcement and I'll have satisfied my guy and then they'll fire Marie Yovanovitch, right?
	So all of this gets a little bit complicated.
	Bottom line is Parnas is not credible by pretty much any metric.
	And yet the Democrats in the media are trying to paint it otherwise.
	Okay, so you've got Andy McCabe.
	I love this.
	Andy McCabe, who literally lost his pension because he apparently lied to the FBI because he was leaking things to the media.
	He was leaking to the Wall Street Journal about Hillary Clinton.
	Andy McCabe, who now is a hero of the resistance because anybody who opposes Trump is a hero of the resistance, and again, who lost his pension for allegedly lying about talking to the media, is now talking about credibility on CNN, a network that spent two years pushing the Russia stuff.
	And here's Andy McCabe saying, I believe him.
	I believe him.
	I do.
	I believe Lev Parnas.
	It's a contemporaneous recollection of what he was hearing on a telephone conversation, according to him.
	You could then match that note up to the booking record of proving that he was, in fact, in the hotel at that time.
	You could also compare it to his phone records from the days he was there and show how many times he talked to Rudy Giuliani during that stay.
	So there's different ways that you could begin to bolster that testimony.
	And it makes that record speak more clearly.
	It's just, I'm sorry, Andy McCabe, who again, lacks his own credibility, sitting there and talking about Lev Parnas being a credible witness and presenting documents, documents presented by a guy who's accused of falsifying documents.
	It's just amazing.
	MSNBC's Nicole Wallace, she just straight out says it.
	Parnas is a truth teller.
	He's a truth teller.
	I love that Nicole Wallace is saying this to Brian Williams, the serial fabulist who suggested that he was nearly shot down in a helicopter over Iraq, and also that he landed on the moon with Neil Armstrong.
	The credibility crisis in our media and in our government has, I mean, all time high here.
	Here's Nicole Wallace trying to talk up a guy who's under indictment for being a liar.
	You know, we've been looking for a John Dean.
	Donald Trump's no Richard Nixon.
	There was never going to be a John Dean.
	But maybe in Lev Parnas, there's a truth teller that also has that ability to wake these Republican senators up and say, you know what?
	The truth will be known.
	Where do I want to come down when history tells that story?
	The truth will be known through people like Lev Parnas!
	Mm-hmm.
	Okay, so let's hear directly from Lev Parnas.
	So Parnas was doing his media tour, and yesterday, I believe he was on CNN with Anderson Cooper, and he started talking about what a rough life he has, Lev Parnas.
	Here he is talking about how there are threats upon his life.
	They're still rocked to this day.
	They're still not recovered and I don't know when they will.
	You have no doubt they felt this pressure, this was a... Oh my god, of course, absolutely.
	Existential threat to the survival.
	Well, the main reason my life was threatened because of that.
	And then, he says, why won't they call me as a witness?
	They need to call me as a witness!
	Why won't they call me as a witness?
	Because you're under indictment for lying?
	I mean, like, would that be something?
	Why should they... Because you are wildly attempting to spin so that maybe you can be offered some sort of plea bargain?
	Maybe because of that?
	Because you have a series of conflicting interests?
	But apparently, according to Lev Parnas, they should call him as a witness because he knows all of the things.
	All of the things!
	If you really look at it, I should be their best witness.
	I should be their number one witness because I'm the one that got all the dirt, supposedly.
	Why aren't they calling me to testify?
	Why do they need Biden?
	Call me.
	Ask me what Biden did wrong.
	Do you think they're afraid of calling you?
	I think they're very afraid of me.
	I think they're afraid of me because I think they made a mistake by, you know, trying to do what they did to me.
	Okay, first of all, dude needs a haircut.
	Second of all, Anderson Cooper sitting there and very solemnly and soberly saying to Lev Parnas, do you think they're afraid of you?
	I love that line by Lev Parnas.
	Why do they need to call Hunter Biden?
	Why can't they just call me?
	Well, first of all, even if you knew stuff about Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden would be the person they would call since he's the subject of the inquiry when it comes to his activities in Ukraine.
	Just gonna point that out.
	But it's amazing how the media are taking this guy seriously.
	I ripped on CNN earlier and I said there are exceptions in the media to the rule that CNN is very bad.
	Jake Tapper does some good work on CNN, for sure.
	And now, full disclosure, I know Jake.
	I like Jake.
	I think Jake's a good guy.
	But Jake Tapper, yesterday, he says the correct thing.
	He says, we disagree politically, obviously.
	Jake says, why exactly are we taking Lev Parnas seriously?
	Like, Jake Tapper still has enough of a prefrontal cortex to be like, um, guys, really?
	This, this one?
	This guy?
	Seriously?
	Him?
	We can't ignore, Parnas has a serious credibility problem.
	He's under indictment for campaign finance charges.
	The foreign minister of Ukraine told CNN's Christiana Mappour that he doesn't trust a word Parnas is saying, and yet I see people out there in social media, Democrats, acting as if this guy is the second coming of Theodore Roosevelt.
	Correct!
	Jake Tapper hitting the nail on the head.
	This is exactly right.
	Now, the big problem for the Trump administration is that because Trump is so unpredictable and because he is so bad with his comms team, and he is, I should be frank about this, very often his comms team is out there unwilling to say things because they just don't know what Trump is going to say next.
	Trump does not communicate with his comms team.
	He does not communicate with the people in communications.
	He does not tell them what the actual story is so they can go and defend the story.
	Instead, he sort of throws them out there on TV and then he watches TV to see how loyal they are to him.
	And then he may undercut their story the very next day.
	And so you end up with awkward situations like this where Kellyanne Conway is being asked about Lev Parnas.
	And she's asked directly, like several times, is Lev Parnas lying?
	And Kellyanne Conway refuses to say that Parnas is lying.
	Now, people are taking this as the reason she won't say that he's lying is because she knows that he's not lying.
	In reality, and let me just take, take this, take my word for it.
	In reality, what's really happening here is that she does not know whether Lev Parnas is saying anything that is true or false, and she is very much afraid that she's going to say Lev Parnas is lying about something and then Trump two seconds later is going to come out and contradict her because he's not actually coordinating with his own comms team.
	So this is not coming from a place of Kellyanne Conway knows that Lev Parnas is telling the truth.
	This comes from a place where Kellyanne Conway has no idea whether Lev Parnas is telling the truth, just like anybody else on planet Earth, except presumably for President Trump and Rudy Giuliani.
	So here's Kellyanne Conway that the media are trotting this out as proof that the Trump administration knows full well that Lev Parnas is a truth teller.
	That's not what this clip is.
	What is the White House's position on his allegations that are now public?
	Well, remember, people who go on TV are never under oath.
	This is someone who hadn't come forward with his own volition.
	Are you saying, flat out, a hundred percent, what he alleges is not true?
	Yes or no?
	Well, when Lev Parnas says, speaking to the court of law, when he says, the president knew all of my moves... Is he lying or not, Kellyanne?
	Well, he's a proven liar.
	He's been indicted.
	Is that statement true or false?
	Trump knew what was going on.
	How?
	In other words, what is Leopardis actually saying?
	He's saying the president knew all of my moves.
	So again, this is being tried out as proof that that Kellyanne Conway won't say that straight out that he's lying.
	She doesn't know that he's lying.
	Kellyanne Conway has no idea whether he's lying.
	That's what happened in that clip.
	The media are saying, well, that's because the White House refuses to just say that Lev Parnas is lying.
	Well, no, it's because Trump doesn't communicate with his comms team.
	In five seconds from now, Trump will come out and just say that Lev Parnas is a liar and some sort of presser.
	You watch.
	It's going to happen.
	OK, in just one second, we're going to get to Chris Matthews doing something right.
	It's unbelievable.
	I'm actually going to praise Chris Matthews right now here with that.
	Messed up hair all messed up, coming to the show?
	We'll get to that in one second.
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	President Trump did have one word when it came to the media asking him about Lev Parnas yesterday.
	He was at the White House, and Jim Acosta, and ladies, find you somebody who loves you like Jim Acosta loves Jim Acosta over at CNN.
	Jim Acosta starts shouting at him, starts shouting at him from the back, and Trump treats Acosta with the disdain to which we have all become accustomed.
	Here we go.
	I don't know him.
	I had never had a conversation that I remember with him.
	Let me just tell you, you just have to take a look at the polls.
	Quiet.
	You just have to take a look at the pictures.
	You just have to take a look at the polls.
	You see, I don't need anybody's help.
	Acosta has this unfortunate habit of trying to talk over President Trump and Trump shuts him down.
	Of course, this is a sign of the war on the media.
	By the way, the media are very upset today.
	It's a war on the media among Republicans.
	They're very upset at Martha McSally, who I like, the senator from Arizona.
	Yesterday, as I said on the show, she called Manu Raju, who's a reporter for CNN, a liberal hack.
	Now, I don't know, Manu Raju, I've seen his reporting, and I actually don't think that he is one of the more hackish CNN reporters.
	So I think that, you know, Martha McSally was either ticked off in the moment at CNN generally, or she was attempting to play a political game whereby she attacks a reporter, and this is popular with the Republican base.
	Obviously, the media went nuts over this.
	Here's Martha McSally calling Manu Raju a hack.
	Senator McSally, should the Senate consider new evidence as part of the impeachment trial?
	Man, if you're a liberal hack, I'm not talking to you.
	You're not going to comment?
	You're a liberal hack.
	Okay, and then Manu Raju, of course, talked about this on Twitter and all the rest of it.
	Martha McSally was on Laura Ingraham's show last night, and she was pointing out that CNN is, in fact, a liberal hack network.
	If she had said that, I'd be defending her like four square today, because that is a fact of life.
	Okay, CNN is a left network.
	And honestly, you're not proving that you're objective, Chris Cuomo, and that your network is objective when you then go on air and you start berating Martha McSally as though somebody just called you Fredo.
	And let me tell you, he's not Fredo.
	No one should ever use the word Fredo to describe Chris Cuomo.
	Fredo is like the N-word for Italians.
	That's what Chris Cuomo has said.
	So here's not Fredo explaining why it's very bad to say mean things to reporters.
	That's what was so upsetting about McSally today.
	This is a woman with an amazing record of service to this country, and she really acted like a punk today.
	She did a disservice to herself and the seat that she holds, which is John McCain.
	But she wasn't even elected.
	Right, she was appointed.
	She was appointed, but she lost.
	And like, through a fluke, like some would say Trump won, but that's a whole other show.
	Manu Raju is not a liberal hack.
	He is a very well-respected, seasoned reporter asking a legitimate question.
	If she couldn't answer it and she can't stand the heat, then get out of the appointed kitchen.
	I mean, that sort of bias on CNN, that's what she's talking about, OK?
	Really, she should have been directing her ire toward Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, the twin pillars of dumb over at CNN.
	I will also point out that Ilhan Omar has treated Manu Raju with nothing but disdain whenever he asks a legit question.
	This is why, by the way, I say I don't think that Manu Raju is actually a bad reporter.
	So I think that he's asked some tough questions to Democrats.
	Watch him ask a tough question to Ilhan Omar, get summarily dismissed.
	By Ilhan Omar.
	I don't remember the media declaring that she was acting like a punk.
	Do you remember that?
	I don't remember that either.
	I don't remember Chris Cuomo or Don Lemon suggesting she was acting like a punk in this particular exchange.
	What is wrong with you?
	I'm asking you a question about your tweet.
	You had a tweet saying the president trafficked in Haiti.
	Yes, I tweeted.
	There's a response.
	You can run that and have a nice day.
	Okay, what is wrong with you?
	Are you serious?
	What is wrong with you?
	Is she acting like a punk there?
	Chris Cuomo or Don Lemon?
	Like it all?
	I get the feeling that maybe you guys are the liberal hacks.
	Like, in the end, it's Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon who are the liberal hacks in all of this.
	The double standard is absolutely unbelievable.
	Well, I will give points today to one member of the left media, upon whom I frequently I rip and make fun of Emma all the time.
	Chris Matthews over at MSA.
	So yesterday he actually said something true.
	He's talking about the witnesses gonna be called for the Senate and Chris Matthews right in here.
	Rumpled suit.
	Coming to the show.
	Gonna roll on in here.
	Half drunk.
	But this time I was half drunk and words of truth spilled out of my mouth.
	The tingle ran up my leg and out of my mouth came truth.
	He said, listen, Democrats, they keep saying that they want to call witnesses.
	Maybe they should call Joe Biden.
	Why not Hunter Biden?
	Chris Mackie's doing something unbelievable.
	Go, go, go!
	What do you want to ask Senator Biden, just to give him a chance to clear himself?
	Did you ever talk to your son about taking that contract with Burisma?
	Did you have anything to do with him doing it?
	Did you ever tell him not to do it?
	Did he ever call you and ask you to do a favor for him?
	These seem to be relevant questions, Jermaine.
	Look, it's a total sideshow and distraction, as you know.
	But it's not entirely, because this whole thing is the Republican attempt to smear Biden.
	You have to say, were they fairly going after him or unfairly going after him?
	Good for Chris Matthews.
	Wow.
	For the first time, good for Chris Matthews, right?
	That is right.
	By the way, speaking of Joe Biden, there's a story today about how Frank Biden leveraged his famous name for business gain.
	This is a story from ABC News.
	Funny how the media are starting to notice that Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden Anyway, ABC News has a story today.
	in the two weeks before Iowa, almost as though all the oppo files are opening up on Elizabeth Warren's opponents and Elizabeth Warren is being promoted.
	I'm not going to say that it's a conspiracy because I don't believe in conspiracies, but it's a little weird.
	Anyway, ABC News has a story today.
	In 2009, the year Joe Biden took office as vice president, a local business executive met the politician's younger brother, Frank, at a Starbucks in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and later asked him to become the president and frontman for a fledgling charter school venture.
	Frank Biden, a longtime real estate developer in the state, accepted the offer, and over the years, he touted his famous last name and prominent connections in Washington to help land the company a series of charter contracts from local officials in Florida to open charter schools, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars over a five-year period from the company in the process.
	In media interviews at the time, Frank Biden was unabashed.
	He called his last name, quote, a tremendous asset because of the family's record of taking care of people who need help and telling people it brought him automatic acceptance as he sought government approvals for the for-profit Mavericks in education.
	Claims of mismanagement would ultimately bog down many of the schools, shocking, which focused on educating at-risk teens with troubled backgrounds.
	In at least two separate lawsuits, Mavericks schools faced allegations of inflating enrollment as part of a scheme to garner more government funding.
	Critics suggest that when Frank Biden touted his family name to promote the Mavericks charter schools, it was just one example of the Biden family actively benefiting from sharing a name with the vice president.
	Richard Painter, who's a Trump critic but former White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush, told Politico, Joe Biden needs to recognize it's a problem you can't control your brothers, you can't control your grown son, but you can put some firewalls in place in your own office.
	Of course, Joe Biden never did any of this.
	Joe Biden's son, Hunter, has been called into question for basically being a giant bag man running around the world and just picking up bags of cash because his last name is Biden.
	And then there's James Biden, another one of the president's brothers, who's fighting a lawsuit in which he stands accused of feigning interest in investing in a medical device company as a ploy to steal the company's business model.
	According to the plaintiffs, Biden said during the investment negotiations, the firm's quote psychiatric care model would be used by Joe Biden as part of his campaign for president of the United States.
	So now we got Frank and James and Hunter Basically, everyone who has the last name Biden using Joe Biden's last name in order to get ahead.
	Is it worthwhile asking the question as to whether Joe knew about any of this when it came to Hunter and Ukraine?
	You bet your ass it is.
	Okay, meanwhile, the Trump team is now appointing its own defense team.
	And some of the names that you know and love are going to be appearing.
	According to the New York Times, you're going to get, of course, Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow, who have obviously been attorneys for President Trump throughout this process.
	But the team is now going to be expanded to include Ken Starr and Robert Ray, former independent counsel lawyers, per a person familiar with the plan.
	The team will also include Alan Dershowitz, who was a guest on our radio program yesterday.
	A statement from a team spokesman says Professor Dershowitz will present oral arguments at the Senate trial to address the constitutional arguments against impeachment and removal.
	While Professor Dershowitz is nonpartisan when it comes to the Constitution, he opposed the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and voted for Hillary Clinton, he believes the issues at stake go to the heart of our enduring Constitution.
	He's participating in this impeachment trial to defend the integrity of the Constitution and to prevent the creation of a dangerous constitutional precedent.
	So, the President is putting together his all-star team.
	Mitch McConnell, for his part, I think would be fairly happy with Ken Starr and Dershowitz, who are both pros at this.
	He's gonna be a little bit less sanguine about the President's personal More personal attorneys, the Cipollones and the Seculos, who have had a tendency toward, shall we say, colorful defenses of the President.
	Dershowitz has been pretty measured in his defenses of the President.
	Ken Starr is a long-time... I am amused to watch the media's take on Ken Starr.
	CNBC had a long report this morning about the appointment of Ken Starr, and they just basically went through his resume and talked about all the evil that Ken Starr is responsible for.
	Meanwhile, The democratic prosecutors of this case, the people like Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, they are just the finest and wisest among us.
	However, the fact is that this impeachment, in the end, is going to go nowhere.
	McConnell is looking to get this done early and get it done fast.
	He would like very much to put this thing behind the Republican Party as fast as possible.
	I think that is likely to happen.
	Even the witnesses people are talking about, like John Bolton.
	John Bolton ain't testifying.
	The chance that John Bolton testifies is very low.
	Because the president is going to declare executive privilege.
	That will go to court.
	The Senate is not going to wait around for the court to adjudicate whether John Bolton is going to... And if John Bolton goes and testifies, he's just going to say what Fiona Hill, his aide, said.
	And then when it comes to the executive privilege part, he's going to say, well, you know, that's covered by executive privilege.
	I can't really talk about that.
	Just saying he wants to testify doesn't mean that he's going to violate executive privilege to do so.
	Rudy Giuliani is covered by attorney-client privilege.
	It's going to be very difficult to call him or compel testimony.
	And the attempt to compel documents Maybe they had some additional documents in the Senate.
	Unlikely that those documents are deeply damning beyond what we already know.
	So this means that Democrats have to turn to their secondary, their sort of secondary defense against Trump's re-election, and that is they're going to go after the means of distribution of information.
	Things are gonna get really rough this year in podcast land, in talk radio land.
	They're gonna activate, really activate, all of their favorite outlets, the media matters of the world, in order to go after everybody who disagrees with the Democratic candidates and try and rob them of their clientele and of their base.
	That's their job.
	Nancy Pelosi is most obvious about this.
	She's been going after Facebook.
	Now, if you've been wondering, why is it that all of the people in the Democratic Party are very angry at Facebook, but they're never angry at Twitter, it's because Facebook has actually taken a fairly strong stand when it comes to the dissemination of information.
	So Facebook has taken the stand that they are not going to allow fact checkers to simply prevent the dissemination of political information on Facebook.
	That if you are an informed citizen, then you should see a claim, and then you should check the claim yourself, and we have fact checkers, and more speech is better speech.
	Nancy Pelosi, however, would certainly prefer that the tech companies shut down everything that Nancy Pelosi doesn't like, which is why they like Twitter.
	Twitter has already said they're not going to run any political ads because they can't fact-check everything.
	So there will be no dissemination of political information.
	The goal there is, of course, to lower the number of outlets capable of disseminating information and restrict the entire system back to the mainstream media that the Democrats love, know, and control.
	Here's Nancy Pelosi ripping on Facebook for not adhering to her preferred policy.
	The Facebook business model is strictly to make money.
	They don't care about the impact on children.
	They don't care about truth.
	They don't care about where this is all coming from.
	And they have said, even if they know it's not true, they will print it.
	I think that they have been very abusive of the great opportunity that technology has given them.
	They have been very irresponsible.
	And again, as you say, these are people that we've known and worked with.
	I think their behavior is shameful.
	Oh, so Facebook is shameful, but Twitter, which does the bidding of Nancy Pelosi, is not shameful.
	Are you getting what's going on here, folks?
	I don't understand that the rip on Facebook's policy.
	Listen, I think many of Facebook policies are extremely vague.
	I think their hate speech policy is extremely vague.
	I think that there's too much wiggle room for Facebook to get rid of people that are politically unpalatable to Facebook.
	I've sounded off on that before.
	But their general policy, which is that they're not going to restrict political advertisements, that they're not going to restrict political speech because Nancy Pelosi wants them to do so, that is correct.
	That's not going to stop the Democrats this year.
	This year is going to turn into the Democrats basically undermining the foundations of accepting elections.
	And we keep hearing that Trump is not going to accept the outcome of an election.
	I don't know.
	Maybe he won't.
	What I do know is that Democrats have refused to accept the outcome of any election they haven't won for the past couple of decades.
	George W. Bush wins the election in 2000, not a legitimate president.
	Donald Trump wins the election of 2016.
	You heard earlier, Don Lemon suggests not a legitimate president.
	The Republicans win the gubernatorial seat in Georgia by 50,000 votes.
	Not legitimate.
	And now, leading up to 2020, you got Nancy Pelosi and the entire Democratic Party claiming that if Donald Trump wins, it's illegitimate because he's preemptively stolen the election unless we impeach him.
	Things are gonna get a lot uglier before we hit election day.
	Okay, time for a quick thing I like, and then we'll get to a couple of things that I hate.
	So, things that I like today.
	So I didn't see this in the theater.
	I'm a big fan of Terminator 2.
	If you are a sentient human being, Terminator 2 is one of the top three action movies of all time.
	Die Hard would be in that mix.
	Probably it's between Die Hard and Terminator 2.
	Trying to think of another action movie that really stands up to those two.
	In any case, Terminator 2 is a great movie.
	And then they made a bunch of bad movies, right?
	They made Terminator 3, which is unbelievably depressing.
	And then they made the Christian Bale one, which is most famous for him screaming at a lighting guy.
	And then they made another Terminator movie that nobody has actually seen, but apparently exists, allegedly.
	Well, they made a new Terminator movie this year called Terminator Dark Fate, and it's supposed to pick up where Terminator 2 left off.
	And the movie is 15 minutes too long, and some of the CGI ain't great, but it's definitely enjoyable.
	It's definitely better than the last few Terminator movies.
	And it's got a good- Arnold Schwarzenegger's actually fairly- like, the Terminator is a great part for Schwarzenegger because he's not a great actor, obviously, and so him playing a robot playing a human is pretty fantastic.
	So here is a little bit of Terminator Dark Fate's trailer, which, again, watched with the wife the other night.
	Very enjoyable.
	I- really, I liked it.
	My name is Sarah Connor.
	Never seen one like you before.
	Almost human.
	I am human. - It's time.
	Why do you care what happens to her?
	Because I was her.
	So the movie is actually kind of interesting.
	They basically make the new Terminator, right, the one who's going to come back and kill basically Sarah Connor again, but not Sarah Connor.
	They make that character very much like the killer Terminator in T2, except a little bit souped up.
	But it's an enjoyable film.
	I mean, honestly, I liked it and it got fairly good reviews.
	I think the marketing campaign for it was sort of screwed up because the premise of the film was not made clear.
	Like, the character who is played by Mackenzie... I can't remember her last name.
	She seems to be a Terminator in the film, but she's not actually a Terminator.
	In any case, I don't want to give everything away.
	It's worth the rent.
	It's worth the rental.
	So you can go check that out.
	Okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.
	Okay, so thing number one that I hate.
	We have to bid a fond farewell to our producer, Rebecca.
	Not because we're getting rid of her, but because she's getting rid of us.
	She dumped us.
	And I gotta say, I'm a little bit perturbed about this, and a little bit miffed about this, but Rebecca's awesome, and she's been an amazing producer, and She's got big opportunities on the horizon that she is leaving to take, and I'm super excited for her, and we're all gonna miss her here, especially because this means that our other producers are gonna take over for Rebecca, and who the hell knows what's gonna happen?
	We're gonna find out on Monday.
	But since this is Rebecca's last day, I just wanted to point out that Rebecca is fantastic, and when she is running a major movie studio five years from now, I'm gonna be able to say that she once worked for me, which is pretty awesome.
	So, good luck to Rebecca and best wishes, obviously.
	Okay, so I hate that she's leaving.
	That's why that goes under things I hate as opposed to things I like.
	I like Rebecca, I hate that she's leaving.
	Okay, here is another thing that I hate.
	So, the Virginia General Assembly passed the Equal Rights Amendment in what the media are calling a historic vote.
	According to the Washington Post, both chambers of Virginia's General Assembly passed the Equal Rights Amendment on Wednesday, fulfilling a promise that helped Democrats seize control of the legislature and marking a watershed moment in the nearly century-long effort to add protections for women to the United States Constitution.
	Now, you don't need protections for women in the United States Constitution.
	They can vote.
	They have all the same rights that men do.
	The Equal Rights Amendment is a poorly worded amendment that specifically opens the door to the idea that there should never be any separate spaces for men and women at all.
	That's what the Equal Rights Amendment does.
	That was the pushback against it in the 1970s.
	It was led by Phyllis Schlafly at the time.
	She was correct.
	Now, the Democrats denied, by the way, that this would provide the basis for getting rid of gendered bathrooms, for example, or gendered sports.
	Now they, just because of the transgender movement, they openly admit that this is what they would like to see happen.
	The lopsided votes capped an emotional week in which Democrats celebrated history in the making.
	The House gallery was packed beyond its 102-seat capacity, with Virginia First Lady Pam Northam and her daughter Aubrey Northam making a rare appearance to bear witness.
	ERA supporters attended from around the country, many wearing sashes from long-ago marches for women's equality.
	This makes Virginia the 38th state to approve the amendment.
	But there is one big problem.
	There is one big problem.
	The original ERA had an expiration date.
	You can't just go around passing amendments that have expired 30 years ago.
	That's like if the House passed a bill in 1979 and the Senate didn't take it up and the Senate today took up the bill from 1979.
	It had an expiration date in the bill, right?
	It says if this bill is not passed in three years, then it is void.
	And the Senate picking up that bill and then passing the bill and calling it passed.
	That is not the way any of this works, okay?
	If the bill, in and of itself, if the amendment, which it did, contained an expiration date saying if this is not enacted within a certain period of time, then it becomes irrelevant, you can't just pass it 40 years later and be like, oh, well, I guess the 38 states have now approved, over time, 38, because here's the thing that doesn't work about that.
	That gives Virginia a second bite at the apple now, but what about states that originally approved it?
	Do you think there are 38 states that are willing to approve the ERA today?
	If there are 38 states willing to approve the ERA today, then why not bring it up in the Senate today?
	Half the states that approved the ERA originally are not going to approve the ERA today, because everybody understands the implications of the ERA now.
	Delaware Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy of Prince William, the resolution's chief house sponsor, introduced the measure with a litany of Virginia's civil rights failures, including slavery, massive resistance to school integration, and the ban on interracial marriage.
	Because the idea is that these things have not been cured, so we need an equal rights amendment to guarantee their cure, despite the fact that Virginia is no longer segregated, that interracial marriage was declared I think it is right on time for Virginia to finally be on the right side of history.
	I wrote a book called The Right Side of History.
	1868 and that and that slavery ended in 1863 under the Emancipation Proclamation.
	Apparently, we need the Equal Rights Amendment because.
	Carol Foy said it's Virginia again on the battleground of equality.
	I think it is right on time for Virginia to finally be on the right side of history.
	I wrote a book called The Right Side of History.
	The Right Side of History was written.
	The title was written, mocking the idea that you can simply declare that you are on the right side of history when history has not yet adjudicated your positions.
	There are very few things where you can say you are on the right side of history.
	You can say it about being anti-slavery.
	That was being on the right side of history.
	You can say that being pro-capitalism was on the right side of history.
	You cannot say that a policy you are attempting to enact today is on the right side of history because history hasn't had a chance to sound off, you doof.
	Unfortunately, this sort of phraseology was used by Barack Obama routinely, and it was idiotic at the time.
	How you use a phrase is more important than the actual words of the phrase, and this phrase is used idiotically frequently.
	Calling the balloting that was about to take place the vote of a lifetime, she asked the lawmakers, which side of history do you want to be on?
	The world is watching.
	Your mothers, your sisters, your daughters.
	She's literally a female delegate sitting in the House of Delegates, a black female delegate sitting in the House of Delegates in Virginia, declaring that unless the Equal Rights Amendment is passed, Women, and particularly minority women, have somehow been victimized.
	You're gonna need to explain that one to me.
	Delegate Vivian Watts of Fairfax held up a photo of herself and her daughter demonstrating for the ERA in Washington 44 years ago when her daughter was 14.
	Watt said it should be ancient history.
	44 years is a long time to wait.
	You're sitting in the House of Delegates?
	Please explain to me how women have been greatly victimized by the absence of the ERA.
	Women now constitute the majority of college graduates.
	They constitute the majority of medical school attendees.
	Women now constitute, I believe, the majority of the workforce.
	So, what exactly are you talking about?
	Like, truly, what are we talking about here?
	And the answer is that the Equal Rights Amendment is going to be used, as Democrats and the left always use legislation, as a wedge in order to force their way into areas that have heretofore been left untouched.
	This is the way that Democrats work.
	They push forward vague language, and then they say, why don't you support women?
	Why?
	Well, that's vague language.
	I don't know how you're going to interpret that language.
	You might want to do this crazy thing in five years.
	No, we would never want to do that.
	It's just that you hate women.
	We saw this with the push for same-sex marriage.
	That originally started as a reasonable request that governments stay out of people's bedrooms.
	And everybody's like, okay, I'm all right with that.
	And then it moved to, no, what we really want is we want the contractual ability to get our partner's benefits when they die or they get sick.
	And you're like, okay, that sounds reasonable.
	So you don't want to say that same-sex marriage is the same as traditional marriage.
	You just want, like, civil unions, right?
	That, okay, all right, reasonable.
	And they say, well, no, what we actually want is same-sex marriage.
	What we want same-sex marriage for is to declare that we are morally valuable human beings.
	And how does it affect your marriage anyway?
	Does it affect you?
	Does it affect your church?
	Does it affect your school?
	It doesn't affect you in any way if we're able to get the same benefits that you're able to get and the moral imprimatur of the state in approving same-sex marriage.
	And a lot of Americans are like, well, that one I'm more dicey on, because we think there's a moral difference between traditional heterosexual marriage and same-sex marriage.
	Like, significant differences in kind there, because a man and a man are not the same as a man and a woman.
	But, I guess you want to make that argument.
	I mean, you're right that it doesn't affect my marriage, obviously.
	It affects the society at large.
	It affects how we perceive marriage, but it doesn't affect my marriage.
	But you gotta leave our churches and schools alone.
	And they're like, nope, sorry, we lied, actually.
	We're gonna come after your schools and your churches, we're gonna remove non-profit status, we're gonna be like Beto O'Rourke, and we're gonna suggest that we need to get rid of all churches and schools that don't approve our morality and our approved way of life.
	This is why the right tends not to approve vague language on the part of the left, because the left is usually lying.
	Usually the left is saying that they want something that seems innocuous on its face, but is deeply non-innocuous.
	That eventually ends up exactly where the right said it was going to go.
	This happens to be the case with the Equal Rights Amendment.
	Again, back in 1979, Phyllis Schlafly was like, just by the terms, just by the terms of the Equal Rights Amendment, there cannot be separate bathrooms.
	And people on the left were like, no, that's crazy, of course there can be separate bathrooms, come on!
	And now, we live in a world where the Obama administration tried to force, without an Equal Rights Amendment, tried to force the creation of non-gendered bathrooms across the country, and non-gendered locker rooms at high schools across the country.
	So yes, count me very, very skeptical indeed that the Equal Rights Amendment would simply be another innocuous piece added to the United States Constitution as opposed to a club to be used in litigation in favor of pushing leftist social policy without the approval of the American people.
	Alrighty.
	Well, it's a Friday.
	I hope that you stick around for two more hours of additional content later because we've got a lot to get to including the mailbag, which is why you should subscribe so you can answer your questions in the mailbag.
	But beyond that?
	You should stick around for two additional hours because we got a lot of great stuff coming up and and you should have a wonderful weekend if you are not going to do that.
	And even if you are going to do that, we'll see you here on Monday with all the updates.
	Take the week.
	You know what?
	We'll knock off tonight.
	Take the next couple of days off and we'll see you back here on Monday.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
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