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April 30, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:01:09

The Moving Lockdown Goalposts | Ep. 1001

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	The economy contracts in record fashion as the media slam Republican governors, the FBI is in real trouble over Michael Flynn, and momentum builds against Joe Biden's response to a sexual assault allegation.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.com.
	Don't like the government spying on you?
	Well, visit expressvpn.com slash Ben to stay anonymous.
	Well, everything is stupid.
	You may have noticed this.
	Like all the things, they are all stupid because we're not allowed to make risk reward calculations and we're apparently not supposed to discuss how public policy is actually made.
	We're just supposed to pretend that public policy has no trade-offs and that the smartest people in the world don't make trade-offs at all.
	In fact, there's good and there's evil in politics and there's nothing in between.
	There is no Sort of attempt to create metrics of success.
	All of this just doesn't exist is at least according to many in our media.
	We'll get to that in just a little bit because truthfully this is we live in an extraordinarily stupid timeline and in a time when people need to make serious decisions about how public policy is made.
	We don't need the stupidest among us actually making those decisions and or shouting at the moon that those who make the decisions on the basis of competing values and competing interests and competing metrics, that those people are very bad for taking into account various values.
	We'll get to that in just a little bit.
	First, a little bit of good news.
	Let's start with some good news today.
	I know, there is some.
	Scientists on Wednesday announced the first effective treatment against coronavirus, an experimental drug that can speed the recovery of COVID-19 patients.
	It's a major medical advance that came as the economic gloom caused by the scourge deepened in the United States and Europe.
	This is according to the Associated Press.
	The US government said it is working to make the antiviral medication remdesivir available to patients as quickly as possible.
	Dr. Anthony Fauci suggested that this will be the standard of care.
	Here was Dr. Fauci yesterday talking up remdesivir.
	The data shows that remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery.
	This is really quite important for a number of reasons.
	Although a 31% improvement doesn't seem like a knockout 100%, it is a very important proof of concept.
	Because what it has proven is that a drug can block this virus.
	So that is good news.
	The stock market continued to rise on that basis.
	Now, in the meantime, the economic data that came out yesterday was absolutely terrible.
	The economy shrank at an annual rate of 4.8% in the January to March period, but that's really even before the shutdowns are taken into account.
	Everybody's expecting that the actual annualized rate of GDP shrinkage In the second quarter is going to be about 40%, which is going to be by far the largest shrinkage in the history of the United States in economic terms.
	We're supposed to pretend, by the way, that those countervailing interests don't exist for purposes of many in public policy.
	We're supposed to pretend that there are no... that really the only thing that we ought to be worried about at this point is the sheer numbers of lives lost in the short term, not even in the long term.
	We're just supposed to pretend that if we lock down forever, everything is going to be fine.
	And we're not supposed to take into account the 30 million people who are unemployed today.
	There was a new report today.
	3.8 million more Americans are now on the unemployment lines.
	Meanwhile, I promised good news.
	Here's some more good news.
	Children may not pass COVID-19 to adults.
	Now, this would be a game changer.
	It really would be huge.
	It means you can reopen the schools.
	Really.
	I mean, first of all, that means that one of my worries, like on a personal level, I am concerned about protecting people who are older.
	Proof of concept.
	I'm sheltered at home right now, not because I'm not young and healthy.
	I'm in an essential industry.
	I couldn't be going to work today.
	The reason that I'm not going to work today is because my parents are with us.
	They're sheltering with us.
	They're providing childcare.
	We're helping them.
	We're going and getting them groceries.
	My parents are in their mid-60s, which means that they are in the higher zone of danger for COVID-19.
	And so one of my assumptions has been that we should lock down with them and that when my kids go back to school, I'm basically going to have to tell my parents that they need to shelter at home instead of being over at our house all the time.
	Right now, thank God my parents are spectacular human beings, and they're here morning till night.
	I mean, they show up at like 7 a.m.
	so that I can come do the show, and then they leave at 7 p.m.
	So they can help provide childcare all day long.
	Well, my assumption has been that when my kids go back to school, I'm going to have to send my parents home and tell them that they can't come over until there's some sort of vaccine developed effectively in order to protect them.
	Well, this new report would really change the game on that.
	According to Bloomberg, children contract the coronavirus less often and with less severity than the general population.
	There's limited evidence so far that children pass the disease to others in significant numbers, according to a new report.
	Many infected children may stay asymptomatic.
	Cases of them becoming critically ill with COVID-19 remain rare, according to an analysis of global virus studies compiled by Don't Forget the Bubble's Pediatric Blog among these studies' findings.
	are that a China World Health Organization joint commission couldn't find a single case of a child passing the virus to an adult.
	Not one.
	Which means, guys, shutting down the schools was almost literally the worst idea you could have.
	It was a really, really stupid idea.
	If it turns out that kids cannot pass this to adults, then why exactly should we not be allowing kids to congregate with one another?
	And speaking as a parent, let me just tell you, I'm happy to have my kids home.
	I'm happy to participate in the homeschooling movement, as we are all forced to do right now.
	But I know parents out there who have kids who have conditions.
	Parents who have kids who suffer from, for example, They're on the autism spectrum, and they've seen tremendous regressions in terms of the kids' behavior simply because when you radically shift childhood environment, then it tends to radically shift childhood behavior.
	There are serious consequences to sending kids home from school on the kids, on the parents, on the economy, on everything else.
	According to this Bloomberg report, low case rates among children maybe do more to higher numbers remaining asymptomatic rather than a lower infection rate.
	So they're still getting infected.
	They're just asymptomatic.
	It's not affecting them the same way.
	Analysis of Chinese data in confirmed and suspected cases show that 32% of affected children aged 6 to 10 years were asymptomatic.
	Precise details regarding pediatric transmission remains unclear.
	To date, only a handful of coronavirus deaths have been reported in children.
	Very few newborns or infants contract COVID-19.
	Generally, they do very well in overcoming the virus.
	The big change there, we know all that before, the big change there is that they couldn't find a single case of a child passing the virus to an adult.
	Which, frankly, would come as a major relief to me.
	It means that I may have to continue socially distancing from other adults, which I was planning on doing anyway.
	But it would mean that I can send my kids back to school and I don't have to send my parents home at the same time.
	So that would be, on a personal level, a big relief to me.
	Meanwhile, the search for a vaccine continues and has been radically accelerated by the Trump administration.
	We'll get to that in just one moment.
	First, let's talk about the fact that these days you really want to know who is at your door.
	If you live in a big city, your mayor probably let everybody out of jail.
	That's what happened in New York.
	It's happening in Los Angeles.
	You're starting to see crimes against businesses go up.
	You want to know who's at your front door.
	Also, if you got kids on your premises, you want to be able to keep track of your kids at all times.
	This is where Ring.com comes in.
	We are home more than usual these days, but it's still hard to keep a close eye on things.
	More deliveries mean more boxes left unattended, and that means more people possibly stealing your boxes from your front stoop.
	A lot can happen outside your front door.
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	Okay, in other good news.
	The Trump administration has launched what they call Operation Warp Speed, aiming to rush forward with a coronavirus vaccine.
	We've already seen from Oxford University some promising new studies suggesting that they may have created a vaccine that could be effective against COVID-19.
	And theoretically, if they rush this thing forward, they could have millions of doses available in September, which of course would be a radical game changer.
	If that happened, then pretty much all of the restrictions go away.
	I mean, at that point, you've done as much as you can do.
	Once you've either reached herd immunity, or you've vaccinated enough people that you have herd immunity, then You can't do any more than that.
	Whoever's gonna get infected at that point is gonna get infected.
	Whoever's gonna die of this is going to die of this because you literally cannot do any better than that.
	Unless you come up with some better therapeutic treatments also, but I mean, that's just true of any disease.
	The Trump administration, according to Bloomberg, is organizing a Manhattan Project-style effort to drastically cut the time needed to develop a coronavirus vaccine with the goal of making enough doses for most Americans by year-end.
	Called Operation Warp Speed, the program will pull together private pharmaceutical companies, government agencies, and the military Good.
	I mean, good.
	Really.
	cut the development time for a vaccine by as much as eight months, according to two people familiar with the matter.
	As part of the arrangement, taxpayers will shoulder much of the financial risk that vaccine candidates may fail instead of drug companies.
	So what they're trying to do is relieve liability on vaccine companies and pharmaceutical companies for developing the vaccine in order so they can move forward faster.
	Good.
	I mean, good, really, because if you're talking about comparative costs taxpayers have to shoulder, $7 trillion is a very large comparative I can guarantee you, whatever liability arises from the attempts to develop a vaccine, they ain't gonna compare to the $7 trillion we shoveled out the door in the last five weeks alone.
	So yes, we should be covering the liability in order to ensure that both people who are hurt get compensated, and also to ensure that we can get this vaccine available so that people can actually get back to work, go back to ballgames, we can all go back to our normal daily lives.
	Last month, Trump directed Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to speed development of a vaccine.
	Administration officials have been meeting on the effort for three to four weeks, according to one of the people involved.
	A meeting on the project was scheduled at the White House on Wednesday.
	This does not come without criticism, naturally.
	There are quote-unquote experts who are very upset about this, apparently, suggesting that the rush to a vaccine is risky.
	According to these experts, the New York Times suggests, they warn that rushing the process could undermine the treatment's effectiveness and even lead to sickness or death.
	Well, as opposed to COVID-19?
	As opposed to just like continuing along with this whole thing that has killed 61,000 Americans in the last four weeks alone?
	Yeah, if we're gonna rush something, it feels like rushing the vaccine might be a useful thing.
	So that is good news as well.
	Also, especially because we all know that there is going to be a second wave.
	And this is where We have to start getting serious about how we discuss public policy in this country.
	Our politicians are not serious about how they discuss public policy in this country.
	Our politicians have an incentive to lie to people, and they do it all the time.
	Every policy that they propose is a policy that has no downsides.
	It's a magical policy that has no downsides.
	So if we lock down, that's because all of the data and all of the science suggests that we have to lock down.
	Or, alternatively, if we open up, then there are not going to be any additional costs because we've flattened the curve.
	Here's the deal.
	Every single decision that we make about this thing is going to have risks, it's going to have trade-offs, it's going to have downsides, and it's going to have upsides.
	And what we have to do is calculate which risks we as a society are willing to undertake.
	And that means calculating in, yes, actuarial fashion, what exactly we are willing to undertake as a society and what we are not willing to undertake as a society.
	This is called public policymaking.
	This is not controversial.
	Anybody who suggests it's controversial is being intellectually dishonest with you and or emotionally stupid.
	Because this is ridiculous.
	Okay, let me take an example that has nothing to do with COVID-19.
	So, speed limits in the United States.
	Speed limits in the United States, in most states, about 65 miles an hour is the speed limit on the freeways.
	In some states it's higher, it's like 75 miles an hour.
	If you look at the age of drivers and the rate of death for drivers in the United States, according to AAA, what you'll see is that the rate per 100 million miles driven for people who are aged 16 to 17 is you'll have 3.75 fatal crashes per 100 million miles driven for people aged 16 to 17.
	This is according to the AAA Foundation, rates of involvement in all police-reported crashes, injury crashes, and fatal crashes per 100 million miles driven in relation to driver age.
	This is as of 2014-2015.
	as of 2014, 2015.
	So if you're 16 or 17, you are at the highest risk for young people in getting in a fatal crash.
	So theoretically, we could lower the speed limit in order to take care of those people.
	That wouldn't actually change the thing, because the reason that young people get into car crashes is because young people tend to be more risk-seeking, because young people tend to drive in a more dangerous fashion.
	You could lower the speed limit, young people would then violate the speed limit, and then they would get in car crashes.
	The reason they are dying is because they are more reckless.
	We are all more reckless when we are 16 or 17 years old.
	Your amygdala is overdeveloped, which is the emotional center of your brain, as opposed to your prefrontal cortex, which allows you the facility of rational thought.
	Okay, then the numbers steadily decline until you hit ages 40 to 49, and then they start to climb again.
	Okay, the actual subgroup that is most likely to die in a car crash are people who are 80 and up.
	If you're 80 and up, you're most likely to die in a car crash in the United States.
	The rate is 3.85 people dying in car crashes per 100 million miles driven.
	So, when we make a risk-reward calculation about speed limits, this is an area where, theoretically, if you lowered the speed limit to 35 miles an hour, you'd probably save a bunch of older people.
	Or at least, you wouldn't save them.
	You'd actually give them a better shot.
	The risk level to them would be lower.
	Why?
	Because when the speed limit is lower, that means you need less reaction time.
	Older people have slower reaction times.
	So, if you were to lower the speed limit from 65 miles per hour to 35 miles per hour, Yes, you would probably shut down the economy in huge and significant ways.
	Yes, you would make it nearly impossible for people to get to work on time.
	Yes, you would basically shut down the freeways.
	But you would make it less risky for old people to be on the roads.
	Do we do that as a society?
	We do not do that as a society because we have made the calculation that we are willing to undertake a little bit of additional risk for seniors, and that seniors are willing to undertake that additional risk if they choose to go on the freeway that day.
	That's how public policy is made.
	Many of these decisions are made on the basis of quality adjusted life years.
	These are all actuarial decisions that we make.
	And of course we take into account the various risk factors.
	Of course we take into account when we make public policy the economic benefit of each individual person's health and age.
	And any politician who tells you they're not doing this is a damned liar.
	Is a ridiculous and damned liar.
	Everybody understands this.
	Everyone understands this.
	Politicians have a stake in lying to you.
	Because these are uncomfortable truths.
	Is that policymakers are making trade-offs.
	Policymakers win elections by pretending they don't make trade-offs.
	That is the reality of the situation.
	And every so often, you'll come across people who are honest enough to admit this.
	So John Harris has a column And then he suggests in the pandemic everyone is a moral relativist.
	Now, this is a misunderstanding of moral relativism.
	Moral relativism is not... Moral relativism is not in any given situation there is a moral right and a moral wrong, or a moral better and a moral worse.
	That's actually moral... That's moral absolutism, is that there is a right answer and there is a wrong answer.
	Moral relativism suggests there is no right answer.
	There is no better answer.
	There is no worse answer.
	Moral absolutism doesn't suggest that there are gradations of moral- that there are no gradations of morality.
	Of course there are gradations of morality.
	You can be a moral absolutist and still recognize that a second-degree murder is not quite the same as a first-degree murder.
	But that's really not the point.
	The point is that when it comes to public policy, everyone is making trade-offs and people who are not- who refuse to admit they're making trade-offs are just lying to you.
	They're selling you something.
	They're selling you something.
	They're selling you snake oil.
	We'll get to more of this in just one second because you'll see how the media are promoting this binary view of the world in which lockdown policy, they keep moving the goalposts because of this.
	Lockdown policy has no costs and opening up has no benefits, right?
	This is the logic they are pushing now, many in the media, that lockdown policy has no cost because you're saving lives and even if we opened it up, even if we opened it up, people wouldn't go back to work because everybody is scared.
	Okay, let's be real about this.
	There are trade-offs.
	Anyone who tells you differently is selling you something.
	Everyone knows this.
	To pretend you don't know this, to get all upset about it, to pretend that you are not increasing risk for certain populations when you reopen, is to lie.
	And I understand some people like being lied to.
	That's not what we do on this program.
	That's not what we should do in public life.
	We should demand honesty from our leaders.
	We'll get to more of this in just one second.
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	Alrighty, so.
	Back to the risk-reward calculation here.
	So everybody knows there's going to be a second wave.
	Anthony Fauci, over at the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, he says, a second wave is inevitable.
	This is reality, guys.
	This is called reality.
	We're not locking down for 12 to 18 months.
	And everyone knows this.
	Andrew Cuomo knows this.
	Jared Polis in Colorado knows this.
	By the way, hilarious that Jared Polis somehow escaped scrutiny for doing exactly the same stuff that Greg Abbott in Texas is doing and Ron DeSantis in Florida is doing.
	And Kristi Noem in South Dakota is doing.
	But Jared Palos is a Democrat, so we have to pretend he doesn't exist for purposes of the media narrative here.
	But here is Dr. Fauci saying, yes, there will be a second wave.
	Of course there will be a second wave.
	This is why everybody who's screaming at Sweden, you guys are risking people's lives by being out there.
	Sweden ain't going to have a second wave.
	You know why?
	Because they never locked down in the first place.
	Yes, of course.
	Who's been saying this since the beginning?
	I have, because I've been honest with you about the fact that there are rewards and there are costs to the lockdown.
	By the way, speaking of Sweden, I should just note, we'll play Dr. Fauci and then I'll get to Sweden.
	I should just note, the World Health Organization, which was taking the position that Chinese-style lockdowns were the best available policy, is now saying, you know who actually is doing this kind of right?
	Sweden.
	Yeah, no bleep, Sherlock.
	Here's Dr. Fauci.
	It's not gonna disappear from the planet, which means as we get into next season, in my mind, it's inevitable that we will have a return of the virus, or maybe it never even went away.
	When it does, how we handle it will determine our fate.
	If by that time, We have put into place all of the countermeasures that you need to address this.
	We should do reasonably well.
	If we don't do that successfully, we could be in for a bad fall and a bad winter.
	Right, so reasonably well, we're all going to do our best, and also there are risks.
	There are additional risks to American life.
	Now, when you make public policy, it is also important to understand that there is a difference between taking risks in public policy and mandating.
	And mandating, for example, rationing.
	Okay, so when we decide that we are going to open up our economy again, and that this comes along with additional risks.
	So when we decide that the speed limit is going to be 65, and this comes along with additional risks to people with slower reaction times on the freeways, which is the same basic argument.
	I'm not comparing driving to a communicable disease for purposes of morons out there.
	That's not what I'm doing.
	What I'm saying is all public policy is made in effectively the same way, which is you balance risk and you balance rewards.
	And when you're talking about additional risks to populations, this is also not the same thing.
	When you say there's an additional risk to the population in reopening, and that additional risk is going to fall disproportionately on elderly people.
	And that is not the same thing as if the disproportionate risk fell disproportionately on five-year-olds.
	Of course.
	We all make these calculations every time we do public policy.
	All the time.
	We do it in our daily lives, too.
	There's a reason why we allow 81-year-olds who are capable of crossing the street by themselves.
	But yes, it is riskier for them than it would be for a 30-year-old to walk across the street by themselves.
	We don't mandate they have to hold the hand of a 30-year-old.
	But if I'm with my 5-year-old daughter, I'm going to mandate that she hold my hand when we cross the street.
	Whenever we make decisions, we take into account all of the factors.
	And if you don't take into account all of the factors, you're either lying or you're stupid.
	So the reason that we are talking about all of this and the risks and the rewards is because increasing risk to certain populations in public policymaking is just the way public policy is done.
	That is not the same thing as mandating that certain people die.
	Okay, so I've seen people suggest that if you say there are risks and rewards to public policy and reopening and ending lockdowns, that this isn't safe.
	You were against death panels back in 2014.
	Right, because that's the government mandating that you cannot receive care if you are over a certain age or have a certain condition.
	I do not think that the government should mandate you can't get COVID-19 treatment if you're 81.
	I think you should be able to get any treatment that you are capable of getting.
	I think that you should get all of the treatments.
	I also think that as a society, when we perform risk-reward functions and come up with public policy, risks go up, risks go down.
	That is not the same thing as the government mandating that certain people do not get care or that certain people do get care.
	Other things this is not comparable to for people who are complete morons.
	Not comparable to abortion policy.
	Abortion policy is about the willful killing of a human life.
	When you say that if we open up that there will be additional risks to people in nursing homes, which is true, when you say that, that is not the same thing as saying, also, it's totally fine if you drive over to the nursing home and shoot grandma in the forehead.
	Okay, that abortion policy is you drove over to a clinic and you shot the baby in the forehead.
	That is not the same thing.
	When we are talking about how to make public policy, could we at least be somewhat intellectually consistent and somewhat intellectually honest?
	Or do we have to pretend to be complete morons and just walk around spouting bumper sticker crap like Andrew Cuomo while lying about it?
	We're going to walk around and say, well, if we even save one life.
	Also, by the way, we're opening businesses in Rochester tomorrow.
	Well, then didn't you just increase the risk to old people in Rochester?
	And nobody's honest about this stuff.
	Nobody is honest.
	This is how you end up with idiotic articles over at The Atlantic by Amanda Moe called, Georgia's Experiment in Human Sacrifice.
	Experiment in human sacrifice?
	It is not a human sacrifice to say that we are going to gradually reopen business and this comes along with additional risks for tranches of the population.
	That is not human sacrifice.
	Freedom is not human sacrifice.
	The fact that we should take measures to protect people who are particularly vulnerable and particularly old.
	Of course we should do all of those things.
	Also, it's not human sacrifice to suggest that maybe businesses should be socially responsible.
	They should participate in mask wearing and social distancing and people can go back to work.
	That's not human sacrifice and to characterize it that way is the worst kind of bad faith.
	It truly is bad faith.
	We'll get to more of this in just one second because it's maddening.
	It's almost as though there's a deliberate attempt to avoid any serious discussion of the ramifications of public policy here.
	Almost as if.
	Or alternatively, that's exactly what people are doing right now.
	Because they have a vested interest in not having serious discussions about the fact that every policy you choose has downsides.
	And the policy of complete lockdown right now has downsides in terms of suicides.
	It has downsides in terms of poverty with 30 million people unemployed.
	It has downsides in nearly every terminology you can imagine.
	Serious downsides in risk to human life, by the way.
	People are not getting vaccinated.
	They're not vaccinating their kids.
	People are not going in for chemo treatments.
	People are not going in with heart disease.
	People are not going in with various medical conditions.
	But we have one side of the aisle who want the lockdowns to continue pretending there are no costs to the lockdown, which is just dishonesty of the highest order.
	More on this in just one second.
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	Okay, so when we talk about exactly how we figure out, you know, what are the risks and the rewards, we need to talk about the various risks that exist.
	So the WHO has now determined that, by the way, Sweden looks pretty good.
	Weird, because it seemed like people were rooting real hard on the American political left, particularly for Sweden to fail.
	There's a lot of rooting for Sweden to fail.
	Sweden did not lock down the entire country.
	They said, if you are aged, if you have a pre-existing condition, we are going to try to protect you.
	They said that their biggest failure was not protecting the nursing homes.
	By the way, you know who else's biggest failure was not protecting the nursing homes?
	Andrew Cuomo in New York, right, who is allowing people with COVID-19 back into nursing homes, actually forcing them back into nursing homes.
	But That was their big failure in Sweden.
	The rest of their policy was basically, go out, about your business, socially distance at restaurants, no events over 50 people, and that's pretty much it.
	That's pretty much it.
	The parks didn't shut down.
	And guess what?
	Now the W.H.O.
	is saying, and they're the gold standard according to YouTube, W.H.O.
	is saying, hey, maybe Sweden got it right.
	Dr. Mike Ryan, W.H.O.' 's top emergencies expert, said Wednesday, there are lessons to be learned from the Scandinavian nation, which has largely relied on citizens to self-regulate.
	Ryan said, I think there's a perception out that Sweden has not put in control measures and has just allowed the disease to spread.
	Nothing can be further from the truth.
	Ryan noted that instead of lockdowns, the country put in place a very strong public policy around social distancing, around caring and protecting people in long-term care facilities.
	What it has done differently is it has very much relied on its relationship with its citizenry and the ability and willingness of its citizens to implement self-distancing and self-regulate.
	In that sense, they've implemented public policy through the partnership with the population.
	He said they also had adequate capacity in hospitals, which, by the way, we have in the United States also.
	We have not seen the curve spike above the medical capacity in the United States.
	You know what Sweden assumed all along?
	And the Swedish public officials say this publicly and openly.
	They assumed a lot of people were going to get this and some people were going to die.
	Because that's what happens with communicable diseases.
	And they also assumed that the cost of shutting down their economy would not be worthwhile.
	And they also assumed that lockdowns would not necessarily save lives in the long term because you would end up coming out of lockdown and then you would end up where Germany is.
	Germany, according to the UK Sun, is now facing the prospect of returning to a stricter lockdown after a surge in coronavirus infections and death.
	So Germany got a lot of praise because there were 75 deaths per 1 million population in Germany.
	But that's also because they locked everybody down.
	Well, there's only one problem, which is then they ended the lockdown.
	And guess what happened?
	Everybody went back to work and they started infecting each other.
	Sweden never had that problem.
	There are trade-offs to public policy, folks.
	There are trade-offs to the policies that you choose.
	And the stupidity of running an article like Georgia's experiment in human sacrifice to suggest that one sort of policy is about human sacrifice, whereas the other humane and wonderful policy is just to lock down forever.
	What do the lockdown advocates hope to achieve?
	Like they still have not answered this question.
	What exactly are they hoping to achieve that is so contrary to the interests of people who are hoping to reopen in measured and reasonable fashion?
	I'm not aware of any single policy advocate who's advocating at this point for a full-on open up the stadiums, open up the sports games, open up everything, no masks, hug each other in public.
	Nobody is advocating for that.
	So now the choice is between responsible reopening and locking down forever.
	Because I've yet to hear the metric by which people will not lock down forever.
	What exactly are the people who are advocating the lengthened lockdowns hoping for?
	Outside of, you know, specific areas like New York City that are already hard hit.
	What exactly are they hoping for?
	They've yet to articulate the rationale.
	Instead, it's just a bunch of accusations thrown at people who want to reopen, like, you don't care about human life.
	You don't care about grandma.
	You don't care about, you're just mean and cruel.
	You only want to do this so that you can get a haircut.
	No, actually, I can bring the haircut person to my house.
	I really can.
	I can have my wife cut my hair.
	It won't look great, but we can do it.
	That ain't the issue.
	The issue is there are a lot of people who are losing their dreams, their livelihood, and their freedoms.
	And those are actual countervailing concerns.
	If I sound a little angry today, it's because I am.
	I'm very angry that there are people who supposedly are responsible journalists, people who are supposedly responsible politicians, who fail to even acknowledge that public policy is difficult and that it involves competing interests and values.
	And that's just, I don't like when people lie to you.
	I don't like when people lie to me.
	And I don't like when people lie about me.
	And you've seen a lot of that.
	You've seen a lot of that.
	So Elon Musk is getting dragged over the coals, raked over the coals today because he was pointing out that the coronavirus shelter-in-place orders are a problem.
	And this apparently is very bad because Elon Musk is very wealthy.
	Now, let's be real about this.
	If you're very wealthy, you know who's gonna be okay throughout this?
	Elon Musk.
	Seriously, dude has a lot of cash.
	He'll be alright.
	You know who's getting absolutely walloped right now?
	People at the lower end of the economic spectrum.
	People who are blue-collar workers.
	People who need to earn a living.
	People whose jobs may not exist on the other end of this if all the small businesses go under.
	Elon Musk said, to say they cannot leave their house and they will be arrested if they do, that's fascist.
	This is not democratic.
	It's not freedom.
	Give people back their effing freedom.
	Now, give people back their freedom in reasonable measure?
	Makes sense.
	He is not wrong about that.
	He is right that many of the public policies that are now being pursued are being done without rationale and are being done in irresponsible fashion and without recognizing that there are costs to these lockdowns.
	By the way, some of the costs of the lockdowns?
	The complete destruction of the American food chain.
	The American food supply chains have been completely destroyed because they are just-in-time supply chains.
	And that means that when there is a disruption, it disrupts the entire food supply chain.
	So this is all fun and games until people can't get what they want at the grocery store.
	That's when the riots start.
	That's when things really get ugly.
	But don't worry, there are no countervailing costs.
	No countervailing costs at all to shutting down the entire economy indefinitely.
	And people who want to reopen their nail salons are evil also.
	There's an article in the New York Times by a woman named Jenna Kao, who's the owner of Chateau de Nails in Georgia.
	And she says, the rest of us have to begin to find a new normal as best we can.
	This means she's evil, guys.
	She's evil.
	She's bad.
	She doesn't care about grandma.
	That's the way this works, right?
	It's so transparent, so dishonest, so stupid.
	We all understand that there are going to be trade-offs except for politicians who lie to you and media members who make bank off of pretending there are no trade-offs so they can draw a black and white moral spectrum in an area where there happen to be no incredibly easy answers.
	We're going to get to more of this and California's incredibly stupid policy in just one second.
	Let's talk about the fact that this is your chance to become your mother's favorite child.
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	Okay, we are going to get to, in just a moment, Gavin Newsom and his continued idiotic policy.
	We are also going to be getting to the FBI, which Radically botched the Michael Flynn investigation.
	When I say botched, I mean, somebody probably should go to jail for this, and it shouldn't be Michael Flynn.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
	First, being locked inside right now, and with all of the leftist tears that are falling over the demise of Bernie Sanders' candidacy, you need two of these.
	You need two leftist tears tumblers.
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	I mean, you were sitting around thinking, I have two mouths, why would I not need two leftist tears tumblers?
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	That is our brand new interactive programming featuring one of us Daily Wire hosts as we hang out with you every night, 8 p.m.
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	who you're listening to the largest, fastest-growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
	So let's talk about what's going on here in California.
	So, as I have said, in California, the dumbest possible policy is shutting down all of the state parks and beaches.
	People should be outdoors, and they should be socially distancing.
	And guess what?
	At a certain point, people are going to be let out of their houses, and they're going to have to be responsible.
	So, I'm not sure what makes you think, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, that people will be more responsible three weeks from now, or two months from now, than they will be today.
	All that's going to happen is people are just going to disobey you.
	There's going to be an awful lot of civil disobedience this weekend.
	It's really nice outside here in Southern California.
	If you think that Californians are just going to stay inside because you're Gavin Newsom and you say so, you got another thing coming.
	So Gavin Newsom is very angry, of course, because what happened last weekend is it was super nice outside.
	He had shut down all of the—L.A.
	County had shut down all of its beaches.
	And so Santa Monica was shut down and completely barricaded.
	So everybody from Santa Monica Got in their cars, and they went to Newport Beach, which was completely open.
	And 40,000 people showed up at Newport Beach.
	And virtually everyone was social distancing.
	If you looked at the actual pictures from above, people were far apart from one another.
	A lot of people went over to Oxnard and they were social distancing on the beach over in Oxnard.
	Well, Gavin Newsom can't have that!
	Gavin Newsom won't allow you to be in public socially distancing from each other.
	That's bad!
	So Gavin Newsom is going to announce the closure of all beaches and state parks effective May 1st in response to the recent beach crowds in the OC.
	By the way, in China, there is a study.
	You know how many cases it found of human-to-human transmission in open public areas?
	Not inside rooms, like in open public outdoors.
	It found two.
	Okay, people are not infecting each other on the beaches.
	People are not infecting each other at parks.
	That is not how this is happening.
	Unless they're having like a rave at the park, that is not what is going on.
	Gavin Newsom, and here's the part of this that's so stupid.
	So, think of the public areas of California like a hot air balloon, or any balloon for that matter.
	If you squeeze the balloon, all you are doing is removing the air from a particular area of the balloon, and then you're redistributing that air to other areas of the balloon.
	So guess what?
	Californians, we're all still gonna go out this weekend.
	We're all still gonna do it.
	We're just not gonna be able to go to any of the state parks.
	So guess what we're gonna do?
	We're gonna go to all the city parks, you idiot!
	Everyone I know in L.A.
	County last week went to someplace not in L.A.
	County, because Eric Garcetti tried this, and so did the L.A.
	County Board of Supervisors.
	You know what everybody did?
	They got in their car, they went elsewhere.
	There are still city parks that are open.
	All that's gonna happen is now you are forcing crowding in areas!
	Instead of giving you a broader spectrum of areas to choose from, which would diffuse the population over a broader raw area, instead you're shutting down certain areas, which means everybody's still going to go out, but now they're in half the area, which is the opposite of social distancing, you dolt.
	What the hell are you talking about?
	It's so ridiculous.
	So they put out a notification.
	So what are they going to do, mass arrest all the people who go to the beaches and are six feet away from each other?
	So what are they going to do?
	Mass arrest all the people who go to the beaches and are six feet away from each other?
	Is this public policy well calibrated?
	Is this public policy well calibrated?
	Of course it's not.
	Of course it's not.
	At this point, it's simple virtue signaling.
	And that's all it is.
	It is not true virtue.
	It is virtue signaling, because you're not saving lives with this kind of stuff.
	You just are not.
	If we are actually going to construct a realistic public policy, you know what we ought to be doing?
	What I've been saying all along.
	We need to be protecting people who are old and vulnerable, and we need to be tranching populations that are healthy and young back into the population.
	I'm about to give you the actual mortality rates.
	It's based on antibody tests in New York City and the death numbers in New York City.
	Here are the actual case fatality rates in New York City by age group.
	Okay, if you are 18 to 24, your chances of death are one in 2,500.
	If you are 25 to 34, your chances of death are 1 in 2,500.
	This is according to the antibody test that Andrew Cuomo has been citing in New York.
	If you are 35 to 44, your chances of death from COVID-19 are 1 out of every 1,000.
	This is actually if you get it, right?
	If you don't get it, your chances of COVID-19 death are 0.
	But if you actually get it, right?
	This is if you acquire it.
	So 1 out of every 2,500 people who acquires it and is aged 18 to 34 will die.
	Okay, so 2,499 of those people will not die.
	If you are 35 to 44, 999 out of every 1,000 people will not die.
	If you are 45 to 54, 997 out of every 1,000 people will not die.
	If you are 55 to 64, 993 out of every 1,000 people who get it will not die.
	997 out of every 1,000 people will not die.
	If you are 55 to 64, 993 out of every 1,000 people who get it will not die.
	If you are 65 to 74, then 9,000, sorry, yes, 979 out of every 1,000 people will not die.
	So 21 out of every 1,000 people will die.
	If you are 75 plus, right, this is the high-risk group.
	If you are 75 plus, then 40 out of every 1,000 people will die, right?
	It's about a 4% death rate for true infection fatality rate.
	What that suggests is that we should be trenching populations.
	And we should be deciding public policy by finding the most vulnerable and protecting them.
	And also, we should be recognizing that the risk is not equivalently spread across the population.
	And when we figure out public policy, If there is an additional marginal risk to populations that are more vulnerable, but it also means that we can increase the actual economic output of the United States by leaps and bounds.
	We can get back to a place where we don't have tens of millions of people unemployed and hundreds of thousands of businesses shutting down and people who are gliding up at food banks in the thousands.
	If we could do that, and there's a marginal risk increase because we have already created lockdown strategies for the nursing homes, which is where a huge disproportionate number of these deaths are taking place, then what the hell are you talking about, shutting down beaches?
	We've moved beyond the point of sanity here.
	We just have.
	I mean, this didn't have to become a political debate.
	There's nothing political about this.
	And in fact, it really isn't political.
	Jared Polis in Colorado feels the same way that I do about this.
	He'll just lie to you about it, presumably.
	By the way, you know who else feels the same way I do about risks and rewards and calculating all this stuff?
	Every single policymaker who has ever lived in the history of humanity.
	And they are all doing exactly the same sorts of calculations.
	The only question is, what are their, not the inputs, not the data inputs.
	The only question is, what are the formulas that they are using that spit out their solutions?
	And many of them will just lie to you.
	They don't have a formula.
	They're basically just going by their gut and saying, okay, well, I'm gonna get political blowback if I end the lockdown.
	And so I'm just gonna continue locking down because at least that way I can't be blamed for anything bad that's happening.
	On a political level, locking down is a lot easier.
	Then restarting.
	Because the costs are obvious when you restart, and the benefits are obvious but also diffuse.
	It's easier for the media to run a headline, and you'll start to see these in the next couple weeks, right?
	Two weeks from now, somebody in Georgia will die of COVID-19.
	And they'll say, the day after the lockdowns ended, this person went to the barber shop and got COVID-19.
	Then the media will run with that story.
	And we won't look at what the competing interests are.
	All you'll get is that anecdotal case, and then it'll be, look how bad it was to end the lockdown in the first place.
	Now, as soon as the Democrats start doing it, as soon as Andrew Cuomo starts doing it in New York, then it'll be the bravery of Andrew Cuomo making the hard choices, guys, making the hard choices.
	All of this is absurd.
	All of this is, frankly, quite ridiculous.
	This should be apolitical in the extreme.
	It is not.
	It never is.
	Okay, meanwhile, The 2020 race continues to be completely up in the air.
	Something kind of fascinating is happening, and that is that the Tara Reade story is finally starting to break into the news.
	It only took a month.
	It only took a month.
	And four separate witnesses suggesting that Tara Reade had told them that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her, and told them back at the time that it happened.
	Only now are people starting on the left to say, hey, wait a second, you know, we kind of look hypocritical here if we just sort of blow this thing off.
	Now, there are some people who are blowing it off.
	Nancy Pelosi, for example, is continuing to blow this thing off.
	She says that she believes that Joe Biden's account is good.
	There's only one problem.
	Joe Biden never provided an account.
	Joe Biden just said, I didn't do it.
	And he's never even said that publicly.
	His campaign put out a statement.
	Meanwhile, the Biden campaign was putting out this New York Times story that came out a few weeks ago that kind of went into the details of Tara Reade's shifting story.
	Let me be clear.
	I have serious doubts about Tara Reade's story.
	Like, really, real doubts.
	Just like I had very real doubts about Christine Blasey Ford's story.
	The double standard, however, is that the media have completely undermined their own objective stance when they went all out for Christine Blasey Ford and were basically selling Christine Blasey Ford votive candles.
	And then when it comes to Tara Reade, it's like, well, you know, we gotta be, we gotta show some, let's follow the chain of evidence, guys.
	Suddenly they're, suddenly they're Lenny from law and order when it comes to, when it comes to tracking down actual facts, if a Democrat is involved.
	When it's a Republican, it's like, oh, there's an allegation.
	Probably means they did it.
	In any case, the New York Times ran down the story in mid-April.
	It did not suggest that Tara Reade was actually—it didn't debunk Tara Reade's whole story.
	It asked serious questions about Tara Reade's story.
	The Biden campaign then put it out there that the New York Times had debunked Tara Reade's story, and the New York Times was forced to come out and issue a statement saying, oh, no, we didn't.
	According to the Times Vice President of Communications, Danielle Rodes Ha, she said in a statement, Our investigation made no conclusion either way.
	points being circulated by the Biden campaign that inaccurately suggest a New York Times investigation found that Tara Reid's allegation did not happen.
	Our investigation made no conclusion either way.
	As BuzzFeed correctly reported, our story found three former Senate aides whom Reid said she complained to contemporaneously, all of whom either did not remember the incident or said it did not happen.
	So the Rhodes-Haven said that reporters described a significant amount of evidence supporting She said, The Times also spoke to a friend who said Reid told her the details of the allegation at the time.
	So the New York Times being forced to rebut Biden campaign talking points based on the New York Times story is pretty solid stuff.
	Thank you.
	Meanwhile, there's a piece of the New York Times today.
	Democratic frustration mounts as Biden remains silent on sexual assault allegations.
	And this is starting to break apart the Democratic Party.
	Chris Hayes over on MSNBC, who for a man of the left, tends to be more honest than the average.
	Chris Hayes yesterday covered the Tara Reid allegations.
	He started trending on Twitter because Twitter apparently is now only for trending stupid topics.
	So Twitter trended Chris Hayes.
	Why?
	Because he had the gall to mention that perhaps Joe Biden should say something about the allegations.
	Part of the difficult lesson of the MeToo era is not that every accusation is true and everything should be believed on its face, but that you do have to fight yourself when you feel that impulse.
	You have to do that in order to take seriously what is being alleged and what the evidence is and to evaluate it.
	And that is the case with the accusation by a woman named Tara Reid against Joe Biden.
	Reid briefly worked as a Senate aide in Biden's office in the early 90s.
	Last year, she told a California newspaper that in 1993, Joe Biden, quote, touched her several times, making her feel uncomfortable.
	Okay, so the fact that Chris Hayes even covered it meant that he was trending last night.
	People were literally trending, fire Chris Hayes, which demonstrates the same people who are tweeting, hashtag MeToo, hashtag BelieveAllWomen, were tweeting last night, hashtag fire Chris Hayes.
	It's pretty rich.
	But there is a groundswell of upset over the Tara Reid allegations.
	A New York writer named Rebecca Traister was on national TV last night, suggesting that Biden actually needs to answer questions.
	He doesn't just get to ignore all of this.
	What this is creating is a kind of perfect storm where the women who are being asked to support his opponent are now also being asked to answer for these charges in part because of the vacuum created by Joe Biden, who is not yet really directly answering these questions and certainly not doing what I wish he would, which is to say, please direct your questions about these allegations to me and not the women that are out there offering their support to my candidacy.
	This is correct.
	I mean, basically all of these women who are trying to audition for vice president for Joe Biden are out there answering questions about Joe Biden and what he did in 1993 or did not do.
	And Joe Biden has been hiding in his basement talking with Hillary Clinton and occasionally fainting because he is not really all that alive at this point.
	There is a groundswell building against Joe Biden on this, and he's going to have to address it.
	Now, once he addresses it, then the media will just dismiss it.
	As soon as he says, listen, I think that all women should have a right to tell their story, but this didn't happen, and I don't remember Tara Reid.
	I've had many interns over the years, but I certainly would have remembered doing something.
	Then the media will basically just let it go.
	But Biden is going to have to speak about it, and this is going to hover around Biden.
	For people who suggest, by the way, that Trump is not going to be able to use this because Biden will just point out Trump's own wild history with regard to women.
	Yeah, we all know about that.
	The stuff about Biden is more damaging to Biden because it cuts against the grain of what Biden is campaigning on.
	Trump never really campaigned on, I am Chris, I am absolutely clean with women.
	He never campaigned on that, like ever.
	That is what Biden campaigns on, so it will be damaging to Biden.
	Now, meanwhile, the polls for President Trump don't look great right now.
	If the economy recovers, Trump has a shot at victory.
	If the economy continues to suck, Trump is in real trouble.
	That is also true with regard to the volatility of his commentary.
	According to the Associated Press, President Trump erupted at top political advisors last week when they presented him with worrisome polling data that showed his support eroding in a series of battleground states as his response to coronavirus comes under criticism.
	While Trump saw some of his best approval ratings of his presidency during the early weeks of the crisis, aides highlighted the growing political cost of the crisis and the unforced errors by Trump in his freewheeling press briefings.
	Trump reacted with defiance.
	He said, I'm not effing losing to Joe Biden.
	This is according to five people with knowledge of the conversations.
	Trump was being told that he was trailing in a lot of the battleground states.
	The president should take the advice of his advisors on this one.
	The fact is that if the president continues to be volatile in his approach to this thing at a time when people are looking for solidity, that is going to continue to be a problem for him.
	An insane, insane story involving Michael Flynn.
	It seems like the case against Michael Flynn not only is falling apart, it looks like, frankly, a railroad job by the FBI.
	It's pretty incredible.
	We'll get to that first.
	It's time for A Thing I Like.
	So, things I like today.
	Robert Harris is a novelist who I really had not spent a lot of time with.
	He's terrific.
	He really is good.
	He's got a series, a three-part series on Cato, sorry, on Cicero, rather, the famous Roman philosopher and politician who is involved in many of the chief events surrounding the rise of Julius Caesar.
	The first of these books is called Imperium.
	Robert Harris was a reporter I believe for the BBC and now he writes historical novels.
	He also wrote a book that I'm in the middle of right now called An Officer and a Spy.
	And this one has been made into a movie by Roman Polanski.
	It won all sorts of awards in France.
	But because we live in an era in which if a director did something evil, horrible, criminal, We're not going to release his movie anymore.
	Nobody can actually get a hold of the film.
	So the same people in Hollywood who are giving Roman Polanski a standing ovation for winning Best Director at the Oscars for The Pianist now will not give distribution to a film about the Dreyfus Affair in France because Roman Polanski is a criminal, is a convicted criminal, a convicted rapist in the United States.
	Now, here's my view of Roman Polanski.
	He should be in jail.
	Also, we should be able to see his movies.
	This is my view generally of artists.
	If the standard is going to be that you only get to view the art of people who are morally good, you can kiss goodbye to art because it turns out artists are notoriously crappy human beings.
	But this has little to do with Robert Harris.
	His book Imperium is really a fun read.
	If you like sort of the Hilary Mantel style, Novels about historical figures and trying to get in their heads and follow the politics of the era is a really well-researched He also has written a couple of other books one is called fatherland It's an alternative history in which the Nazis won World War two kind of man-in-the-high-castle style But more detailed and check out his work Robert Harris is really really good and Imperium is definitely worth the read Okay time for a thing that I hate
	So yesterday, some documents came out that absolutely make James Comey and the FBI look disastrously corrupt.
	I mean, horrifically corrupt.
	Like, crusading FBI agents, crusading in order to railroad people in the Trump administration early on because they were so convinced, they convinced themselves, that Trump was actually a Russian's cat's paw, and they were going to do anything they needed in order to flip people.
	They're going to do anything they needed in order to prosecute people surrounding Trump so that they could come up with the evidence that surely must be around the next corner.
	So according to Jerry Dunleavy writing at the Washington Examiner, top FBI officials discussed the possibility of prosecuting retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russians as agents planned how to conduct their interview of the Trump National Security Advisor, newly unsealed notes show.
	The records.
	Unsealed through a consent agreement by Flynn's lawyers and the Justice Department show an email from then-FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok to then-FBI General Counsel James Baker with advice for then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for his call with Flynn on January 24, 2017.
	That is the same day that Flynn was interviewed by Strzok and another FBI agent believed to be Joseph Piedenska.
	The documents also include an email from the day before that then-FBI lawyer Lisa Page sent to Strzok and a member of the FBI's Office of General Counsel whose name is redacted about the federal statute against false statements.
	Additionally, a page of handwritten notes from an FBI official whose identity has not been disclosed to the public was released dated the day of Flynn's FBI interview.
	Now remember, A lot of these people have had serious honesty problems.
	Andrew McCabe was fired for having lied to the FBI about contacts with outside media outlets.
	He lost his pension.
	Peter Strzok was involved in this affair with Lisa Page, and they're writing each other emails about how exactly to question Michael Flynn.
	He is the person, Peter Strzok, who's telling Lisa Page back during the election that they had insurance against Trump winning.
	The author of the notes was previously speculated to be Baker, but on Wednesday it was reported the notes belonged to the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap, who led the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
	The notes show the FBI official wondering whether the goal of the Flynn interview was to get Flynn to tell the truth, or to catch him in a lie so he could be charged with a crime or removed from his position.
	Um, what?
	What now?
	So they're literally saying in the actual notes, in the actual notes, it says, what is our goal?
	Truth admission or to get him out to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired?
	Uh, what now?
	So you're literally setting up a perjury trap.
	This is the definition of a perjury trap, right?
	You are literally attempting to get him to lie.
	You want him to lie so you can prosecute him.
	And this is exactly what happened because here's the thing.
	Michael Flynn, for all of his foibles, for all of his ridiculousness with RT and Turkey and all the rest of it.
	Michael Flynn did not commit a crime when as incoming national security advisor, he talked with the Russians.
	That is not a crime.
	It did not violate the Logan Act.
	It is not a crime in any way, shape or form.
	The only crime Michael Flynn allegedly committed is that he lied to the FBI.
	But now it appears that the FBI was specifically designing its questions to get him to lie.
	That was their intent.
	They wanted him to lie.
	Why?
	So they could flip him, they could threaten him with perjury charges, and then they could get him to flip on Trump.
	That's what this appears to be.
	Flynn right now is fighting to dismiss the government's case against him.
	He pled guilty in December 2017 to lying to investigators about conversations with Russian diplomat Sergei Kislyak about sanctions on Russia and a UN resolution on Israel.
	The FBI had intercepted Flynn's discussions with the Russian and then grilled him on the contents of the conversation.
	Now again, the FBI should have to explain, really, why exactly they were intercepting those conversations.
	Now they can say we were monitoring the Russians, but again, there's nothing wrong with Michael Flynn talking with the Russians when he's the incoming NSA.
	In January, he told the court he was innocent of this crime.
	He filed to withdraw his guilty plea after the DOJ asked the judge to sentence Flynn to up to six months in prison, though afterward the department said probation would be appropriate.
	Flynn tweeted out a short video showing an American flag flapping in the wind after all of this came out.
	The FBI official wrote, we have a case with Flynn and Russians, and our goal is to determine if Mike Flynn is going to tell the truth about his relationship with the Russians.
	Beneath another column labeled afterwards, the FBI official lists a number of thoughts about the impending Flynn interview that day.
	I agreed yesterday, he wrote, that we shouldn't show Flynn redacted if he didn't admit it.
	When I thought about it last night, I believe we should rethink this.
	What is our goal?
	Truth and mission?
	Or get him to lie so we can prosecute him?
	Or get him fired?
	The FBI official stated we regularly show subjects evidence with the goal of getting them to admit their wrongdoing.
	I don't see how getting someone to admit their wrongdoing is going easy on him.
	The FBI official also suggested if we get him to admit to breaking the Logan Act, which he did not break, give facts to DOJ and have them decide, or if initially lies, we present him blank and he admits it, documents for DOJ, and let them decide how to address it.
	The FBI said if we're seen as playing games, White House will be furious.
	The list ended with a bullet point that said, protect our institution by not playing games.
	Isn't it the definition of playing a game when the person did not commit an underlying crime or make it or tell a lie that is, or told a lie that is irrelevant to an actual underlying crime, and then you try to prosecute him so you can get him to flip on Trump and people surrounding Trump?
	Pretty astonishing stuff.
	I mean, really pretty amazing.
	The newly public email from Page to the FBI General Counsel's office in Destruct had the subject line question regarding 1001.
	That's a reference to 18 U.S. Code 1001, the U.S. federal statute against making false statements to which federal law enforcement officers later used to get Flynn to plead guilty.
	Lisa Page asked, I have a question.
	Could the admonition regarding 101 be given at the beginning of the interview?
	Or does it have to come following a statement which agents believe to be false?
	I feel bad I don't know this.
	I don't remember ever having to do this.
	Plus, I've only charged it once in the context of lying to a federal probation officer.
	Page noted it could be given at the beginning of their discussion with Flynn.
	It would be an easy way to casually slip that in.
	As, of course, you know, sir, federal law makes it a crime too.
	It is pretty incredible.
	Andrew McCarthy, the conservative commentator, former federal prosecutor from National Review, wrote earlier this week there was no good faith basis for an investigation into General Flynn because under federal law, a false statement made to investigators is not actionable unless it is material.
	Judge Emmett Sullivan, the federal judge presiding over retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn's case, issued an order on Tuesday telling the former National Security Advisor's previous attorneys to re-execute a search of every document and communication pertaining to the firm's representation of Mr. Flynn after it was revealed they failed to turn over thousands of documents to Flynn's new defense team.
	They just lost a bunch of documents to the federal government and didn't turn it over to Flynn's defense team.
	All of this looks deeply, deeply suspicious.
	Flynn's defense lawyers also said on Friday they found further evidence of misconduct by a former Robert Mueller prosecutor, Brandon Van Graak, claiming he made baseless threats to incite Flynn.
	Apparently, what actually happened here is that at a certain point, Flynn was not prosecuted, remember, for a little while after this, and Flynn I mean, ugly.
	brought to to heal by robert muller's team apparently robert muller's team went to him and said if we do not if you do not plead guilty to this or if you do not testify or give us information we're going to prosecute your kid i mean ugly ugly stuff ugly ugly stuff But, you know, the fact that the FBI was engaged in this sort of thing, not good news for James Comey, a man of rectitude above all questions about the law.
	Lindsey Graham says, the senator from South Carolina, Flynn was obviously the victim of an out-of-control DOJ here.
	It's pretty apparent to me that General Flynn was a victim of an out-of-control Department of Justice.
	He basically got railroaded.
	It is pretty widely known that the Obama administration didn't have much use for General Flynn.
	So Attorney General Barr needs to be complimented.
	He's doing the right thing.
	He has three goals that I share.
	Restore trust.
	Hold people accountable who have engaged in misconduct and right wrongs like General Flynn and I believe eventually Papadopoulos.
	So what is going to happen here is that Attorney General William Barr is looking into this.
	There's a possibility that the government drops its case against Flynn entirely.
	We'll see where this goes.
	But look, Flynn lied about the communications, but the underlying communications were not illegal.
	This is a point Andrew McCarthy has made.
	It continues to be true.
	What's hilarious is that the same people who have ripped into the FBI over and over and over and over for being beyond their capacity are now defending the FBI, engaging in this sort of game-playing as soon as it is directed against somebody who supposedly was going to turn on President Trump.
	So that is where we currently stand.
	It is a good reminder, by the way.
	It is a good reminder that when you give the government the power of compulsion, People are very likely to misuse it or be corrupt in the ways that they use that sort of power.
	So, it's a libertarian moment for everybody regarding the FBI.
	Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with two hours of additional content.
	Otherwise, we'll see you here tomorrow.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
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