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Aug. 3, 2023 - The Ben Shapiro Show

58:01

The Rigging Of The 2024 Election

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	All righty, so today the former president of the United States is expected to appear in person for his arraignment in federal court in Washington, D.C.
	So we're going to get another O.J.
	Simpson day, where the president is trailed by helicopters as he leaves Mar-a-Lago, and then he gets on a plane, and then he goes to Washington, D.C., and then he goes into a courthouse, and then he exits a courthouse.
	And we're going to get all the usual hullabaloo about how this is historic, and it's the biggest thing that's happened in the United States since ever, and it's like an amazing, amazing day for the left.
	They're all going to be celebrating.
	They're all going to be woohooing.
	It's going to be so exciting.
	We've done this several times at this point because Trump, of course, had to go to New York for an arraignment.
	And then he had to be in Florida and Miami for an arraignment.
	Now he has to be in Washington, D.C.
	for an arraignment.
	So it's the arraignment world tour here with the Trump campaign.
	And this is not Donald Trump's fault because this indictment is garbage.
	The indictment, as I discussed yesterday, is charging crimes that are not actual crimes.
	They are suggesting that Donald Trump, for example, committed some sort of fraud against the government of the United States, which is a lie.
	That is not, in fact, how that law works.
	What they wanted to charge him with was incitement.
	What they really wanted to charge him with was he is the one who created the riot on January 6th.
	But the problem is it doesn't fulfill the actual elements of incitement because incitement under American law requires that you actually tell people to go do the thing.
	It is not enough to say, well, you know, I really, really don't like that guy.
	And then somebody goes and they burn down the guy's house.
	That's not enough.
	You have to say, I want you to go to that guy's house and burn down his house and here's his address.
	The latter is incitement.
	Trump didn't do that.
	He said on January 6th, go peacefully protest, patriotically protest at the Capitol building.
	And then he didn't do enough to get people out.
	But again, that's not the same thing as incitement.
	That is not an actual crime.
	It's just him being a bad president at that time.
	Which, again, his activities during January 6th, I think were egregious.
	I think his activities between the election and January 6th, particularly in the aftermath of state certification of votes, I think it was wrong.
	I think it was false.
	I think none of that is a crime.
	It turns out you can do lots of things in America that I personally think are egregious, wrong, and damaging to the country that are not crimes.
	It happens pretty much all the time and every single day.
	So, former President Trump, again, he's going to show up in Washington, D.C.
	In order to be arraigned.
	And this just underscores the fact that not only could President Trump's life be at risk here because he now faces 78 felony charges across three criminal cases.
	If Trump were convicted on all counts, according to Politico, and given the maximum statutory penalty for each one, he would face a whopping 641 years in prison.
	Which I assume means he would not survive prison, although he is 70% preservatives at this point because he eats so much McDonald's and Diet Coke.
	That is not counting additional criminal charges he might face in Georgia.
	The actual plausible criminal term is probably nothing like that.
	In both state and federal courts, judges have wide latitude in sentencing.
	None of the crimes Trump has been charged with carry a mandatory minimum sentence.
	Defendants with no prior criminal record rarely receive the maximum.
	And sending Trump to prison could raise pretty unprecedented practical and legal issues, given the fact that right now, he's the most likely person to be the Republican candidate for president.
	So there is the actual real possibility that Donald Trump could be campaigning from prison in the middle of next year, which again, high drama.
	And maybe, I mean, I would love to see a presidential debate in which Joe Biden Being corrupt with Hunter and having violated the law?
	You could theoretically have a presidential debate in which you have the candidates in actual jail cells across from each other at Folsom and just shouting at each other across the hallway as flaming bedsheets fall around them, which frankly would be more entertaining than most presidential debates at this point.
	But is this a miscarriage of justice?
	Yeah, I mean, this indictment should not go forward.
	I discussed it at length yesterday.
	Not only that, it is very clear that Jack Smith wants this stuff prosecuted like as fast as humanly possible.
	Donald Trump's defense attorney, John Lauro, he said prosecutors want to force a trial in 60 to 90 days.
	So if I get my math right, that means that they want to force the trial in like October, November, sometime presumably before the primaries begin.
	The prosecutor says, let's go to trial, I'm ready in 70 days.
	Fair enough, you're not ready in 70 days.
	How about 90?
	How about six months?
	How about before the elections?
	How about he had three and a half years, why don't we make it equal, okay?
	The bottom line is that they have 60 federal agents working on this, 60 lawyers, all kinds of government personnel, and we get this indictment and they want to go to trial in 90 days.
	Does that sound like justice to you?
	Well, maybe.
	justice? The prosecutor's not here to say, maybe he's investigating so that he's ready to go to
	trial. Is it justice to force a former president of the United States to trial in 90 days when
	you've had three years to investigate? Well, as you well know.
	So there are two things that are happening right here from a sort of political perspective.
	One is, the entire election cycle will now be about January 6th.
	It'll be about Donald Trump's activities, his legal activities, it'll be about classified documents.
	That is what the election is going to be about.
	And that is what Democrats want the election to be about.
	They would love nothing better than that.
	This is why you have Michael Beschloss, who's the world's worst historian and writes speeches for Joe Biden, comparing January 6th to 9-11, which again, this is such an absurdity.
	I'm sorry.
	January 6th was a rally that turned into a fairly small-scale riot in the context of the 2020 riots, which was the most damaging riots in American history in terms of property damage and many lives were lost.
	Michael Bush lost comparing a bunch of dolts going into the Capitol building.
	And by the way, killing no one, okay?
	Because the reality is that the one officer who died, Brian Sicknick, died afterward, and it is unclear that the cause of death was directly related to January 6th.
	But put all that, the only person who actually was killed that day was Ashley Babbitt, of course.
	Comparing that to 9-11, in which 3,000 Americans died in a full-scale attack on the United States, including both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
	Comparing that to Pearl Harbor, like, Michael Beschloss is, he is a terrible historian, but this is the narrative.
	Pearl Harbor, 1941.
	We were bombed.
	Our system was very much in danger.
	Our democracy, many people were giving it up and saying that, you know, the democracy had seen its last days.
	Franklin Roosevelt helped to put a coalition together at the last minute to save democracy and freedom around the world.
	9-11, 2001.
	Osama bin Laden and other terrorists hated our democracy, tried to destroy it.
	You see where I'm going.
	What we see in this indictment is that on January 6, 2021, Donald Trump, just like those other threats to American democracy, tried to destroy our system.
	Okay, so he is now comparing Donald Trump to Osama bin Laden and Hirohito.
	This is where Democrats want to go, and they'd love to run this election.
	They ran the selection playbook in 2020.
	They ran the selection playbook in 2022.
	And it actually went pretty well for them.
	I remember a lot of us were pretty exercised about what I think is still the worst presidential speech I've ever seen given.
	Joe Biden's bizarre and fascistic speech in front of the Independence Hall, where he completely misread what liberty is and then declared all of his political opponents enemies of the Republic.
	Blood Red Independence Hall with the soldiers flanking him in the background.
	You remember all of that.
	But it actually worked out fairly well politically for him, so Democrats want to rerun that playbook.
	So that is point number one.
	Point number two is that if you bog down your political opponent with lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit, criminal case after criminal case after criminal, that keeps him pretty busy.
	And not only that, if you hit him with a bunch of criminal cases that are pretty obviously politically motivated, it elevates him in the primaries.
	So Democrats are getting kind of all the things they want here.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
	First, Let us talk about the fact that Big Tech, Big Government, these are not trustworthy sources.
	They would like to silence any dissenting voices into submission.
	In fact, they work hand in glove together.
	There's literally a story out today that the White House contacted Facebook and asked them to ding DailyWare's traffic, like degrade DailyWare's traffic in 2021.
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	Okay, so.
	This is, in effect, an attempt to quote-unquote rig the 2024 election.
	Now again, when I say rig, I mean it in the sort of generic sense.
	I don't mean electoral fraud.
	I don't mean Democrats shipping in ballot boxes in the middle of the night or dead people voting in Chicago in 1960 or stealing an election for Al Franken over Norm Coleman in Minnesota.
	That stuff does happen.
	That's not what I'm talking about here.
	What I'm talking about here is the pre-rigging of the 2024 election by essentially Making Donald Trump the Republican nominee, knowing that the amount of baggage he brings into the general is going to drag him down in the general election.
	Because that seems to be the most predictable way that this election cycle goes.
	It is very difficult to believe that independents are going to think like Republicans and conservatives on these issues.
	Because most people don't watch this stuff at the granular level.
	If you listen to this show, you are more politically informed than about 98% of the American public.
	The rest of the public, a huge percentage of the public does not follow this stuff closely.
	And so when they see headline after headline after headline suggesting that Donald Trump is a criminal, if they are not in the 40% base of Donald Trump, if they're in that 10%, which tends to be less engaged, tends to be less informed, which tends to not listen to conservative podcasts, but may turn on CNN every so often, that the people who catch the news, whether they're not reading the sports section, For those people, do you think they're going to be granularly involved in whether the DOJ was weaponized against Donald Trump?
	Because after all, Donald Trump has been arguing that for years.
	He was right, but those arguments kind of are baked into the cake.
	So the question becomes both practical and messaging.
	On a practical level, how is Donald Trump going to contend with the fact that he is likely to have at least four ongoing criminal trials in the middle of this election cycle?
	How's he gonna do that?
	We already know that his super PAC is spending every dollar they have raised, all of them, on his legal fees right now.
	So first of all, Donald Trump's supposed to be a billionaire.
	He shouldn't be using his super PAC money for that.
	Donald Trump should be paying his own legal bills.
	And when you donate money to Donald Trump, it should not go toward his legal defense.
	It should go toward defeating Joe Biden by building up a grassroots operation.
	I mean, that's just simple politics.
	But, put that aside.
	Even if you're fine.
	By the way, Donald Trump could have started a separate legal fund, and then if you wanted to give to his legal fund, you could have.
	That's not what he did.
	But, put all of that aside.
	Every dollar Donald Trump is bringing in is being spent right now on legal.
	Every moment that Donald Trump is online is being spent thinking about legal.
	Every so often he sideswipes Ron DeSantis just to kind of keep him down, but most of his focus right now is going to be on the legal cases and ranting about Jack Smith and stuff.
	Well, that's an awful expenditure of time for a presidential candidate who needs to run an election in swing states in order to win.
	Beyond that, think about the practicalities.
	Think about the court dates.
	Think about where he actually has to physically be.
	In many of these cases, he's going to have to be for days or weeks.
	Florida for his case on classified documents, or in Washington D.C.
	for the January 6th indictments, or in Georgia for electoral interference indictments that are shortly to be coming, or in New York for the Stormy Daniels nonsense.
	He's going to have to be in all of those places.
	Just on a practical level, this is a very, very difficult case for Donald Trump to run.
	It's a very rough race.
	Because they've set up all of these obstacles.
	Again, this is why I say it's been rigged.
	Once you bring a bunch of specious allegations against Trump and you lock him up in terms of his time and his money for the next year and a half, that is a form of rigging the election.
	And as a as another component of this, by doing this, you're also helping to rig the Republican primaries in a bizarre sort of way.
	When all of the media coverage goes toward Donald Trump, it sucks all the air out of the room.
	Nobody else can compete.
	It means that Donald Trump, with all of his baggage, is likely to be the nominee because everybody on the Republican side of the aisle, myself included, We all look at Trump and we're like, that guy's being victimized and we would like to give him as much power as he can have in order to smack back.
	I get it.
	I totally get it.
	But here's the thing.
	If he loses, none of that, the power of a nomination is no greater than the power of a not nomination.
	The power of the presidency is the thing you need.
	If Donald Trump doesn't win, giving him the nomination doesn't actually help him one iota.
	Like not one little bit.
	You need somebody who can win.
	If that person wins, presumably they could pardon him theoretically of federal charges.
	They could remake the DOJ.
	That's the thing we should all be focused on if we actually care about fixing the system and making sure that you don't get bad indictments against political opponents.
	But that requires victory.
	So the question really, as always, comes back to victory.
	So, again, that's practicality number one, is his time being stacked up.
	Him being basically jammed up all the way until election day with criminal cases.
	And then again, there's message number two, which is the message that Democrats are going to ram down, push it, push it, push it, push it.
	And these criminal cases allow them to do it every day because Trump is going to be in court talking about it every day, on Truth Social talking about it.
	If there's one person who likes talking about Trump more than Joe Biden, it's Donald Trump.
	He loves it.
	It's his favorite thing.
	We're gonna get an entire election cycle of that.
	So, maybe that's something that you're up for, for dramatic purposes, or out of loyalty to Trump on some sort of personal level.
	I don't blame you for it, I get it.
	I'm just asking, is it the thing that is most likely to result in actual victory?
	As we'll see in a second, it is quite probable that Joe Biden basically set all of this up, at least in terms of the incitements that are now coming down from Jack Smith.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
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	Okay, so.
	Did Joe Biden rig a lot of this sort of stuff?
	I mean, the answer is, it kind of sounds like it.
	This is an article from March 31st, 2023, just a few months ago.
	Biden said, what the Biden Justice Department will do is let the Department of Justice be the Department of Justice.
	Let them make the judgments of who should be prosecuted.
	They are not my lawyers.
	They are not my personal lawyers.
	But, and this is the New York Times reporting, back in March, he does have opinions.
	In the past, Mr. Biden privately told his close circle of advisors that Mr. Trump posed a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted for his role in the events of January 6th, according to two people familiar with his comments.
	He also told confidants he wanted Attorney General Merrick Garland to stop acting like a ponderous judge and to take decisive actions.
	Well, that's weird that he then did those things.
	And this is very much like when Barack Obama said, wouldn't it be great if the IRS, wouldn't it be great if the IRS went after all my political opponents?
	That'd be great.
	They deserve it.
	And then magically the IRS did just that.
	And then people are like, well, you didn't order them to do it.
	Right, when you say publicly you want the people who work for you to do a thing, typically they tend to do the thing.
	If I were to suggest on my show that I want my team to get me a birthday cake tomorrow for no reason, I assume somebody would probably hear that and maybe go get a birthday cake tomorrow.
	Even if I didn't explicitly tell them, by the way, guys, I don't need the birthday cake.
	But that is the way that this sort of stuff works.
	When the boss says a thing and he says it in public, the subordinates tend to do the thing.
	Is it a coincidence that Joe Biden wanted these things to happen and now they are magically happening?
	Is it also a coincidence that Barack Obama apparently told Joe Biden earlier this summer that Donald Trump's political strengths could actually be a problem for him?
	And so maybe, maybe, it might be kind of nice if something would happen to that guy, right?
	I mean, if he just got hit with a bunch of indictments, that wouldn't be a terrible thing.
	According to the Washington Post, at the lunch held in late June at the White House residence, Obama promised to do all he could to help get the president reelected, according to two people familiar with the meeting.
	But he also warned that Donald Trump's political strengths, including an intensely loyal following, a Trump-friendly conservative media ecosystem in a polarized country, underlined his worry that Trump could be a more formidable candidate than many Democrats realize.
	Well, you know what is a great way to undercut that opposition is by locking him up with a bunch of false legal charges that could, in Washington, D.C., quite probably result in a conviction.
	Neil Kagel, former federal prosecutor, he says this will almost certainly result in a conviction, which, again, it's in Washington, D.C., so yeah, there's a real good shot.
	And free speech, I mean, Trump's defense has been, well, I just said it, I didn't actually do anything.
	But that is never your defense in the law.
	Like, you and I, if I, you know, order you to kill someone, you know, or, you know, conspire with you to kill someone through my words, or, you know, something like that, that doesn't mean that I like, well, it's only speech, therefore, I can't be prosecuted.
	That's thoroughly bogus.
	I think more generally, Jack Smith's indictment here, It is not clean.
	It is not calculated.
	It does not pack a punch.
	It is an op-ed masquerading as an indictment, but it doesn't matter.
	It's in Washington, D.C.
	There's every possibility that Donald Trump could be convicted and convicted in short order in Washington, D.C.
	In terms of the danger to Trump, Again, you have to stack it up in sort of two categories.
	One is the actual solidity of the legal case.
	In terms of the solidity of the legal cases that are currently outstanding against Trump on the criminal basis, by far, the most grave charges are the classified documents charges.
	Those ones, there's pretty solid evidence that Trump did the thing.
	That's not with regard to the political concerns.
	The political concern, of course, is the double standard with Hillary, but it's a whole different thing.
	In terms of which charges are the most dangerous in terms of the stuff that Trump has violated, the rankings go Florida case, D.C.
	indictment, which again is specious, and Manhattan indictment, which is super duper specious.
	In terms of actual danger to go to jail, D.C.
	is by far number one.
	By far number one.
	Because it's a Washington, D.C.
	jury.
	And that makes a huge difference in this case.
	And Democrats know it.
	They want to jam him up.
	This is...
	It is rigging it when if suddenly there are a bunch of legal cases that arose against Joe Biden just prior to the election in which he had to sit in the dock, a bunch of DAs decided to just try him month after month after month for a bunch of specious charges.
	Yes, that would be a form of election rigging in the same way as a form of election rigging when the federal government literally lied to people about whether Hunter Biden's laptop was real, causing social media censorship of the New York Post story.
	You have a singular experience of January 6th.
	as I've said, is the Democratic message, which is that Donald Trump is the worst person to ever
	person. And Nancy Pelosi is trotting that one out.
	Apparently she's heartbroken. There's nothing I hate more than crocodile tears. This is like crocodile
	tears, just in extremis.
	You have a singular experience of January 6th. As you read the indictment,
	what was your reaction and what jumped out to you?
	It's heartbreaking for our country to have a president of the United States with this
	list of charges against him.
	And I just want to commend the January 6th committee, the House committee, bipartisan committee, Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney and all the members of the committee and the staff for the work that they did.
	They made a foundation of facts about facts and the law and made a criminal referral to the Justice Department.
	So, um, she seems very heartbroken, doesn't she?
	Or maybe she's super happy this gets to be the narrative going forward.
	And this leads us to our favorite thing.
	Two things can be true at once.
	I'm gonna get to all the things that can be true at once in just one second.
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	Okay, so...
	Now we get to the two things can be true at once.
	It can be true the Democrats are trying to rig the election in their own favor by both elevating Donald Trump in the primaries and also degrading him in the general with all of these legal cases which achieve all of those things both for narrative purpose and for actual practical day-to-day time on target purposes for Donald Trump.
	It can also be true that Donald Trump made some of this bed himself.
	I mean, there are a lot of people who are very angry at Mike Pence today.
	And they think that Mike Pence should have come out strong against the indictment.
	I hear.
	Again, I think that he should have.
	I think he should have said this indictment is specious.
	It doesn't appear to be legally predicated.
	But Mike Pence was also the guy who Donald Trump was lying about for like three months.
	He was the person who Donald Trump was basically directing all ire in the universe at.
	His own vice president, who had been absolutely loyal to him for four years.
	There was no more loyal servant of Donald Trump's policy positions in the White House than Mike Pence for four long years.
	And on a dime, Trump swiveled on him and just clocked him in the face repeatedly by lying.
	It was a lie that Mike Pence had the unilateral ability to overturn the election.
	It is not true.
	Justice Kamala Harris does not have the unilateral ability to overturn the election.
	And I'm constantly amazed by anyone who gives any credence to this legal theory.
	And there were people who were doing it for like several months.
	I can't see any reason to do it other than for a sort of nefarious purpose in the sense of self-aggrandizement because it was so obviously legally specious and silly.
	The vice president does not have the capacity to simply put aside state-certified votes.
	If he did, that would make him a dictator.
	That's silly.
	Okay, but, you know, two things can be true.
	One, Trump and Pence should have said that the indictment is specious.
	And also, Donald Trump radically mistreated Mike Pence.
	There is no question about this.
	And Mike Pence is not wrong to talk about that.
	Here was Pence talking about that yesterday.
	Let's be clear on this point.
	It wasn't just that I asked for a pause.
	The president specifically asked me, and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked me to literally reject votes, which would have resulted in the issue being turned over to the House of Representatives, and literally chaos would have ensued.
	So Martha, people can read the indictment, and frankly, I've said before, I had hoped it had not come to this point.
	You know, I don't know if the government can meet the standard, the burden of proof, beyond reasonable doubt, for criminal charges.
	But the American people deserve to know that President Trump and his advisers didn't just ask me to pause, they asked me to reject votes, return votes, essentially to overturn the election.
	Don't be angry at Mike Pence for what Donald Trump did.
	I mean, I'm sorry.
	You can be angry at Mike Pence for, again, not coming out against the indictment strong.
	But it's Donald Trump who made his bed with regard to Mike Pence.
	So Trump then tweeted out, I feel badly for Mike Pence,
	who is attracting no crowds, enthusiasm, or loyalty from people who as a member of the Trump administration
	should be loving him.
	By the way, it should be noted at this point that of all of the cabinet officials who served under Donald
	Trump, a grand total of four have currently endorsed him.
	He didn't fight against election fraud, which we will now be easily able to prove based on the most recent fake indictment and information, which will have been made available to us, finally, a really big deal.
	The VP had power Mike didn't understand, but after the election, the RINOs and DEMs changed the law, taking that power away.
	Donald Trump talking about loyalty with regard to Mike Pence is really pretty gross.
	This falls under the two things can be true at once rule.
	Donald Trump shouldn't be indicted.
	These are not crimes.
	They're just very, very, very bad behavior and bad activity.
	It can also be true that Donald Trump relied on advisors who are some of the worst advisors in American history.
	Sidney Powell is a kook.
	She was a kook the whole time.
	Everybody who's watching should have said that she was a kook the whole time.
	We looked at her claims and we established on the show that her claims were kookery from basically the very beginning.
	He had on Rudy Giuliani on his legal team.
	It turns out that Rudy seems to be now, unfortunately, he went from being America's mayor when he was a terrific mayor of New York, an American hero in the aftermath of 9-11, and a pretty formidable presidential candidate at the beginning of the 2008 race, into a man who appears to be a habitual drunk.
	I mean, there's an outlet out, there's a lawsuit out right now from a former assistant in which the former assistant accuses him of sexual harassment and other And and other sort of sexual misconduct.
	And I'm just going to she has tapes of Giuliani talking to her.
	Giuliani, again, it's these are the people that Trump had around him.
	These are the best people.
	Two things can be true at once.
	Donald Trump should not be indicted and Donald Trump does not surround himself with the best people.
	This is a direct quote from Rudy Giuliani's tape.
	OK, get ready with the bleeper, guys.
	Here we go.
	He's talking to a. An assistant named Noel Dunphy.
	Okay, and she is apparently suing him again, as I say, right now in civil court.
	And here is the transcript of a tape.
	Mr. Giuliani, come here, big dk. Come here, big dk. Your d**ks belong to me.
	Give them to me.
	Indiscernible.
	I want to claim my dk. I want to claim my dk. I want to claim my dk. These are my dk.
	Miss Dunphy.
	Oh, yeah.
	Mr. Giuliani, these breasts belong to me.
	No one else can get near these, okay?
	I don't care if they're flirting or they give you business cards.
	These are mine.
	You got it?
	Miss Dunphy.
	Yes.
	Mr. Giuliani, understand?
	I'm very f***ing possessive.
	I've gone easy on you.
	Miss Dunphy.
	I don't know.
	Mr. Giuliani, I've been easy on you.
	Miss Dunphy, you're pretty tough, honey.
	Mr. Giuliani, I've been easy on you.
	Give them to me.
	These were the people that Donald Trump surrounded himself with in the middle of the election cycle.
	Is that like a good thing?
	Is that what you want in a candidate?
	Just because you are being prosecuted and persecuted by your political opponents doesn't mean that you are actually good at the thing or that you aren't making obstacles for yourself by hanging out with people like Rudy Giuliani.
	For example, while Rudy Giuliani shows up at like Four Seasons Gardening with hair dye dripping down his face.
	Does that sound like the mark of a good candidate?
	Again, Donald Trump is a lot of things.
	I've said before, he's a genius for telescoping the id of the Republican base.
	He's a genius for it.
	He can put his finger directly on the pulse of the Republican base.
	He feels what they feel, and that is an extraordinary power.
	Also, he has no discipline whatsoever.
	He surrounds himself with the absolute worst people who apparently are there just based on some sycophantic level of personal loyalty to him.
	And he is not a meticulous tool on behalf of his own positions.
	He is not.
	If he were, he would have done a better job in the last year of his presidency, which frankly was a disaster area.
	The first three years of his presidency, his kind of personal foibles were not in any way really hampering the efficacy of his program.
	The last year was a disaster.
	It was when Black Lives Matter, COVID handling, and all of this stuff.
	It was kind of a disaster.
	So the question is, is that the person, and then put aside the electoral record, is that the person that Republicans want to nominate?
	Do you wish to be suckered by Democrats into doing precisely the thing they would like you to do, which is to nominate Donald Trump so they can hit him with 83 false indictments between now and the election, lock him up, and hit him with a media wave suggesting that he is a criminal?
	And do you think that Donald Trump is going to be able to overcome all of those obstacles?
	Do you think that's likely?
	Is that the most plausible solution here?
	Or is it possible the best thing that could happen is for Joe Biden not to be president anymore so we can fix the problems?
	So we can fix the problems.
	And this brings us to the other candidates inside the Republican race.
	Again, Ron DeSantis is still the solid number two.
	There is no number three.
	All the talk about anybody else rising inside the Republican polling just is non-existent.
	Right now, if you wish to see someone aside from Donald Trump nominated, it is DeSantis or bust.
	The RealClearPolitics polling average has Trump at 54, and it has DeSantis at 18, and it's everyone else below 5%.
	No one else is gaining steam.
	No one else is picking up traction.
	Not Tim Scott, who's stuck at 3%.
	Not Nikki Haley, who's stuck at 4%.
	Not Mike Pence, who's stuck at 4%.
	Not Vivek Ramaswamy, who's stuck at 5%.
	And certainly not the inimitably, absolutely magnetic Doug Burgum, who you've never heard of.
	So.
	DeSantis is finally doing the thing that he needs to do, which is he is aggressively finding people on the left to punch.
	So according to Politico, DeSantis has now agreed to debate Gavin Newsom on Fox News, which is good.
	Now, Newsom is a very clever guy, so DeSantis is really going to have to prep for this.
	This is the debate that really the country should have is whether we wish to be more like Florida or whether we should be more like California.
	I have a personal stake in this debate since I literally moved my family from California to Florida and my company from California to Florida and Nashville.
	So, the... I'm fascinated by this.
	I think that it would be the debate that actually is worth watching as opposed to, you know, two old men screaming at each other about their personal corruption.
	Or alleged personal corruption.
	This debate should be interesting.
	According to Politico, the Florida Republican and California Democrat have repeatedly sparred over policies in their respective states, each representing one side of the ideological spectrum through occupying different political perches.
	DeSantis is trailing Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.
	Newsom is basically running as a shadow candidate in case Joe Biden should fall over and smack his head.
	On Wednesday, DeSantis agreed to the debate.
	So it should be a fascinating development.
	It's something that DeSantis obviously needs to do.
	And he needs to show that he can be a better candidate, a better weapon against the left than Trump is.
	are November 8th or November 10th.
	And Hannity would be the sole monitor.
	So it should be a fascinating development.
	It's something that DeSantis obviously needs to do.
	And he needs to show that he can be a better candidate, a better weapon
	against the left than Trump is.
	I've been saying this for a while.
	It's not about which Republican candidate can tear down Trump because
	no Republican candidate can tear down Trump.
	It's about demonstrating to Republicans that the best person to achieve the agenda that Republicans want to see achieved, and to stop, for example, the weaponization of the DOJ, the person most likely to beat Joe Biden is the person who should get the nomination.
	Right now, the polling data is not suggesting that it's DeSantis above Trump.
	That can change, and it can change pretty quickly.
	I just, again, remind people that the candidate who is Not facing down four separate criminal indictments between now and the election is probably going to not have quite as many obstacles as the guy who is.
	It seems tautological, but it's worth noting.
	Again, not an emotional argument, just a purely factual argument.
	Who is more likely to win?
	The guy who has to spend all of his time in court or the guy who doesn't have to spend all of his time in court and who also doesn't hire, you know, some of the worst advisors in the history of advice.
	Okay, in just one second, more breaking news on Joe Biden and Hunter Biden.
	Devin Archer did an interview with Tucker Carlson, and good for Tucker for getting the interview because honestly, it's kind of astonishing that Devin Archer would sit down with him given his legal situation, but we'll get to that in just a moment.
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	Okay, meanwhile, more breaking news on Devin Archer.
	Apparently, Fox News has now gained access to the transcript of the conversation between Devin Archer and congressional investigators.
	According to Fox News, Devin Archer, Hunter Biden's former business partner, told investigators that Hunter used his, quote, very powerful name to, quote, add value in pitching and securing foreign business ventures.
	Archer said that Hunter Biden, quote, would not be so overt or overtly say, we're going to use my dad for this.
	Instead, Archer said that he would use it to get leverage.
	He said, quote, defensive leverage, that the value is there in his work.
	The value that Hunter Biden brought to it was having, you know, there was the theoretical was corporate governance, but obviously given the brand, that was a large part of the value.
	Yeah, they weren't bringing in Hunter Biden, a drug addicted, crack addicted, whore addicted, derelict to do corporate governance.
	That's not exactly the person that you're like, hey, you know that guy who's a crack hound?
	The one who's snorting Parmesan cheese off the carpet?
	Let's bring him in for corporate governance.
	I sit on the board of a large privately held company.
	That would be Daily Wire.
	I also sit on the board of a publicly held company, a NASDAQ traded company.
	And let me just tell you, we don't do corporate governance with crack addicts.
	That's not how it works.
	I don't think it was the sole value, but I do think it was a key component to the value," said Devin Archer.
	It was the sole value?
	It wasn't a key component.
	What else is a value?
	Like, what is the value of Hunter Biden?
	Across his entire life, what is the value of him?
	Like, really, name a productive thing that Hunter Biden has done other than having a last name that is the same as that of a senator, VP, and then president.
	Archer told investigators that Hunter put his father, then VP Joe Biden, on speakerphone while meeting with business partners at least 20 times.
	Archer said that the idea was to, quote, sell the brand.
	He said, that brought the most value to the brand.
	It was Hunter Biden and him.
	We would discuss having, you know, an understanding of D.C.
	and that was a differentiating component of us being able to raise capital.
	He added, it wasn't as specific as, you know, the vice president's son, but obviously the brand carried.
	You don't have to say it.
	I mean, honest to God, you don't have to say it.
	Like if Don Trump Jr.
	walks into a room and he says, you know, I have connections.
	Who do you think he's saying he has connections to?
	His literal name is Don Trump Jr.
	Hunter Biden's literal name is Hunter Biden.
	When asked if Archer and Hunter would tell business partners they had unique access because of E.P.
	Biden, Archer said, yes.
	We would say we had unique understanding of D.C.
	and how it operates and how that, you know, could positively reflect on the terms of our business.
	Referring to Burisma, Archer told investigators Hunter used the brand of Joe for having doors open, which sent the right signals for Burisma to carry on its business and be successful.
	Archer said, my only thought is I think Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn't have the brand attached to it.
	When pressed, Archer just kept repeating that.
	He kept saying they were able to survive for as long as they did just because of the brand.
	Because people would be intimidated to mess with them.
	Archer explained.
	In what way?
	Legally.
	Well, that's interesting.
	They felt that if they messed with Burisma legally, that the brand would come in?
	Let me spell that out.
	They were afraid that if they messed with Burisma legally, the Vice President of the United States might withhold a billion dollars in aid to get the prosecutor fired?
	Is that what they were afraid of?
	The brand?
	Interesting.
	And meanwhile, Devin Archer did an interview with Tucker Carlson, in which he openly said selling access to Joe was certainly an abuse of soft power.
	I guess I'm pivoting against the lie that I'm hearing people tell with a straight face.
	Congressman Goldman, for example, that we don't really know what was going on.
	Really?
	You're taking a call from the vice president and you put it on speaker.
	It's not just, hey, dad, I'm in a meeting with some buddies.
	Right.
	It's, let me put my dad, the vice president, on speaker.
	Yeah.
	Yep.
	In the rear view, it's an abuse of soft power, I'd say.
	An abuse of soft power.
	Interesting.
	It is certainly an abuse of soft power.
	And then Tucker reveals a letter that Joe Biden actually sent Evan Archer, thanking him for just being besties with testes with his son.
	I hope you enjoyed lunch.
	Thanks for coming.
	Sincerely, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
	P.S.
	Handwritten, happy you guys are together.
	So there are many levels here.
	But here's the Vice President of the United States saying to you, a man in his mid-30s, who's not a government official, I'm sorry I was occupied with the guy who runs the world's largest country.
	I would much rather talk to you and thank you.
	And he was thanking me and thanking Hunter, I think, at the end of the day for bringing this idea of this government regulatory strategic advisory business into the private equity world.
	And I think he was excited about the prospects for Hunter and, you know, he was just thanking me.
	I think it was a nice gesture.
	But he's the Vice President of the United States and he's talking about foreign business deals with you and thanking you for that.
	I think, again, it goes back to my earlier point, and yeah, I think I hit, at the time, I think I hit the jackpot in finding the regulatory environment or company that can navigate right to the top.
	But, you know, obviously, as time's told, you know, being a little bit too close to the sun ends up burning you.
	Okay, so at this point, I think that we can point out that there will be a fallback defense, because the defense that Joe didn't know what was going on is obviously a lie.
	The idea that Joe was not involved in any way with his son's businesses is obviously a lie.
	All these things are clearly lies.
	So we're gonna get to the final.
	The final defense here is gonna be, Joe, of course Joe did it.
	He had to.
	Hunter was a derelict.
	Hunter was a beautiful boy going through a rough time.
	A wonderful artist in his soul, who was stripping his brother's widow.
	Among other women.
	While doing crack.
	And trafficking h***.
	And all that.
	A wonderful... And Joe loved his... Because he loves family.
	Joe's a family man.
	There's one final obstacle to that defense, though.
	And that was the fact that he was ignoring a four-year-old girl who actually is genetically his granddaughter.
	So he was ignoring her.
	And now, they've decided that the real reason he was ignoring her is because he loves his family too much.
	Too much.
	That's also why you ignore members of your family.
	You love them too much.
	According to NBC News, in recent weeks, President Joe Biden realized his silence was no longer tenable, that it was time for him to publicly recognize his four-year-old granddaughter caught up in a bitter child support case involving his son Hunter.
	People familiar with the matter said.
	But before he could do so, he wanted to take one final step, getting the green light from his son, which he received last week, one source said.
	And on Friday, Biden finally spoke out about his seventh grandchild, whom for years he wouldn't so much as acknowledge in public.
	Now the president wants to meet little Navy Joan Roberts of Arkansas and dispel the notion that he was ignoring a vulnerable member of the Biden family tree that is at the root of his political identity, according to the people familiar with the matter.
	Oh, he wants to meet her?
	Yeah, when?
	Like, he's gonna meet Navy Joan approximately the time that he visits East Palestine, Ohio.
	Or the border.
	Same trip, probably.
	He's gonna go to East Palestine, visit the train derailment.
	Remember he was gonna do that?
	Never happened.
	Yeah, Navy Joan, she's gonna be a frequent White House guest.
	Never.
	Family dramas typically play out in private, though rarely when the nation's first family is involved.
	The president, who has wrapped himself in family throughout his career, is now in an improbable twist, having to explain why he publicly ghosted a young girl, who is as much his grandchild as any of the others whose high school graduations he attends, or who playfully call him Pop.
	Publicly claiming Navy Joan is a member of his family may offer Biden a measure of peace.
	Politically, however, it also serves to blunt a GOP line of attack.
	No, it doesn't.
	No, it doesn't.
	It's obvious that he was ignoring his granddaughter because he doesn't care about that granddaughter.
	He doesn't care about the granddaughter because Hunter clears the checks for him.
	The White House declined to comment on any of the family developments, including whether Biden wants to meet his granddaughter in person.
	Instead, a White House aide referred to Friday's statement and called the issue a private family matter.
	That's weird that it's a private family matter.
	Again, I love that they're now claiming privacy.
	No one knows any of Biden's other grandchildren other than Navy Jones specifically because he doesn't ignore any of his other grandchildren, so it's not a story.
	Joe Biden is a bad man.
	He's a very vulnerable candidate.
	Republicans have an opportunity to run against that vulnerable candidate.
	And it's particularly true because I am not sold on the idea that the economy is in solid state.
	I know that everybody in the media are already turning eagerly to the idea.
	That the economy is going to be just fine.
	That there will be no recession.
	I have some doubts.
	You know who else has doubts, as it turns out?
	The Fitch Credit Rating Service.
	So, remember Bidenomics?
	It's so amazing.
	Bidenomics means that Fitch Ratings has now downgraded the U.S.
	government's credit rating.
	Weeks after, President Biden and congressional Republicans came to the brink of a historic default, warning about the growing debt burden and political dysfunction in Washington.
	Well, you know, one way to solve the debt burden is to stop spending $7 trillion a year.
	But the Biden White House is like, nah, Fitch just got it wrong.
	That's probably what it is.
	Fitch got it wrong.
	Now, I will remind you that when Moody's downgraded Israel's credit, like a few weeks ago in the aftermath of judicial reform in Israel, the entire media cited this as evidence that Israel's economy is about to collapse.
	It has not yet collapsed.
	When Fitch downgrades America's credit rating because we are spending way too much money and we will never catch up, When President Biden took office, their own measures started to track back towards AAA.
	If you add that observation to the economic tailwinds that are ongoing now, despite the Fitch's, I think, out-of-step forecast about where the economy is headed, I think you recognize why some folks yesterday were calling this, and I'm now quoting from a bunch of different statements from mostly non-partisan people, bizarre, inept, arbitrary, absurd, strange, puzzling timing.
	And so we view that as problematic.
	Well, there's only one problem with this, which is that America owes way, way, way too much money, and that it's just a reality, and nobody is going to take this on at all.
	The fact is, again, because we have jacked up our interest rates, that means that the interest payments that we are taking on our new debt is going to be extraordinarily high.
	The amount of money we're going to have to dedicate to paying off all of our creditors for decades to come is extraordinary.
	Net interest is going to reach $745 billion in the 2024 fiscal year.
	That is three quarters of all discretionary spending excluding defense in the United States.
	That's just the interest on our debt, and it's only going to get larger.
	Again, the fact is that as a share of GDP, the projection of U.S.
	debt as a share of gross domestic product continues to rise absolutely astonishingly and dramatically, which is one reason why you're starting to see credit downgrades.
	That's going to continue so long as the program of the United States is to spend more and more and more money.
	The Biden administration, their plan is denial.
	And so the strategy of the Biden administration is to pretend that, you know, that doesn't matter, as always.
	So Janet Yellen, proud feet, she says that it's puzzling to get this credit downgrade.
	And this administration deeply cares about fiscal responsibility, which is strange because people who care about fiscal responsibility don't spend $7 trillion a year In the longer term, the United States remains the world's largest, most dynamic and most innovative economy, with the strongest financial system in the world.
	Fitch's decision is puzzling in light of the economic strength we see in the United States.
	I strongly disagree with Fitch's decision, and I believe it is entirely unwarranted.
	Fiscal responsibility is a priority for President Biden and me.
	Earlier this year, The president signed debt limit legislation that included over a trillion dollars in deficit reduction.
	His budget would also improve the fiscal outlook by reducing the deficit by 2.6 trillion dollars over the next 10 years.
	Yeah, right.
	They're going to reduce the deficit, guys.
	By that, they mean that they are going to supposedly spend less money over what we actually are paying than they did previously.
	Not that they're going to reduce the debt.
	That's not a thing that is going to happen.
	By the way, the economy is still on tenderhooks here because, as the Wall Street Journal points out, earnings season is still Coming.
	We're going to find out how the earnings of these companies are going to do and we'll see how that impacts the stock market.
	While stocks have climbed, corporate profits have fallen.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, companies in the S&P 500 are set to log a roughly 7% year-over-year decline in earnings for the second quarter.
	Which, again, it's hard to see how the stock market keeps increasing while earnings are going down.
	We are also going to see the jobs market that is cooling pretty rapidly.
	U.S.
	employers added about 200,000 jobs in June.
	That is the smallest monthly payroll gain since late 2020.
	The July employment report is coming out this Friday.
	Wage growth has slowed as well.
	And we're seeing fewer and fewer job openings.
	So again, what goes up must come down.
	The economy went up way too fast in terms of just the heat, and it's gonna come down.
	I have very little faith that the Biden administration has somehow avoided the pitfalls of reality.
	Okay, time for a quick thing I like, and then we'll do a few things that I hate.
	So, things that I like today.
	I enjoy when people who do not have leverage sometimes believe they have leverage.
	It's kind of funny.
	So, for example, Rachel Zegler is an actress.
	Now, there are many, many, many actresses.
	Like, every barista in Los Angeles is an actress.
	Rachel Zegler is an actress who is on Broadway.
	There are many, many, many people who travel for Broadway and who are quite talented.
	It turns out in a country of 340 million people, there are a lot of talented people who are actors, actresses, singers.
	But Rachel Zegler believes that she has leverage.
	Even though, again, no one, truthfully in Hollywood, no one has the capacity to open a movie anymore.
	Like, just no one does.
	The number of stars who can open a movie in America, that is down to basically Chris Pratt.
	No one opens, Tom Cruise, Chris Pratt, that's the entire list.
	You know who's not on that list is Rachel Zegler.
	Rachel Zegler, however, is part of the actor strike and she says that um because she she essentially
	Promotes the labor theory of value when it comes to acting here. Uh, yeah, this is this is not going to be how this
	this labor strike gets solved If i'm going to stand there 18 hours in a dress of an
	iconic disney princess I deserve to be paid for every hour that it is streamed online
	Uh, well then you could negotiate that in your contract, but you're not I noticed
	So, what she's saying there is that because she's standing there in a Disney dress, she should get paid for every hour that Snow White and the non... that Latina Snow White and the non-dwarf dwarves of various diverse backgrounds and sexual orientations, for every hour that's... I mean, the bad news for her is that's going to get streamed, like, for two hours.
	So it's not going to be amazing.
	But even put that aside, that is not how markets work.
	Did she take the actual risk?
	Is she inputting the capital into the making of that film?
	Or is she getting paid a salary in order to do that film?
	A pretty lucrative salary, I would imagine.
	She could negotiate for a point, right?
	There are actors who have done that in the past, gotten very rich doing that.
	Does she have the market power to do that?
	The answer is of course not.
	Then you just go down the street and hire somebody else.
	So good luck to her in her leverage play.
	That's not how business works.
	Okay, time for a couple of things that I hate.
	So there are some people today who are laughing and celebrating at the separation between Justin Trudeau and his wife.
	First of all, I didn't even know that dude was married to a lady.
	But, in any case, Justin Trudeau, that's a Babylon Bee joke, by the way, so credit to the Babylon Bee.
	In any case, Justin Trudeau, who is for sure not Fidel Castro's son, In any case, he and his wife, Sophie, said Wednesday they have separated after 18 years of marriage.
	The way that they announced this is on their respective Instagram accounts, which is the way that most honorable people do this thing when you have three kids, is you go to your Instagram accounts and then you let the world know that you don't like each other anymore.
	Sophie and I would like to share the fact that after many meaningful and difficult conversations, we have made the decision to separate, Justin Trudeau said on Instagram, and they both asked for privacy.
	A separate statement from the couple said they've signed a legal separation agreement.
	They remain a close family, and Sophie and the Prime Minister are focused on raising their kids in a safe, loving, and collaborative environment.
	Both parents will be a constant presence in their children's lives, and Canadians can expect to often see the family together.
	I'm sure the Canadians will be absolutely thrilled.
	They have two boys, 15 and 9, and a 14-year-old daughter, so congratulations to them on helping to completely screw up their kid's life, even worse than it is screwed up, being public figures.
	The two met in June 2003 at a charity gala.
	Justin Trudeau in his memoir said they chatted and flirted for much of the evening, then they went on a dinner date.
	And then he said, I felt a giddy sense that Sophie would be the last woman I ever dated.
	And that lasted until it didn't.
	They were married in Montreal in May, 2005.
	She apparently worked as a TV host.
	She became an entertainment correspondent in Quebec.
	She said in March, 2015, I can tell you right away, no marriage is easy.
	I'm almost kind of proud of the fact that we've had hardship because we want authenticity.
	We want truth.
	Uh, the reason I put this in Things I Hate is because, again, the... the kind of... no one should ever revel in somebody else's divorce when they're a kid.
	Because it screws up kids incredibly badly.
	The kind of soft-peddling of the effects of divorce on children in our society is astonishing.
	And what's amazing is that it's become so rote.
	If you go back to, like, the late 1970s, before no-fault divorce became a sort of commonplace aspect of American life, and you watch a movie like Kramer vs. Kramer, which talks about the effects of divorce on children, divorce is devastating to kids.
	It is devastating.
	It rocks their world.
	It destroys their world.
	It destroys whatever feeling of safety they have and predictability they have.
	It takes one of their parents out of the house.
	I mean, it's just, it's horrific.
	So, the fact that these people who've been married for 18 years have decided to divorce while their kids are still, their youngest is nine, that's a disaster area.
	It really, really is.
	And this is why, you know, barring, there are reasons to divorce.
	Abuse, cheating, right?
	There are real reasons to divorce.
	But if none of that is happening, it's just people like, I don't feel like living with you anymore, Uh, you're, you're doing the wrong thing.
	Your kids come first.
	That's, that's really quite bad.
	Okay, so, a couple more things I hate today.
	Apparently, Mia Khalifa, who is a former porn star who has now become some sort of social media star, she is giving marital advice.
	So, I have a general rule.
	I don't take marriage advice from people who have shtooped half the human population.
	Just a general rule.
	And here's Mia Khalifa giving marital advice.
	She's also, by the way, a rabid anti-Semite.
	Here we go.
	Oh, we're comparing stats.
	Baby girl doesn't know that I am Tom Brady at this game.
	Married at 18.
	Divorced at 21.
	Second marriage.
	Married at 25.
	Divorced at 28.
	Third engagement.
	Engaged at 29.
	Ended it at 30.
	But I kept the ring.
	I'm still keeping Tom Brady on his toes.
	We should not be afraid to leave these men.
	We are not stuck with these people.
	Marriage is not a sanctimonious thing.
	It is paperwork.
	It's a commitment you make to someone.
	But if you feel like you're not getting anything from that commitment and you're trying, you gotta go.
	You gotta go.
	You have to go.
	I know it's difficult to fill out paperwork and to make appointments and to do all of these things, but this is your f***ing life.
	Do you want to be stuck with someone?
	Period.
	That is terrible marital advice.
	Also, that's not what the word sanctimonious means.
	In the words of Mandy Patinkin, I do not think that word means what you think it means.
	I think what she was going for was, there's no sanctity to marriage, which is a hell of a statement considering that literally it is the most sanctified institution.
	It is the institution with the most sanctity in human history.
	But to her, it's just a piece of paper, so I have a question.
	Why sign the piece of paper at all?
	Getting marital advice from a lady who just reads you a list of her marriages, this is like somebody giving you financial advice after going bankrupt eight times.
	Well, you know, paying off your debts, it's not something you have to do.
	I mean, you sign a document saying you're supposed to pay off your debts, but there is bankruptcy.
	Why are you committing to paying off your debts, man?
	I mean, it's just a piece of paper.
	You don't just go to court and declare bankruptcy.
	What's the problem?
	Okay, gentlemen, stay far, far away from this human because this is not a person that you want to be in a relationship with.
	Also, I love you.
	It just means it's a commitment.
	A commitment I can violate whenever I please and leave, which is not what we call a commitment.
	Just genius level stuff there from, again, a wise, wise human.
	Okay, final thing that I hate today.
	So, this one is actually quite important.
	We now have actual open evidence that the Biden White House asked Facebook to degrade the traffic of Daily Wire, my company.
	According to Just the News and John Solomon, the memos...
	Suggest that the Biden White House inquired in meetings with Facebook executives asking whether Facebook could tweak its algorithm to showcase stories from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal over content posted by, quote, polarizing conservative journalists and commentators in early 2021.
	The memos, reviewed by Just the News, chronicle a series of meetings between the White House digital director, Rob Flaherty, and executives from Facebook, now known as Meta, in spring 2021, as the first questions about the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccine began surging on social media.
	The memos delivered recently under subpoena to the House Judiciary Committee make clear the White House was actively interacting with Facebook and sometimes pressuring the social media giant to moderate content in a way that would encourage more Americans to get inoculations.
	On April 14, 2021, for instance, the White House's flarity asked Facebook whether it could promote The New York Times and Wall Street Journal over The Daily Wire.
	Flaherty asked Facebook employees, quote, if you were to change the algorithm so that people were
	more likely to see New York Times, Wall Street Journal, any authoritative news source over
	Daily Wire, Tommy Lahren polarizing people, you wouldn't have a mechanism to check the material impact?
	Daily Wire, of course, we are a site that filed a landmark lawsuit challenging the OSHA
	VAX mandate under Joe Biden.
	We were the only major company in the United States on the right to actually file a lawsuit against the OSHA vax mandate, while other major media American companies on the right were actively forcing their employees to get the shot.
	We were suing the federal government to stop it.
	Well, we are not afraid to sue the federal government again.
	We are not afraid to sue the Biden White House.
	First of all, there may be criminal violations right here.
	Flaherty is cited in the notes as asking the question because, candidly, there is not a lot of trust toward Facebook.
	And the Biden White House wanted to know whether the platform was, quote, finding things that are effective that you aren't doing to combat resistance to vaccines.
	In terms of interventions, know that there are groups that are hotspots.
	Admins have to approve posts.
	If violating content approved gives the group a strike.
	I'm uncovering new examples on comments.
	Public figures on comments might be contributing more.
	The notes quote the Facebook executives as saying, So we are absolutely pleased to look into the effects on our business of the Biden White House engaging in an absolute First Amendment violation.
	There's no question this is a First Amendment violation.
	It is as simple as that.
	It is a First Amendment violation because the federal government cannot force or even pressure a private company into censoring information.
	That is a First Amendment violation pretty clearly.
	And as my friend and lawyer Kurt Schlichter says, it's a criminal violation.
	Government officials were attempting to use government power to suppress the civil rights of American citizens.
	I mean, that is right.
	So maybe there will be a criminal indictment here.
	Maybe there should be.
	Certainly, we are examining all of our legal options at this point, and we have no hesitancy whatsoever about going at the Biden and White House again.
	We did it before.
	We'll do it again.
	It cost us, like, millions of dollars to go after the OSHA VAX mandate.
	We helped overturn the thing and prevent 80 million Americans from having to take the shot if they didn't want to take it.
	We are perfectly happy to do the exact same thing with the Biden White House right now to stop them from ever violating the civil rights of Americans by pressuring Facebook and other social media companies again.
	And by the way, we have looked at the traffic on our website and whether it declines in the aftermath of this conversation.
	Suffice it to say, evidence will be presented.
	This is... It's an astonishing story.
	It truly is.
	Alrighty.
	Coming up, we're going to be joined by Trent Horn to discuss pro-life apologetics and his abortion debate on the Whatever Podcast.
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