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Sept. 15, 2023 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:00:02

Is Hunter Going To Jail?

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	So, in what has to be one of the most obvious ploys of all time, the DOJ has now indicted Hunter Biden on federal gun charges.
	Why do I say this is a ploy?
	Well, there are a bunch of reasons why I say this is a ploy.
	He is not going to jail for a significant period of time.
	This prosecution is not over the actual charges anyone cares about, namely the tax charges and the Foreign Agents Registration Act charges that have not yet been brought.
	The clock is ticking on those.
	This is a distraction.
	It was always a distraction.
	The gun charge was basically a way for them to smuggle in, we're gonna end the rest of all these investigations, in the gun charge.
	That doesn't mean he doesn't deserve the gun charge.
	He clearly deserves the gun charge.
	It's not just that he lied on a gun forum.
	It's that he lied on a gun forum and then attained the gun.
	He actually got the gun.
	And then he had the gun and he threw it in the garbage can.
	It's gonna be awkward for the Biden administration.
	Because now, Hunter Biden and his lawyers are going to argue that it violates the Second Amendment for him to be prosecuted under these terms.
	Meanwhile, his dad is out there saying that, So that's kind of awkward for Joe Biden.
	But is this a key issue in terms of Hunter and Joe?
	Of course not.
	We currently have an impeachment inquiry going on that is entirely predicated upon the corrupt relationship between Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.
	And Joe Biden's response to this, and his DOJ's response to this, presumably, is, we will prosecute Hunter Biden on some ancillary charge.
	He'll get off with a relative slap on the wrist.
	And then you all just go about your business.
	There's nothing else to see here.
	That is the ploy.
	According to NBC News, federal prosecutors have indicted Hunter Biden, the son of President Biden, on gun charges.
	Court documents show Biden was indicted Thursday in federal court in Delaware on three counts tied to possession of a gun while using narcotics.
	Two counts accused Biden of having completed a form indicating he was not using illegal drugs when he bought a Colt Cobra revolver in October 2018.
	The third count alleges he possessed a firearm while using a narcotic.
	The indictment says that Biden certified on a federally mandated form, quote, he was not an unlawful user of and addicted to any stimulant, narcotic drug, and any other controlled substance, when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and fictitious.
	Two of the counts carry maximum prison sentences of 10 years.
	A third has a maximum sentence of five years.
	Each count also carries a maximum fine of $250,000, given the fact that Hunter Biden has not spent a day in jail yet, and he's never pled guilty to a crime, so far as I'm aware.
	This means he's probably, again, not going to go to jail for any significant period of time.
	That case is being overseen by special counsel David Weiss.
	But as Andy McCarthy points out...
	This, again, is kind of a scam prosecution.
	Why?
	Well, there are a few reasons.
	One, this particular case is happening in Delaware, as Andy McCarthy points out.
	Well, as you'll recall, the entire scandal revolving around David Weiss is that he was not granted access to prosecute Hunter Biden in any jurisdiction outside of Delaware.
	He always had the jurisdiction to prosecute Hunter Biden inside of Delaware.
	So what took him so long?
	The answer is he was trying to cut a sweetheart deal with Hunter Biden via Joe Biden.
	And this also doesn't actually rebut any of the charges that David Weiss was denied the ability to prosecute Hunter Biden outside of Delaware because, again, he's currently prosecuting him inside of Delaware.
	As Annie McCarthy writes, there are no Biden-appointed U.S.
	attorneys to blame for Weiss's failure for five years to file the indictment that was finally returned on Thursday.
	The statute of limitations was on the precipice of expiring.
	It was Weiss and Weiss alone who delayed bringing one of the most straightforward felony gun cases you will ever see.
	Weiss wasn't being blocked.
	He was stalling.
	And also, as Annie McCarthy points out, given the fact that the Biden Justice Department tried to disappear the case against Hunter Biden just a couple of months ago with that diversion plan, his defense, Hunter Biden's defense is going to be really, really easy.
	They're just going to point to the prosecutors and say, guys, they didn't take it seriously.
	They were willing to sign a deal with us five seconds ago.
	It's only because that deal fell apart in public view that they ran away from it.
	But they obviously don't consider this a particularly serious crime.
	As Annie McCarthy says, it's rich for the same Justice Department to put out a statement in connection with today's indictment, stressing that Hunter is facing up to 25 years imprisonment.
	If Bynum is convicted on any or all of the three felonies, his defense lawyers are going to have a really strong argument.
	They'll just need to recount what the prosecutors said and did in the first place.
	And then, as Annie McCarthy points out quite correctly, the only case Weiss has brought is the one that Hunter Biden is involved in, but Joe isn't.
	He didn't bring the tax case yet.
	Now, remember, the clock is ticking.
	There's a six-year statute of limitation on possible tax crimes.
	Those charges have not yet been brought.
	The latest possible tax crimes that we know about for Hunter Biden that were in some of the charging documents and the proposed plea deal arrangement.
	The latest charging documents carried crimes up to 2018-2019.
	It is currently 2023.
	So assume that the last crimes that they are going to allege are in 2018.
	That means they have until like the beginning of next year to charge him on the tax crimes.
	Like the middle of the campaign election.
	So what does that mean?
	Well, it means the statute of limitations could easily run while they are trying to distract you over here with the shiny gun indictment object.
	No one cares about this.
	In other words, should they indict him?
	Of course they should indict him.
	It was a crime.
	Should he go to jail?
	I mean, under his own father's interpretation of the law, he should certainly go to jail.
	Does this make any difference at all to the real underlying issues surrounding Hunter Biden?
	Of course not.
	They're charging him on the ancillary crime to distract from the fact that they're not charging him on the key crimes.
	Namely, violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which might immediately link up with Joe Biden and influence peddling.
	Or on the tax avoidance stuff, which again, might immediately link up to his father, Joe Biden.
	Hunter Biden's lawyer for his part is claiming that really the only reason this is happening is because of partisan interference, which is weird.
	The reason this is really happening is because you guys tried to create a sweetheart deal and a judge exposed the sweetheart deal and then the DOJ was embarrassed and reneged on the sweetheart deal.
	We have a brand new statement from Hunter Biden's attorney, Abby Lowell, that has just come in.
	It says, in part, quote, as expected, prosecutors filed charges today that they deemed were not warranted six weeks ago following a five-year investigation into this case.
	The evidence in this matter has not changed in the last six weeks, but the law has, and so has MAGA Republicans' improper and partisan interference in this process, he says.
	Okay, Abby Lowell also continued by telling Aaron Burnett, quote, The law says whether or not the person is possessing the gun while they are addicted.
	There's ambiguity in the statute, which we'll have to pursue if the case continues.
	At the time he purchased the gun, I don't think there's evidence that that's when he was suffering.
	When you refer to his book, he had just come out of rehabilitation.
	So they're going to present whatever defenses they're going to present.
	But really, again, what is this about?
	This is about the DOJ getting this charge off the table so that they can then claim that they've done enough here.
	And then they can wash their hands of the entire thing.
	This is the direction in which they are moving, pretty obviously.
	And you can see the media are calling for it.
	We'll get to that momentarily.
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	Okay, so what is all this really about?
	What all this is really about is providing the impetus for the media and for Democrats to say, listen, hasn't Hunter suffered enough?
	Hasn't his loving father suffered enough?
	Why can't you leave Hunter alone?
	You can hear it.
	This is the tenor that the media are now taking.
	CNN's Breonna Keillor, she's like, is anyone else even charged this way?
	Hunter is actually a victim, isn't he?
	He's kind of a victim when you think about it.
	You know that Hunter Biden's attorneys are going to point to that ruling in the Fifth Circuit that calls into question whether this law is even going to stand by the time this is all said and done and certainly before it gets to the Supreme Court.
	So why then, Evan, pursue it?
	I mean, if this was another defendant, would they be pursuing it?
	I think that's a question that I think you're going to hear a lot from Hunter Biden's team and certainly from people who support him.
	Yeah, well, why are they even pursuing it?
	Why?
	Why?
	Yeah, I'm sure they'd be asking the exact same questions if one of Donald Trump's children had been charged while he was President of the United States.
	Or maybe, maybe they would actually just be cheering.
	They'd actually break out the pom-poms and cheerleader outfits and all the rest.
	Reporters were going after James Comer.
	Comer, of course, has been leading the investigation into Hunter Biden's corrupt business relationships with Dad.
	And reporters are like, isn't this enough?
	Why can't you leave the poor, drug-addicted prostitute using derelict alone?
	Sounds like you're still expressing the skepticism here.
	I mean, the idea that you wanted an indictment from your perspective here, that's not enough?
	An indictment for money laundering, violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, tax evasion, the list goes on and on.
	You've never heard me say anything about gun charges.
	So, again, that's the one crime he's committed that you cannot tie to Joe Biden.
	Correct.
	That's James Comer from Kentucky.
	Of course, this is right.
	And this is also why the media, they just want to wipe the slate clean, right?
	That's all they want.
	They loved the sweetheart deal.
	It was their favorite.
	It's what Democrats want as well.
	But here's the reality.
	The impeachment inquiry is not going away because it is perfectly obvious.
	As I said yesterday on the show, when you hear people shouting there is no evidence, they're totally right.
	There's no evidence that Joe was involved in Hunter's business, in his business transactions, in his business life, except for evidence from two of Hunter Biden's business partners, statements by Hunter Biden himself, texts from Hunter Biden's, They themselves have filed suspicious accounts.
	And I just wonder, are they helping you?
	Are they obstructing you?
	All that, there's no evidence whatsoever.
	Totally clean as the rivens know.
	James Comer, meanwhile, he is pledging that in this impeachment inquiry,
	they will get into personal Biden bank accounts.
	They themselves have filed suspicious accounts.
	And I just wonder, are they helping you?
	Are they obstructing you?
	It sounds to me like they'd be happy to unburden themselves and show all this stuff to you.
	The banks have been very helpful with the shell companies.
	Now we're getting into the personal Biden bank account and we suspect that the lawyers have already warned the banks against handing anything over to us.
	But we're going to give the banks another chance and we'll see.
	Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina.
	She is similarly saying that they will subpoena Hunter while investigating Joe, which is which is right.
	Did they explain why they did not say subpoenaing Hunter Biden?
	Well, I believe that will happen, but we've got to get the bank records first.
	I mean, it's the chicken before the egg.
	We have to know.
	Hunter Biden is not going to tell the truth under under oath.
	And so we want to make sure that we have all of the financial statements and records in accordance with the transactions that allegedly happened.
	And so that way we know if he's telling the truth.
	I mean, you've got to have that.
	There's got to be some due diligence.
	We've got to be deliberate.
	We've got to be factual.
	We have to tell the truth.
	Okay, meanwhile, if you ever wonder how Donald Trump happened, how he happened, the reason is Mitt Romney.
	Okay, that is the reason that Donald Trump happened, for a wide variety of reasons.
	Reason number one is that the media, the left, attacked Mitt Romney, who's the most milquetoast politician of our era, with extraordinary alacrity.
	And so everybody in the Republican Party was like, okay, we're gonna give you a giant orange middle finger now.
	You didn't like the super polite guy who refused to say a bad word about anybody?
	You didn't like that guy?
	He was too much for you?
	Well, how about this?
	That's reason number one.
	But reason number two is because Mitt Romney is a guy who has spent a lot of his political career providing cover for Democrats.
	And so the reaction for a lot of Republicans, we don't want people like Mitt Romney at the top of the party.
	And I see it.
	I do.
	I get it.
	I mean, first of all, I think the entire Republican Party, broad writ, has rejected that sort of direction.
	Even the other people who are up for the Republican presidential nomination who are running right now are not in Mitt Romney lane.
	There's not much of a Mitt Romney lane in the Republican Party anymore, nor should there be.
	I mean, Mitt Romney yesterday, again, his sole job appears to be to gain strange new respect from the left at this point.
	And again, I think he's a good person, but I don't understand why he thinks that the mark of a good person is to gain respect from, like, the CNNs and the MSNBCs.
	So yesterday, Romney was asked about the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.
	He's like, no, no, I think...
	You wonder why the Democratic Party has tremendous loyalty among its base.
	There's not a lot of breakaways in the Democratic Party.
	The reason is because the Democratic Party is an excellent vehicle for progressivism.
	When it comes down to it, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are not separated by much other than affect.
	Joe Biden's policies look a lot like Bernie Sanders.
	So the radical left looks at Joe and they're like, okay, yeah, he's old, yeah, he's decrepit, yeah, he's corrupt, but he's doing the things we want to do.
	Meanwhile, the Republican base looks at the Republican Party and they're like, We ask you to do X and you just won't do it.
	Here's Mitt Romney saying that he's not hearing a high crime and misdemeanor when it comes to Hunter and Joe Biden.
	I know the House is beginning an impeachment inquiry.
	I haven't heard any allegation of something that would rise to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor.
	I think it'd be very unusual to actually see a referral of impeachment.
	I don't expect that to happen.
	Okay, that's an amazing statement, given the fact that he voted for Trump's impeachment on both accounts, right?
	On the first one, the Ukraine one, which is insane.
	Okay, the Ukraine one didn't even allege a crime.
	And he said that Donald Trump deserves to be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, while, by the way, defending the business relationships between Hunter and Joe.
	Here's Mitt Romney just a couple of years ago.
	The grave question the Constitution tasks senators to answer is whether the president committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of a high crime and misdemeanor.
	Yes, he did.
	The President asked a foreign government to investigate his political rival.
	The President withheld vital military funds from that government to press it to do so.
	The President delayed funds for an American ally at war with Russian invaders.
	The President's purpose was personal and political.
	Accordingly, the president is guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust.
	Hey, by the way, in that exact same speech, he actually defended Hunter and Joe.
	I'm not kidding.
	I mean, so you wonder why the Republican Party turned to Trump?
	It's because of Mitt Romney.
	That is part of the issue here.
	What he actually said in that speech is, quote, with regards to Hunter Biden, taking excessive advantage of his father's name is unsavory, but also not a crime.
	Given that neither case of the father nor the son was any evidence presented by the president's counsel that a crime had been committed, the president's insistence that they be investigated by the Ukrainians is hard to explain other than as a political pursuit.
	There's no question in my mind that were their names not Biden, the president never would have done what he did.
	Again, the fact that Mitt Romney spent his days defending the Bidens while attacking Trump and is still doing that is kind of an insane referendum on the old school Republican Party.
	Okay, in just one second we'll get to Joe Biden's attempt to avoid A rather bad presidential electoral fate by relying on his economic plans.
	Good luck with that.
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	And meanwhile, Joe Biden is attempting to wrest his re-elect efforts On the basis of the economy.
	It's not going to work.
	It's why eventually he's just going to turn to democracy talk.
	In fact, there are already reports today that the next several weeks Joe Biden is just going to say the word democracy over and over and over again.
	That is going to be his campaign.
	His campaign is going to be Donald Trump's an insurrectionist.
	I stand for democracy.
	It seemed to work out fairly well for him in the 2022 elections.
	When he ran against the so-called MAGA Republican insurrectionists and all of this, and running against Donald Trump, he's hoping that it will carry him to victory again.
	He certainly cannot rely on his economic program, because the economic program is a full-scale disaster area.
	According to the New York Times, President Biden challenged his Republican opponents on Thursday in their area of political strength, arguing he has done a better job of managing the economy than former President Donald Trump did, and accusing his predecessor's congressional allies of undercutting working-class Americans.
	Yeah, good luck with that.
	Again, Americans don't agree with that.
	By every available poll, they think that Trump did a better job on the economy than Biden did by leaps and bounds.
	Biden is now relying on old standby talking points that just don't work.
	So here's Joe Biden explaining, Republicans won't say what they're for, they just say what they're against.
	Well, half of what you're for is what you're against, we should point out.
	If you say, I wish to take this car and drive it over a cliff, and I say, you shouldn't do that.
	I don't have to offer what I'm for.
	What I'm for is you not driving the car over the cliff.
	Here's Joe Biden trying to say words from his mouthhole and failing.
	America has the strongest economy in the world of all major economics.
	And all they do is attack it.
	But, you know, you've noticed something.
	For all the time they spend attacking me and my plans, here's what they never do.
	They never talk about what they want to do.
	No, no.
	Think about it.
	They tell you what they're against.
	What are they for?
	For you not doing the things you're doing.
	That's what we're for.
	We're for you not inflating the currency.
	We're for you not spending $7 trillion a year.
	We're for you not blowing trillions of dollars into random boondoggle projects via the Inflation Reduction Act, which has not reduced inflation.
	We're for... Like, that's a bunch of things that I'm for.
	I love that argument.
	That argument is so stupid.
	It's a truly moronic argument.
	Honest to God, it's like your employee is embezzling against you and you're like, you call up the police and you say, I'm against my employee embezzling.
	Can you arrest them?
	And please say, hey, you're telling us what you're against.
	We need to hear what you're for.
	No, that's not the way any of this works.
	Meanwhile, Joe Biden, branding genius, he has decided that he is going to coin a new term since Bidenomics is not working.
	He went deep into the recesses of his brain.
	They're not very deep.
	It's a very, very shallow puddle, that brain, at this point.
	And always, actually.
	He was always a mile wide and an inch deep, was Joe Biden, mentally speaking.
	He has now coined a new term.
	Here's how it works.
	He takes a term and then he adds the suffix nomics to it.
	Wait for it.
	Watch this.
	It's amazing.
	Under mega... under meganomics, is what I'm calling it.
	Meganomics?
	You mean magonomics?
	Meganomics.
	You see, now, that's the thing.
	He said, he said, MEGA-nomics.
	Mega-mega-nomics-nook-a-dack-a-dee-s.
	Under moog-a-sha, has-a-good-a-boosh-a-nuh-nuh-nuh.
	Ah, not a joke.
	Not a joke.
	Don't jump.
	This is the one you chose.
	Also, he started screaming randomly, which is what he does.
	He whispers.
	I whisper into the microphone.
	Here we go.
	You're gonna pay somewhere between 20% and 40% less than those other countries.
	Same exact drug.
	Made by the same exact company.
	Nice.
	Throttling that like his night nurse when she comes in the middle of the night to clean the bedpan.
	She wakes him up and he's like...
	Okay, Joe.
	Things are going amazing.
	Things are going absolutely amazing.
	Don't worry, Republicans will find a way to screw it up because they're great at that.
	They always do.
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	Okay, meanwhile, the Republicans have decided again that a circular firing squad is the proper way to fight the Democrats, which is...
	Everyone is so good at this.
	That's the amazing thing.
	Whenever folks tell you that they watch a show like House of Cards, you should just know, politics is not House of Cards.
	No one knows what they're doing.
	They're all idiots.
	They're a bunch of morons who run into walls at top speed and then yell about how much it hurts and how everyone has victimized them.
	And then they turn around and run into other walls at top speed.
	And they do all this while spending your money.
	This is how politics works, typically speaking.
	It's the best system, except for... It's the worst system, except for all the others.
	But it is what we have.
	So, naturally, Republicans have decided they're going to run top speed into walls over a possible government shutdown.
	Now, I don't know exactly what are the deliverables here.
	I've said it before.
	Give me a list of deliverables that you are seeking from Kevin McCarthy, and maybe he can deliver them, and maybe he can't.
	But there's one thing that I have noticed, and that is that the Democrats control the Senate and the presidency.
	It's just a thing I noticed.
	So you can get some small concessions from them, but the notion that you're going to radically remake American government because the power of the purse is with the House.
	Yes, the power of the purse is with the House.
	And guess what happens if you lead to a large-scale government shutdown?
	You probably lose the House.
	Republicans wildly underperformed in the last electoral cycle.
	They have a majority slim as a reed.
	They're going into an election cycle that is going to be, at best, very close for Republicans.
	And this is a time that you're going to pick a fight inside your party.
	The reality is that Republicans should make hay when the sun shines.
	The sun is not quite shining right now.
	You make of it what you can.
	Instead, they're going to have circular firing squad time.
	So, Matt Gaetz is attacking Kevin McCarthy.
	For no reason that I can, like, what is the principled reason from Matt Gaetz here?
	Like, what's his deliverable?
	If he gives me a deliverable, I'm perfectly happy to go along with the deliverable.
	Chip Roy, during the last speakership fight, gave me his list of deliverables, and I was very much in favor of a lot of those deliverables.
	And so that was fine.
	And then he got most of them, and then he made a deal with McCarthy, and that was good.
	But I'm just wondering, like, what is the point of this?
	So Matt Gaetz tweeted out, So instead of emotionally cursing, let's do this.
	Okay, so a few of those are deliverable.
	Truth is Kevin controls his own fate.
	So instead of emotionally cursing, let's do this.
	Single subject spending bills, term limits vote, balanced budget vote,
	release January 6th tapes to all, subpoena Hunter.
	We must begin immediately.
	Pull yourself together, Kevin.
	Okay, so a few of those are deliverable.
	Hunter is going to get subpoenaed.
	That is going to happen.
	Releasing the January 6th tapes to all?
	Fine.
	He can do that.
	That's fine.
	A balanced budget vote is going to go down to flaming defeat and a bunch of Republicans are going to vote against it.
	So one of the things that you don't do when you're Speaker of the House is bring up a vote that your own party is not going to vote for.
	That's a typical thing you don't do.
	You just don't bring it to a vote.
	When it comes to term limits, same sort of deal.
	And when it comes to single subject spending bills, listen, I would love that.
	I would love to run it that way.
	Also, you know what's going to happen?
	None of that stuff's going to pass.
	So if the idea is all of this or government shutdown, the reality is going to be government shutdown.
	That's just what it's going to be.
	I hate the omnibus packages.
	I think they're garbage.
	I also don't believe the Democrats are simply going to cave to Republicans because Matt Gaetz goes on MSNBC and yells about Kevin McCarthy.
	So he's challenging McCarthy's speakership again.
	He's suggesting that he is going to challenge McCarthy's speakership again.
	Apparently, in a behind-closed-doors meeting, McCarthy was defiant with his caucus, and he said, you know, move the motion then.
	Move the effing motion to remove him from his position, if you think that you can do it.
	And he happens to be right about that.
	Again, there are like 180, 190 Republicans inside the Republican caucus who are not going to vote for anyone else.
	Apparently, he said, if you think you scare me because you want to file a motion to vacate, move the effing motion.
	And then he said, if you end up replacing me, my successor will make the same exact arguments I am.
	And then Gates reportedly responded by saying, just move the effing spending bills.
	But again, he can move the spending bills and they could go nowhere.
	So, what is the fight even about?
	That's the part I don't understand.
	What is the big victory here?
	What is the victory you are seeking to achieve here?
	McCarthy, for his part, he's saying no one wins in a government shutdown.
	Now, understand something.
	McCarthy won the last government shutdown.
	He did.
	He won it against Biden.
	Why?
	Because Biden made a massive tactical blunder.
	He opened by saying, I will not negotiate over a government shutdown.
	He said, I will not negotiate over spending at all.
	And then McCarthy's like, hey, I'm perfectly willing to negotiate.
	All I want is like these few things.
	Is that so unreasonable?
	In fact, I passed a bill, like a big omnibus bill that gives you virtually everything you want.
	Why won't you negotiate?
	And it wrong-footed Biden.
	Biden has not made that mistake again.
	Now Biden's case is, I'm happy to negotiate.
	Let's talk about it.
	We have to do whatever we can to avoid a government shutdown.
	If McCarthy now takes the stand, I'm going to shut down the government, then all of the benefit of the government shutdown accrues to the Democrats.
	It's a simple calculus here.
	See, there's something that I object to in sort of my industry.
	There are a lot of people in my industry who believe that idealism requires you to charge headlong into hard objects.
	Idealism is understanding what we would like.
	Realism is understanding what you can get.
	An idealist who is not a realist is a fool.
	If you're an idealist, and what you think is that you always go for broke, always and forever, and that anything short of that is ideological treason, that is incorrect.
	It is not true.
	That is not how business gets done.
	It's not how politics gets done.
	It's not how anything gets done, in fact.
	In fact, it is a recipe for losing, repeatedly.
	Because when you go for 100, and you won't take anything less than 100, you're much likelier to get zero than you are to get 80.
	If you're trying to get most of what you want, well, then you better know the lay of the land.
	You better actually take into account tactics and strategy.
	And there is this defeatism that has come into the Republican Party that suggests no matter what we do, we're not going to get what we want, so we may as well just yell as loud as we can with no actual end goal here that is doable.
	And then everyone who refuses to do that, we're just going to yell them out of the party, or we're going to alienate them, or we're going to put up candidates who are bound to lose.
	Because if we yell a lot, maybe we'll feel better about it.
	Defeatism is a sin.
	Defeatism is a sin.
	Despair is a sin.
	It's not stuff that you should be doing as somebody who watches politics.
	And people in my industry shouldn't be doing it either.
	It is my job to tell you, yes, what my principles are, but also the realistic lay of the land so we know what we can get.
	And I think there are a lot of people in my industry who don't tell you the lay of the land.
	And so they give a false perception of what it is that you can get.
	And that's a mistake, because it sets up unrealistic expectations.
	It means that there are politicians who are negotiating, who are trying to make the sausage, and then we object to the sausage-making process, and then the sausage doesn't get made, and then we're really mad the sausage didn't get made, and we blame them.
	Yeah, but the reality is that it's an ugly process.
	It will always be an ugly process.
	If you want Republicans to make serious changes in the spending habits of the United States, which is what I would like, what I would like is the stuff that no one will talk about.
	I want restructuring of entitlements.
	The vast drivers of our national debt are not marginal programs.
	Okay, it is not marginal cutting around the edges of like the defense budget.
	The vast cuts that we need in our programs are going to be had by restructuring major programs.
	Yes, like Medicare and Social Security, those third rails of American politics.
	Democrats and Republicans know that there will come a point where austerity has to be brought upon the American people.
	That will include tax increases.
	It will include massive cuts to social benefits.
	All those things will happen.
	It's just a question of when.
	Or you can plan for it now, but nobody will touch that.
	Instead, we'll jabber about pork barrel spending and bridges to nowhere that cost a fraction of what it would cost to actually look at Social Security and Medicare.
	And the reality is, we're not going to do any of that unless you actually win.
	You have to win.
	You have to own the House.
	You have to own the Senate.
	You have to own the presidency.
	Then you can move stuff.
	What's amazing to me is that the calls for political courage constantly seem to be directly in inverse proportion to the amount of power Republicans wield.
	It's kind of an amazing thing, truly.
	When Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the presidency, the calls for political courage disappear on the right.
	When Trump was president and Republicans ran the House and the Senate, where were the calls for, now's the moment, guys.
	Let's restructure Social Security.
	Let's restructure Medicaid.
	Let's change how we do spending bills.
	Now's the time.
	Let's do it right now.
	Let's do it right now.
	Where were the calls?
	They totally went away.
	No one cared.
	And then, when the Republicans are, like, barely in control of one house of Congress, like, be strong!
	You have to stand up, and now's the— Now is— No, actually.
	You know when you get things done?
	When you have control of the levers.
	Now, what does that— what does that bespeak?
	It bespeaks that when you're victorious, you tend to be lazy.
	And when you are not victorious, you tend to be defeatist, and thus, desperate, and thus, charging to walls at top speed.
	Here's McCarthy talking about how nobody wins in a government shutdown, which, I mean, Speaking in terms of just political wins and losses, we've had several of these.
	Nobody's been like a big winner from a government shutdown in the recent past.
	I showed frustration in here because I am frustrated with the committee.
	I'm frustrated with some people in the conference.
	But when we come back, we're not going to leave.
	We're going to get this done.
	Nobody wins in a government shutdown.
	Okay, that happens to be true.
	You can yell about it, you can protest about it.
	A government shutdown is not going to result in Barack Obama repealing Obamacare.
	He wasn't going to when Ted Cruz did this routine back in 2013.
	A government shutdown is not going to result in Joe Biden reneging on the Inflation Reduction Act or whatever garbage he wants to pass.
	It's not going to do it.
	Again, I'll give you the idealism, I'll tell you what I want, and then I'll tell you what's realistic.
	Because that's what responsible people do.
	And it seems to me that if you're talking about the fate of the United States and our fiscal future, responsibility should be at the top of the list.
	Or we can just be defeatist and then run against walls.
	We'll get to that in just one moment.
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	Okay, meanwhile.
	Now, speaking of the idea that defeatism and despair is a bad strategy, we gotta talk about the 2024 presidential election.
	Donald Trump has a very decent shot of being president of the United States, if in fact he is the nominee.
	When I say very decent, I don't mean like 50%, I don't mean 60% or 70%, I mean like a 33, 35% shot.
	The reason that I say that is because, again, he lost the last election cycle.
	And he lost in a bunch of states he shouldn't have lost, including Arizona and Georgia, and I don't know how he's going to make up the ground in places like Arizona and Georgia given his current campaign status, the fact that he's spending all of his campaign money on, for example, legal expenses, and the fact that he's going to face down four separate criminal indictments in the next year.
	But that doesn't mean he can't possibly be president.
	There's only one thing that could certainly foreclose Trump from being president.
	Like 100% he will not be president.
	There's only one thing that could happen that would do that.
	And that is his own allegation that the election is rigged.
	I've said this before.
	Once Donald Trump says the 2020 election is rigged, he has now created an unfalsifiable reality.
	Because how can he ever win?
	Serious question.
	How can he ever win?
	If I tell you, I played really hard last night in my basketball game, but let me tell you, the referee was actively paid by the other side.
	Actively paid.
	And every time I touched the ball, he called a foul.
	Didn't matter what was happening on the court.
	There was no way for me to win.
	And you say, well, you know, guys, next game, same ref, same other team.
	Can you win?
	The answer is no.
	He's been paid off.
	The only way, ironically, for Trump to be able to claim that he can win in the 2024 election is one of two things.
	If he says that it's rigged.
	One, he has to stop saying that it's rigged.
	He has to say, listen, if we get enough voters out there, we'll win.
	Because it's not rigged.
	Because, yeah, I lost in 2020 because I didn't get enough votes.
	But I'm going to win next time because I'm going to get more votes.
	It's not rigged, so you should vote.
	Because we actually know that when he says, for example, that things are rigged, so you should vote, you know what the outcome is?
	2021 Georgia election.
	Two Democrat senators and $7 trillion in spending thanks to Donald Trump's dumbass attempts to turn the Georgia 2021 special election into a referendum on how he did in Georgia, leading a bunch of rural Republicans not to vote and hand two separate Senate seats to Democrats and control of the Senate and $7 trillion in spending.
	So you know what strategy I would like to not do?
	That strategy.
	Again, Donald Trump can win.
	He has to stop saying that the election is rigged.
	The reason he has to stop saying the election is rigged is why would you vote if the election is rigged?
	Why would I vote if the election is rigged?
	No matter what I do, they're going to rig the election.
	Okay, the other thing that he could say, theoretically, is something has changed systemically between 2020 and 2024, right?
	He could say, well, you know, there are a bunch of Republican states that have cleaned up their act, which, sure, I mean, Georgia passed a bill, Florida passed a bill, okay.
	He could theoretically make that case, although he's going to have a tougher time in Arizona.
	He could make the case that we are taking serious, on-the-ground steps to engage in some of the things Democrats do, like ballot harvesting or early voting.
	He could say those things, right?
	That would change the factors on the ground.
	Does he say any of those things?
	He does not say any of those things.
	So yesterday, he did an interview.
	Again, it's so irritating to me.
	Donald Trump could still be president.
	He would still be president today if he had run a good campaign in 2020.
	And by the way, he would be leading Joe Biden by leaps and bounds if after the election of 2020, he had said, okay, I lost, but Joe Biden's going to be a terrible president.
	And I'll be back in like a year telling you how terrible it was.
	And you're going to want me again.
	It would have been that simple, but we're not doing that.
	In any case, Donald Trump does an interview with Megyn Kelly, and she asks him the question that I have been asking for like a couple of years at this point.
	If you say the 2020 election was rigged, how do you plan on winning the 2024 election if it is similarly rigged?
	And his answer is everything that I said he should not say.
	His answer is, it is rigged.
	There's no way I can win.
	They'll just rig it.
	They'll bring in fake voters.
	They'll bring in fake ballots.
	They'll throw out good ballots.
	And so what's his strategy?
	He says, well, we'll get great voter turnout.
	That doesn't matter if your entire argument is that Stalin is in the back room throwing out the votes.
	You can get a bajillion votes.
	You can win by 100 million votes and you'll still lose because your argument is, as we would have said in law school, an argument that proves too much.
	In fact, you are discouraging your own voters from voting when you say their votes don't matter.
	Like this is just strategic.
	It's strategic foolishness.
	I don't understand it.
	If he's the nominee, I'm going to vote for him.
	I want him to win if he's the nominee.
	But this is not the strategy for winning.
	This isn't the vote, the strategy for getting voter turnout up.
	It's a strategy for creating despair inside your own party.
	I don't understand this.
	Here he was with Megyn Kelly yesterday.
	Everyone knows you think 2020 was rigged.
	How are you going to unrig it in 2024?
	I get that question a lot, too.
	Look, they use COVID to cheat.
	They cheat anyway, because how can you win elections?
	Open borders, high taxes, high interest rates, no voter ID.
	I mean, everything they do is like April Fool's Day.
	It's the opposite, OK?
	They have horrible policy.
	They're only good at cheating on elections.
	You want to know the truth.
	And I get the question, too.
	We have unbelievable people and we're going to be fighting like hell because if I don't win the election.
	OK, pause it there for a second.
	We have unbelievable people and we're going to be and we're going and we're going to be fighting like hell is not an answer to they cheated and rigged all the rules.
	How are you going to win?
	In 2020, I assume he would have said the same thing, that he had unbelievable people and they're going to fight like hell.
	Fighting like hell is not a strategy.
	Fighting like hell is a description of a thing.
	It is not a strategy.
	If I tell you, again, the referee in this basketball game is paid off by the opposition and is going to rig the game for the opposition, and you say, how are you going to win?
	And I say, I'm going to play unbelievable.
	That doesn't answer the question.
	And the question must be answered.
	Because if you want him to win, he better have an answer to this question.
	Otherwise, they'll just do the same thing they did in 2020 according to him!
	Not according to me, according to him!
	Again, my case is pretty simple.
	He won in 2016.
	He lost in 2020.
	He can win in 2024 because he won in 2016.
	He could also lose like he lost in 2020.
	Right?
	Which means he should run a good election campaign, and then he'll win.
	But, he has foreclosed that possibility now, and now it's a box.
	It's a box of his own making.
	And the only person who benefits from that box is Donald Trump the brand, but not Donald Trump the presidential candidate.
	Donald Trump the brand benefits because if he loses, he can claim that he wasn't actually a loser.
	It was somebody else's fault.
	They rigged the rules, everybody was mean to him, and all the rest of this whining nonsense.
	Or, and by the way, when I say nonsense, I don't mean it's not true.
	I just mean that whining in politics, if you're whining, you're losing.
	Okay, that's just the reality.
	Winers whine and winners win.
	So if he actually wants to win, he should stop with the whining and he should start actually, I don't know, investing tens of millions of dollars in ballot harvesting operations.
	He should start investing tens of millions of dollars in get-out-the-vote efforts with regard to early balloting.
	He should spend tens of his own money.
	He should be spending this money on his legal fees so that when I give a dollar to his campaign in the general, which I'm sure I will, then that money will not go to his legal fees.
	It will go to actually doing the things necessary to win votes.
	But he didn't stop there.
	He keeps doubling down on it.
	According to Donald Trump, the election isn't just rigged, it's super rigged.
	Which doesn't answer the question.
	Because if I don't win the election, meaning this philosophy, this thought, but if I don't
	win the election, I think our country is finished.
	I think it's the most important election we've ever had.
	If I don't win this election, like you talk to me about all of the different prosecutions.
	These aren't prosecutions.
	These aren't indictments.
	These are Biden indictments.
	These are different.
	This isn't God coming down from high and indicting you.
	This is crooked Joe Biden.
	He's crooked as a...
	Three dollar bill.
	He used to say two dollar bill, but we have a few of them around.
	He's a crooked guy.
	He's a crooked politician.
	And he said, indict my political opponent.
	So when they say, and it's very interesting, the press First they start that way.
	But then with time, they say, oh, he's under indictment.
	No.
	These are all Biden indictments, including the DA's office.
	You know, he put his top guy in the DA's office in Manhattan.
	And everybody says it's not even a case.
	And?
	I mean, it shouldn't even be brought.
	You've seen that.
	You've heard that.
	You've probably.
	I've said that.
	OK, it's ridiculous.
	It's a ridiculous case.
	But they put, he put his top people in the DA.
	He's dealing with Fannie Willis.
	In Atlanta.
	It's all a hoax.
	But here's the thing.
	It's very important for people to know this.
	Because Republicans are bummed out.
	They're thinking, I'm not even going to vote.
	Forget it.
	My vote's not going to count.
	It's just the opposite.
	They're going to get it by the mail-in ballots again.
	They're going to vote in numbers that you've never seen before because they see what's happening.
	Should they do the mail-in?
	Should the GOP voters do the mail-in?
	Okay, here's what we can't allow.
	Yeah, I would say let him do it either way.
	You know, I'm less on that.
	I like the Tuesday stuff, but then you see what happened to Carrie Lake, where all the machines were broken, or a big portion of them.
	Wouldn't it be smarter to bank some vote before?
	Oh my God, we're doing Carrie Lake now?
	Okay, stop.
	Pause it for a second.
	Pause for a second.
	Carrie Lake is running again, now for the Senate in Arizona, claiming that she won.
	She did not win.
	She lost to a wet dish towel.
	You know what drives down the vote?
	It actively drives down the vote when you talk... I don't... Will they vote early?
	Should they vote early?
	I don't know.
	Should they mail it in?
	Yeah, of course they should mail it in!
	Are you... Are you kidding me?
	Are you kidding me?
	Okay, there's one state in which there was a red wave in 2022.
	You know which state that was?
	It's the state I live in.
	You know why?
	Because everyone I know voted early!
	Everyone!
	Because they learned the lesson of 2020.
	You vote early.
	You vote however you gotta vote.
	You make sure you get the votes in.
	Why is he ambivalent about this?
	He's the candidate.
	I don't understand.
	Well, no, you could, but the problem is they throw the votes out.
	I mean, it's crooked.
	We have a... Wait, wait, wait.
	So be clear.
	What is the message to the voters?
	Do you want them to do the vote-in, the mail-in vote, or no?
	Everybody... People say yes.
	Do it.
	We have a bigger problem.
	I believe they send in fake ballots, okay?
	That's the bigger problem.
	That's your third problem.
	That's your third problem.
	They send in fake ballots.
	They throw out the ballots that you are sending.
	They broke all the machines.
	No matter what happens, I'm gonna lose.
	Also, vote for me.
	Like, how is that possibly your campaign message on how you're gonna win?
	How?
	So, what does that lead to?
	It leads to, okay, this kind of protest mentality.
	Okay, if I yell aloud enough, then magic happens.
	That's not how this works.
	If you want Trump to win, he needs to have an answer to this question, an actual, on-the-ground answer that involves spending money in particular ways and deploying resources in particular ways.
	And if he's not focused on any of those things, you have to ask the question as to why he is not focused on those things.
	I don't know the answer.
	Is it because it takes too much effort?
	Is it because he doesn't care?
	Why?
	If the only thing he cares about is defeating Biden, do the things you need to do to defeat Joe Biden.
	You know what that doesn't involve?
	Complaining that they're literally going to take all the ballots and throw them out the window.
	Because if that's true, it doesn't matter what Trump does, he's going to lose.
	According to him, not according to me.
	Well, that wasn't the end of Donald Trump's interview with Megyn Kelly.
	So Megyn gave the first interview with Trump I've seen in a very long time that actually was a good interview with Trump because Megyn is the best in the business.
	It wasn't sycophantic nonsense about how he was nice to Mike Pence.
	And it wasn't the left simply asking why such a bad, mean man.
	It was her asking actual incisive questions.
	And I got to say, Trump underperformed.
	He did.
	I mean, that's just the reality of the situation.
	In this interview with Megyn Kelly, and if there were anyone who are still objective in this race, I don't know that they would be in love with Trump's answer.
	So for example, she asked him about his performance on COVID.
	His performance on COVID was at best an extremely mixed bag.
	Everyone who was there and who has a memory longer than a goldfish knows that.
	I remember it, you remember it.
	He was ripping on Brian Kemp in one moment saying, why is he reopening his state?
	And in the other, he was like, liberate Michigan!
	And he's like, I don't understand what you want.
	On the one hand it was, Dr. Fauci, the greatest public ser- and on the other hand it was, Dr. Fauci, he's terrible- like, it was just all confused and discombobulated.
	That's like, best case scenario.
	In any case, she asks Trump a question that a lot of people have asked Trump, which is why he didn't fire Fauci.
	Now listen, I actually think there's a reason he didn't fire Fauci.
	His big mistake was putting Fauci in charge in the first place.
	Once you put Fauci in charge, it happens to be the political case in defense of Trump.
	That Fauci being fired would have created this massive firestorm in which would have been the science versus Trump.
	And that would have been bad going into the elections.
	I get it.
	I actually do get that.
	But now Trump's in like a full... Once we had moved further along, why was he giving Fauci a Presidential Medal of Commendation?
	That's a real question.
	That Presidential Medal of Commendation came long after all of this.
	Here is Trump with Megyn Kelly trying to explain.
	This is the criticism of you, that you made him the face of the White House coronavirus task force.
	You think so?
	That he was out at every presser, that he was running herd for the administration on COVID, and that you actually gave him a presidential commendation before he left office.
	Wouldn't you like a do-over on that?
	I don't know who gave him the accommodation.
	I really don't know who gave him the accommodation.
	Presidential accommodation?
	One went on for Mark Zuckerberg, too?
	I know.
	Somebody probably handed him accommodation.
	He probably... But let me just tell you about Fauci.
	Fauci was very important in the Biden administration, much less important.
	If you know, he didn't want to stop China.
	He wanted to let everyone come in from China.
	I stopped it.
	I overrode it.
	I overrode many of the things he did.
	He was much less important to me.
	Now, with that all being said, he's been there for years.
	He was respected.
	He lost a lot of the respect because of COVID, but he was respected.
	And on COVID, if you know what I did, I let the governors run their states.
	Okay, that was the best part is that he did, in fact, let governors run.
	He's right about that.
	But he gave a president.
	Yes, of course, he gave a presidential commendation to on the day before he left office.
	Okay, that was by January.
	He'd already lost the election.
	He was leaving office and he gave a presidential commendation to, by the way, not just Not just Anthony Fauci.
	He gave one to the much maligned General Mark Milley.
	He gave one to Deborah Birx, if you recall this.
	It's literally in the same list.
	He went to Deborah Birx, he gave one to Mark Milley, and he gave one to Anthony Fauci.
	But he doesn't know who did it.
	Well, I mean, since your signature is on the page, I assume you're the one who did it.
	Then, of course, he suggested that DeSantis was a big Fauci fan, which, like, come on.
	This is just...
	Guys, you can love Trump, you can vote for Trump.
	All that's fine and dandy.
	Can we stop pretending that he's being an honest advocate here?
	He's not.
	That is a lie.
	It is a lie that Donald Trump was somehow a lesser fan of Anthony Fauci than Ron DeSantis.
	That's absurd.
	He said that in the Kelly interview.
	It's just ridiculous.
	DeSantis fought back on that, of course, as he should.
	I'm sure you saw the former president's interview with Megyn Kelly last night, trying to relitigate a lot of these COVID issues and controversies from the end of his presidency.
	You were accused of having one of the worst lockdowns in the country, vaccine mandates, praising Fauci for months on end.
	I want to give you a chance to respond to all of that, because all that stuff was mentioned by the former president in that interview.
	Well, first, I think it's important to say that that is different from what Donald Trump used to say.
	I mean, he used to praise Florida for having been open.
	He used to say I was one of the country's great governors.
	He said we handled COVID correctly and brilliantly.
	So he used to say that.
	He was on record always saying that.
	Now, because I'm a threat to him, that's when he's now changing his tune.
	That obviously is true.
	That was in the end of the Kelly interview.
	Again, it was a really good interview by Megan.
	She did a really good job with this.
	She asked Trump about his classified documents case.
	And, by the way, Meghan is a believer that Trump should not be prosecuted on the classified documents case, so far as I'm aware, specifically because Hillary Clinton was not prosecuted for pretty much the same thing.
	But she asked him a pretty simple question, which is, why did you keep the documents?
	And then why were you waving them around?
	And also, why did you lie to Bret Baier and say that the documents you were waving around, on tape, saying that they were classified, and you could have declassified to them, but you didn't?
	Why did you say that those were golf plans when they clearly were not?
	And at this point, Trump's lawyers must just be like setting their hair on fire.
	I mean, my goodness, he's just.
	Again, guys, if you're going to do criming, don't do the criming on tape and then don't retrospectively admit that you did the criming like this is.
	Here is Donald Trump making his lawyers, you know, I think his lawyers all have.
	Just brain aneurysms at this point.
	Now, why would you describe a newspaper article as highly confidential and still a secret, saying as president you could have declassified it, but now you can't?
	Let me just tell you something.
	Number one, I did nothing wrong, because I come under the Presidential Records Act.
	The fascists who are going after me, and they're not going after Biden, even though he has about 10 times more documents, maybe more than that, he has documents going back 40 years or 50 years.
	We did nothing wrong.
	I come under the Presidential Records Act.
	I'm allowed to have these documents.
	This was done in 1978, and this was done for exactly this reason.
	I'm allowed to have these documents.
	Um, what?
	So, in other words, he lied about Barron.
	He said they're golf plans.
	And they're not newspapers.
	They were classified documents, but he's making the argument that he's allowed to have the classified documents.
	I mean, now he's basically just said, like, what he's talking about is a legal interpretation of the statute.
	For the record, the Presidential Records Act covers personal presidential communications.
	It is if you keep a diary of your time in the White House, that does not become classified material that is yours.
	It does not mean that if there's a CIA report that crosses your desk, and you don't declassify it, and you take it home, and you put it in your drawer, that it is now magically declassified.
	That is not what the Presidential Records Act says.
	It never said that.
	That is a misstatement of the law.
	Even if you interpret the law like Trump is interpreting the law, that's a legal argument, that is not a factual argument.
	What Trump is going to be asked to testify about if he testifies in that case is he says that he will, and his lawyers certainly will not let him.
	If he were to testify in that case, they're not going to ask him about his interpretation of the Presidential Records Act.
	That's an argument for legal analysts.
	They're going to ask him whether he declassified the documents.
	Whether he went through any process, and he's going to say no, because he did not go through any process.
	He's going to say, they're automatically declassified.
	Again, that's a legal argument, not a factual one.
	They're going to say, did you go through any process for declassifying the documents?
	He's going to say no.
	Then they're going to say, on tape, did you say that you could have declassified the documents, but you did not?
	And he's going to have to say yes, because they have them on tape.
	And then they're going to say, were those documents the Iran plans?
	Were they something that was classified?
	And he's going to have to say, well, yes.
	Because he's saying all of it, like right on Megyn Kelly's show.
	Again, should that prosecution be brought against Trump?
	No.
	Is Trump like his own worst enemy when it comes to these legal matters?
	Absolutely.
	Now, is any of this going to matter?
	The answer is no.
	For a lot of Republican voters, they don't care.
	They're not looking at what he says.
	They're not even looking at what he does.
	They feel like they know the guy and they're loyal to him and they believe that because he won in 2016, he'll pull a rabbit out of the hat in 2024 and he doesn't have to have a plan.
	He'll magic his way to the White House.
	Okay, fine.
	But, you know, in the world of actual political analysis, where we are supposed to look at what people say and what people do, Megyn Kelly did a good job of interviewing Trump and he did not do a good job of handling those questions, just on any objective level.
	Okay, time for some things I like and then some things that I hate.
	So, things that I like today.
	I'm excited to announce to you that the Union Solidarity Coalition, which is apparently a group of quasi-famous actors and actresses and writers and such, they are now auctioning off their services to benefit their crew's healthcare fund.
	Now, at this point, I should remind you that every single person who's auctioning off services is worth many millions of dollars.
	And if they actually wanted to help benefit their crew's healthcare fund, they could just sign a check.
	In fact, that would be the best way to do it.
	So, if you are Lena Dunham, And number one, you come from a very wealthy family.
	And number two, you have a net worth of 10, 12 million dollars.
	You know, it's a great way to help out the people who are members of your crew,
	sign them a check.
	Like, amazing, you got a bunch of money, you could do that.
	If you're, say, Bob Odenkirk, and you've made a massive success of yourself over the past few years.
	And you have a net worth that ranges in the $16 million range.
	Well, maybe you should sign a check.
	Well, no.
	Are they doing any of that?
	No.
	What they're actually doing is they're auctioning off their services, guys.
	This is exciting, exciting stuff.
	So let me read you some of the auction items that are now available.
	Because, man, this is... What gems are available to you?
	These bids are open on eBay, by the way, for the next seven to eight days.
	I cannot wait.
	So, you could, if you spend the proper amount of money, have a mural painted by Lena Dunham in your house.
	She'll come to your house, if you live in New York, London, or LA, and she will paint you a mural in your home.
	Which sounds like a nightmare, because Lena Dunham is most famous for, you know, Being obsessed with the genitalia.
	So she says that when she was growing up, her house was effectively covered in pictures of female genitals.
	So I hope that you're ready to enjoy that.
	And then there are pictures of her like doing murals in kids' rooms.
	And there are some restrictions on the bid.
	She says, this package does not include any items or services not detailed in the above description.
	It's non-transferable.
	And also, Respect for talent and their staff will be expected at all times.
	Inappropriate behavior or solicitation for personal gain by the winner could result in the immediate conclusion of the experience with no refund.
	The talent has the right to end the experience at any time for any reason with no refund and background check and all the rest.
	So if you want Lena Dunham, a weirdo, in your house painting strange things on your walls, you could do that.
	By the way, that's only going to cost you about three grand.
	Other items of interest.
	So you could get a session asking Maggie Gyllenhaal 20 minutes and 20 questions with Maggie Gyllenhaal.
	That one is going for about a little under a thousand dollars right now.
	20 minutes and 20 questions with Maggie Gyllenhaal.
	So honestly like if you're going to do that I would recommend that you just ask her about Jake the whole time.
	You should just ask her like how did you feel when he was doing Prince of Persia?
	When he was in October Sky?
	How did that make you feel Maggie?
	I think that would be of benefit to the world.
	Natasha Lyonne is allowing you to help her help you solve the New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle.
	I don't know why you would desire that.
	Or how she is, is she like amazing at crossword puzzles?
	Or why it would, like, I don't, okay?
	I suppose?
	That one's good.
	There is one of these I would bid on and that is, apparently, John Lithgow will do a watercolor portrait of your dog.
	Which is pretty hysterical.
	And I'll admit, that seems kind of, like, kind of fun.
	And kind of worth it.
	Apparently, you can also bid on other items, including, for example, 20 questions, 20 minute Zoom with Sarah Silverman.
	Now, the problem is that during that Zoom, you'll have to actually listen to Sarah Silverman's voice for 20 long minutes.
	The little cutesy baby voice.
	You'll have to listen to that.
	And she presumably says swear words a lot.
	That's exciting stuff.
	I mean, Jimmy Kimmel paid a lot of money just to not have to listen to Sarah Silverman's voice.
	So there's that.
	Apparently Adam Scott, you know the guy from like Severance?
	He is offering to walk your dog for one hour, LA-based dogs only, $2,500.
	Or Adam Scott could sign a check that would benefit the crew, but he's gonna walk your dog for like an hour, which sounds amazing.
	Or theoretically, you could just walk your dog yourself.
	But I guess if you really want to be able to say that you hired Adam Scott to walk your dog, because it's like a good cocktail party story or something, you could do that.
	I'm very into the sessions that are now being auctioned off with like old Fox shows that lasted for a few seasons, but nobody remembers.
	So there's now a virtual hangout available with the cast of Bones.
	Ooh.
	With Emily, David, Michaela, and Tamara.
	Are you excited?
	Remember Bones?
	I barely do also.
	I mostly just remember the commercials during 24.
	But if you really want to hang with the cast of Bones, now is your absolute, virtually of course, they don't want to be in a room with you, but like virtually, now is your moment.
	I'm gonna hold off on betting on that until Lie to Me, until the cast of Lie to Me, a short-lived Fox series, is available, like Tim Roth.
	I'm just gonna hold my fire.
	Apparently there's a person named Ali Pinku.
	I don't know who that is.
	Ali Pinku?
	Any ideas, guys?
	Ali Pinku is a director.
	Um, what has she directed?
	She has directed the first full season of Netflix Feel Good, and, uh, she has written on an unpronounceable show on, uh, because it has a curse word, on 20th Century Fox Bleeps Creek.
	Uh, and, um, yeah, and she has done, like, an episode of Black Mirror, so that's exciting.
	You can have this no-name coach you through an hour directing mentorship.
	Ooh.
	Man, so many just awesome options here, all of which would be obviated by any of these very, very wealthy people signing a check to the people who actually do most of the work on their show.
	Really, amazing, amazing.
	Busy Phillips is offering a New York experience for two.
	You can take a pottery class with Busy Phillips.
	This just sounds like the worst remake of Ghost ever.
	It's just you and Busy Phillips in a room while she yells at you about the wonders of abortion, and you make pottery.
	Wow.
	So many opportunities here.
	So many opportunities.
	Well, the richness with which these people have endowed our lives and the lack of richness with which they will endow their crew who are out of work right now is truly awe-inspiring.
	That is awe-inspiring stuff.
	Okay, time for some things that I hate.
	Alrighty, so.
	A U.N.
	official has now come forward to explain that we are in an information war, which means, of course, that it's time for the U.N.
	to crack down on informational flow, which you knew was coming.
	Here is a U.N.
	official named Melissa Fleming.
	She's the Undersecretary General for Global Communications talking about how we need more trans-global control of information flow.
	We do feel like we are in an information war and that we need to massively ramp up our response.
	So we're creating at the UN a central capacity to monitor and also have the ability to rapidly react when misinformation and hate speech is threatening not just our people, our operations, but also the issues and the causes that we're working on.
	But also we're going to be gearing up our verified initiative around climate change and developing this UN Code of Conduct on Information Integrity on Digital Platforms, hoping to set global standards that we can all advocate around.
	Oh, good.
	Global standards.
	We can all advocate around.
	Run by an organization that has on its security council China and Russia.
	I can't see how this will go wrong in any way, shape, or form.
	I can't see how people who worry about the globalist agenda, why are they concerned?
	I mean, after all, we have experts on hate speech who are going to come in and dictate to all the social media companies what they can and cannot allow.
	How could this possibly go wrong?
	The Arbiters of Morality over at the UN.
	The Mos Eisley of international politics.
	A wretched hive of scum and villainy determining what you can say and what you can't say.
	It'll be fine.
	Alrighty guys, the rest of the show continues right now.
	You're not going to want to miss it.
	We'll be joined on the line by Douglas Brunt.
	He's the author of a brand new book called The Mysterious Case of Rudolph Diesel.
	It's really a fascinating book.
	If you're not a member, become a member.
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