Andrew Klavan and Sebastian Gorka dissect the Stormy Daniels saga, framing it as a media distraction after Mueller’s Russian collusion failure, with Rudy Giuliani’s $130K repayment claim clashing against CNN’s "Democrat lens" coverage. They expose the Steele dossier’s $12M+ DNC-funded origins and John Brennan’s baseless blackmail speculations, calling Mueller’s probe a biased "phishing expedition." Klavan highlights Trump’s 62% conservative policy wins but warns North Korea talks face 5% success odds, while mocking Elizabeth Warren’s fake Native American claims. The episode ties leftist media hypocrisy—praising Cecile Richards’ abortion advocacy over Trump’s personal conduct—to a broader war on truth, where Putin’s disinformation won. [Automatically generated summary]
The Clavenless Week begins today, but don't despair.
Now, all right, despair, but try not to hurt yourself.
Or if you must hurt yourself, try not to get any blood on the furniture.
It's possible some of you may even survive until my return.
No, really, it's possible.
But when ingesting media for yourself while I'm gone, here are a few tips to keep you sane.
When watching the news, remember, news stories about things that are going to happen in the future are not news stories about things that are going to happen in the future.
Stories about the midterm blue wave, impeachment proceedings, who Robert Mueller will indict, and who Donald Trump will fire next are the fantasies of unnamed sources hoping to feed the fantasies of reporters who are hoping to feed your fantasies in the belief that enough people have the same fantasy, it will all magically come true.
Although eventually Donald Trump will fire everybody.
To hold on to your sanity while I'm away, also try not to watch too many fictional stories in which it's difficult to tell what's real and what isn't, like Westworld or the Chris Cuomo Show.
And three, for your own safety, if a friend says to you, hey, let's drink a shot of whiskey every time CNN interviews Stormy Daniels lawyer Michael Avenatti, just say no, there's only so much the human liver can bear.
Other than that, while I'm gone, walk slowly, drink lots of water, and remember the immortal words of Kanye West, I'm living in the future, so the present is my past.
You're on your own.
Trigger warning, I'm Andrew Clavin, and this is the Andrew Clavin Show.
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All right, this is it.
I'm off the vacation, but you know, you can survive.
It has happened.
Some people do.
Yeah, you're lost.
But Sebastian Gorka will be with us today, so at least we'll understand everything.
By the time we leave, we will know everything we need to know.
And the Daily Wire is now on Apple News.
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Why Translate Democrat?00:15:24
So I'm watching the news blow up yesterday.
There's all this crazy news after Rudy Giuliani.
Realize the only way to watch the news is you have to translate the news from Democrat into English.
Okay, they're speaking Democrat, but if you translate it into English, you can start to understand what they're saying.
And this is, you know, I'm not kidding about this.
The news is all Democrat.
Yeah, there's Fox.
We all know there's Fox.
And that's it.
Everything else you're watching on TV is actually in Democrat.
In fact, you should be able to have a button that you press that just plays the English version, his subtitles underneath.
So, you know, you have like the guy is saying, Adam Schiff comes on and says there's evidence of collusion, but I can't show it to you because you're secret.
And across the bottom, it'll translate Democrat into English.
We have no evidence of collusion.
Nothing is there.
Also, like I wasn't even kidding in that opening about stories about the future, right?
That things like, you know, there'll be a blue wave in the midterms or, you know, it just translates into, we're Democrats, so we hope there'll be a blue wave.
You know, it's just say there, just translate the news from Democrat into English.
Mueller may subpoena Trump.
You know, it's like, we hope Mueller will subpoena Trump.
We would like Mueller to subpoena Trump.
That's everything.
You know, if they have Michael Avani, you know, this Michael Avenatti, that guy who was the lawyer, and remember when they did the White House correspondence dinner, they actually interviewed him on the red carpet and said he was a big star.
You know, you know why he's a big star at CNN?
CNN has had him on 59 times over the past two months.
That is at least once a day.
Michael Avenatti is on.
That is because any news about Stormy Daniels, any news about Stormy Daniels, if you want to translate that from Democrat into English, it translates into the Russian collusion thing is not working out for us.
True about obstruction of justice, too.
How can you obstruct justice if they're investigating a case that didn't exist in the first place?
So when they say, you know, Stormy Daniels, the minute they say that, Stormy Daniels, just across the bottom is Russian collusion not working out.
So we're going with the sex scandal.
So yesterday, this blows up because Rudy Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani was the greatest mayor of New York, with the possible exception of LaGuardia.
LaGuardia and Rudy Giuliani were the two greatest mayors of New York.
The change that Rudy Giuliani wreaked on that city from a cesspit of crime and filth and dirt was unbelievable with the New York Times hammering as a racist every single day.
When, you know, at the end, when the 9-11 happened and he became America's mayor because he was so brave and so put together and so calm and cool, but also grave and understood what was going on.
And the New York Times was saying things like, well, he's redeemed himself.
Redeemed himself.
Like he totally transformed that city.
However, Rudy Giuliani is out of his mind.
I mean, he is, he is nuts.
I remember the first time I saw him, I was a newsman in New York and he walked in and he was a U.S. attorney, he was a prosecutor.
And I was going to make a joke.
I was in the newsroom and I was going to shout, you know, like, hey, guys, hide the cocaine.
The prosecutor is here.
And I took one look at him and I thought, I'm not going to make a joke about this guy because he would take me, he would put me away for, you know, like 40 years just because I was there.
You know, yeah, let's convict him.
He broke up the mafia.
He destroyed the mafia in New York.
He really did.
He was an unbelievable guy.
But he is a kooky guy.
There is a screw-loose in that guy's head.
So he goes on, he goes on Sean Hannity.
And remember, there's this $130,000 that lawyer Michael Cohn is supposed to have paid to Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about having sex with Donald Trump.
Not that that's worked, apparently.
She doesn't talk about it.
She's making an entire career out of having had sex with Donald Trump.
But they pay her $130,000.
Now, this is a problem because Michael Cohn, they have wondered aloud if Cohn got a home loan to pay out this money or if the money can be traced back to the Trump campaign, in which case it becomes a misuse of campaign funds, which can be a crime.
So Rudy Giuliani says nothing to worry about.
And he drops this bombshell on Sean, who looks like he just got hit by a train.
That money was not campaign money.
Sorry, I'm giving you a fact now that you don't know.
It's not campaign money.
No campaign finance violation.
So they funneled it through the law firm.
Funneled through the law firm and the president repaid it.
Oh, I didn't know he did.
There's no campaign finance law.
Zero.
So the president.
Just like every, Sean, so this decision was made by everybody.
Everybody was nervous about this from the very beginning.
I wasn't.
I knew how much money Donald Trump put into that campaign.
I said, $130,000.
He's going to do a couple of checks for $130,000.
When I heard Cohen's retainer of $35,000, when he was doing no work for the president, I said, but that's how he's repaying, that's how he's repaying it with a little profit and a little margin for paying taxes for Michael.
But do you know the president didn't know about this?
I believe that's what I'm saying.
He didn't know about the specifics of it, as far as I know.
But he did know about the general arrangement that Michael would take care of things like this.
Like I take care of things like this for my clients.
It's because famous people screw around on their wives and legal lawyers shut them up.
That's what they do.
They pay them off.
So you could see Sean just looked like, he really did look like a train hit him because Donald Trump had said he knew nothing about this.
It is no affair.
In fact, Trump tweeted out Giuliani later on this morning went on Fox and Friends and said, well, he didn't really, he didn't know about it.
It was just a fund that he had a retainer, essentially.
So here's Trump's tweets about this.
Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties known as a non-disclosure agreement or NDA.
These agreements are very, there's like four tweets, three tweets.
These agreements are very common among celebrities and people of wealth.
In this case, it is in full force and effect and will be used in arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford, Stormy Daniels.
The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair, despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair.
Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement.
Money from the campaign or campaign contributions played no role in this transaction.
He spells roll, R-O-L-L.
I'm not sure what that means, whether he thought he was being rolled or he had this on a roll or something.
So R-O-L-E, it's supposed to be.
Anyway, so this is huge.
Oh my gosh, he's blown up everything.
And I'm sure the White House, I'm sure the White House was just like falling over themselves, you know, because he said, I didn't know about this, and he's dialed it back and all this.
But what Giuliani is thinking is, so there's no crime.
I mean, so a billionaire Playboy was a billionaire Playboy, banged the porn star, paid her off, which is what billionaire playboys did, but it didn't use, he wasn't violating the law.
And that's the only thing that matters to Rudy, who is now on his legal team.
Let me just play something else, though, because just to translate the news from Democrat into English, okay?
Because remember, everything about Stormy Daniels is about the fact that the Russian collusion thing didn't work out.
Because we know Trump did this stuff.
We know, you know, if it wasn't Stormy Daniels, it was somebody else.
We know that he is not like Mr. Good Husband.
He divorced one of his wives.
He told one of his wives he was getting a divorce in the New York Post.
I mean, it's not, this is not, this is not a teddy bear.
Obviously, we all knew that when we voted for him, so there's nothing shocking there at all.
But let me just play something else, because Hillary Clinton is making her, the endless why I lost tour, whose fault is it.
You know, I think I am now the only person in America who has not been blamed for Hillary Clinton's loss.
I want you, you got to listen to this carefully because I want you to remember the big story yesterday is Rudy Giuliani puts his foot in his mouth and says, well, Trump did know about this.
I mean, is there anybody out there who thought that Trump didn't know about any of this?
Is there anybody out there who thinks he didn't sleep with her?
I mean, look, I'm just saying, I'm just saying Trump says it's not true.
Trump can say anything he wants, but this is who he is.
This is what he did.
He was a billionaire playboy.
As I've said before, if he didn't sleep with her, he should be called up before the Billionaire Playboy Association and answer for why he was not doing his job as a billionaire playboy.
Let's compare that to what Hillary Clinton said about the Democrat Party.
Remember, everybody's to blame for her loss except for her.
But here, this is an amazing clip.
Just play this.
You may be the only presidential candidate since World War II that actually had to stand up and say, I am a capitalist.
And you did.
Did it hurt you?
Probably.
I mean, you know, it's hard to know.
But I mean, if you're in the Iowa caucuses and 41% of Democrats are socialists or self-described socialists, and I'm asked, are you a capitalist?
And I say, yes, but with appropriate regulation and appropriate accountability, you know, that probably gets lost in the, oh, my gosh, she's a capitalist.
So the Democrat Party, this is the former presidential candidate.
You may remember that she ran for president.
She was the head of the Democratic Party.
The head of their ticket.
She had to make excuses for being a capitalist to the Democrat Party because it's filled with socialists.
Now, just think about this for a minute.
We're translating the news from Democrat into English, right?
The news is, the news is Stormy Daniels paid off, quiet, they had sex.
Okay, that's the news.
Hillary Clinton is sitting there telling you that at least a third of the Democrat Party is socialist.
They're commies.
They're the people who got Venezuelans to eat cats.
That's who they are.
They're the people who created wonderful places like the Soviet Union.
That's what we're comparing.
So they wonder why we don't care about their scandals.
I mean, one scandal after another is because every scandal is about an individual doing something he may or may not have done that maybe he shouldn't have done.
Every scandal is about an individual, their entire party.
This is their entire party.
This is who they are.
Pornstar commies.
Who would you vote for?
Who are you going to vote for?
And don't say you'd stay home either because listen, you know, that is really who they are.
They actually are.
I mean, here's another one.
Cecile Richards, is that her name?
Former head of Planned Parenthood.
You know how they say that some serial killers just stop killing after all the Golden State killer they recently caught, and they just said after a while, something switches off and Jack the Ripper just disappeared.
So Cecil Richards has left Planned Parenthood.
Okay, that was kind of a joke.
But that's her career.
That's her career exterminating unborn children.
That is her career.
She is welcomed by the left-wing press, okay?
Listen to this.
This is a montage from our friends at Newsbusters.
This book, I think, will broaden people's understanding about your activist chops.
This makes me think you're going to run for office.
Are you going to run for office?
I don't have any plans to run for office, but I learned early on never to say never.
Women running for office, does that mean Cecile Richards running for office?
Well, you never say never.
Is there elective politics in your future?
Who knows?
You know, never say never.
A lot of people are wondering if you're stepping away from Planned Parenthood to get into elected politics yourself.
Is that something that's on your mind?
Not this fall, perhaps, but down the road.
Well, you never say never, Willie.
Is there politics in your future?
I don't know what's next.
Do you have an interest in running for office at some point?
Nothing that I really looked at.
In order to stand up for something, you've got to fight and you've got to face adversity.
You've done it for your whole career.
And right now we're seeing a record number of women run for election.
That's right.
Are you going to be one of those women next?
I don't know.
So here's a woman.
Her entire resume is that she kills unborn babies.
That's her resume.
And everybody in the left-wing news sphere is saying to her, so you kill babies.
You know, isn't that something we want you to be president?
This is who they are, right?
So if we translate the news, we translate the news from Democrat into English, we get, you shouldn't be president because you slept with a porn star, but you should be president if you kill babies.
That's basically their moral standard that they're living in.
By the way, I'm being very harsh on Cecil Cecilia Richards.
She did have a way with unborn babies.
We actually have a video of that here.
Help me!
Come back here.
You're not a human being.
I am.
I am a human being.
You're crying out loud.
Look at me.
No one can see you.
Hold still, you piece of tissue.
Blackwood's mad.
Who did that?
That's a terrible bit.
Oh, that was me.
And actually, this is Jeremy, right?
The God King, the God King of the Daily Wire, actually came down to Earth to do that voice, that kid's voice.
Anyway, you know, I mean, again, again, terrible, terrible scandal that Donald Trump paid off a porn star.
I get it.
I get it.
You know, that in the old days, before Bill Clinton, before the left convinced us that it was none of our business who the president slept with, that would have been a terrible scandal.
I mean, before Bill Clinton, that would have ended any presidency if it came to light.
After Bill Clinton, the entire press, all the feminists, they told us, they explained to us, no, it's really none of your business who the president sleeps with.
So now we know, not a big scandal.
You know what's a big scandal?
Running a woman for office whose only credit is that she exterminates unborn babies.
That's a scandal.
The fact that a third of the Iowa caucus, according to the former presidential candidate of that party, is socialist, self-described socialist, that's a scandal.
I mean, that is what we are really dealing with.
You know, and I have to say, like I said, everything about Stormy Daniels just translates to me into we got nothing on the Russian collusion, which also is true of all this stuff about obstruction of justice.
I am really glad that Donald Trump is lawyering up with real people now.
I mean, you know, Rudy is a kook, but he is a real criminal attorney, and he's got this new guy who defended Clinton in the impeachment trials, because this is not something you want to kid around with.
You know, there was an organization, I think it was based in Britain, that would free innocent people from prison.
That would overturn, you know, its work was to find people who had been convicted wrongfully.
And they were asked, well, how does it happen that somebody gets convicted wrongfully?
The police are not out to do that.
And they said, well, what happens is he gets called in.
He wants to be honest.
And either he doesn't ask for a lawyer, doesn't get a lawyer, or he calls his pal, the lawyer.
He calls his lawyer.
And he doesn't understand that it's a specialty dealing with criminal cases.
You need a criminal lawyer.
And in Donald Trump's position, he needs a guy who knows, who aggressively knows the ins and outs of the Constitution, constitutional law, separation of powers, what Mueller can do, what he can't do.
Because I think the questions that the New York Times released that Mueller wants to ask him were things like, what were you thinking about when you fired Comey?
It's like, I wouldn't answer that question in a million.
I mean, you just plead the fifth on that question because they're trying to prove obstruction of justice when they haven't got the Russian collusion.
The guy was sent out there to find Russian collusion, didn't find it, and now he's saying, oh, yeah, but you obstructed justice.
I mean, just having him there is an obstruction of justice.
You know, yesterday, I did an interview on what's called a Bad Christian podcast.
Really great guys.
Why Ben Shapiro Feels Bad00:03:51
I had a really fun time.
I don't usually do these very long form interviews, but I did it with them because I was just really enjoying myself.
And they're young guys.
And like a lot of the young people I meet when I'm going to colleges, they have been taught that they need to put on a solemn face.
It seemed to me, I mean, they were good guys and they were laughing, kidding around and all this, but underneath this, there was a certain guilt about being white, about being male, about being American.
And I just think like, this is what these guys have done.
This is what the left does to you.
They're in order to distract you from the fact that their entire philosophy is socialist, is about destroying babies, is about violating basically every commandment to distract you.
They make you feel bad about things that you shouldn't feel bad about at all.
You should never feel bad.
You know, if you got born, you know, they were asking me if maybe if you had a choice, and would you be born white or black?
And I thought, yeah, I think most people would be born white.
It's probably easier to be a white guy.
Hey, you know, it's easier to be an American.
It's so much easier to be an American that it transcends everything.
You know, thank heavens you weren't born in one of those grapple countries that Trump was not supposed to talk about.
I mean, thank God you were born in a place like this.
But, you know, your responsibility, if you have luck in life, is to use your luck to succeed and transcend.
And yes, help other people when you can.
But your responsibility is not to sit around with a sad face and say, oh, I feel so bad that I was born with some privileges.
I think, you know, you got lucky.
There's no question about it.
Thank God.
And go about your business.
You know, I was thinking about this because of this thing with the Boy Scouts.
The Boy Scouts used to be a great organization.
And now they've been destroyed by political correctness.
They said, well, we're going to let in girls, and now they're changing their names.
There won't be any Boy Scouts.
The Boys Club of America already disappeared into the Boys and Girls Club.
So there's nowhere, you know, you're supposed to be guilty just for being a boy.
Anyway, you know, my point about this really is that all these stories about these scandals are really stories to drive you away from who these people are and what their entire philosophy is.
And maybe Trump has done some wrong things.
I'm sure he has.
And maybe he's, you know, says things he shouldn't say.
I'm sure he does.
But that doesn't change the fact that their entire philosophy is what it is.
Hey, you know, starting this Sunday, our own Ben Shapiro, May 6th, you can watch and listen to more Ben Shapiro.
If you can't get enough Ben Shapiro, me, I've just had enough.
I saw him in the parking lot.
I said, Ben, I have had enough.
But if you can't get enough, Ben Shapiro, he's got a new show, the Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special, in which Ben hosts weekly in-depth conversations with the nation's best and brightest on politics, news, culture, and everything in between.
And the best part is that for current Ben Shapiro show subscribers, you won't even need to hit a separate button to listen.
These episodes will just show up in your feed.
So if you haven't subscribed yet, do, because this Sunday's premiere episode will feature Jordan B. Peterson singing, I think, the entire oeuvre of Kanye West.
No, he's not doing that.
But anyway, Peterson is always fascinating to listen to, and Ben will have him on for the whole show.
Dr. Sebastian Gorka is with us, former deputy assistant to the President of the United States.
He is now a Fox News contributor and shows up all over the place.
But he's also the author of an upcoming book, which I didn't know.
We must get a copy of this book so I can read it by the time it comes out.
Why We Fight Recovering America's Will to Win.
There you are.
How you doing?
Very well, very well, Drew.
And even better now that I'm on my favorite podcast.
Oh, thank you so much.
I love to hear you say that.
And don't forget, don't forget to subscribe and give five stars to another kingdom.
You can come on anytime.
You can come on every day as far as I'm good.
Congress Oversees00:15:02
So I've been talking about this thing with Rudy yesterday.
I'm sure you saw it.
And, you know, I have to tell you, Giuliani is a true hero of mine because I lived in New York when it was unlivable.
I mean, I lived there at his.
My wife, too.
She lived through it and saw what happened to Manhattan.
Yeah, but he is, he always has been a bit of a kook.
I mean, he says the things come out of his mouth.
You know, it's great.
For a mayor of New York, it's perfect.
I mean, it was great.
What was your feeling?
I mean, I was watching Sean there, and he just looked like he had been hit by a car.
Did you feel that this was a major, you know, the big, biggest revelation of the week?
No, not at all.
I really don't.
I think he's a perfect fit.
I've had real issues.
I've had real issues with the legal team when I was in the White House and since then.
They, in many cases, and kudos to the exception, they're either creatures of the establishment or they fear the establishment GOP and they want to be friends with the GOP and they don't understand who Donald Trump is.
And they don't understand that if no crime has been committed, then you don't give an interview.
And I think Victoria Tansing made the best point ever.
There is case law out there.
There's precedent that guess what?
The president is a busy guy and you don't get to subpoena him.
There's actually case law out there that if he's a witness to a traffic accident, you don't get to subpoena the president.
You have to find other ways to get that information.
But in this case, there is no there there.
I remember distinctly in June of last year, I was in the Oval with the president by myself.
I think Jared had just testified or he'd just given his press conference.
The president was visibly frustrated and he said to me, you know, they're never going to find anything because there is nothing.
And how many millions have we spent?
How many thousands of man hours when peace is breaking out on the Korean peninsula for the first time in 65 years?
The economy, we've had 3% growth rate for multiple quarters when for the last eight years, Obama couldn't give us one quarter of 3% growth rate.
And you want to talk to me about Stormy Daniels a decade ago?
It really is incredible, the alternate universe these people live in.
You know, 59 times, the lawyer for Stormy Daniels has been on CNN.
They treat him like a rock star.
And it is, it truly is amazing that they are living in this world.
And I think it does have an effect on people.
People start to think like, especially if they don't pay much attention to the news, they start to think, oh, my God, every day is a crisis, when really things are going pretty well.
I know you're not a lawyer, but if you were Trump's attorney, what advice would you give him now?
I mean, I'm sure you saw the questions that Mueller wants to ask him in the Times.
What would you say to him?
Well, I would embarrass Mueller.
And I would have an open statement.
I would write an open response to the putative questions saying, if these are your questions, it is clear you have no case.
Three quarters of them have nothing to do with Russia and are a phishing expedition to entrap him in a perjury trap with regards to obstruction of justice.
I would answer them in such a way that embarrasses Mueller for the hack job he has done.
Look, I don't care all these stories about who appointed him.
He's a Republican.
He has one mission right now, to get the scalp of the president.
That's what he did with Whitey Bulger.
He put four people in prison who were innocent.
He wants a scalp, irrespective of whether there's a D or an R behind the name.
This man has to be demonstrably shown to have wasted taxpayer money and time with a fully full-throated response to all of these questions that basically makes him look like the political hack that he has become.
Do you think that he is, that this is just pure ambition?
You put a dog in that position and he goes after the bone.
Or do you think that there's political animus there that he wants this guy for political reasons?
I'll say the most important thing that the media does not dwell on at all.
Even the conservative media, with your exception, we have amazing people like Sarah Carter, Molly Hemingway, some great reporters out, Lee Smith.
You know what the biggest scandal is here, beyond unmasking everything else?
Robert Mueller interviewed for the job of director of the FBI on May 16th.
He wanted his old job back and he was escorted to that interview by guess who?
Rod Rosenstein, his best buddy.
Mueller crashed and burned in that interview.
The president said, No, I'm not interested.
I want fresh blood.
I'm going to look for somebody else.
So he failed.
He lost the job.
24 hours, less than 24 hours later, what happens?
Rod, his buddy, appoints him special prosecutor to investigate the man who he failed the job interview with.
He should have been accused the second Rod said, Hey, would you like to investigate the guy who you failed in front of to get your old job?
How is this man even allowed to investigate the president?
So I look at Rod Rosenstein.
It's really interesting.
When I was listening to Giuliani, he did not come down on Mueller that hard.
He said he still has an open mind about him.
And I was watching Rosenstein yesterday at the museum or the day before yesterday at the museum saying we're not going to be extorted.
I've had a very hard time getting a read on him.
You think he is a swamp creature?
You are basically saying he is out there.
I know what he is.
I've seen him in action in closed session.
We were at a meeting together at Liberty Crossing together.
He is the quintessence of the bureaucratic survivor in Swamp Dweller.
I don't think he is an ideologue of the Obama brothers mold.
Like he's not a Ben Rhodes.
He's not a Colin Carl.
He's not a Tommy Vieto.
He's not a neo-Marxist kind of crazy.
But he's not a man of honor.
And also, he's stupid.
How can you stand up in a public forum and say, we're not going to get extorted?
This is extortion.
Guess what, buddy?
You don't work for yourself.
You work for the American people.
And you know what the Constitution says?
The Congress has oversight over you.
And to say that's extortion, that the body that is supposed to oversee you can't see the documents that pertain to things they wish to see, that's just dumb.
Yeah, he did say that.
He said, we don't want Congress going through our files.
I think they're afraid.
He's afraid that Congress is trying to scotch the Mueller investigation.
I think that's what he's thinking.
And what else?
Who knows what?
To quote John Brennan, I don't have the evidence, but it could be true.
So you wrote a piece that I thought was a really interesting piece saying that Putin has achieved his goals.
Would you lay that out?
Lay out why you say that.
Sure.
So this was on Sunday morning in the Hill.
And it's just based upon the facts.
This isn't my opinion.
If you look at the report that's come out of Congress, if you look at all the investigations from the IG of the Department of Justice, we now know this is a fact.
Russian operatives placed disinformation propaganda in the Christopher Steele dossier.
Okay, all the lies about what Donald Trump did in Moscow came from Russian government sources.
The DNC paid for that, $12 million plus Clinton.
Clapper had read the file.
He knew that the left-wing media had seen the file, but nobody was going to jump on it because A, it was so tendentious and salacious, and B, they needed a news peg.
So what does he do?
We now know this is a fact.
Clapper tells Comey, why don't you brief the file to the president-elect, and then you can leak it to your buddies, and then CNN will have the peg.
Clapper lied in front of Congress, saying he never briefed it to the press.
Now he's admitted to Congress that, yes, he told Jake Tapper.
So what do we have?
We have a misinformation propaganda dossier from Moscow effectively being leveraged by the media and the head of national intelligence and the director of the FBI.
And then we have the most outrageous skunk of a man, John Brennan, who voted for the Communist Party candidate in 1976, go on live television within months of leaving office and saying, you know, I don't have any evidence.
Putin could be blackmailing the president.
That is doing Putin's work for him.
And oh, then, of course, the cherry on top drew.
Clapper gets a nice, juicy contract with CNN, the people who he leaked to.
Yeah.
How is that not swamp creature par excellence?
I have to say that Brennan has been, it's been obscene.
I mean, he has been truly a disgrace to his office.
And that thing he said about maybe he was that kind of coy way he says it, like maybe he's being blackmailed by the Russians, that really is.
Maybe John Brennan is a paedophile.
I don't have all of it.
Exactly, exactly.
I mean, yeah, yeah.
Do you think, I mean, you worked with the president.
Do you think this gets to him?
I mean, he seems like a fairly emotional guy.
He seems like a guy who doesn't, he doesn't like people swinging at him without swinging back, obviously.
Somebody said he kicks any dog that barks at him.
Do you think this gets to him?
Do you think it gets under his skin?
It depends what you mean by gets to.
So, you know, I'm married to somebody who was a quintessential wasp when I met her.
And, you know, you can't have conflict.
You must not have conflict.
You know, I relish conflict.
It drove her mad.
She's now at peace with it.
I love going on the attack.
And guess what?
So does the boss.
So does the president.
I know it irks him, especially when people lie.
When they lie about his daughter, his son-in-law, his children.
Who would not go on the offensive when you're spreading lies about your children?
But at the end of the day, you know what?
It's his fuel.
It really is his fuel.
This is a man who will not stand down.
And that's why he has achieved, according to the Heritage Foundation, this is stunning.
Heritage has this mandate for leadership that it writes every time there's a new president.
They wrote one a year and a half ago with 365 conservative initiatives a true conservative president should accomplish.
Last month, they did a spreadsheet of what he's achieved in the first year.
He's achieved 62%.
62% of everything the mothership of conservatism would like him to do by the end of his second term.
So yes, it frustrates him, but does it stop him?
Not in the slightest.
From the economy to ISIS to North Korea to the JCPOA, he is this freight train that just keeps on rolling.
So you started out before you worked for the president.
You were an expert on the military and security issues and terrorism.
I just want to ask you a couple more questions before I let you go about the international scene.
You spoke about North Korea with some, that was pretty strong optimism.
I mean, I look at Kim Jong-un and I think I wouldn't turn, you know, I would just check my watch before I would go even and shake his hand.
Give me some odds.
What do you think are the odds of Trump coming out of a meeting with him?
Somebody asked me this about two weeks ago and I gave it 5% success rate.
Because you're right.
He's a Stalinist dictator.
I mean, he has people killed by anti-aircraft cannon for politically disagreeing with him.
Allegedly, he has people fed to dogs who disagree with him.
So you hold your wallet, you walk in there completely with your eyes wide open.
It's not trust and verify, like Reagan said.
distrust and verify.
But what's happened in the last two months is incredible, truly stunning.
The idea that he's potentially going to give us back our citizens, our hostages, before we sign a deal, that's like what Obama did with Iran.
We'll give you $150 billion before you give up your nukes.
So I'm still leery because a dictator lies, whether it's Hitler in Munich in 1938, whether it's Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis, they lie.
But at the end of the day, if anybody can close the deal, it's the Donald.
So the other thing I wanted to ask you about is this Iran deal.
I have never understood the Iran deal.
I don't think, I don't believe Obama was trying to destroy the world or anything like that.
I mean, I think he was, I assume he was doing his best, but I have never understood why you would make a deal with terrorists that allows them essentially a free pass to nukes.
I don't get it.
So what am I missing?
Tell me why that deal is in place and why the Europeans, I guess the Europeans are there for the money, I guess, for the trade.
So if you look at the trading partners for Iran, the two biggest trading partners are France and Germany.
So that's why they have issues.
This has been the same with Iraq over the years.
Now it's with Iran.
So this isn't about high and mighty and multilateralism.
It's about very prosaic business interests.
Why did the Iran deal happen?
For a couple of reasons.
Number one is the large meta-reason.
For eight years, Drew, you know this better than anybody, nothing, nothing the administration did under Obama was about truth.
It was about narrative.
This is why somebody with a master's degree in fictional literature becomes the deputy national security advisor.
This is why a guy who was driving the bus, Tommy Vyator, becomes the press spokesman for the National Security Council.
It was about narrative.
It was about spin.
What was the geostrategic calculation?
It was an incredibly naive one.
They basically made a decision.
The Sunnis are in ascendance, writ large, all Sunnis, especially the violent ones like ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
We need to redress that balance.
There's only one natural balance, counterbalance, and that's Iran.
Let's make them as rich and as powerful as possible, and then peace will break out in the Middle East.
The idea that this is the biggest sponsor of terrorism, they kind of missed that footnote.
And they thought that with a grand rebalancing, everything would be on par and it would be okay.
Silicon Valley's Strategic Shift00:06:51
That's the logic.
That's the first plausible explanation I have heard of the logic behind that, even from them, even from the Obama administration.
That at least lets me know what they were thinking.
What's your guess?
Is Trump going to pull out of it?
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
He's been wanting to pull out.
He's been wanting to pull out of it since before he was president.
We've discussed the issue since I've left the White House.
He's still adamant.
It's the worst deal in history.
It makes Munich look like a good deal.
And this is nuclear weapons, Drew.
Nuclear weapons.
Billions of dollars.
So if I had to bet, absolutely.
After what Netanyahu did, Netanyahu's given us a slam dunk.
Total slam.
And the fact that Tommy and Rhodes can't actually get their act together, one of them is tweeting, oh, we knew this before the deal.
We knew they were lying.
And Veter says, none of this is true.
Bibby's making this stuff up.
Hey, guys, you better get your story straight, okay?
Because either you're lying or somebody else is, and you can't get your act together.
So this is just fun to watch.
You have to, whoever, whether you voted for him or not, give the man credit.
Donald Trump has made politics fun again.
Well, that is for sure.
I hope he appreciates you.
You're the best spokesman he has.
There's no question about it.
Send me your book, Why We Fight, Recovering America's Will to Win, so we can talk again when it comes up.
We will.
We will.
It's already available on pre-order, but you will get the first signed copy.
Thank you very much.
Great to see you, Sebastian.
Thanks very much.
Thanks, Drew.
Boy, I really, I mean it.
I hope Trump wakes up every day and says that guy's name because he really is something.
You know, I just have to play one thing before we go into the final.
Before we go into the final stuff I like before the Clavenless Week.
Elizabeth Warren has always been, you know, has been accused of using her fake Indian heritage to get ahead.
And Trump calls her Pocahontas and she keeps saying this is racist.
So Tucker Carlson had on a descendant of Pocahontas, Debbie White Dove Pareco, and asked her if Elizabeth Warren should take a DNA test to prove she has Indian blood.
Here was her response.
I respect Senator Warren as a U.S. Senator, but I just wish she'd take the DNA test.
And if she took the DNA test, then that would end a lot of this controversy.
And if she was part American Indian, I'd be the first one to welcome her into our heritage.
Well, amen.
Maybe she's related to Pocahontas too.
I mean, weird things have happened.
Why do you think she won't take the DNA test?
It doesn't cost much.
I know, I know.
Maybe she's afraid she's not.
You know, it's not right.
It's offensive that she doesn't take it, but you can't, you know, make somebody take something if they don't want to.
So I feel like as Mueller, you know, has questions that he wants to ask Donald Trump, I have questions that I want to put before Elizabeth Warren.
Here's my list.
Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn horn?
Can you sing with the voices of the mountain?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
All right.
She can't answer those questions.
I want to know why.
All right, final stuff I like.
Stuff I like.
This place is insane.
I got to get out of here.
So here's some, you know, these are some conservative works to tide you over while I'm gone.
Some of my favorite conservative works.
First of all, I think I mentioned this on the show, but here's a little clip from Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley, full of language, lots of sex, all kinds of things.
If you don't like that, you shouldn't watch it.
But A, it's hilarious.
And B, it is incredible in its conservatism.
Here is a clip that was just from like a week ago when they have a guy who runs a gay dating site, a sweep, you know, a swipe left kind of gay dating site, like what is that one?
Grinder or something like that.
But his problem in Silicon Valley is that he believes in Jesus Christ.
And they've exposed him for it, and that's what their problem is.
Listeners.
I'm sorry, Richard.
You know that my default position is blind support of whatever you do, but this was not your best moment.
Guys, it can't be that big of a deal, right?
Why should it be?
America loves Christians.
Muslims are the enemy.
Well, that's true in most of America, but not in Silicon Valley, sadly.
Sadly, you can be openly polyamorous, and people here will call you brave.
You can put micro doses of LSD in your cereal, and people will call you pioneer.
But the one thing you cannot be is a Christian.
I find their theology to be illegitimate, and it's clear that they're the source of the majority of the world's problems.
But f Richard, even I wouldn't just out a Christian like that.
Yeah, it was kind of fed up.
Cool, man.
Thanks.
Hey, I thought he wasn't supposed to chime in.
Yeah, he's not.
But based on his merits, I'll allow that one.
Guys, come on.
It can't be that bad.
Richard, what the f ⁇ did you do over there?
So I just got off the phone with Colin over at K-Hole.
And while he loves your tech, he's considering blowing up the deal.
What?
Just because one of my CEOs is Christian?
It freaks people out in the valley.
Okay, so what do you want me to do, Monica?
You want me to drop Dee Dee just because he's Christian?
The company's not Christian.
It's gay.
Which is fine, right?
Yeah, no, that plays great.
It's just, it's good conservative satire.
It's about capitalism.
It's about how all the guys pretending they're going to change the world are really just wild capitalists out to make a buck.
Another thing that'll tide you over, go back and re-watch 300.
300 is conservative porn.
And I got to say, like when it came out, there were all these people writing, oh, you know, the guys have their shirts off.
It's gay.
And I was thinking, it's Greece.
Of course, everybody's gay.
It's Greece.
But the thing is, it really was not.
And the depiction of Xerxes, the Persian god-king who is trying to take over Greece as this basically effeminate slave driver meeting the rugged macho Leonidas from Sparta is unbelievably politically incorrect.
I watched it twice the week it came out.
I watch it again from time to time.
Take another look.
You Greeks take pride in your logic.
I suggest you imply it.
End andrew: The Score00:03:02
Consider the beautiful lands you so vigorously defend.
I treat reduced to ash and my whim.
Consider the fear of your women.
Clearly, you don't know our women.
I might as well have marched them up here, judging by what I've seen.
You have many slaves, Xerxes.
A few warriors.
It won't be long before they fear my spears more than your whips.
It's not the last they fear.
God, it's like, it is a pretty, it's a pretty impressive, and it's a textbook on libertarian conservatism.
Finally, if you like novels instead of TV or movies, a simple plan by Scott Smith.
I have no idea what his politics is.
I'm pretty sure he is an atheist nihilist, basically.
But a simple plan.
If you saw the movie, I thought the movie was okay, but the book is one of the best crime novels of my lifetime.
It is a fantastic crime novel, and it really is about the way evil multiplies, about how once you sin and you go down that path, it just gets worse and worse and worse.
And it really is an amazing, amazing, great read.
And finally, I just want to remember Forrest Gump, which I believe is a great pro-American film and has one of the finest scores.
Sylvestri, I guess, is the name who did it.
I just love the score, so we're going to end with that.
I'm Andrew Clavin.
This is the Andrew Clavin Show.
I'll be back in a week.
For those of you who survive, for the rest of you, send your children so that they can hear it once you're gone.
I'll see you later.
a good time.
Andrew Klavan show is produced by Robert Sterling.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring, senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
Technical producer, Austin Stevens.
Edited by Alex Zingaro.
Audio is mixed by Mike Cormina.
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And our animations are by Cynthia Angulo and Jacob Jackson.