Ep. 814 dissects the DOJ IG report’s scathing critique of FISA abuses tied to the Steele dossier, with Horowitz demanding stricter predication standards while Comey and Brennan dismissed it as exoneration—despite their own past misconduct. The episode contrasts Democrats’ baseless Ukraine impeachment push against Trump’s alleged pressure (denied by Kyiv) with Obama-era spying on his campaign, exposing media bias like ABC’s misrepresentation of Horowitz’s findings. John Durham’s counter-investigation reveals deeper flaws, tying the scandal to the "deep state’s" resistance to Trump’s foreign policy realignment—prioritizing China over NATO—a shift Walter Russell Mead frames as necessary but met with establishment opposition. The segment ties this to Rome’s decline, defending Trump’s troop withdrawals like Afghanistan while mocking career officials’ anti-democratic resistance. [Automatically generated summary]
Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz has issued his report on the Obama administration's spying operation on the Trump campaign, and he says it was great.
In fact, Horowitz says as spying operations go, it was even better than that time he and his pals climbed to the top of the apple tree in his backyard and peeked in through Mrs. Willoughby's bedroom window while she was undressing.
Ah, those were great days, says Horowitz, back when we were all young and before the FBI went around spying on people for political reasons.
People involved in the spying campaign are already claiming the report exonerates them by saying they didn't do what they so, so obviously did.
Former FBI director and hysterical old woman James Comey issued a statement saying, quote, I told you those lousy coppers would never take me alive.
They got nothing on me, see, nothing.
So eat lead, John Law, unquote.
Comey then fired a Tommy gun into the air, jumped on the running board of his 1930s Packard, and sped away at a hot 40 miles an hour, daring the screws to catch him if they could.
Communist CIA mole John Brennan also said the report exonerated him.
In an interview given in an abandoned parking garage while wearing a fake mustache, Brennan said, quote, you never saw me and you never heard this, but if I were to say something about this, and I never would, I would say that this is all the work of a brilliant Russian agent, because who but a brilliant Russian agent would cast suspicion on a sitting president by feeding misinformation to the public that would help his enemies tie up the government with fake investigations for years.
Only an absolute genius Russian agent could pull something like that off if you get what I'm saying, wink-wink.
Brennan then faded into the shadows and was gone.
The IG report will be followed by the John Durham report, after which all these sinister bastards will hopefully be arrested as they so obviously deserve.
Trigger warning, I'm Andrew Clavin, and this is the Andrew Clavin Show.
I'm the hunky-dunky, life is tickety-boo.
Birds are winging, also singing, hunky-dunky-dee-dee.
Ship-shaped, ipsy-topsy, the world is a-biddy-zing.
It's a wonderful day, hooray, hooray, it makes me want to sing.
Oh, hooray, hooray.
Oh, hooray, hooray.
So this IG report is sort of a magic mirror in which we can see the dishonesty of the left-wing establishment, which of course includes the news media.
What the report says is that the DOJ Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, in an extensive in-house review, could not find proof that the FBI spying operation on the Trump campaign was started for political reasons.
In other words, no one confessed to him and he found no smoking documents.
The FBI fulfilled the requirements for beginning the spying operation, even though the IG himself says those requirements set too low a bar and should be revised.
But, and it's a butt so big it could belong to a Kardashian, but the Fed's abuse of the FISA system, which gave the spying operation legal cover, was so extensive that even he, the IG Horowitz, had to wonder what the hell Comey and his Comey cronies thought they were up to.
That's what the report says.
And any headline that tells you Horowitz found the investigation justified is distorting it.
Anyone who tells you it exonerates James Comey is lying, including maybe especially James Comey.
And anyone who tells you Trump has been out of line in his accusations against Obama's FBI is way jumping the gun, especially because the Attorney General and his investigator, Durham, are hinting that their more widespread and extensive investigation has found more damning evidence than Horowitz did or than Horowitz was looking for.
Now, remember, this report is about a Democrat administration, the Obama administration, spying on a Republican presidential campaign.
So along with any actual lies in the press, there's the omnipresent lie of bias and emphasis.
If, for instance, just imagine this for a minute, if this were, say, a Republican president who merely mentioned it might be nice to get some information on the corruption of a political opponent, why the Democrats might even call for him to be impeached.
I know, it's ridiculous to even suppose, but they might do it.
But when we have a Democrat, Obama, running an actual spying operation on a Republican candidate, well, there's no proof it was politically motivated, so let's move on to impeaching the president.
All of this brings us back to something we shouldn't forget, and especially young people shouldn't forget it, because a lot of young people don't really remember the Obama administration.
Obama was an utter failure, and his utter failure exposed both the failure of the academic left-wing philosophy that has underpinned the left for years and the deep dishonesty of the press who has supported the left and covered for them.
A good deal of the left's hatred of Donald Trump is self-hatred.
It's an attempt by Democrats and the press to cover up Obama's utter, complete failure as president, to cover it up not just from the public, but from themselves.
Now, some of Obama's domestic failure was covered up for him by the fact that the economy was bound to come back from the 2008 crash during his administration.
But it would have come back much faster and much bigger as it's doing right now if Obama hadn't failed to encourage and help its return.
Obama failed to make America more unified.
He failed to put our racial division behind us.
In fact, he made that division worse.
He failed to act with integrity, as when he used the IRS to silence critics during an election, when he lied about Benghazi, and when he used the FBI to spy on an opponent's campaign.
Obama's Presidency Failure00:02:32
And of course, his failure in the Middle East was mind-boggling and made vivid by the rise of ISIS.
All of this failure happened while the press was going into raptures over his success, not just because he was one of them politically, but also because they're racists and they couldn't see past the glorious brown color of his skin to the incompetence and political abuses caused by the content of his character.
There are many things the Democrats and the press can't forgive Trump for, but more than anything, they can't forgive Trump for exposing with his success and proving with his success how completely Obama failed and how much that failure represented the failure of everything the left is and everything they believe.
And we're going to talk about all this and about the impeachment attempt, which has just come off, which, by the way, is their way of trying to get this IG report off the front page.
But first, let us talk about something far more pleasant, my Vancero watch.
This is my watch.
It is beautiful.
I love my watch.
I wear it all the time and it really is.
It's stylish.
It's nice.
It works great.
And this week, Vancero is having a massive holiday sale.
Everything on their site is on sale.
There's no exclusions.
Products do sell out.
Don't wait to buy.
Head over to vancheroatches.com slash Clavin to see my favorite picks and take advantage of their biggest sale of the year.
Vancero has watches for every style and price point, so you're sure to find one that suits you and you can engrave any message on it you choose, your favorite quote, the name of the person you want to give it to, the anniversary date.
It's the best possible gift because it's tailored with a personal touch.
And you know, with these prices, you can even give it some of them as a stocking stuffer, which is a wonderful thing to find in your stocking.
It's great to get a watch for Christmas.
Everybody loves watches and these are just really nice looking.
It's a good deal, too good to pass up.
Go to vince watches.com forward slash Clavin and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout.
Vancero is making it so easy for you to shop with a huge discount.
Go to my link, buy a Vancero.
It's time.
It's kind of a punt, them.
V-I-N-C-E-R-O watches.com forward slash things.
It's like they read my mind.
All right.
Remember too that the mailbag is tomorrow.
You want your questions answered.
You got to subscribe.
First, you got to do that.
You got to scream like that.
That's the first thing.
You have to do that or you don't get your questions in.
Then subscribe to dailywire.com.
Go to the podcast section.
Go to the Andrew Clavin podcast and hit that little mailbag in there.
And you can ask me anything you want.
Ask about religion.
Nadler's Obstruction Argument00:15:22
Ask about politics.
Ask about your personal life.
I will answer.
And all my answers are guaranteed 100% correct and will change your life.
For the better, that's more like about 30%.
But you will get answers, and they're all right.
So the Democrats want this IG report off the front page as quickly as possible.
Because remember, this is a sitting president, his administration, and Obama had to know about these investigations.
A sitting administration spying on a Republican campaign, a sitting Democrat administration.
This is a massive everything in this report about how badly this report was done.
And it really, it just absolutely lambastes Comey and the FBI, even though it says, well, they had enough to start the investigation and he couldn't find any evidence that it was politically motivated.
He rips them to pieces.
So the longer this is on the front page, the longer people are going to start to say, wait a minute, this doesn't exonerate anybody.
So the Democrats moved quickly to put forward their impeachment, what they call their articles of impeachment, what I just call kind of vague maunderings.
Here is the lovely, absolutely beautiful Jerry Nadler.
What an attractive man.
Cut number one, telling what the articles of impeachment are.
Today, in service to our duty to the Constitution and to our country, the House Committee on the Judiciary is introducing two articles of impeachment charging the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, with committing high crimes and misdemeanors.
The first article is for abuse of power.
It is an impeachable offense for the president to exercise the powers of his public office to obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring or injuring the national interest.
This gives rise to the second article of impeachment for obstruction of Congress.
Here, too, we see a familiar pattern in President Trump's misconduct.
A president who declares himself above accountability, above the American people, and above Congress's power of impeachment, which is meant to protect against threats to our Democratic institutions, is a president who sees himself as above the law.
Oh!
A bull artist.
It is actually hard to parse how much crap that is, okay?
I mean, this really, and look, the Democrats know they're walking into a buzzlock.
They know that they blew this and they just can't get out of it.
But think about this for a moment.
First, there's no crime that they're charging with.
Remember how they started to try and get bribery to float?
They thought they were going to float the bribery charge because everybody knows what bribery is.
Everybody knows that's an actual crime.
They're charging him with advancing his personal political goals at the expense of the nation, which basically every president does at some point, right?
I mean, we remember, we all remember Barack Obama leaning over to the president of Russia and saying, tell Vlad, tell my pal Vlad, you know, that once this next election is over, I'll have a lot more flexibility.
I'll be able to remove our nuclear defenses from Europe.
Yeah, I mean, you know, if that was impeachable, then somebody would have impeached.
But of course, it's not impeachable.
It's part of politics that we know they're doing this.
And there's no proof Trump did it.
There's simply no proof Trump did it.
The Ukrainian president has repeatedly said, I felt no pressure.
I didn't even know the aid was being held up.
I didn't know anything of this was going on.
And the aid was released, and no investigation into Hunter Biden and Joe Biden was started.
So the whole thing doesn't exist.
It's just happening in Jerry Nadler's imagination.
And the other thing about this is obstruction of Congress.
Now, you notice there, too, it's not obstruction of justice, which is an actual crime.
Obstruction, what does it mean for a president to obstruct Congress?
It's one of the things presidents do, right?
This is why we have separation of powers.
The powers are supposed to get in each other's way.
So what they're complaining about is that Trump wouldn't participate in this goat rodeo, this hoax, this witch hunt.
He wouldn't participate in it.
And they never took him to court.
You know, when you get a subpoena, you can challenge that.
Trump had the absolute right to challenge it.
He had the absolute right not to participate.
They could have taken him to court.
And if the court had said he had to participate, he would have had to have participated.
And Trump has always obeyed the courts.
He always has.
So what they're essentially saying is by exercising his rights, by insisting on due process, by calling them out for due process, what he obstructed Congress from doing was acting in the time scheme they wanted to act on because the election is coming.
And basically people already, people are starting to say, well, why don't we just decide?
You know, make your case and we'll go to the polls.
Remember the voters, the voters, who were the guys who sent Trump there in the first place?
But they're not going to do that, right?
They're not going to do that.
So they're charging him with things that don't exist as crime.
So here's Trump's response, Trump's tweets.
Nadler just said that I pressured Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 election.
These are his tweets.
Ridiculous.
And he knows that's not true.
Both the president and foreign minister of Ukraine said many times there was no pressure.
Nadler and the Dens know this, but refuse to acknowledge witch hunt, all caps exclamation mark.
So, you know, Republicans, of course, are just absolutely blasting this.
And they actually kind of look like they're having a good time at this point because the Democrats just failed so miserably.
I mean, yesterday, their lawyer was testifying.
The lawyer, the lawyer for the Democrats was testifying.
It was like, you know, and sir, he's questioning himself.
And did you believe the president was guilty?
Yes, I did.
I actually, it was absolutely insane.
And Matt Gates went after him, said he asked him, are you non-partisan?
And the guy says yes.
And then Gates just ripped him to pieces.
Do we have that?
Yeah, cut 10.
Mr. Goldman, same question.
Do you make political donations?
I do, sir.
I think it's very important.
Matter of fact, you've given tens of thousands of dollars to Democrats, right?
Sir, I think it's very important to support candidates for office.
I think our foreigners.
Have you given over $100,000?
I just want to know the number.
I don't really care the basis.
Have you given more than $100,000 to the US?
I don't care about it.
The basis.
I just want the number.
So it's tens of thousands of people.
I think there's a number of numbers.
Do you know how much money Mr. Burke has given Democrats?
I don't know.
Would it surprise you if it's more than $100,000?
Mr. Gates, I'm here to talk about this review.
So you gave tens of thousands, and Mr. Burke gave hundreds of, or more than $100,000.
Do you think if you'd given more money, you might have been able to ask questions and answer them like Mr. Burke did?
I guess it's something you're still pondering.
And you said, nothing in the dossier is proven false, but in fact, the dossier said that there was a Russian consulate in Miami when there isn't.
The dossier said that Michael Cohen had a meeting in Prague when he didn't.
The dossier said that Michael Cohen's wife was Russian.
She's in fact Ukrainian.
So as we sit here today, where you've, I guess, got a tweet mentioning a P-tape, presenting yourself not as a partisan, hired by the Democrats to pursue the president.
Do you regret this tweet?
I mean, the whole thing has been so embarrassing.
Nobody's watching it, but when you do watch it, the Democrats.
The only thing I've probably been wrong about, since I have to bring this up because I brag about the fact that almost everything I say actually unspools, as I say, it's going to.
Now and again, I get things slightly wrong.
I get the future slightly wrong.
I have said that they're walking into Cocaine Mitch's House of Horrors and that Mitch McConnell can drag this impeachment trial out and call all these witnesses and all this stuff.
But listening to what they're saying, I think that what he's actually thinking is, no, you know, don't put Susan Collins and Mitt Romney.
Don't put them on the dime and make them look bad to their constituents, anybody who's going to vote for them.
Let's get this over with quickly.
It's such a weak sauce thing that he'll get it over with quickly and then just take it to the public, to the voters.
And even pollsters who were saying that Trump was going to lose the swing states, that he was not doing what he needed to do to spread his base, even those pollsters are now saying, well, no, this has actually moved independently.
Well, of course it has.
Of course it has.
I mean, who is not embarrassed by this?
Who's not ashamed of the Democrats for this?
All they had to do, all they had to do was work with Trump and compromise with Trump and get the, you know, Trump is such a dealmaker.
He would have given them so much.
They could have gotten so much.
They could have done so much, but they didn't.
And then you've got this other thing, which is the clear political motives behind this.
Here is another thing that Nadler said.
By the way, they didn't take any questions.
They ran away after making this announcement.
But here's another thing that Nadler said about why they have to impeach.
This is Cut 11.
Unlike President Trump, we understand that our duty first and foremost is to protect the Constitution and to protect the interests of the American people.
That is why we must take this solemn step today.
Elections are the cornerstone of democracy and are foundational to the rule of law.
But the integrity of our next election is at risk from a president who has already sought foreign interference in the 2016 and 2020 elections and who consistently puts himself above country.
That is why we must act now.
So I sometimes feel bad for making fun of the way this guy looks, but it's just that his looks actually reflect the corruption and dishonesty that he just radiates, you know.
I mean, what he's saying is we have to impeach this guy to protect the integrity of the next election because he colluded with the Russians on the last election, a charge which has been completely exploded.
I mean, it is amazing.
These guys, they will not get out of their bubble.
Their base is in the bubble.
Their base is on TV.
It's the press.
So they think they're still convincing people.
It is an amazing thing to say, we have to do this because we lied about him last time.
So we have to lie about him this time or else he'll do what we lied about him doing before this time again and we'll have to lie about that.
You know, it's like an insane bubble of lies.
So and this IG report has exploded all of it, the Inspector General report.
You know, I want to look just a little more closely at what he actually said because of the way it's being played on the press that he somehow has exonerated people.
I mean, I have to say the New York Times ran it with a Democrat slant and they basically gave more play on the front page to an analysis that basically said, oh, Trump was so wrong about all this.
But their actual news reporting, they said that Horowitz found the investigation into Trump justified, which is not what he said.
This is what he said.
He said, we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced their decision to open the investigation.
Okay, that's what he said.
We didn't find.
And remember, this is a guy who's doing an in-house investigation.
He's interviewing the people who actually did the thing.
So if nobody comes forward and said, yeah, I overheard this guy in the men's room saying we're going to get Trump, or he doesn't find a piece of paper saying that, he's got nothing.
But he goes on to say, our role in this review was not to second guess discretionary judgments by department personnel about whether to open an investigation or specific judgment calls made during the course of an investigation where those decisions complied with or were authorized by department rules, policies, or procedures.
In other words, if they were operating within the rules, they didn't hunt them down.
They didn't cross-examine them.
They didn't really put them in the fire and question them.
They basically took their word for it.
And then he goes on to say, so he says they reached the low, low bar it takes to start an investigation.
They reached the low bar, which was that Papadopoulos had that conversation in Australia where he made some comment they didn't like, and they just launched into what was a much, much bigger investigation than we exactly knew.
And he says, he says the guidelines do not provide heightened predication.
Predication being this word that you'll now hear a million times, but means that they had a reason for doing what they were doing.
So the guidelines do not provide heightened predication standards for sensitive matters or allegations potentially impacting constitutionally protected activity.
So in other words, what he's saying, he wants this reviewed and he wants a change.
He's saying if you're going after your political opponent with the FBI, the rules ought to be pretty stern, right?
They ought to be pretty stern before you can start that kind of investigation.
And they're not, okay?
So he's already, so he's saying, yes, we had this, they had this slight reason to start the investigation and they started it.
And then he goes on to list the errors and omissions they made in getting the FISA warrant that helped them spy, especially on Carter Page.
And it's an amazing list.
I mean, first of all, it's 17.
He says there are 17, but what it really is, is it's seven things they did wrong with the first warrant, right?
The first warrant application.
And then 10 more things they did with the pursuant warrant applications, and they never corrected the first seven.
So they didn't tell them that the Steele dossier had been debunked.
They didn't tell them, oh, the big one, kind of a bombshell, was that they, well, first, they didn't tell them that, he says, we determined the Crossfire Hurricane Team's receipt of Steele's election reporting.
That's the famous Steele dossier, right?
It played a central and essential role in the FBI and department's decision to seek the FISA order.
So the Steele dossier that they ultimately knew was debunked.
They could not substantiate anything in it that was specific to the dossier.
They couldn't substantiate any of it.
The sub-sources were debunked.
The whole thing was debunked, but it played a central and essential role.
And I just want to go back.
Molly Hemingway writes about this in the Federalist today, that remember Devin Nunes put out that report and the press was like horrified.
The press was horrified that Nunes would put out a report where he said a salacious and unverified dossier, this is a quote, formed an essential part of the application to secure a warrant against the Trump campaign.
So Adam Schiff put out his counter report saying FBI and DOJ officials did not omit material information from the FISA warrant.
The DOJ made only narrow use of information from Steele sources about Page's specific activities in 2016.
So that's Adam Schiff lying once again, which is what I'm saying.
Adam Schiff's Persistent Lies00:09:24
Again, these voices in my head, they keep telling me what I have to say to you.
I can't stop.
But no, I mean, this is Schiff lying and lying and lying again, right?
So they left out that the still dossier was debunked.
But here's what I think is a bombshell, okay?
Carter Page, they basically told the FISA people, the FISA courts, that they suspected Carter Page of being a Russian asset.
But they knew, and they didn't tell the FISA court, that Page was spying on the Russians for the CIA.
Now, Horowitz doesn't mention the CIA, but Carter Page says it was the CIA.
He says that another American agency was using Page to spy on the Russians.
This stuff was so bad.
This abuse was so bad that here's what Horowitz says.
He says, given the extensive compliance failures we identified in this review, we believe that additional Office of Investigation oversight work is required to assess the FBI's compliance with department and FBI FISA-related policies that seek to protect the civil liberties of U.S. persons.
They need more oversight, right?
Because he doesn't even know why.
This is so bad, he can't say why they were doing it.
He's saying, I didn't find any evidence.
I wasn't looking for evidence.
If they were within the rules, I wasn't looking for evidence that they were going after Trump.
That's what he says.
I wasn't looking for it, so I didn't find it because they were operating within the bad rules that need to be revised.
But they were so bad.
We need to really investigate and see if they're always this bad or if it was just something they did here.
So here's what John Durham.
John Durham is William Barr, the Attorney General's appointed investigator, who remember, he has the right to go overseas.
He has the right to talk to the Australians who started this whole thing.
He has the right to talk to Ukrainians.
He says, I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff.
However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department.
Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S., based on the evidence collected to date.
And while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report's conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.
And Barr backed him up, saying, in my view, they were operating on the thinnest of suspicions that were insufficient to justify the steps taken.
This is pretty extraordinary for Durham to announce this.
Durham is a guy who has respect on both sides.
So now they're trying to undermine that.
And now you've got like Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe casting aspersions on Bill Barr, casting aspersions, and Schumer, Chuck Schumer, casting aspersions on John Durham.
But this is a respected investigator saying, no, Look, I'm a cop.
I'm not an in-house guy trying to find out if all the eyes were dotted.
I'm finding out the real thing that's going on and you're not right.
And there's a report that he's saying this to correct a report that sources were leaking to the Washington Post.
But it's extraordinary for her to do it, him to do it.
Now, here's the other thing that has to come out.
This makes James Comey look so bad.
I mean, Comey has been repeatedly busted by Michael Horowitz.
He has been repeatedly called out.
And every single time he has said he is vindicated, here is Comey on TV.
This report just shows his people to be absolutely out of control and incompetent.
At the very least, at the very least, they're incompetent.
They may be corrupt.
That'll be up to Durham to find.
But at the very least, this was incompetent, reckless, dishonest, out of control.
Here's Comey's reaction.
On the big smear levied by Donald Trump about some sort of conspiracy or political bias, there was nothing.
It was all made up.
Two years of sitting silently at the FBI while you're lied about.
And finally, the truth is out.
It was lies.
There was no treason.
There was no conspiracy.
There was no tapping of Trump's wires.
There was no putting informants in the campaign.
It was all nonsense.
And the FBI finally has its day with the American people, and I hope they pay attention to it.
Good people believe something that a president of the United States says, or an attorney general, or a news personality says.
And so they've bought that, and it's going to be hard to walk that back.
My goal is to have as many of the American people as possible learn from this and learn that the FBI is the way you'd want it to be.
It's not on anybody's side.
You know what?
I still think that guy's an idiot.
You know, the great McGurn, Bill McGurn, in the Wall Street Journal, just takes Comey to pieces today, just reduces him to the flaming pile of dishonesty he is.
And he says when an earlier Inspector General report called him insubordinate for having, quote, intentionally concealed from his Justice Department bosses his plans for a press conference exonerating Hillary Clinton of criminal wrongdoing over her use of a private email server to send classified material, Mr. Comey's answer was to write an op-ed in the New York Times under the headline, this report says I was wrong, but that's good for the FBI.
Then in August 2019, Mr. Horowitz's office released still another report, this one dealing with Mr. Comey's leaking of memos detailing confidential conversations he had with President Trump.
In addition to highlighting Mr. Comey's dishonesty toward the FBI agents dispatched to his home to retrieve the memos, the Inspector General scored Mr. Comey for setting a dangerous example, quote unquote, for the Bureau.
Later, Mr. Horowitz testified that he'd recommended Mr. Comey be prosecuted, right?
How did Comey respond by ignoring the larger indictment of his FBI leadership and focusing only on Mr. Horowitz's finding that they'd unearthed no evidence Mr. Comey had leaked classified information?
Comey said, I don't need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a sorry we lied about you would be nice.
Come on!
And Comey, you know, Comey, he really is.
He may be the worst.
I mean, they have a lot of stuff about J. Edgar Hoover and his abuses, but Comey may be the worst head of the FBI that ever was head of the FBI.
He really may be the worst.
And the fact that he is still, they're still hauling him out on MSNBC and saying, what a good job you did spying on Donald Trump is embarrassing for even for MSNBC.
You know, I don't mind MSNBC being on the left or openly on the left.
That's utterly fair.
It's not like the New York Times.
It's not like CNN lying about who.
It's not like ABC.
Listen to how ABC reported on this report.
This is eight.
After years of President Trump calling it a deep state, saying the FBI was anti-Trump when it launched an investigation into possible ties between his campaign and Russia, tonight the long-awaited independent report, the Justice Department's Inspector General, revealing there was no evidence of a witch hunt, determining the FBI had enough evidence pointing to either a federal crime or a threat to national security or both to justify the probe at the height of the election.
And that the agents who made the final decision to launch the investigation were not influenced by political bias.
A damn liar, man.
That's so true.
Has anyone pointed out to ABC that Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself?
Because they're still bearing that story.
Even NBC, even left-wing NBC, gave a much more honest account of the report and really talked about how Horowitz just excoriated the FBI.
I mean, it is just an embarrassment.
And just to remind you, just to remind you, this is a Democrat administration launching an investigation into a Republican presidential campaign.
If this were the reverse, we know, we know, because all Donald Trump did was say to the Ukraine, to say to Ukraine, you know, maybe take a look into Hunter Biden and Joe Biden's corruption.
That's all he did.
And they're trying to impeach him for it.
They're trying to overturn an election over that.
We know how they would react.
It's not conjecture.
They're doing it right now.
And yet the fact that the Obama administration actively spied on a Republican campaign, it's like, well, we didn't catch them doing, you know, so I guess it's okay.
I mean, it's just embarrassing.
Hey, you know, if you want to be in the mailbag tomorrow, you have to subscribe.
And we've now got, I think it's 57, 58 levels of subscription that you can, no, it's like three or four.
But anyway, for as little as 10 bucks a month, you get our articles ad-free.
You get access to all of our live broadcasts, our full show library, select bonus content, and our exclusive Daily Wire app, which is great.
And that will get you right into the mailbag.
Just 10 bucks a month will get you into the mailbag.
If you choose the new all-access plan, you'll get all that.
Plus, we'll let you out of the mailbag so you can run free and you'll get the legendary leftist tears tumbler.
You've got to have it.
Plus, we have a brand new Ask Me Anything style discussion feature that allows you to engage our hosts, writers, and special guests on a weekly basis.
So subscribe right now while we are switching over to DailyWire.com, where you can watch the entire show if you're a subscriber.
But we've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
over to dailywire.com.
Trump's Call on Foreign Policy00:12:27
You know, there's an article in the Wall Street Journal, Walter Russell Mead, who I think is the best writer on foreign affairs right now.
He is kind of the new Charles Krauthammer, I think.
He talks about the underlying issue in the State Department, in the foreign policy deep state, if you will.
The underlying issue, why they're so upset, why they're so angry, why the Democrats are able to use all these deep state actors to come forward and attack Donald Trump.
And it's because Trump is changing the rules.
He's changing the direction of our foreign policy.
And Meade writes, much of the American foreign policy establishment, both inside and outside the government, is liberal, internationalist, and Atlanticist, meaning the Atlantic Ocean.
They believe that America's chief task is to build a world order on liberal principles and that America's chief allies are the NATO and European Union countries that share our convictions.
They see Russia as the primary opponent of this effort and therefore of the U.S. Moscow's efforts to intervene in European and American domestic politics threaten the cohesion of the EU and the liberal democratic principles for which the West stands.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea are direct attacks on liberal order and the Atlantic world.
From this perspective, the war in Ukraine matters to the whole world.
Now, the only thing he's leaving out here is just remember that they keep accusing Trump of holding up aid, but he was the only one who gave them the aid.
Obama did not give lethal aid to the Ukraine with which to fight their Russian enemies.
Trump did.
Obama sent them blankets and I think maybe a couple of little candies.
But Trump sent them weapons to fight with and he held them up because he doesn't like foreign aid.
But Trump says, Meade goes on to say, among Trump's most consistent features, his administration's most consistent features, is a belief that the U.S. should change priorities and change the priority it gives to the different theaters in world politics.
From their perspective, the Trump perspective, the center of gravity of American policy must move from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific.
They have to start dealing with China.
Latin America deserves more attention as a growing social and political crisis creates larger threats in the hemisphere, of which the chaos on the southern border may be only a foretaste.
After Latin America, the threats of jihadist violence and Iranian expansionism make the Middle East the next highest priority for the Trump administration.
Europe, America's highest priority for much of the Cold War, has fallen to fourth place.
For the Trump administration and many of his Republican allies, Russia, because it's weaker and poorer than China, comes after Beijing on America's list of geopolitical concerns.
So you see what he's saying, that this is an actual change, and I think a much needed change to an outdated State Department focus, okay, from Europe, the post-the Cold War alliance with Europe and hatred of Russia to a new focus on jihadis, our own hemisphere, where we know that South America and Central America and Mexico are falling apart and it threatens us and to China, of course.
So to me, though, the thing is this, the thing that he leaves out, this is not what he's dealing with, is it's Trump's call.
Trump may be wrong.
You may say, no, no, we still should have the Cold War coalition.
I know right-wingers, conservatives who feel that way.
The Cold War coalition was good.
Europe is still our only friend, our only trusted friend.
You know, we should stick with that, make sure we're fighting with Russia and all this.
Many conservatives feel that way.
But the point to me is that it's Trump's call.
Trump is the elected president.
And this whole vision of an America whose job it is to turn the entire world into a vision of itself, which I think is a good American goal if we do it in the proper way.
But that is an imperial idea that puts the State Department above the people.
That's the way empire works.
When you want an empire, your republic falls.
That's what happened to Rome as its empire increased.
Its republic collapsed because the people running the country are focused on foreign countries and foreign power and global ideas, and they think we are in their way, right?
They think that we are in the way of their expertise.
What conservatives like me are saying is the people's power outstrips, outranks your expertise.
We don't care about your expertise.
We'll listen to you, and if we think you're right, we will allow you to go forward.
But when we say you're wrong, we win.
When we send a new president in to do a new thing, we win.
There is no Trump-violated foreign policy.
Trump sets the foreign policy.
There is no, oh, we had a consensus among the agencies.
We don't care.
It's our country.
It's our country.
We hired you.
You work for us.
And if we don't like you and we send somebody to do something else, you either do it or you resign, which is a perfectly honorable thing to do.
I can't follow these foreign policy directions.
I'll resign.
But this conspiracy to overthrow the president, and that is what it is, or if it's not a conspiracy, it is at least a conspiracy of interests, right?
So often these things that look like conspiracies are just conspiracies of interest.
The foreign policy people hate the president.
The Democrats don't know how to get rid of him because he's so successful.
And so the Democrats are using the foreign policy people who hate him to make it look as if Trump has somehow violated the Constitution, which he clearly, clearly has not.
So you see how these things all kind of come together.
Again, sorry.
Again, they come together into a conspiracy of interest.
They come together into this idea that these people get.
And I've talked to people in the State Department, and there's no question but that they have this idea.
They have this idea that their expertise is so great, is so important, that it trumps our power.
It trumps the power of the people.
And I would say, even if we're wrong, even if Trump is wrong, our freedom trumps their expertise.
You know, I've been trying to get to this, and I haven't been able to, but I'll take a couple of minutes just to talk about it.
The Washington Post has unearthed a confidential trove of government documents that reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence that the war had become unwinnable.
And the thing about this is, I was in Afghanistan for, I can't remember, five or seven days, something like that.
I was traveling a lot of that time, but I think I was there seven days.
But basically, I was embedded with the military for five days.
I came back and said, this war is unwinnable.
We shouldn't be there.
This is ridiculous.
As well as saying how great the military was, what terrific people they were, what a great job they were doing.
It was the policy we couldn't win because the country is a primitive country.
It can't be given a democracy the way there was some hope of doing it in Iraq if they hadn't done it so badly.
This is another failure of Obama.
Obama ran on the idea that Iraq was the wrong war, Afghanistan was the right war, and he was going to win it.
And he didn't even do that.
And he surged him in Afghanistan just to show that he had meant it in his campaign.
It was a stupid thing to do.
And now we're stuck there.
And Trump is right about this.
Trump wants out, but the military people keep saying, no, no, if we leave, it's going to be a disaster.
So my point about this is these guys and their expertise have not been so great.
Their expertise has not been so great.
Their ideas have not been so effective.
Their success has not been so mind-boggling that they couldn't afford to change their minds when the people send a new president in to replace them, in to correct them.
This rebellion against the president, and I understand the president is obstreperous, he's uncommon, he's not your usual politician.
Do what he says.
You know, that's all you have to do.
All you have to do is do your job.
Luckily, this was the classic leftist tears tumbler, so it doesn't spill.
And when it spills, it spills leftist tears, which only make the desk better.
Anyway, again, again, this is the underlying principle: that our freedoms trump their expertise and trump their power.
A final reflection: I went to see Ford versus Ferrari.
I highly, highly recommend it.
It's the story of a partnership between a car maker, Carol Shelby, a visionary car maker, and a driver, Ken Miles.
Carol Shelby, played by, of course, Matt Damon, and Miles, played by Christian Bale.
Two terrific performances.
James Mangold, who directed Logan, does a great job with it.
It's a little long, like all movies.
But here's a scene.
What it's about is about a moment when the Ford company, guided by Lei Acoco, who is back then just a lower executive, a Ford Company, tries to make a car as great as the Ferraris.
And here's the scene where Lei Acoca makes his pitch to Henry Ford II, the grandson.
In the last three years, you and your marketing team have presided over the worst sales slump in U.S. history.
Why exactly should Mr. Ford listen to you?
Because we've been thinking wrong.
Ferrari.
They've won four out of the last five, Laman.
We need to think like Ferrari.
Ferrari makes fewer cars in a year than we make in a day.
We spend more on toilet paper than they do on their entire output.
You want us to think like them.
Enzo Ferrari will go down in history as the greatest car manufacturer of all time.
Why?
Is it because he built the most cars?
It's because of what his cars mean.
That's John Bernfal as Lei Acoca, who just does a great job.
He's vice president.
He was the guy who was the punisher.
He's a really good actor.
I really like him.
He's an old-fashioned tough guy actor.
Josh Lucas is Leo Beebe and Tracy Letz, who does, you should win an Oscar for his depiction of Henry Ford II.
He radiates both insecurity at not being the original Henry Ford and power and the decisiveness at having been in charge.
But what's so good about this picture, besides the performances, especially of Bale and Damon and the relationship of these two men, which is just so creative.
And shows you how the competition and friendship and hatred and envy and anger between two men can be so creative.
What I like about it is it has an absolutely fair take on capitalism.
It shows you how capitalism is creative because of its competitive competitive energies, how it makes men's energies flow into competition and being better and just desiring to do great.
But it also shows you how corporate think can destroy beauty.
It shows you, I mean, Ken Miles, the guy played by Christian Bale, is a full man.
He's a man who just wants to drive the perfect, he just wants to drive the perfect round, the lap around the track.
He's an absolute artist.
And Matt Damon is slowly subsumed into this corporate culture that doesn't understand what that means.
And so it shows you it's culture critical like art is supposed to be, but it's cultural critical by being honest, by showing capitalism in its creative best, but also at its soul-crushing worst.
And it really is an honest depiction of capitalism, why we love it, why we hate it, why we struggle with it.
And it really is terrific.
And it also is a terrific picture of two men.
It shows you, like I said, Miles is a complete man with a wife that he loves and a child that he loves.
It shows you what a power a wife can be in these kinds of situations, how much support she gives, how much inspiration she gives, how much correction she gives to Ken Miles.
And it suggests, it doesn't quite show you what an incomplete man Carol Shelby does.
Matt Damon delivers that incompleteness with his terrific performance, but it doesn't show you, for instance, that he had like seven wives, six or seven wives, and that he clearly was not a man who was completely together as Ken Miles, who was revered in his profession, was.
Terrific movie.
Don't miss it.
See if you can see it while it's still in the theaters because it's really a big screen film.
Mike's Audio Mix00:01:21
Great stuff.
We'll be back tomorrow with the mailbag.
Get your questions in now.
And that is what you will sound like at the end of the day.
I'm Andrew Clavin.
This is The Andrew Klavan Show.
And if you want to help spread the word, give us a five-star review and also tell your friends to subscribe too.
We're available on Apple podcasts, on Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts.
Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including the Ben Shapiro Show, the Matt Wall Show, and the Michael Knoll Show.
Thanks for listening.
The Andrew Clavin Show is produced by Austin Stevens and directed by Mike Joyner.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
And our supervising producers are Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.
Assistant Director, Pavel Wydowski.
Edited by Adam Sayovitz.
Audio is mixed by Mike Kormina.
Hair and makeup is by Jessua Alvera.
Animations are by Cynthia Ngulo.
And our production assistant is Nick Sheehan.
The Andrew Clavin Show is a Daily Wire production.
Copyright Daily Wire 2019.
If you prefer facts over feelings, aren't offended by the brutal truth, but you can still laugh at the insanity filling our national news cycle, well, tune into the Ben Shapiro Show, where you'll get a whole lot of that and much more.