Donald Trump (3:47)

We have the strong, strongest border anywhere in the world now, maybe even stronger than your border, if you can believe it. We have no people came in last month, Zero. Which is pretty amazing. I'm not even sure I can believe that, but liberals are the ones that do that calculation. So. But we had no people come in a year ago. We had hundreds of thousands of people come in. Hundreds of thousands of people.

Ben Shapiro (4:10)

Well, because Trump has been so successful on this issue, the left has been looking for some sort of horror story to tell. And so they've been telling horror story after horror story. Something terrible is happening at Alligator Alcatraz. The person who was deported as a suspect in MS.13 wasn't in fact an MS.13 suspect he was in fact an innocent Maryland father and it turns out that wasn't true either. Well, this story about the 82 year old Chilean man deported for trying to renew his green card or get a fresh green card because he lost his old one. It turns out it's complete bunk. The Department of Homeland Security, according to Newsweek, has denied reports an 82 year old Chilean man was deported from the United States to Guatemala after losing his green card. Like it's just not true. The DHS denied it as completely false. Apparently again his family had told that paper Morning Call they couldn't locate him and they were told he died and then he turned up in Guatemala. A DHS statement issued two Newsweek late on Monday said quote, the DHS set the record straight on misleading and false reporting that ICE secretly deported a so called Allentown grandfather to Guatemala. Additionally reporting claimed he died in ICE custody. The DHS said the article had been published without any fact from DHS about major allegations made against law enforcement. The department statement said, quote, the family of the individual allegedly told reporters he was handcuffed and taken by federal officers at a green card appointment in Philadelphia. This claim is completely false. That is no record of the man appearing at any green card appointment in or around the area of Philadelphia on June 20th. Furthermore, says DHS, ICE has not deported Luis Leon, a Chilean national, to Guatemala. ICE's only record of this individual entering the United states is in 2015 from Chile under the Visa Waiver Program. So the idea that he entered in 87 as a refugee from Pinochet is not even true. According to reporting by the Associated Press, the Guatemalan Institute of Migration, which coordinates with ICE on all deportations to Guatemala, claims they have not received anyone matching the name, age or nationality of Luis Leon back into Guatemala. According to the report, says the dhs, the family alleges a woman claiming to be an immigration lawyer called and offered to help them, but did not disclose how she knew about the case. The family claims this individual also told them Leon died in ICE custody. DHS assistant secretary Trisha McLaughlin said ICE never arrested or deported any Luis Leon to Guatemala, nor does ICE disappear. People, this is a categorical lie being peddled to demonize ICE agents who are already facing an 830% increase in assaults against against them. So again, why is this story important? This story is important because it demonstrates how information flows in the modern world, especially in the online world where this went totally viral on X. And why? Why does it work this way? Because X is a machine built for instantaneous response. Mark Twain famously suggested that a lie has its chance to make its way all the way around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on in the morning. That was somewhat true when Mark Twain was saying that back in the late 19th century. But it is much more true now when the online world means that lies are promulgated at an extraordinary rate, a truly extraordinary rate. And it's true over and over and over again. All righty folks. Tons. Coming up on the show. Mahmoud Khalil, you remember him? Trump tried to deport him and then the court said no, no, no, no. He's, he's sort of a moderate. He's not pro terrorist or anything. We have some updates plus Epstein files updates plus President Trump cutting some pretty interesting trade deals. First, how many times have you told someone, if it ain't broke, don't fix it? That's great advice for most things. It is not so much great advice for a cell phone. Over time, the battery life fades, the processor can't keep up. It's fallen in the toilet one or two times. Fortunately, thanks to Pure Talk, your cell phone is something you can replace without feeling guilty when you switch to Pure Talk. This month they're going to give you a Samsung Galaxy 836 for free with a $35 qualifying plans, just 35 bucks a month for talk text data and a free Samsung phone with scratch resistant gorilla glass and battery that last all on America's most dependable 5G network. We use Peer talk all the time here at the office. I use it for business calls. Other people in business use it as well. Coverage is excellent, price is low. What are you waiting for exactly? 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Luckily, Birch Gold has made owning physical gold remarkably straightforward, allowing you to easily convert existing retirement accounts for like IRAs or 401ks into tax sheltered gold IRAs or simply purchase gold for secure home storage. It's super easy. You call them up, ask all of your questions, get the good advice, do the sale. Didn't take me very much time at all and I got all my questions answered. Just text my name. Ben 989-898 Birch Gold will send you a free info kit on gold. There's no obligation, only useful information with an A rating with the Better Business Bureau. Tens of thousands of happy customers including me take control of protecting your savings today of the word Ben to 9898. 98 to get started again that's Ben to 9898. 98. They are definitely the people you want to be in business with when you're buying gold. Check them out right now. Text the word BEN to 9,898 98 to get started. Take for example, the case of Mahmud Khalil. So Mahmud Khalil was freed by a court after the Trump administration tried to deport him. He was, of course, a person who had garnered a student visa under false pretenses. He got a student visa claiming that he was coming to the United States to study, when in fact he was coming to the United States in order to act as a professional agitator. He came to work with Students for Justice in Palestine and various other groups on the Columbia College campus where he was going to promote wild anti Semitism and pro Hamas sentiment. And so Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, this is not what we are looking for in our immigrants. You're gone. And a court said, no, no, no, no, no, you can't do that. He's exercising his free speech rights. And Rubio's like, well, hold up. We get to decide who comes in the country. We have the plenary power at State to decide whether someone is violating the edict that we make the decision as to whether someone is of net benefit to the United States. And the entire media came to Khalil's defense, suggesting that Khalil was just, you know, a normie student who had no support for terrorist groups. All the talk about him supporting terrorist groups, all of that was just false. He never would do something like that. He's just a normal left wing guy who just really, really doesn't like what Israel is doing in Gaza. Well, he blew all of that up yesterday. He did an interview on cnn. Again, he's the hero of the left, Malhamul Khalil. He did an interview on CNN where it turns out he says that the Trump administration is, quote, unquote, weaponizing anti Semitism. He's not really anti Semitic. He's not really a threat in any way. It's just that the Trump administration is using anti Semitism as a way of throwing out people they don't like.

Mahmoud Khalil (11:01)

This is simply weaponization of anti Semitism to silence the speech. And Wolf, as you've mentioned, I've been always, whether publicly or private, any form of discrimination and of racism, including antisemitism. But they want to use that as smokescreen so they can just, like, benefit from that. Unfortunately, that, like, very hateful speech that's happening, so they can't silence my speech. It's simple and clear.

Ben Shapiro (11:32)

He really hates anti Semitism. He's a moderate, you see. And so the Trump administration was super wrong to try to deport him. Except later in the same exact interview, he was asked multiple times whether he condemned Hamas, a designated terrorist organization in the United States, for what they did on October 7th and beyond. And over and over again, he refused to denounce Hamas. Now, let me just ask, does that sound like somebody who hates anti Semitism? I'm getting rather sick and tired of people suggesting they hate anti Semitism and then doing a bunch of anti Semitic stuff in the same breath. Now, again, I'm actually quite loath to call people anti Semitic on the show. Go back and listen to the archives. I actually don't do it unless the person is actually engaging in support for a terrorist organization that calls for the elimination of Jews. That I think is fair to call anti Semitic. I think that that definitely lies within the purview. Here is Mahmoud Khalil, supposed moderate, supposed victim of the Trump administration on matters of immigration, just saying the quiet part out loud, which is that he will not condemn Hamas.

Wolf Blitzer (12:29)

Just to be clear here, though, do.

Ben Shapiro (12:31)

You specifically condemn Hamas, a designated terrorist organization in the United States, not just.

Gavin Newsom (12:37)

For their actions on October 7th?

Mahmoud Khalil (12:41)

I condemn the killing of all, of all civilians, full stop. And, but what I don't want to get into is, no, I am very clear with condemning all civilians. I'm very, I'm very straight in my position in that, in that part. But it's disingenuous to ask about condemning Hamas while Palestinians are the ones being starved now by Israel. It's not condemning October 6th, where 260 Palestinians were killed by Israel on October before October 7th. So I hate the selective, selective outrage of condemnation.

Ben Shapiro (13:20)

Okay, so Again and again and again. He's not going to condemn Hamas. Do you need people in the United States who don't condemn State Department labeled terrorist groups? Are those the kinds of people you need in the. That was Marco Rubio's entire case. That was the case of the Trump administration when they tried to deport him. Is. We don't need people who like Hamas in the country. It seems relatively inarguable. It's one thing if you're already United States citizen, you're a citizen. There's nothing we can do about it. Sure, you suck, but, you know, lots of people suck in the United States and have terrible views in the United States. We don't get to kick you out for having terrible views in the United States. You, if you are a citizen, however, if you lie about why you came to the country and you came here as a political agitator on behalf of terrorist organizations, well, at that point, we should probably kick you out. But remember, the entire media went along with the idea that he was a wounded innocent who was merely parroting the rhetoric of mainstream Democratic officials. That was never true. Go back to May 2024, when he was tussling with Columbia public safety officers trying to confiscate tents. Here's the footage. You can see him. He's walking around, he's getting into it. He seems like a wonderful, the kind of person we desperately need here in the United States. But it just goes to show you. It just goes to show you that these narratives, they may go around very, very quickly, and then it takes a long time to debunk them. And by that time, it is just too late for the debunking to happen. And this is happening all over the world. It's not just true of the Trump administration immigration agenda, it's true all over the world. The claims that are currently being made by mainstream media just parroting, for example, the Gaza Ministry of Defense, which is to say Hamas, about Israel supposedly for no reason shooting people who are trying to get food from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Those are lies. It is not true. What is happening is that Hamas is infiltrating those lines and they are literally shooting at the IDF soldiers trying to draw fire. In response, Israel is attempting to separate off Hamas terrorists from civilians. Hamas is, is literally killing people who are taking the aid from Israel because they wish to hijack the aid. In fact, there was a report just yesterday that Hamas may be going bankrupt because they can no longer steal the aid and then sell it back to the Palestinians at inflated prices. Thus to fund their ongoing war machine. Okay, but that's not the only lie that is currently being told. Obviously there's the generalized genocide lie, but one of the big lies that was told last week was this lie that extremist local Jewish west bank residents had set fire to a 1500 year old church of St. George in the Palestinian village of Tyb. Now this is part and parcel of a broader attempt right now by some to claim that Israel is targeting Christians, which is not true. They're doing this based on this false report and also the lie that Israel purposefully targeted a church in the Gaza Strip. They did not purposefully target a church in the Gaza Strip. That would be a moral, intellectual and strategic absurdity. What would, what would generate that? Why would Israel purposefully target a church? Israel says it was an accident. Clearly it was in fact an accident. But it's been run with by many of the people who are now trying to generate outsized pressure on Israel by claiming somehow that, that Israel is filled with people who hate Christians. Which is very strange considering that Israel is literally the only place in the entire region where, where Christians can live safely and securely practicing their religion. The only one. The only one. So they are linking that story up with another story suggesting that extremist Jews in the west bank in Judea and Samaria set fire to this church in Tibet. Well, it turns out that that's not true either. It turns out that the press service of Israel did an independent investigation and again, this report was spread so wide that there were American officials repeating it before investigating. Well, what actually happened? Well, it found that local Jewish residents were fighting the fire, that there was a fire nearby the church, and that local Jewish residents were going up there to fight the area near the church. But in case you don't believe me, here's actual footage of the church. It is made of rock. There are no burn marks anywhere. It's 1500 years old. It doesn't have a roof because it hasn't had a roof for a long time. Is essentially an ancient site. Here is video of the site showing what it's like right now on the ground.

Unnamed Reporter (17:41)

Here I am in the outskirts of the church. You can see the apps over here. And even on the outskirts or the outer walls, there are no signs of fire. I can't find any. So it doesn't look like the church has been burned down. But not far from the church there was shrub that was most probably burnt in the fire. This happens all over Judea and Samaria. You can see that these stones would have stopped the fire. And I still believe it's important to find out who set the fire. So who has the interest to display this bonfire as the settlers burning down the church? Someone is behind this, that the Jews are burning down the church. Someone has an interest for you to believe that.

Ben Shapiro (18:26)

Now, the reality is that there is contemporaneous footage that is now showing young men from nearby farms running up the hill with fire extinguishing equipment, according to the Jerusalem Post, and reflective as attempting to put out the flames. So again, th this is just another one of these narratives that runs out of control. That runs out of control very, very quickly and is spread on services like X that do a pretty terrible job of separating the wheat from the chaff in terms of what is true and what is false. And it is that exact thing that leads to wild distrust on every issue. It is very difficult to lock down the facts. And one of the things that I try to do on the show is to take enough time when a controversial claim is made to determine whether or not it is true. And so I might wait a few hours to determine what actually happened in a given situation, or even a couple of days in murky circumstances. But that is not what the Internet favors these days. What the Internet actually favors is immediate response right now, without information. And if you wait, you are condemned for waiting. Because the idea is that if you wait, you must have some secret sympathies in some way or another. Whereas if you just react and jump to your preferred conclusion that backs your narrative somehow. This means that you are more honest in some way. That is not true. It is not true. Waiting is frequently the best thing to do in unclear circumstances so as to allow time for the truth to arise. That is the thing that actually should matter. And again, you can speculate, you can theorize, but people aren't in the business anymore even speculating or theorizing. They're not even clear that they are speculating or theorizing anymore on any topic. They simply jump to whatever conclusion is the most advantageous for their narrative and for their position. And then they insist that position is true, regardless of the next set of facts that comes out. That is true across the political board. It also happens to be true with regard to, for example, the Epstein case. So Democrats continue to fan the flames on the Epstein case, suggesting without evidence that there is tons of evidence that is still out there that has yet to be uncovered by the Trump administration. Now, again, the Trump administration has an ongoing case in federal court asking for release on documentation in the Epstein case, perhaps that will be released. Perhaps the judge will say it's under seal. We don't know. The Trump administration also has made clear at this point that there are no, quote, unquote, Epstein tapes, tapes of Epstein or anyone else having sex with children in the actual bedrooms, because those tapes are actually just child pornography. They have enough evidence to know that Epstein was doing all this stuff. But the idea that there were tapes of third parties who were engaged in this activity, apparently those do not exist. And the DOJ and the FBI, while saying they're going to try to release more information as much as they can legally, are also saying that their original conclusions are correct. Epstein was not a member of intelligence. He was not a member of intelligence, either foreign or domestic. He was not blackmailing third parties according to the evidence they had. Now, again, maybe there's evidence that exists somewhere out there in the ether that he was, but the FBI and the DOJ do not have it. And so calling on them to release evidence they don't have is obviously dishonest. Here is how you know whether someone is telling you the truth or not. If they can cite evidence to their proposition and they're willing to tell you when they don't have evidence to cite their proposition, they're probably being more truthful if they simply throw out conclusions, conclusory statements without evidence to back it. That is not someone who's telling you the truth. That is someone who's lying to you for a political purpose. That is what Democrats are currently doing. And yes, some horseshoe theory, Republicans and pseudo MAGA who are attempting to batter President Trump so as to seize control of the MAGA movement, which is a thing that is happening right now. Coming up, more on President Trump and the Epstein pressure and all the rest of that, plus President Trump actually signing some trade deals to avoid that Aug. 1 deadline. First, feeling overwhelmed by back taxes. You're not alone. Maybe you missed that April deadline or your financial records are all over the place. Whatever the situation, don't put it off any longer. The IRS isn't getting any friendlier. Those penalties, they pile up really quickly. We're talking 5% every month that you don't file. Maxing out at 25%, which adds up four fast. Here's the thing. You don't have to handle this alone. Tax Network USA specializes in exactly these situations. 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I still need to make time to hit the gym, maintain my health, spend time with the family. Well, you know, when you're younger, you think you just down a bunch of caffeine and make that happen. But it actually requires peak nutrition to make your life work. And that means eating fruits and veggies throughout the course of the day, wherever that may take me. That's why I'm thankful to have Balance of Nature, which fits right into even the busiest of days. Imagine trying to stuff 31 different fruits and veggies into your gullet every day. That sounds miserable. Time consuming. With Balance of Nature fruits and veggies, there's never been a more convenient dietary supplement to ensure you get a wide variety of fruits and veggies daily. Balance of Nature takes fruits and veggies. They freeze dry them, they turn them into a powder, and then they put them into a capsule. You take your fruit and veggie capsules every day, and your body knows precisely what to do with them. It's kosher, which means I pop it right in the protein smoothie. I'm good to go. Go to balanceofnature.com use promo code SHAPIRO for 35 off your first order as a preferred customer and get that free bottle of fiber and Spice. That's balanceofnature.com promo code SHAPIRO for 35 off that first order as a preferred customer and the free bottle of fiber and spice. According to Politico, it's a fixation of Washington. Now Democrats from coast to coast are plotting how to capitalize on the Jeffrey Epstein saga. An ongoing furor around the government's investigation of the disgraced financier has done more than fracture President Donald Trump's base. It has also injected a volatile new element into midterm elections and created an opening for Democrats scrambling to exploit any perceived Republican weakness as they work to retake the House. And again, Democrats continue to maintain that Trump is hiding something. They know he is not, or at least they suspect he is not, because they literally didn't care about this, like, during the entire Biden administration. And there are Republicans who are doing this, too. Now, there are questions that certainly remain in the case, like, for example, where did Jeffrey Epstein get his money? That. That is a. That is an open question. It remains a very open question. Like, there's no question that we have no idea why he got his money from Les Wexner, why he got his money from Leon Black, like, why he was being paid these outsized amounts of money. Sure, there can be absolutely credible suspicion on those matters, but that is not the accusation when you say that Trump is covering it up. Meanwhile, there are open questions right now on Ghislaine Maxwell. So the DOJ is now being pressured to re interview Ghislaine Maxwell. Politico has a rundown on why this is happening. The answer is, of course, because of all the outside pressure and the suggestion that maybe Maxwell knows something. She's not talking. She's not talking about or hasn't in the past. According to Politico, Maxwell has apparently never given her version of events to federal prosecutors during pre trial proceedings in her criminal case, government prosecutors and Maxwell's defense attorneys acknowledged they never even broached the subject of plea negotiations where such an interview might have occurred. Maxwell's attorney claimed at the time plea bargaining was not an issue because her client maintained her innocence. She did decline to testify in her own defense at trial. What could she know that she hasn't told the doj? Maxwell herself says nothing. Basically, she argued in court papers ahead of her trial that the allegations against her and Epstein were so old, stretching back to the 90s, that there's little reliable information left to disclose. She contended witnesses may have died or their memories faded. And corroborating documents she might be able to rely on to prove her version of events have long been destroyed. That filing includes categories labeled dead witnesses and lost testimony, lost and missing witnesses, witnesses whose memories have failed or corrupted, lost or destroyed records. Well, Maxwell theoretically could name her own memories. What the hell are prosecutors supposed to do with that if there is no supporting evidence of it? Especially because Maxwell might lie in order to try and receive some sort of pardon or some sort of deal. So you again in the absence of information, the Internet tends to run wild, and that is not a particularly good thing. And I mentioned there are people on the right who are glomming onto this with both hands. One of those, of course, is Thomas Massie, the representative from Kentucky, who's essentially a declared enemy of the President of the United States, Donald Trump. They don't like each other very much. Speaker Johnson was asking what the hell is going on with Massie that he keeps signing on to these discharge petitions, trying to put pressure on Trump to release documents. What, in disobedience of FBI regulations and. And DOJ regulations and the law.

Thomas Massie (27:07)

I don't understand Thomas Massie's motivation. I really don't. I don't know how his mind works. I don't know what he's. What he's thinking. Thomas Massie could have brought his discharge petition anytime over the last four and a half years. Over the last four years, the Biden administration. He could have done that at any time. And now he's clamoring as if there's some sort of timeline on it. It's interesting to me that he chose the election of President Trump to bring this. To team up with the Democrats and bring this discharge petition. So do I have some concern about that? I do.

Ben Shapiro (27:34)

Okay. And Speaker Johnson absolutely should, and you should, too, because what is the motivation? The answer is the Venn diagram between the people who are very, very exercised about the Epstein case and the people who are very, very upset about President Trump's Iran policy, Ukraine policy, the big beautiful bill. Those are overlapping circles. And when I say overlapping, I mean that there's a bigger circle of people who. Who think something is missing in the Epstein files and are wondering why Pam Bondi retailed what she did. I understand that's a big, big circle, but the group of people who do not like Trump's policy have decided to go right in the center of the Epstein circle and just sit there and build a campfire, because their goal is actually to undermine President Trump's agenda. They don't like his agenda. They're glomming onto the Epstein thing in order to undermine his credibility with the base and his credibility personally so as to try and take control of MAGA away from President Trump. It is pretty clear that this is what's going on right now. And by the way, it's not as though everyone who promoted Russiagate is out of the government even now. I mean, we're talking about deep state people, people who have been longtime government officials who have been involved with this Sort of stuff. According to Luke Rosiak, reporting for the Daily Wire, quote, a top lawyer for President Donald Trump's NSA previously worked for Senate Democrats on their discredited probe attempting to tie Trump to Russia, personally urged for Trump to be permanently banned from social media for staging an insurrection, attacked Republicans proposing a crackdown on disinformation, and defended the treatment of Trump aides Carter Page and Michael Flynn at the hands of the intelligence state. April Falcon Doss is the current general counsel for the NSA. She worked as an NSA intelligence lawyer from 2003 to April 2016, when she took a job at a private law firm. But a few months into Trump's first term, she took a high level job working for Senator Mark Warren. Sorry, but a few months into President Trump's first term, she took a high level job working for Senator Mark Warner of Virginia on the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating supposed Russian interference in the 2016 election. Pretty amazing stuff. I mean, who did the hiring on this one? I want to know the answer on this one. Apparently, June 2022, the NSA, again under Joe Biden, rehired Doss in a top role without announcing or acknowledging the hire because it didn't want to stir up a hornet's nest among Capitol Hill Republicans, according to the record. That's because in the interim, Democrats experts and intel officers had decried it as improper and ultimately blocked it when Trump had attempted to name a Republican House Intelligence Committee staffer to the same exact role. Still, pretty unbelievable that this person has a job under the Trump administration. I would imagine that that is not going to be the case for very long after Luke's article here. Meanwhile, an actual piece of scandal. According to the New York Post, the FBI failed to provide key thumb drives in the Clinton email probe. This is according to the DO DOJ watchdog files. According to the New York Post, the FBI barely glanced at potentially crucial evidence in its investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State. According to a portion of a watchdog report made public on Monday, a confidential source gave thumb drives to the FBI that contained State Department data acquired via cyber intrusions, including emails from President Obama and others, according to a declassified appendix to a June 2018 DOJ Inspector General report. But the feds declined to comprehensively analyze those drives due to concerns about individual data caught up in the hack, despite an internal draft memo concluding it was necessary to assess the national security risks pertaining to Clinton's private server use. That's unbelievable. Essentially, it means that the FBI, when they were investigating how Hillary Clinton was handling her emails and mishandling highly classified information. The FBI basically decided to ignore thumb drives showing that she had basically exposed emails from people including President Barack Obama. Apparently that report was penned by then DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who holds the same position at the Federal Reserve Board and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. During that 2016 campaign cycle, the FBI Cyber Division had sought to obtain access to the hard drives to conduct targeted surges for information relevant to the Clinton probe. And they were rebuffed. They were told no. Then FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe asked then US deputy attorney general Sally Yates in a memo if he could refer to the drives the Bureau's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. And that was shot down. So essentially they didn't do basic investigative work and they left key pieces of evidence on the cutting room floor, according to Senator Chuck Grassley. Grassley said the Comey FBI's negligent approach and perhaps intentional lack of effort in the Clinton investigation is a stark contrast to its full throated investigation of the Trump Russia collusion hoax, which was based on the uncorroborated and now discredited steel dossier. You know, it's on the basis of that, by the way, it was on the basis of Comey not wanting to look at what was actually in those thumb drives, at least partially, that he decided to dismiss the case against Hillary Clinton and claimed that there was no violation of law. Another notable detail in the appendix is that the FBI stumbled upon Russian language intelligence alleging that then U.S. attorney General Loretta lynch and Comey were interfering in the Clinton email investigation to help the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates respectively. That intel also included claims that the then DNC Chairwoman, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had communicated with two individuals who worked at the Zoro's Open Society foundations and told them she was confident the FBI did not have evidence against Clinton because data was removed from the mail servers just in time. At the very least, there's a lot of information here that basically it looks like the FBI and DOJ decided to ignore because it was inconvenient to Hillary Clinton in 2016. She, of course, was let off the hook by James Comey over at the FBI. So that is an amazing, amazing story. The other story that is being retelled by Tulsi Gabbard is frankly less amazing. So recall yesterday on the program we talked about Tulsi Gabbard suggesting that the Obama administration had specifically gone back on an intelligence community report. That intelligence community report had said that there was no manipulation of the electoral tools of like actual voting machines, for example. And the allegation by Tulsi Gabbard is that the Obama administration basically went back on that and then tried to rewrite it to suggest that there was Russian interference. I read that entire thing on the air just a couple of days ago. Again, she had claimed that in the run up and immediate Aftermath of the 2016 election, Obama intelligence officials, including then DNI James Clapper, took the position, according to Andrew McCarthy, that Russia was probably not trying to influence the election by using cyber means. But later, as top Obama administration officials huddled and executed rapid fire completion of the ica, she says they changed their tune to try and sandbag Trump with a bunch of Russian interference memes and nonsense. Now, as we talked about again a couple of days ago, there is no question the Obama administration, from the very earliest days of the Fusion GPS Steele dossier scandal, were looking for a rationale for linking the Trump campaign to a supposed Russian collusion scheme. There is no doubt that was the case. They were maximizing everything. They were issuing illegal FISA warrants against Carter Page. They were using the steel dossier as the basis for things like the FISA surveillance warrant. And then they were leaking that into the public view.

Wolf Blitzer (34:34)

Right.

Ben Shapiro (34:34)

All of that is well substantiated and scandalous in the extreme. Gabard is saying she has something new and that the new thing is that basically the Obama administration and Obama himself changed an intelligence community ruling in order to suggest that there was Russian interference with actual election infrastructure. But that's not actually what the document said. What it said is that the Obama administration concluded there was no hacking of election infrastructure and that later statements had to deal with Russian interference in the election. Now, was there Russian interference in 2016? I mean, there certainly was memory online. It was minimal, as we talked about, it was not particularly effective. And Russia always attempts to interfere in American elections. They do this all the time. I'm old enough to remember when they interfered on behalf of Barack Obama. You'll remember in 2012, Barack Obama literally sat next to Dmitry Medvedev and was caught on a hot mic saying that if Vladimir could simply cool his heels, cool his jets for the next couple of months, we'll have something to talk about on the other side of the election. Okay, so. So I'm not sure exactly what the DNI is attempting to accomplish with this sort of new accusation. She says that there are more Russia hoax documents that will be released later this week. We can hope they substantiate her accusations better than the current documents do.

Rahm Emanuel (35:49)

He's saying that none of this makes any sense, that this is a distraction. What do you say to that? It's the art of deflection coming from former President Obama as well as his friends who are still in Congress today, and Senator Warner and Congressman Jim Himes really all basically saying that exact same statement, which doesn't actually address address the issue that was revealed in great detail in the over 100 documents that we released last week, in the documents that we will be releasing later this week that point to the undeniable fact that you laid out in your introduction to this segment.

Ben Shapiro (36:27)

Okay, so again, did the Obama administration try to interfere on behalf of Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump in the 2016 election? Yes. Was there violation of law? If there was violation of law, it was on the part of FBI directors, deputy FBI directors, and all the rest. The president is sort of immune from a lot of this sort of stuff simply because he has an enormous amount of executive power to have these sorts of conversations. Right. This was a, a Supreme Court decision that actually recently came out with regard to President Trump. You'll recall that there was a Supreme Court decision that suggested that there is executive decision making that lies out of the domain of, of, for example, lawsuits. And this probably falls into that particular category. So I asked my friends and sponsors over at Perplexity, what did the Supreme Court recently rule about executive immunity and how to protect President Obama with regard to accusations his IC report was skewed? Well, as perplexity says, on July 1, 2024, the US Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Trump vs United States regarding presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. The key points of the ruling are absolute immunity. Presidents are absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for actions taken within their core constitutional powers. They are also presumptively immune for official acts. Those would be actions taken as president that are neither purely personal nor at the core. And there is presumed immunity. And you can try to overcome the presumption. So when it comes to the IC report accusations, would the Supreme Court ruling shield Trump? Well, again, as Perplexity notes, if the actions involve official duties like overseeing, ordering, or approving IC assessments or reports while acting as president, President Obama would enjoy, at a minimum, a presumption of immunity from criminal prosecution. And absolute immunity could apply if the conduct was seen as a direct exercise of the president's core constitutional authority, like managing the ic. So very difficult presumption to overcome for criminal prosecution. Obama is responding via his spokesperson, quote, out of the respect for the office of the presidency. Our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response, but these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction. Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. Now, again, there's another widely accepted conclusion that that really Trump is correct to hit President Obama over and that is the widely accepted conclusion that Obama's entire team was essentially incepting into being a collusion scandal between Trump's team and Russia that supposedly turned the nature of the election and was complete with again, falsely issued FISA warrants as well as the mainlining of absolute nonsense via the Steele dossier, which was a Clinton campaign compendium that somehow ended up spurring a full intelligence investigation. It is kind of fun to watch the Positive America boys get really mad about this. I will say Jon Favreau came out and suggested that if you don't like it, you can go arrest Barack Obama. Well, I mean, let's just put it this way. It's really Democrats who have been attempting to arrest prior presidents of recent vintage. I mean, they tried to do this to Donald Trump many, many, many times. Like, a lot of times. So I, I feel you don't have like a moral high horse to stand on so much here because I don't remember you speaking out about any of that as a, an abuse of justice. The Positive America bros are in a bad mood, however, because Hunter Biden attacked them the other day.

Gavin Newsom (39:52)

When it comes to the attacks on Hunter himself, like, okay, let's just, what if we just stipulate for the hypothetical. Like, yes, okay, all your business dealings were above board and legal. All your paintings were purchased by art lovers who loved the product and didn't know your name. Trump is worse. You are on the board of Burisma because of who your dad is and that is what people hate about Washington. And it was part of the problem. And like, there's some other weird shit. Like he said he did blames the debate on his the Biden staff saying they gave him Ambien on his foreign trip. But like, Biden got back from the G7 on June 14. The debate with June 27, a lot of Ambien. If Ambien was the issue. Like, I don't think it's ambient.

Wolf Blitzer (40:35)

It's age. Also, it's like he was tired so they gave him Ambien Also, like, just.

Ben Shapiro (40:42)

Wow, I'm, I'm amused that the Pod Save America boys are now telling the truth about Joe Biden after spending a very long time defending Joe Biden's absolute senility. But, but it's only when they are threatened, of course, that they speak up loudly and proudly against the corruption inside the Biden administration. Like, solid stuff there, guys. Really, really proud of you for your honesty, your sudden bout of honesty. Meanwhile, I know a lot of people were worried, of course, about the tariffs. I was one of them, honestly. Like, I was worried at the very beginning about the tariffs. And then President Trump backed off a lot of it because he moved control of the tariff talks essentially from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over to Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. And so it is not a surprise that a bunch of deals have now been announced. President Trump announced yesterday a trade deal with Japan. Here he was.

Donald Trump (41:25)

But I just signed the largest trade deal in history, I think maybe the largest deal in history with Japan, and that was done with Japan. They had their top people here, and we worked on it long and hard. And it's a great deal for everybody. I always say it has to be great for everybody. It's a great deal. A lot different from the deals in the past, I can tell you that. But we're doing really well as a country. We're strong. We have a lot of money flowing in. The tariffs are kicked in better than anybody other than me and a few of the people in the room thought could happen. Howard and Scott and I just want to thank you, and you've been unbelievable allies, because you're really allies. That's what you've been. And we appreciate it.

Ben Shapiro (42:14)

So what exactly is the deal? Well, apparently the massive deal includes reciprocal tariffs of 15% on the country's exports to the United States. Auto duties will reportedly be lowered to that level as well. Japan is going to supposedly invest $550 billion in the United States. According to President Trump, the United states will receive 90 of the profits that presumably to counter any sort of trade deficit. Trump says Japan, will, quote, open their country to trade, including cars and trucks, rice and certain other agricultural products and other things, and that it would create hundreds of thousands of jobs. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Shiba, who is up for reelect in just a couple of days and so wants to get this off the off the table, said auto tariffs on Tokyo will be lowered to 15% from the current 25% levied across countries. Auto exports to the United States are a major cornerstone of Japan's economy. They make up 28.3% of all shipments in 2024, according to Customs data. So again, that is higher than it was. However, it is much lower than it could have been. Shortly after Tuesday's announcement, Japan's top trade negotiator Ryose Akazawa said mission accomplished in a post on X. So that trade deal is designed again to strengthen the ruling coalition in Japan. Just before an election, the stock market popped in Japan on the basis of the announcement. Jeremy Schwartz, the global CIO at asset manager at WisdomTree, told CNBC's Squawk Box Asia the size of the market reaction meant the market got pessimistic on how things were going and that the goal is to drive again more direct foreign investment in American product. So that's a big win for President Trump. Another big win for President Trump, an announcement of a trade agreement with Indonesia. According to President Trump, it is agreed Indonesia will open its market to American industrial and tech products and agricultural goods by eliminating 99 of their tariff barriers. The United States of America will now sell American made products to Indonesia at a tariff rate of 0, while Indonesia will pay 19 on all of their products coming into the United States of America, the best market in the world. In addition, Indonesia will supply the United States with their precious critical minerals as well as sign big deals worth tens of billions of dollars to purchase Boeing aircraft, American farm products and American energy. The deal is a huge win for our automakers, tech companies, workers, farmers, ranchers and manufacturers. Again, whether you like the tariffs or you don't like the tariffs, this is better than what the alternative would have been if the deal didn't get cut. Again, as a free trader myself, I'm not generally in favor of the idea that we are tariffing Indonesian goods at nearly 20% while they tariff us at zero. It seems to me that that's a tax on American consumers. With that said, is that a lot better than it was going to be if no deal had been reached? The answer there is yes. Another deal has been announced also with Philippines. According to President Trump, the Philippines is going open market with the United States, zero tariffs. The Philippines will pay a 19% tariff. In addition, we will work together militarily. It was a great honor to be with President. Ferdinand Marcos is a highly respected person in his country, as he should be. He is a very good and tough negotiator. So you know, again, there, there are two ways of viewing all this. One is do we really need a trade war with anybody but China at this point? And I'VE made that case before. The other is the worst aspects of the trade war are in fact being avoided by the Trump administration thus far. Is that going to reshore massive manufacturing in the United States? I. I somehow doubt it. Is it going to be a lot better than it would have been if we had maintained those Liberation Day standards? Absolutely. And again, you can see the markets reacting to all of that. Pretty sanguine about all that. The markets were up at 180 points yesterday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, was also up a little bit yesterday. The markets have baked into the cake. The idea, I think already that President Trump is going to cut a bunch of these deals. Now, where President Trump could go astray is if he attempts to go after Jerome Powell. Now, he has already said he's not going to the head of the Federal Reserve. I think it'd be a mistake for President Trump to do so. With that said, he still seems to be thinking about it, at least a little bit. So he is ripping on Jerome Powell's allowance of the renewal of the federal building, the rebuilding of a lot of the federal building, which is going to cost something like $2.7 billion. Now, again, here's my question. Unless Jerome Powell is owner of one of the contractors who's making money handover fist on all of this, it's hard for me to understand exactly who, why Powell would get anything out of a massive rebuild of the Fed sufficient to justify his removal. But maybe that fig leaf gets used.

Donald Trump (46:33)

It's inconceivable. I know the Fed very well, that they can be spending 2.7 billion to build a building. They don't do anything. They just, I mean, it's the greatest job. You show up one day, a half a day, you make a little speech. The economy is doing well. The economy is not doing well. We're going to raise interest. And he's got it wrong. That's why I call him. Too late, Too, too late.

Ben Shapiro (46:54)

So what you are seeing right now is some of the Republicans in Congress trying to, I guess, provide the pretext for President Trump to go after Powell if he wants to, are pushing this. Representative Anapol Paulina Luna, who is from Florida, referred to Powell to the Justice Department on an accusation he lied under oath to Congress last month about the building project. He told senators some of the more controversial parts of the renovation plan. A VIP dining room or rooftop, beehives aren't being built, although they were included in the original zoning application. I mean, is that really, is that going to be the, the criminal case against Jerome Powell here. And that's going to here is the question, why is that good for President Trump? Let's say he gets repel. Is that going to be good for the markets? The answer there, of course, is no, it will not be particularly good for the markets. Now, good news for President Trump. He continues to push forward on many of his signature issues, including his signature issue with regard to transgenderism. No men in the women's sports. According to the New York Times, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee quietly changed its eligibility rules on Monday to bar transgender women from competing in Olympic women's sports and now will comply with President Trump's executive order on the issue. This, of course, makes perfect sense. You don't want the men competing with the ladies. This is perfectly obvious. It was obvious to everyone. It's so obvious, in fact, that Democrats are starting to run away from their prior radicalism on this issue. That includes Rahm Emanuel, the former Obama chief of staff who would love to run for president in 2028. Here was Rahm Emanuel, Can a man become a woman? Can a man become a woman? Not. No.

Rahm Emanuel (48:26)

Thank you.

Ben Shapiro (48:27)

No. That's so easy.

Rahm Emanuel (48:28)

Why don't more people in your party just say that?

Ben Shapiro (48:30)

Because I'm now going to go into a witness protection plan. Okay. So Ron Manuel, moving away from it. Gavin Newsom, kind of flirting with moving away from it because again, this is such a losing issue for the Democrats. Joining us on the line to discuss the US Olympic Committee barring transgender women from women's competition is my friend Clay Travis, founder of Outkick and host of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay, great to speak with you.

Wolf Blitzer (48:54)

Good to see you as always, Ben.

Ben Shapiro (48:56)

Well, Clay, it looks like, you know, the winning continues on this issue. It is incredible how the vibe has shifted, as the kids say, on this issue over the course of the last four or five years. I'm old enough to remember when people were getting kicked off of various social media platforms just for saying that, that men should not play against women in sports. And now you have the US Olympic Committee saying that they are not going to allow men to play against women. What do you make of it?

Wolf Blitzer (49:20)

I think that what Donald Trump's victory did was enable cowards to blame him for decisions that they know they should have made years ago. And I really think that's what all of this represents. I mean, University of Pennsylvania didn't know that a 6 foot 3 dude had an advantage that used to swim on the men's team. And Switched over to the women's team. They knew all of this. They were just afraid of bearing the onus themselves and they're looking for someone to come in for and save them. And I actually think one of the really interesting decisions going forward is what are Democrats going to do about this? This because next year we're going to hear the Supreme Court decision. I would expect it'll go six, three, that you can say, hey, compete against your biology, compete against the name, the gender on your birth certificate and then Democrats and crazy leftists will have a decision. Do they say, oh, that's just the Trump Supreme Court. We don't like it, but let's just go ahead and pretend this issue doesn't exist anymore. Or will they double, triple, quadruple down on crazy? Will they take the off ramp that the Supreme Court and Trump have given them or will they make this an issue that prevails and continues into 2028? I actually don't know, but I think that's where we're headed here.

Ben Shapiro (50:37)

Yeah, Clay, I agree with you. It'll be interesting to see what Democrats do. It seems like the smarter Democrats are already attempting to move beyond this issue. At the very least they're trying to have the baby on it. You saw Governor Gavin Newsom of California do this publicly when he suggested that men should not play in women's sports. And then of course use the law to attempt to allow men to play in women's sports. Rahm Emanuel, who clearly wants to run for President in 2028, he said as we played on the show a little while ago that he's going to have to go into witness protection because he believes that men and women should be playing different sports. Seth Moulton, who we've had on the show, Democrat from Massachusetts, was ripped up and down for suggesting that men are not women and women are not men. But the dam is breaking and you can see it inside the Democratic Party. It seems to me that they want to get beyond this issue because it is such a terrible issue for them. Yeah.

Wolf Blitzer (51:19)

And also because men, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, if you play sports or you're a fan of sports at all, this is a non negotiable issue. I don't think any dads out there, I don't think any men who played high school, college or pro sports, every NFL locker room, every NBA locker room, they know this is a joke. And Democrats are looking at themselves, hemorrhage male support. And I think they recognize they have to step off the crazy train. And, and one way to do that is what Rahm Emanuel did, what Gavin Newsom has tried to do, what Seth Moulton, I think, who represents, of all places, the Salem witch trial area of Massachusetts. I mean, there is definitely a witch trial component to this. For Democrats, I think they're saying we can't win elections and stand for this. And I think other people will get in line. Remember, even according to the New York Times, 67% of Democrats disagree with men and women's sports. This is actually a huge majority issue, even for them. They're just all cowards. They won't admit it.

Ben Shapiro (52:17)

I think it's such a big issue for them, especially because for the Democrats, I think that all normies look at them and they say, we're not even going to listen to you on any other issue that you have something to say if you continue to maintain this totally insane position, because frankly, you're nuts. It is one thing to make an argument about tax policy or about Medicare or Medicaid or foreign policy. It is another thing to argue the patently obviously stupid notion that men are women and women are men and they can just interchangeably switch places, bodies and lives. And I think that a huge majority of voters look at Democrats, and this is like a gateway issue for them. It's like, I will not even look at the rest of what you have to say if you maintain this position.

Wolf Blitzer (52:53)

I can't tell you the number of people that I know from the world of sports who have come up to me and said privately, you're 1 billion percent right on this. But because of the politics inside of my company, whether it's an espn, whether it is even a Washington Post, the New York Times, where they have men covering sports, they all think it's ludicrous, and yet they feel compelled as a member of that party to try and stay in good graces. They're afraid of getting athwart that issue. But I actually think we're seeing a major cultural shift. And I think basically men across the board, like I said, I think this is a white, black, Asian, Hispanic. Ben, I'm sure you read the article that they them ad, which I think was probably the most influential ad that Trump ran when they said it was really interesting was it moved white women. And for people who don't remember, it was Trump's for, for. For you, Kamala's for they them. It moved white women in his favor, many of whom have daughters that they're traveling to sporting events with. It also moved Hispanic and black men in his favor. So I think that Speaks to the degree to which an ad like that crosses over so many identity politics lines and just registers for sane people, regardless of what they might think, as you mentioned, on tax policy or other issues with which we might disagree.

Ben Shapiro (54:15)

So, Clay, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about the other women's sporting issues of the day. Obviously, the WNBA is having a bit of a moment right now specifically because of Caitlin Clark, and they seem to have created this sort of WWE situation between Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark or the rest of the league and Caitlin Clark. I don't know if the WNBA is creating it or if just all the women hate Caitlin Clark because they're being catty and petty, but what do you make of the status of the wnba? Do you think there's any future here, or is this sort of a flash in the pan? Because Caitlin Clark is interesting and popular and a whole narrative world has now been built up around her.

Wolf Blitzer (54:50)

Yeah. So I like to look at Caitlin Clark in the historical context of sport. For those of us out there who are big fans, sometimes you catch proverbial lightning in a bottle and. And your sport can go to a different level because one particular athlete is so transcendently popular. Think about Tiger woods in golf. Golf had fans, but Tiger took it to a level we've never seen before. Venus and Serena Williams did for women's tennis. Sometimes you get it for a very short period of time. Ronda Rousey did it for the UFC for women fighters. Everybody suddenly cared about it. Right now, Caitlin Clark is that. What's different is ufc, pga, WTA. They were all smart enough to recognize that they had an incredible asset and it was going to make everybody else richer. Doesn't mean that it was perfect when they introduced these new athletes, but they were smart enough to get in line and say, hey, let's all pull in the same direction. The WNBA has taken this incredible golden goose, and they've tried to strangle it, and I don't understand. Now, here's the challenge. Caitlin Clark has not been very healthy in season two. She's missed about half the games. She is more valuable than the entire league. Ben, I've never seen this ever. If you told me right now, Clay, you can buy stock in Caitlin Clark or the wnba, I would buy stock in Caitlin Clark. And I wonder whether in a couple of years she might decide to just say, see it to the league based on how they're treating her, found her own league with five or six teams and really unlock the value that truly she has brought to women's basketball. And they don't have women's basketball fans. They have Caitlin Clark fans. My theory, and I know you've got kids, I think there's a lot of dads out there that just want to share sports with their daughter. And she is an accessible, not threatening way to watch women's sports with your daughter. Very clean cut, very positive role model. A lot of dads, I think, would like their daughters to grow up like Caitlin Clark. And I think the WNBA resents it for. Resents her for it. I think the fact that she's white is an issue for I think the fact that she's straight in what is both a black and lesbian majority league. And I think they resent her for the popularity she's brought to the league, which is counterintuitive, counterproductive. But I don't know how they're going to reconcile this.

Ben Shapiro (57:04)

Well, Clay, they are definitely not vitiating any of the stereotypes about female cattiness with the way they are treating 100% true right now. It is incredible. If you wished to justify all criticisms of the wa, both wnba, both athletically and then in terms of the. The feminist notions of the wnba, they're. They're doing an amazing job of it that I have to say. Well, Clay Travis, founder of Outcast of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show. Check out all of his work. Clay, appreciate the time. Great to talk to you.

Wolf Blitzer (57:28)

Keep up the good work, Ben. Have a good summer.

Ben Shapiro (57:30)

Alrighty, folks. The rest of the show continues now. Ozzy Osbourne has passed away and we pay tribute to the crazy train singer. Actually, I like Ozzy Osbourne. I know. Weird, huh? Also, more fallout from Stephen Colbert not being paid $20 million in a couple of years. Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member. If you're not a member, become a member. Use code Shapiro. Check out for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.