On Thursday’s episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” the Daily Wire editor-in-chief talks about the New York Times and its failed attempt to draw interest in an unremarkable impeachment hearing. Video and partial transcript below:
We begin with the news of the day, which is all the fallout from [Wednesday’s] bombshell testimony. So much bombshell.
So here is the way that the New York Times is covering this thing: Their headline says, “Behind a Star Witness, Democrats Take Their Impeachment Case to the Public.”
Their goal is to transform what might seem like an abstract debate over foreign policy into high crimes and misdemeanors in the public mind as Republicans argue there is no case for impeachment.
William Taylor was the witness the Democrats had hoped Robert Mueller would be but was not — the image, at least, of a wise, fatherly figure with Kevlar credibility expressing restrained but unmistakable disapproval of what he found when he turned over the rock.
Objective media coverage trigger so much journalism.
House Democrats led off their highly anticipated impeachment hearings on Wednesday with a figure projecting probity, a combat veteran turned career diplomat who narrated with a deep baritone voice reminiscent of Walter Cronkite’s what he saw as the corruption of American foreign policy to advance President Trump’s personal political interests.
It was not clear that minds were changed.
Well, shouldn’t you lead with that? Isn’t that the question: Is whether any minds were changed or whether the testimony itself changed anything or offered anything that was bombshell and new, as opposed to, “He appeared to be a gray fox, this William Taylor fellow, patriotic, stolid man. This was a hero of the republic!”
We’ve heard the “hero of the republic” routine before from the media; didn’t change anything. “James Comey, hero of the republic! Andrew McCabe, hero of the Republic! Vindman, hero of the Republic!” And now it’s William Taylor, hero of the Republic.
Now, listen. You look at his public service — the guy is, in fact, a hero of the republic for his public service. But that does not mean that he testified as to anything impeachable yesterday. And yet, the media are making this out to be really about the optics, and that, in the end, really sort of betrays the agenda. The agenda here is that this is all about the optics and not about anything new. Nothing new has actually happened here. That’s the dirty little secret.
We’re going to go through the testimony [Wednesday], and nothing new, no new ground was broken. Instead, it was all the same ground that we’ve heard before, sort of trod over repeatedly. So in terms of substance, I don’t think the American people are going to hear anything new that changes their mind. But in terms of optics, the Democrats are hoping that if they bring out a bunch of gravelly-voiced, very somber speakers who have long histories in American foreign policy, then this will somehow turn the American public against Trump. Well, if people cared about that, Trump wouldn’t be president.
Let’s face this thing. Donald Trump was not elected because people had a ton of respect for America’s institutions. He was elected, specifically, because people did not have a ton of respect in America’s institutions, and putting out somebody with Walter Cronkite’s voice isn’t going to change any of that, just on a purely political level.
The New York Times says:
It was not clear that minds were changed. Certainly they were not inside the room, and most likely not elsewhere on Capitol Hill, where Republicans and Democrats were locked into their positions long ago. Nor were there any immediate signs that the hearing penetrated the general public. While major television networks broke into regular programming to carry it live, there was little sense of a riveted country putting everything aside to watch a la Watergate.
Okay, so then what are we talking about? I love this line; this is my favorite line from the New York Times; it’s just spectacular.
But whether or not voters were watching, history certainly was.
What the F is that supposed to mean? History was watching — like seriously, what does that mean? History is watching everything! History is watching you on the toilet. If by “history is watching,” you mean that history is something that happens and then people later read about it, that could be anything! It could be — well, I mean, if history was watching, that changes everything.
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