Ep. 205 - Are You Not Entertained？
Episode Stats
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Summary
On this day in history: Michael Cohen pleads guilty, Paul Manus is acquitted, and the mainstream media has suddenly lost interest in Molly Tibbetts. And, finally, what Republicans can learn from Bill Clinton?
Transcript
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Admitted liar Michael Cohen has turned on his former client Donald Trump in an attempt to avoid prison time for his crimes.
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Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis, who previously represented disbarred criminal ex-president Bill Clinton,
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is promising to take down the duly elected president by helping the investigation of Bob Mueller,
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the lawless special counsel who was appointed to investigate Russian meddling in 2016
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and after two years has found nothing other than Paul Manafort's expensive taste in suits
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and Michael Cohen's testimony that the president who brags about sleeping with porn stars may have slept with a porn star.
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Did you expect anything less from the star of reality TV?
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We will analyze what the Cohen plea really means, how it's likely to shake out legally, and what it means politically.
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Then, as if that weren't enough, masterpiece cake shop baker Jack Phillips will stop by
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to discuss the left's latest attempt to ruin his life and destroy all of our religious freedom.
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The mainstream media have suddenly lost interest in Molly Tibbetts.
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And, finally, what Republicans can learn from Bill Clinton on this day in history.
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I'm Michael Knowles and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
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Can we fit anything else in today? I feel like there's not enough to talk about.
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Before we get to it, there is so much to get to.
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And I gotta tell you, this is one of these examples, this is one of these rare occasions
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where I agree with Ben's analysis on this almost exactly, almost to a point I agree with his analysis.
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The difference being that I'm fairly hopeful about how it's all going to turn out.
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00:03:26.280
Talks of putting off Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the court.
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Talks of a sex scandal taking down the presidency.
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Is this not what you signed up for when you elected a reality TV star to become president?
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Probably the most dramatic presidential scene since the Ford Theater.
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We've got, just consider the coincidence or the providence or who knows, of Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman for, former campaign chairman for Donald Trump, being found guilty of some charges, not all of his charges.
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And then just minutes later, Michael Cohen, the president's former personal lawyer, pleads guilty to certain crimes.
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So I do want to, I want to get through all the specifics of it, then I want to zoom out and analyze what really will be the legal and political effects of this.
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Because I think sometimes when people are doing analysis, they get so lost in the weeds, they miss the bigger picture.
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In the weeds, things don't look good for the president.
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In the bigger picture, things look very good for the president.
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And then we're going to bring on Jack Phillips.
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And what the prosecution kept bringing up is all his nice suits.
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Minutes later, Michael Cohen, what's he found guilty of?
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So, two of the three, the exact same thing as Paul Manafort.
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Now, consider how the media are treating these two guys.
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Because they're, they pled guilty to basically the same things.
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Cohen actually pled guilt to another crime, which is campaign finance violations.
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People are getting a strange new respect for Michael Cohen, aren't they?
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The difference is that the left thinks that Cohen's testimony is going to hurt Trump and Manafort isn't.
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Because Manafort took it like a man and Michael Cohen is a dirty little rat.
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He made false statements to a bank a couple years ago.
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Before we get into the specifics too much on these guys, I do want to point out campaign finance laws are mostly nonsense and anti-constitutional.
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These laws that say you can only contribute so much to a candidate.
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The poster that you're holding up in politics is a political expression.
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It costs money to buy the markers and to buy the poster board and to hold it up there.
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This political speech costs money because we live in a real world and campaigns are tangible things.
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Campaign finance laws, mostly nonsense, mostly arbitrary.
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Many of them have been struck down by the Supreme Court.
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The McCain-Feingold campaign finance law was famously struck down in the Citizens United decision.
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And it doesn't make any sense to have these laws because people are going to spend money on politics.
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Surprisingly, not as much money as you would think.
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You'd think these presidential campaigns are so consequential they'd cost $5 billion, $7 billion.
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But if there's a limit, let's say there's a federal limit of $5,000 you can spend on a candidate.
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Those candidates' backers are still going to spend money on them.
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They're just going to find other ways to spend it.
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They're going to spend it in little back channels.
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They're going to have family members donate money, even though it's really just their own personal money.
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Dinesh D'Souza had to go to the slammer and hang out with murderers and rapists
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because he funneled some money to his friend Wendy Long who was never going to win a race anyway.
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So I think those laws in general are ridiculous.
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That said, they are the laws, so it's very easy for prosecutors to get you on campaign finance.
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The laws are very obscure, and if you violate them in any way, they can really nail you.
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Now, what we know from Michael Cohen is that there's no cooperation deal.
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That he's not, apparently not cooperating with investigators and prosecutors,
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but then Lanny Davis comes out, Michael Cohen's lawyer, and says he has info for Mueller,
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and he really wants to give the info for Mueller.
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I can tell you that Mr. Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel
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and is more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows,
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not just about the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system
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in the 2016 election, which the Trump Tower meeting was all about,
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but also knowledge about the computer crime of hacking
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and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on.
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And we know he publicly cheered it on, but did he also have private information?
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So Lanny Davis is saying, we've got all this info, Mr. Mueller.
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Did Trump cheer on the hacking and the Russians finding information from those hacked servers?
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He said, well, yeah, I mean, we know he did because he did it publicly.
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And this is actually what distinguishes him from other politicians who have been,
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you know, maybe a little fast and loose with their mouths
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and fast and loose with other aspects of their lives.
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Like Bill Clinton, as an example, is Clinton would always kind of pretend.
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He said, yeah, hey, if you find those Clinton emails, Russia, give them to me.
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I mean, they're begging, please give us some special care.
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And of course, Lanny Davis has to spin all of this, right?
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The events of yesterday show us that he's a liar.
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who's basically a dodgy kind of crooked New York lawyer,
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But in one very important respect, Michael is relieved.
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He's a good man with a good heart that I've discovered.
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But he's relieved and liberated is the word I would say to your audience.
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He has stepped up to the line and he has admitted what he did wrong.
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But he is now liberated to tell the truth, everything, about Donald Trump that he knows.
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That led him to approach someone like me, who he knows politically doesn't share anything with President Trump.
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And from this point on, you're going to see liberated Michael Cohen speaking truth to power.
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He's terrified for his property and for his family and his career and his possessions.
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The power is this constant machine and campaign to undo the 2016 election.
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He got crushed by the politicized arm of the federal government.
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Michael Cohen is saying, according to Lanny Davis,
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Michael realizes that Trump is a danger to the country.
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It's his patriotic duty to come out and stop the Trump presidency.
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Even though for the last two years he said that Trump is great.
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And he basically watched over the Trump ascendance.
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Michael Cohen is worried about the feds crushing his family.
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Those are not, you cannot hold them simultaneously.
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Either he's realized, oh, shucks, it doesn't matter what happens to me or my family.
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I'm going to speak truth to power and stop the Trump presidency.
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Or you realize that the Trump presidency, which you helped to facilitate,
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is now coming under attack by even greater powers than the president.
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And you want to save yourself and your family from being crushed.
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So he doesn't think that he's getting a pardon, I guess.
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I don't think that Michael Cohen is going to get a pardon.
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So now he's got to go into the other direction.
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And this question of pardons is kind of interesting because it shows you the differing behavior of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen.
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But listen to Lanny Davis spin this stuff about a presidential pardon.
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What conversations, if any, has your client had with the president or his legal team or have you had on his behalf about a presidential pardon?
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I know that Mr. Cohen would never accept a pardon from a man that he considers to be both corrupt and a dangerous person in the Oval Office.
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And he has flatly authorized me to say under no circumstances would he accept a pardon from Mr. Trump,
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who uses the pardon power in a way that no president in American history has ever used a pardon to relieve people of guilt who committed crimes,
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who are political cronies of his, like the sheriff in Arizona who defied a court order,
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And Lanny, for those of you, I'm sorry, for those of you who aren't watching,
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I just had to pick my jaw up off the floor for what Lanny Davis is saying.
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And for those of you, particularly the millennial viewers who are not familiar with Lanny Davis,
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Lanny Davis was the special counsel and advisor to Bill Clinton,
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the president who more than anybody, maybe in American history, abused his pardon power.
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On just one day, January 20th, 2001, Bill Clinton pardoned 140 people in his final hours.
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Why did he pardon them? Because he suddenly woke up to their innocence, to their great virtue?
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No, it was political payback for cronies. That's what he did.
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It's unbelievable. And to have Lanny Davis there with a straight face, just sitting there with NPR,
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yeah, it's the presidential pardon power. And you know, Michael Cohen would never accept a presidential pardon.
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I don't think that's a worry. I don't think he needs to worry about that presidential pardon, buddy.
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He would never accept, by the way, he would accept it. Just spoiler alert, he would accept a presidential pardon.
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Unbelievable. And this is, this gets to the Clinton of all of this.
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The fact that you have Lanny Davis here, Lanny Davis, the special counsel, the spokesman for Bill Clinton,
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during his sex scandal, during those threats of impeachment, during that abuse of presidential pardons,
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is this beautiful, divine, providential moment where we're seeing basically 1998 in reverse.
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But we're going to talk about why that could be a very, very good thing for President Trump and for the Republicans,
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Before we get to the political ramifications, before we get to whether this is the end of the Trump presidency,
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or if it's only the beginning, who knows, I want to bring on a special guest who is here all the way from Colorado.
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We have Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cake Shop.
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And Jack Phillips, we have your attorney, Jim Campbell, who's here as well.
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And the reason that you have an attorney, because not all cake shop owners and bakers have to retain attorneys
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for years and years on end, is because the left and the coercive power of the state has tried to ruin your life.
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Well, it happened on this time, on the very day that the United States Supreme Court granted our case to hear it.
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That's right. Just for some background on this, you said that you didn't want to participate in a gay wedding ceremony
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And so this case, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission tries to crush you.
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You actually stand pretty firm, despite it hurting your business, despite all of this.
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The Supreme Court agrees to hear your case, and then another case comes up.
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So the very day that the Supreme Court agreed to hear our case, we got a phone call from a lawyer in Colorado
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asking me to create a custom cake that was pink on the inside and blue on the outside to celebrate a gender transition.
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And while we told this customer we'd be glad to create any other thing that we normally do or sell anything else in the shop,
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that was just a message with a cake that we couldn't create.
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And so they said, well, we're going to sue you out of existence.
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So they filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
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I have to ask, these two cases bring up a real question.
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Are you the only baker in the state of Colorado?
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How come everybody is coming to you to bake their cakes that you don't agree with,
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you don't want to participate in the ceremony because of your religious views?
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Right. No, there's another bakery actually in the parking lot across this way,
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and another really fine cake shop just across the street that way.
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There are multiple cakes, and presumably they would participate in a gay marriage ceremony or whatever.
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One of them I know advertises in gay magazines and gay media.
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Man, you must make the best cakes in the world.
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There is a cake shop, a block or two away from you, that advertises in gay media,
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and yet the people who want you to participate in a gay wedding or to participate in a gender celebration, whatever,
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I believe that it's targeting that the state of Colorado, they know that the state of Colorado will back them up.
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They're doubling down on us and trying to come after us again.
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One thing I've noticed is they never go to Muslim bakers.
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And there seems to be this aura of anti-Christianity in the popular culture.
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But in my case, with the first case that went to the Calral, to the United States Supreme Court,
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the Supreme Court told the Civil Rights Commission that they were being hostile to my faith.
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And that they were not treating me equal with other bakers who had gone through the same thing with different cases.
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You have to sort of be happy that the state of Colorado was so sloppy in all of this.
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I mean, they made their anti-Christian bias so apparent that the Supreme Court couldn't deny it.
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And I have to tell you, I've seen this in the popular media.
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Many of the headlines, if not most of them, are lying about the basic facts of your case.
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They're saying that you refuse to serve gay customers.
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Are you the guy who turned away the gay couple?
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I welcome, I serve everybody who comes to my shop.
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Even the two men who sued me that time and the person who's suing me this time.
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I just don't create every cake with every message that people ask me to create.
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Anybody who's in any sort of creative field has to have creative agency over what they do.
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People don't get to come in here and tell me what I'm going to do my show on and tell me what I'm going to say.
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They don't get to tell dancers what sort of dance they have to do.
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And if they don't do the dance, they're going to get sued out of existence.
00:21:00.060
You don't tell an actor you have to do this role or you're going to get sued out of existence.
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But I see this, I saw this on Vox.com, which, you know, anytime you see a headline on Vox.com, just assume the opposite.
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And it said that first you turned away gay customers, now you're turning away transgender customers.
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Again, I welcome everybody who comes to my shop.
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I don't care what their sexual orientation is or their gender identity is.
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It's the message of the cake that they asked me to create.
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The thing I think that's most admirable about your entire saga, which has now gone on, what, six years or something?
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But a lot of people, I think, would have just laid down.
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They would have said, I don't want to spend years of my life fighting this.
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I don't want to take this to the Supreme Court.
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Despite national and international media pressure trying to shut you down, how have you managed to do that?
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And this time, we're forced to file a lawsuit against the state of Colorado, hoping that that will deter them coming after me for every whim that they choose.
00:22:18.020
You know, I also wonder sometimes, we see the left's tactics.
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They're saying, no, I'm not going to go to that bakery a block away.
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I'm going to go to you and force you to violate your conscience.
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I'm going to make you do it and you're going to do it.
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You don't see an evangelical Christian walking into a gay bakery and saying, I want you to bake me a cake that says marriage is a solemn union between a man and a woman.
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I mean, what is it about the political left at this moment where they just demand that you toe that line?
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That's why we're forced into this lawsuit and why we'll do the best that we can to uphold our rights.
00:23:04.880
And it's so, I just love the dignity of that too, which is, I think they want to make you out on, in media as being this, as a Nazi basically.
00:23:14.540
I mean, you know, everyone who's slightly to the right of Vladimir Lenin now is a Nazi.
00:23:20.520
And, and, but you're just so simply spoken about, these are, these are my views.
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Did you see this, this, I know, I know you didn't because nobody watches the Jimmy Kimmel show, but maybe you saw a clip of it afterward.
00:23:37.860
Jimmy Kimmel did a whole segment on you about what a terrible guy you are.
00:23:43.140
I heard reference to it, so I really can't comment on it.
00:23:45.700
Well, the, the whole premise of the clip, he's, you know, he's doing his thing, which is to almost tell a joke, but then make a political statement.
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And then his audience doesn't laugh, but they clap.
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But, but his whole premise is that you, you hate gay people.
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And, and the reason is because you are gay, because you are in a creative profession.
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And I'm always amazed by this turn from the lefties, which is, there's, there's nothing more wonderful than gay culture.
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We all have to embrace and participate in every aspect and every changing aspect of gay culture.
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Do you, do you have hope for religious freedom in America moving forward?
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The Supreme Court ruled, like I said, that the commission was hostile to my faith.
00:24:44.860
The United States Supreme Court upheld religious freedom, I think, really clearly on this.
00:24:59.200
You've become a sort of central figure in these elections.
00:25:03.740
It's not like you're running for federal office or something.
00:25:06.120
But you've demonstrated the power of the courts.
00:25:09.120
And how much the left has perverted the courts over so many years.
00:25:14.900
And you've made these federal judgeships a major issue in these elections.
00:25:18.480
Do you, do you think that that will be a major issue in 2018, 2020?
00:25:27.520
The courts is, there's a lot of power in the courts.
00:25:30.300
And I'm glad to see that they ruled correctly this time.
00:25:35.220
Once this is all said and done, you'll have been tied up in court so far six years.
00:25:44.040
What does your business look like after the left has tried to gut every aspect of it?
00:25:49.940
Well, the commission did require me to start making cakes for same-sex weddings a few years ago.
00:25:57.360
But rather than do that, since I'm in the wedding business, we had to give up our wedding business, which was 40% of our income at the time.
00:26:08.500
Right now with the news, it's crazy and we're really busy.
00:26:11.600
But a year from now, we'll see how that pans out.
00:26:14.120
But they did take away a good deal of our income.
00:26:19.260
They say you can't participate in weddings anymore.
00:26:28.480
I read the headlines and I think, how can I support this guy?
00:26:30.700
How can people go out there and support your legal cause, support your business?
00:26:40.620
But it's such a great statement for a great company.
00:26:47.380
And when things calm down, we ship brownies and cookies.
00:26:56.220
Supporting the Alliance Defending Freedom, the attorneys that are representing us,
00:27:00.380
that's always good, too, because they're not just fighting for me.
00:27:05.400
Before I let you guys go, I do want to talk a little bit just about the legal work
00:27:10.900
You do great legal work in defense of religious liberty in many cases,
00:27:15.160
but obviously this one's been going on for six years.
00:27:18.580
What's your view on the future of religious liberty, and why is it so under attack today?
00:27:24.400
I mean, what we've seen is the recent win in Jack's case.
00:27:27.620
And the recent win in Jack's case made it clear that the government can't be hostile
00:27:32.140
We also won other cases last term that made it clear that the government can't force,
00:27:37.000
for instance, pro-life pregnancy centers to speak messages that are against their conscience.
00:27:41.300
So we think that the court is on a hot streak in protecting not only freedom of speech,
00:27:47.180
And we think that that can only, we're hopeful that will only continue.
00:27:51.480
Because I think a lot of lefties, I talk to a lot of lefties, I'm from New York, I live
00:27:55.360
in LA, you know, and they legitimately believe that religious freedom is just a euphemism for
00:28:02.700
They really, I actually think they earnestly believe that.
00:28:05.520
And it's because they don't take religion seriously, and they don't understand that
00:28:11.780
This court has been terrific on the issue of religious liberty.
00:28:15.500
That's why the left is going after it so badly.
00:28:17.700
It's why they're trying to stop Brett Kavanaugh's nomination.
00:28:22.900
But this case has shown that that's not inevitable.
00:28:26.440
That's not, are there other cases around the country where we can look around and just
00:28:30.560
see like, oh yes, religious freedom is making a comeback?
00:28:33.600
Well, I think one thing, I'd specifically point to the case we just went in Jack's, regarding
00:28:40.800
What the Colorado agency said there was they compared Jack's beliefs to bigotry.
00:28:47.040
And so that's the exact talking point you just referenced.
00:28:50.100
And when the court looked at it, they said that kind of a statement from a government official,
00:28:56.880
So what it's basically done is taken the left's talking point on religious freedom, this
00:29:03.260
And they've said, the government has no business saying that, has no business taking that position,
00:29:10.320
So I think that's a very important thing to emphasize.
00:29:16.720
It's always helpful politically when you can use your opponent's words to twist them
00:29:21.340
And they're so good at doing it that you couldn't have asked for a better opponent in that way.
00:29:30.660
And I hope you keep getting victories because it's not just a victory for Masterpiece Cake
00:29:34.260
It's a victory for every American who appreciates religious liberty.
00:29:40.540
I know you've got important work to talk about.
00:29:43.100
And I've got to talk about the political circus.
00:29:45.100
Before we get to all of this, we're going to talk about the political ramifications of
00:29:52.860
We're also going to talk about how CNN doesn't have any views.
00:29:56.340
We're going to talk about this Molly Tibbetts case.
00:30:01.880
And I do want to get to this day in history and actually say a few nice words about Bill
00:30:06.620
Before I can do that, I have got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
00:30:15.120
You keep the leftist tears filling up my cup day by day.
00:30:19.900
You get the Andrew Klavan Show, the Ben Shapiro Show, ask questions in the mailbag, ask questions
00:30:25.460
None of that matters because right now we have the leftist tears tumbler.
00:30:30.580
And when we get Judge Kavanaugh confirmed and when we keep expanding religious liberty throughout
00:30:35.820
this country and when we keep getting to bake the cakes we want to bake and eat the
00:30:39.840
cakes we want to eat and live in this beautiful land of freedom, this is going to fill up,
00:30:44.000
which is good because leftist tears are actually better even than whole milk when you're eating
00:31:04.220
What are the political ramifications of all of this?
00:31:06.580
You know, we couldn't get away from Michael Cohn and Paul Manafort that easily.
00:31:12.020
Well, it doesn't look great in the short term, does it?
00:31:20.400
They were running on impeachment anyway long before this.
00:31:22.940
But you've got sort of almost the beginnings of a legal case.
00:31:29.740
Let's look at one of the preeminent lefties, one of the most famous lefties in the world for
00:31:34.780
the past many decades and get to see what he thinks about it.
00:31:40.520
Take, say, the huge issue of interference in our pristine elections.
00:31:55.380
I mean, in most of the world, that's almost a joke.
00:31:59.740
First of all, if you're interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the
00:32:06.960
Russians may have done barely counts ways in the balance as compared with what another
00:32:14.540
state does openly, brazenly, and with enormous support.
00:32:21.580
He's talking about Israel there because he doesn't like Israel very much.
00:32:24.460
But he makes a salient point, which is that throughout the rest of the world, this is
00:32:30.120
considered a joke for some obvious reasons, which is that everybody's always trying to
00:32:36.680
And for the other reason, that this issue of Russian alleged interference doesn't really
00:32:46.560
Doesn't, probably didn't affect the election in any way.
00:32:49.380
In so much as it affected the election, it's because it convinced Americans not to vote for
00:32:53.640
the Democrat because it exposed just how awful the Democrats are.
00:33:01.540
Well, he's only right about a few things in this world, but this happens to be one of
00:33:05.220
All of the polling shows that nobody cares about this.
00:33:08.600
All of the polling, not just by right-wing firms, but people rank this basically dead last
00:33:13.100
on their questions of public policy and public affairs.
00:33:18.400
CNN covers the Russia non-scandal, I think about 25 hours a day, roughly eight days per
00:33:26.280
And year over year, CNN's viewership is down 24% total day, and it's down 23% in prime time
00:33:33.240
year over year, this week over this week last year.
00:33:39.440
Actually, and there's some great statistics, the Discovery Channel and the History Channel
00:33:44.340
both do better in prime time than CNN News does, the cable news network, the Clinton news
00:33:49.840
Nickelodeon and Investigation Discovery do better all day.
00:33:54.120
Nickelodeon does better all day than the cable news network.
00:33:57.340
So the question then is, could this hurt Trump anyway?
00:34:00.700
Even if we don't care, we don't watch it, the Russia thing is not a big issue.
00:34:05.280
Could it hurt Trump, his administration, politically, legally?
00:34:13.240
I had a lot of lefties, some old friends writing to me yesterday, say, ha ha, yes, we're
00:34:26.460
The best case scenario is that President Trump survives this scandal just like he survives
00:34:31.240
every other scandal where they said they're going to get Trump.
00:34:35.080
The absolute worst case scenario is that he is impeached and removed from office, and then
00:34:42.480
Ha ha ha, ha ha ha, ha ha ha, ha ha, then we're going to get as many cakes as we want.
00:34:47.300
Ha ha ha ha ha, and a lot of religious freedom and a conservative president.
00:34:55.740
And by the way, he's not going to be removed from office.
00:34:58.940
It's virtually impossible that he's removed from office.
00:35:09.180
One way to compare this is the John Edwards scandal.
00:35:14.640
He's the most just generic, bland Democrat ever to run for office.
00:35:24.040
And that hair became a big issue in the election because his expensive haircuts were one of the bits of evidence that he was funneling campaign money to pay off a mistress.
00:35:38.360
In the case of John Edwards, this came to light finally in 2012.
00:35:46.760
He spent well over a million dollars funneling money to his mistress to cover all of this up during the campaign.
00:35:54.380
President Trump is accused of funneling a few hundred thousand dollars, which I think President Trump like, that's what he pays for breakfast.
00:36:01.060
I think he goes down to Trump Tower and then throws a few hundred thousand dollars down there.
00:36:04.460
So as a matter of dollars, dollars and cents, Edwards was worse.
00:36:08.920
Edwards got indicted in that case on six felony counts.
00:36:14.600
Indicted on six felony counts, was found not guilty on one count, and a mistrial was declared on all of the others.
00:36:23.420
It is much, much harder to get the sitting president of the United States than it is to get an ex-senator.
00:36:31.880
And even John Edwards, one of the least sympathetic figures in American politics, even that guy got off on every count.
00:36:40.100
Years after he was in office and he was just a lowly senator.
00:36:42.720
Now, how does Donald Trump, how does this really affect him?
00:36:48.880
Let's say that the Democrats win the House, which historically speaking, they should win the House.
00:36:54.700
But because everything is going very, very well because the Trump administration has governed in a terrific manner.
00:37:01.760
If they do win the House, then they need a simple majority to impeach.
00:37:07.540
Although you kind of wonder, some of those red state Democrats, they might not be so eager to impeach.
00:37:11.720
But they're saying that they're eager to impeach and let's say they do it.
00:37:14.600
When you get to the Senate, you need 67 votes to convict in the Senate.
00:37:21.000
Is anybody predicting that the Democrats are going to win 67 seats in the Senate?
00:37:26.440
Is anybody really predicting that the Democrats are going to win the Senate?
00:37:29.760
I suppose it's possible, but they're not going to win 67 seats.
00:37:44.620
All of this might redound to President Trump's benefit.
00:37:50.380
That now you've got Cohen, you've got the drama, you've got Cohen pleads guilty and Manafort,
00:38:01.100
I'm old enough to remember politics in the 90s.
00:38:05.240
And yet I was such a political fiend as a five-year-old.
00:38:15.680
I remember, you know, my grandpa would teach me, read my lips, no new taxes, and then Bush
00:38:21.900
And I remember campaigning in my first-rate classroom for Bob Dole.
00:38:25.660
I remember clearly all of the Clinton scandals, all of the Clinton impeachment.
00:38:30.040
I really couldn't stand Bill Clinton, and neither could the entire Republican Party.
00:38:35.920
But there are so many lessons to get out of that Clinton scandal, because you've got
00:38:39.740
to remember, there were investigations going back to 94, 96, 98.
00:38:51.480
I want to get to this day in history, what we can learn from him.
00:38:54.620
Before that, though, let's just clear up a little bit of news, because this is too much
00:39:02.900
Molly Tibbetts, that poor girl who, college student, she went missing.
00:39:13.100
It was when they found this poor girl's body, it was the biggest news story on Google News,
00:39:19.160
Apple News, and then they found out who the killer was.
00:39:24.060
They thought he's the killer, a boyfriend, or a this, or a local this, or that.
00:39:31.640
He was the guy who led them to the body, and he's now the main suspect.
00:39:38.940
The Republican Party is actually not working on behalf of the American people.
00:39:43.680
They are working on behalf of Donald Trump, and he's been able to bully them into their
00:39:46.660
silence, and I don't think that today changes much, unfortunately.
00:39:49.780
I'm sure we'll hear what he has to say about this at his rally, but Fox News is talking
00:39:54.340
about, you know, a girl in Iowa and not this, right?
00:39:57.780
And tomorrow morning, we know he'll wake up and tweet and sort of, you know, besmirch the
00:40:01.740
reputation of Michael Cohen and all the people around him.
00:40:06.660
And Fox News, right, they're the only ones talking about Molly Tibbetts.
00:40:09.400
Oh no, it was every single news agency in the country, and internationally, was talking
00:40:14.580
about this missing girl, was talking about Molly Tibbetts.
00:40:16.620
All of these channels, NBC, CBS, the Associated Press, Google News, Apple News, everybody was
00:40:21.840
talking about it until it became clear that the killer is an illegal alien.
00:40:26.260
And then the only person talking about it was Fox News.
00:40:29.360
Then the only outlet talking about it was Fox News.
00:40:32.120
So she's trying to use this as an example of Fox News being dishonest.
00:40:35.300
Fox News is the only honest cable news network, is the only honest one of the whole bunch.
00:40:44.700
Oh, because it's a compelling story and this poor girl got murdered, but now it cuts against
00:40:49.340
your political narrative because an illegal alien is the one who did it.
00:40:52.920
Look, CBS ran the headline and said, GOP seizing Molly Tibbetts' murder as political issue.
00:41:00.780
It's been a major news story for a long time now.
00:41:04.540
We're just following it to its logical conclusion and you're all abandoning it as a political
00:41:12.740
They found out it's a Christian Bahina Rivera, 24-year-old illegal alien.
00:41:17.200
The CNN coverage this morning of the killer, they found the killer, they bring him in.
00:41:22.960
CNN coverage doesn't even acknowledge that he's an illegal alien.
00:41:26.700
Listen to Chief Liawatha being asked about this on CNN, on the Clinton News Network.
00:41:34.460
I want to get one last question in here because it is a story, a very important story in the
00:41:38.440
It has to do with Molly Tibbetts, the young woman in Iowa who was murdered.
00:41:45.240
A person has been charged with that this person is an undocumented immigrant.
00:41:49.780
Mike Pence and the president have suggested the immigration laws need to be stronger so that
00:41:54.600
people like this man who was accused of this murder were not in the country.
00:41:59.380
You know, I'm so sorry for the family here and I know this is hard, not only for the family
00:42:04.860
but for the people in her community, the people throughout Iowa.
00:42:09.860
But one of the things we have to remember is we need an immigration system that is effective,
00:42:18.380
Last month, I went down to the border and I saw where children had been taken away from
00:42:28.260
You might have missed it because she's gotten really good at hiding it.
00:42:36.480
But, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.
00:42:37.980
She actually shortened her butt because she didn't want us to hear it.
00:42:46.080
You say, oh, I, look, I really, really don't want to raise your taxes.
00:42:55.760
Look, I, you, I know you want to keep your doctor.
00:42:58.140
You really want to, but you're, you'll totally get to keep your doctor.
00:43:10.020
She wants to say, yeah, it's really terrible that this illegal alien killed this girl.
00:43:17.460
Is that, she's saying we need immigration reform.
00:43:21.180
We want to enforce the laws and get people out of the country who shouldn't be in the country.
00:43:28.500
She's campaigning against that pretty vociferously.
00:43:31.780
I, I think people like Liz Warren, like Liawatha, they don't realize that, like, illegal alien
00:43:40.120
And in many states, illegal aliens are much, much more likely to commit crimes, to be members
00:43:47.560
President Trump was exactly right when he pointed that out.
00:43:49.840
And I think she just denies it because she doesn't see it.
00:43:53.000
She doesn't see even the effect on the welfare system.
00:43:55.820
Immigrant-led households, legal and illegal, and certainly illegal aliens, access public services.
00:44:03.060
Immigrant-led households are much more likely to be on welfare, some form of welfare.
00:44:09.040
And we'll talk about welfare with regard to President Clinton and President Trump in a second.
00:44:18.440
Liz Warren's a rich Native American lady, you know.
00:44:28.920
It does affect people who are, you know, who are relying on smaller amounts of income,
00:44:35.420
who have lower margins than Liz Warren, who care about the future fiscal solvency of the country.
00:44:44.140
And more young, younger generations are going to have to deal with fiscal insolvency.
00:44:49.560
We're going to have to deal with the entitlement state.
00:44:51.220
These things have effects that she isn't noticing.
00:44:58.460
Does it work in, or does it work in theory, rather?
00:45:03.160
It won't, it won't serve them well in the 2018 or 2020 elections.
00:45:07.080
And this brings us to the real election question, which is this day in history.
00:45:11.660
But we do have to finish this up because this is the big takeaway, I think, for Republicans.
00:45:17.100
You know, I agree with Ben's analysis almost entirely on how this looks legally and how this looks politically.
00:45:23.220
But I'm much more hopeful, I think, because, because it worked out very well for Bill Clinton.
00:45:29.880
Because there, it doesn't seem that the threat of this taking down Trump is that high.
00:45:34.960
If you look at Edwards, if you look at Clinton, I get it.
00:45:37.500
There's hypocrisy all around, but I don't think they can get him.
00:45:40.820
1996, on this day in history, providential perhaps,
00:45:44.140
Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act.
00:45:50.940
He said, we must end welfare as we have come to know it.
00:45:55.060
This was the, you know, he was constantly repeating this.
00:46:01.020
We must end welfare as we have come to know it.
00:46:03.300
And the President Clinton's welfare reform was an excellent law and it worked.
00:46:07.640
It kills me to compliment the Clintons, but this was really good.
00:46:10.780
It made immigrants ineligible for welfare for five years.
00:46:13.680
It posed a lifetime ban on food stamps for drug felons.
00:46:21.480
The effect of this was it saved the federal government a lot of money and the caseload fell by 60%.
00:46:26.360
60% of people got off of welfare because of welfare reform.
00:46:32.320
There are so many similarities between right now and the mid to late 90s that it's one of these moments where you kind of wonder if the good Lord is like, you know, sometimes the good Lord whispers to us, Michael, Michael, pay attention.
00:46:49.280
And then other times he's like, you stupid idiots.
00:46:57.120
You know, first of all, this is about Clintons because it's trying to undo the 2016 election where the Clintons lost.
00:47:02.840
And then you've got the Clintons lawyer now on exactly the other side, arguing exactly the other things.
00:47:10.600
In 1994, you had the investigations beginning into Bill Clinton's sexual degeneracy.
00:47:18.220
So you had him, you know, they're investigating the Paula Jones sexual harassment.
00:47:22.880
Then all of a sudden you've got investigations over Monica Lewinsky.
00:47:39.500
A lot of similarities to how wide ranging other special counsel investigations can be.
00:47:47.520
Now there's an allegation that President Trump has lied.
00:47:52.060
Bill Clinton, it was much worse because he lied under oath.
00:47:57.320
Bill Clinton still got off, even lying under oath.
00:48:01.040
The American people didn't want President Clinton impeached.
00:48:05.480
Well, in the 1998 election, when impeachment is hot on the table, it's underway, the investigations are going on.
00:48:13.580
Newt Gingrich was positive that this was going to get the GOP 30 seats in the House.
00:48:21.260
The GOP lost seats in the House and the Senate.
00:48:24.300
He was so shocked and ashamed that it had exactly the negative effect.
00:48:32.160
Gingrich, or rather, the GOP lost seats in both the House and the Senate.
00:48:40.020
But we lost seats in the House and the Senate elections.
00:48:44.780
It hurt Bill Clinton legally in the headlines or whatever.
00:48:50.500
Because people don't want the President impeached.
00:48:59.480
The whole reason we elected the guy is for drama.
00:49:10.600
Because when people get along, go along to get along, and they're really nice, things don't get done.
00:49:16.300
And we've seen a lot of great stuff come out of this presidency.
00:49:21.180
Because when people look at this, are they looking at it and saying,
00:49:24.340
Michael Cohen and this fraud and this and he talked to him and da-ba-da-ba-da?
00:49:28.940
What they're saying, and all of the public policy, or all of the public polling shows this,
00:49:55.620
We have record high employment, record low joblessness.
00:50:01.920
Why the hell are you talking to me about Russia and porn stars?
00:50:10.340
And I think there was a similar effect in the 90s.
00:50:20.680
They were certain it was going to clinch elections for them.
00:50:44.660
He's more of a political fighter than a lot of politicians we've seen recently.
00:50:48.860
And if history is showing us anything, if past is precedent here, I would put my money on Donald Trump.
00:51:03.120
They're going to make this all about Michael Cohen.
00:51:04.840
They're going to make this all about Paul Manafort.
00:51:14.660
But if I had to put money down, I would still put money down on us surviving this.
00:51:23.380
I'm sure we'll have another 50,000 news stories that we have to cover today.
00:51:44.660
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.
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