Ep. 220 - Much Ado About Nothing
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Summary
The 36-year-old groping allegations against Brett Kavanaugh fall apart, the economy soars to new heights, and Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono needs a fainting couch. Then, the one and only Ken Starr joins the program to discuss the special counsel, his old employee, Brett Kavanaugh, and just how wicked the Clintons are. Finally, the mailbag.
Transcript
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The 36-year-old groping allegations against Brett Kavanaugh fall apart, the economy soars to new
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heights, and Democrat Senator Mazie Hirono needs a fainting couch. Then, the one and only Ken Starr
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joins the program to discuss the special counsel, his old employee, Brett Kavanaugh, and just how
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wicked the Clintons really are, even worse than you think. Finally, the mailbag. I'm Michael
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Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show. All right, we've got to have the Daily Kavanaugh
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allegation update. I guess that's all we do now. That's all any show can do, is talk about not
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credible allegations from 40 years ago about what a teenage Brett Kavanaugh did. So, this has all
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fallen apart. As I predicted, by the way, I would like a little credit here. Let the record show.
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I never took these allegations seriously, and they're even less serious today than they were
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yesterday or the day before. So, we've had a couple people come out and say,
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I went to high school with them, and I know that these are real. And then, the second anyone asks
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them a question, they say, oh, never mind. I take it back. I take it back. So, that's not going to
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work. The woman, Christine Blase Ford, said that she was going to testify before Congress, and then
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she didn't do that. And then, now they say they want an FBI investigation. Why? I don't know. I
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couldn't tell you what the FBI is going to do. The FBI is just going to go to the Oracle at Delphi,
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and they're going to say, oh, Oracle, tell us what happened at a party that may or may not have
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even occurred 36 years ago. They're going to rub the crystal ball and say, oh, thank goodness the
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federal government possesses this crystal ball to let us know what happened. So, that's obviously
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frivolous and absurd. The Democrats first said that we need to hear this woman. We need to hear this
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women. The Republicans don't want us to hear this woman, and we are going to hear her or else. And
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then, the woman said, I'm not going to testify. She said, how dare those Republicans try to bring
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this woman to a hearing? How dare they? How insensitive? She should never speak before a
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hearing. So, it's all, all frivolous. But, I would like to give out for the first time ever on this
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show. You know, we're almost near awards season now. We had the Emmys over the weekend. In a month or
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two, we'll get into the film awards. I want to give out the Not a Very Serious Person Award,
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the first annual Not a Very Serious Person Award, for her performance in the fake Brett Kavanaugh
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allegations. That would go to Hawaii Democrat Senator Mazie Hirono. Mazie, come accept your award.
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Guess who's perpetuating all of these kinds of actions? It's the men in this country. And I just
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want to say to the men in this country, just shut up and step up. Do the right thing.
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For a change. Okay, you can see I'm a little upset by this, you know.
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Mazie Hirono, setting women back hundreds of years. Would you like a fainting couch, ma'am?
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Would you? But the men, I hate the men and it's all the men's fault. It's okay. It's okay.
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They're there. They're there. It's okay. Step up and do a change for once, she says, by the way.
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So, first of all, now, all men are assailants or rapists or whatever, according to this
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frivolous woman. But then, then she says men should step up and, and do, do something good
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for once. For once, as though men have never done anything before. I, I should like to point out,
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not, not to, I, I don't really believe in this sort of sexual conflict that Mazie Hirono is,
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is bringing up. But just to answer her point, we know that men have stepped up and done great
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things before. We, we know this even in recent history. The evidence for that is that if American
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men had not stepped up and acted courageously and done the right thing, then Mazie Hirono and
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all of the other American women would be speaking German right now, if they were even allowed to
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speak. You know, every, every great war, you know, all of the defense of our country, running the
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government, starting, there were a lot of, I think men have done okay. I think they've done okay over
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time. But Mazie Hirono, oh, men, men, wah, wah, wah, wah. All of the arguments, by the way, that have ever
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been made, all of the sexist, chauvinistic arguments are that, you know, women are more prone to be
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emotional and paint with a broad brush. And, uh, you know, that, that's why they can't be in public
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life. And then Mazie Hirono just goes out, I hate all the men, wah, wah, wah. And then, but then that
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actually isn't even the least serious thing she's, she's done all day. She goes on and someone asks her,
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okay, you're saying that these allegations of Brett Kavanaugh against Brett Kavanaugh are, are fair,
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they're real, we should believe them. What could Brett Kavanaugh do to prove them wrong and to
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exculpate himself? Here's what she says. You have a second question about men stepping up.
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What, if anything, could Judge Kavanaugh say in this hearing that would convince you
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that he didn't do what he's accused of? He is saying that he didn't do it. What else can he say?
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So I set that aside and I look at what Dr. Ford is saying and we've all said she makes a very
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credible claim. So nothing. He can do nothing. What could Kavanaugh do to exculpate himself?
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Well, he, nothing, nothing. He can't say anything. I don't believe anything he said,
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even though he has an unimpeachable career in the public eye. He's been a judge for 12 years. But
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yeah, okay, I don't believe anything he said. But then a woman who refuses to testify, to speak to
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anybody on the record, no witnesses, the only witnesses that she can even muster up, say it never
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happened, calls it absolutely nuts. That's the woman that we have to believe. That is not a
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serious person, Maisie Hirono. But it's also not a credible allegation. You heard that word. Did
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you hear that? She said that at the incredible. These are credible allegations. She's a credible
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accuser. And this is a point on language that I think we all need to pay attention to. You know,
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they say brevity is the soul of wit. So I try to always use an economy of words when I write things.
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And I bring this up a lot. I did a Prager video on the importance of language.
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Democrats pervert the culture and pervert our politics by twisting language and we let them
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get away with it. They just say slogans that are not true, that distort reality, that pervert reality,
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and we let them get away with it. Sometimes we start using that language too. And that over time
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perverts the culture. So I'd like it pointed out. I wrote a column on this a few days ago. I talked
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about it on the show. I never thought the allegations were credible, even if the woman's not lying or even
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if she's misremembering or what. I'm just saying the allegation itself is not credible. Why? Because
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there's no evidence for it. It was made well after the fact in the heat of a political moment. No
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witnesses. The story has changed. Nothing about it is credible. The Democrats have insisted from the
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beginning. It's a credible allegation. It's credible. It's credible. When we see this now, they've got their
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talking points. Dan Pfeiffer, who's on one of those lefty podcasts. He's an old Obama bro.
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He tweets out, quote, credibly accused sexual assailant Donald Trump. Put incredibly accused
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sexual assailant Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. Tells you everything you need to know about
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the Republican Party. Now, what does credible mean here? What is credibly accused? Donald Trump
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paid off a porn star, apparently. He paid off some other model or something. I don't think Stormy
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Daniels has accused him of assault. I don't think any of the other public people have accused him of
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assault. There are a lot of accusations that are surrounding a lot of these people. But where is
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where is the credibility? What is and obviously the Brett Kavanaugh thing is absurd from Susan
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Hennessey at CNN, quote, it is worth pondering that if this doesn't make a difference and good
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money says it won't, two of the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will have been credibly
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accused of serious sexual misconduct. What a statement to the women of this country. Now,
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she's referring to Clarence Thomas, who in 1991, same exact thing happened. He was about to go
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through. And at the last minute, they sprung up some allegation of sexual harassment by a woman
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named Anita Hill. Even though Anita Hill had worked with him for a long time, there had never been,
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doors were open. They'd never heard any things about this. They couldn't get good witnesses on
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it. They totally railroaded him and have really damaged his reputation needlessly. Brendan Nyhan,
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who's a New York Times contributor, quote, imagine the reaction to future Supreme Court rulings on
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women's rights if two of five justices in the majority and the president have been credibly accused
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of sexual misconduct. Credibly accused, credibly accused, credibly. They got their talking points
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today. But that tweet sums up what this is really about, because likely Kavanaugh is going to get
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through. I don't see how he's not going to get through. And a lot of insiders are saying within
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a week, truly, there's going to be nothing left to this allegation. But what they want to be able
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to do is, once Kavanaugh is through, be able to run for the rest of his life and say, oh, Kavanaugh,
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he was accused of sexual assault. He's a rapist. He's a rapist. I mean, there's no evidence for any of
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that at all. Not even in the accusation, but that's what they're going to run on, especially
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when it gets down to abortion questions. And Corey Robin, a lefty writer, wrote, quote,
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if Kavanaugh is confirmed, that means every 5-4 opinion authored by the court's conservative
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majority will include two men credibly accused of sexual harassment. If that doesn't call into
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question the legitimacy of the institution and the rule of law, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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He's underlining all of this. He's saying, ha ha, we're about to undermine the legitimacy of our
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institutions, which they've been doing since 2016. And then Paul Krugman. Paul Krugman. Former Enron
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advisor Paul Krugman, writing in the New York Times, quote, once upon a time, catching a Supreme
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Court nominee in a pretty obvious lie at the same time he's being credibly accused of other deceptions
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would probably have been disqualifying. But this is the modern GOP. Paul Krugman, a member of the party
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of Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, FDR, Ted Kennedy, all the Kennedys, Anthony Weiner, Keith Ellison. Okay,
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okay, buddy, sure. So we need to pay attention to this really closely because when you hear this
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language, I think a lot of times people hear credibly accused, credibly accused, it's on all
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the news shows, and they'll just say it. They'll just spout it. If you're a Democrat, if you're a
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moderate, if you're a centrist, even some Republicans. Oh, it's credible, credible, credible. No,
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no, no. That was just made up. They pulled that out of thin air. A Democrat communications firm,
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which is likely advising the parties involved here. They said, okay, you got to use this
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credibly involved. They do this with videos. Whenever we have evidence of Democrats being
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degenerates on video, they say, oh, it was heavily edited video. Video is edited by definition. All
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video is edited. You started in a certain place, you ended at another place, you upload it, you put it
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somewhere. All video is edited. They say heavily edited as if to mean untrue. And they're saying
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credible accusations as if to say these are true allegations. And there's no evidence for that at
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all. You've got to pay careful attention because while we're talking about this, while we're debating
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this, this is the worst part of the whole situation is they have us playing on their territory. So I think
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we've got to just put an end to it, make this vote happen, get past Kavanaugh, get past this nomination
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because the actual headline today is that unemployment, joblessness, has hit a record low. It is at the
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lowest level that it's been since 1969. That's under the economy of President Donald Trump. What else
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has happened? Our stock market has hit a record high. The Dow jumped 250 points today. Why is that?
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Because investors are not worried about the trade war that the Democrats told us was imminent, that
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was on us right now. And sober Republicans said it's not a real worry. The economy has never been
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better. It has never been better. Things are going great in this country. And they've got us arguing
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about a 36-year-old allegation where the woman can't say where it happened, why it happened,
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who was there. She changes her story. It only comes out at the 11th hour. She wants to testify.
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She won't testify. We're talking about that nonsense, that pure fiction that they have crafted.
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When we could be talking about the real economy around us, the real political achievements of this
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administration. And they're trying to play that for the midterms. We should stop it. Stop all this
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nonsense. Give us a vote. Put them on the Supreme Court and move on because things are going very
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well. I'm very, very lucky to have one of the great figures, probably the most famous lawyer who
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isn't on the Supreme Court in the country, a figure from all of our childhood, Ken Starr, who has,
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he employed Brett Kavanaugh and a lot of the players actually who are in the news cycles today.
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He's been a judge. He's been all over the place in politics. And he's got a new book out,
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Contempt, about the Clinton administration and the special prosecutor investigation,
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the independent counsel investigation, the Monica Lewinsky affair, and on and on and on.
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Ken Starr joins us to discuss his new book and everything else going on in the news,
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So, Judge Starr, you have a unique vantage point, I think, in D.C. as you have held just about every
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important role and every role that we're seeing in the news cycle right now. D.C. Circuit Court of
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Appeals judge, solicitor general, independent counsel, where you employed Brett Kavanaugh,
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professor, university president, chancellor, now the author of Contempt, which I very, very much
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enjoyed. I urge everybody who is a political junkie to read it, and not just that, anybody who is
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confused by this news cycle to read it, because it explains a lot of things that even I couldn't
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quite put together. And also for millennials, I know a lot of millennials watch the show.
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Judge Starr, you are a central figure in our childhoods. You were plastered all over television
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for all of our childhoods. So, to begin, I want to begin with the job itself, and then we can use
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that to go into the news cycle, Kavanaugh, and all of that. There is a difference between an
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independent counsel, a special counsel, and a special prosecutor. You very famously served as
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independent counsel during the Clinton administration, and you write in the book that when you were offered
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the job, you didn't think the job should exist. You disagreed with the law that created the job.
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So, tell us about that, about the job, and how it fits into our constitutional framework.
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Yeah, and the constitutional point is very important, but it's also very important at a
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practical, operational level. So, it has both theoretical importance and practical importance.
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Under the independent counsel law, I was appointed to serve as special prosecutor,
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later named independent counsel, as the law that Congress passed, was amended.
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By three judges to conduct an investigation of the president of the United States.
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Bob Mueller, our current special counsel in the news, is appointed not by three judges,
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but he's appointed consistent with the traditions of our country and our law by the attorney general
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general of the United States, or in this instance, the acting attorney general, Rod Rosenstein.
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And in that distinction of who appoints, and then who ultimately can fire,
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and who can guide and supervise, lies all the practical and constitutional difference in the world.
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I did not like the statute under which I was appointed, because I felt and continue to feel
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that the appointing authority for executive branch functions, such as prosecutions of possible federal crimes,
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should come from within the executive branch, ultimately responsible to the president.
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The issue has always been, well, how much independence should this outsider brought in
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to conduct an investigation of the president or those close around him or her have?
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And what the independent counsel law did was to say, we want greater independence,
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less of a connection to the Justice Department,
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but we're not going to cut the Justice Department out of the process entirely.
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So my final point, I was appointed by three judges, but at the request of the attorney general under the law,
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Janet Reno, who is President Clinton's attorney general.
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So under the statute, the Congress passed in 1978 as a post-Watergate scandal reform.
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They would do the appointing, but they rolled into operation only at the request of the attorney general.
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So under the statute passed by Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal, a law passed in 1978,
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three judges had the appointing power, but they rolled into action only upon the request of the attorney general,
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who had information that, oh, something needs to be looked into.
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An independent counsel should be appointed, but I, the attorney general, can't do the appointing.
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And so the three judges on the special panel asked me to serve.
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I didn't volunteer for the job, but I was asked to serve, and I did serve.
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I said, I didn't volunteer for this, all this abuse here at the Daily Wire.
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So on that point, because that really does clear things up, I think a lot of people see these terms,
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and they don't see the distinction, the distinction between who appoints whom and where this falls.
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I'm not asking you to be too much of a political pundit, but as you observe the Mueller investigation,
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all of the accusations from both sides, from the president and from Democrats and from the left,
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How do you think the investigation seems to be going?
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Should it wrap up? Are there calls for it to wrap up?
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I think Bob Mueller is doing his job, and I have encouraged the president to leave him alone,
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That might send the message, but no, I love my country.
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Whether I agree or disagree with the president, I want the president to do a good job.
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And one of the messages in the book is that if you see a campaign to demonize the prosecutor,
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It started in the Clinton years, and in fact, the Trump team has been reported as saying,
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we're just taking a play from the Bill Clinton playbook.
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Demonize the prosecutor and do everything you can to stand in the way, deny, delay, and so forth.
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Now, that having been said, from what I have read, Bob Mueller, notwithstanding all the rhetoric
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and all the tweets, has enjoyed the cooperation of the president and the president's team.
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There's now a huge issue as to is the president going to be interviewed or not.
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But the interview of the president, if it happens, would come only toward the end of the process.
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So now to come back to your basic question, I think Bob Mueller is, if anything,
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he's winding down in terms of the investigation of collusion.
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Now, what we don't know is whether the attorney general, here the acting attorney general,
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Rod Rosenstein, has expanded Bob Mueller's investigation.
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We know, of course, that his investigation immediately took him to Paul Manafort, right?
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And so there weren't just questions involving George Papadopoulos, General Flynn,
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which had to do with the possibility of connections with the Trump campaign
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Getting the guilty plea recently, this last week, from Paul Manafort
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But to Mr. Mueller, yeah, to Mr. Mueller, to Bob Mueller, for obvious reasons,
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not only to save time, energy, resources, and so forth, having to go into trial.
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At least that's what's called for under the agreement of Paul Manafort.
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So that helps get to the bottom of the whole issue of Russian collusion.
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Let me say, I've seen no evidence of Russian collusion.
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I know about the, we all know about the Trump Tower meeting in June of 2016.
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But I think that's been pretty much fleshed out.
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And no charges have been brought, at least thus far, against anyone on the basis of that meeting.
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And I want to return to what you mentioned, the Bill Clinton of it all, the Clinton playbook of it all.
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It's a trip down memory lane for me to my childhood.
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And I'm seeing all of these characters crop up again.
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Rod Rosenstein crops up, a lot of other people who we see in politics, and of course, the Clintons.
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And Hillary Clinton in particular, you don't paint a great picture of them, including in the title of the book, Contempt.
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How much did the Clinton administration and their handling of your work in particular, but obviously other issues too,
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how much did that poison our politics and lead to our currently toxic political environment?
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I think it contributed to what President Clinton himself called the politics of personal destruction.
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James Stewart, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of a book entitled Blood Support,
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about the whole whitewater affair before the trials began in Little Rock,
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in our 14 convictions, guilty pleas, and so forth.
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But what the Clintons did was to treat people with contempt.
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For example, Monica Lewinsky treated with contempt, right?
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I mean, there were different allegations and accusations made against her.
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Paula Corbin-Jones, who brought a sexual harassment lawsuit, that sounds pretty familiar, right?
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A sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton for his actions that she alleged occurred in Arkansas during the time he was governor.
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The most demeaning thing, she's trailer park trash.
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We think the culture is, some of us have concerns about the directions of the culture.
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I was stunned that Bill Clinton personally, and the people around Bill Clinton,
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could demonize women who had had either a consensual relationship with the president,
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or, in the case of Juanita Broderick, a very colorable allegation that she had been raped,
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and I mean raped, by William Jefferson Clinton when he was attorney general of the state of Arkansas.
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And one of the things that I don't say in the book, even though I praise so many people in the press,
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yet I praise so many people in the press as being truth seekers.
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I'm going to have to ask you about that afterward, but please go on.
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Okay, what, yeah, what, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm going on.
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Included Lisa Myers of NBC News, who first uncovered the story of the alleged rape,
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Now, think of it now, especially with social media.
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Now, remember, this is the time when some pretty famous and powerful people, other than Bill Clinton,
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were doing some very nasty things in the workplace, right?
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Now, I'm going to say this, especially in light of the Brett Kavanaugh situation.
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He was with me at my side during many years of the investigation.
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And I think the outpouring of support for him suggests that we are a long, long, well,
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he's just absolutely denied that this alleged episode ever happened with this person or with
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I think we've grown up in certain respects as a culture.
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Well, and that question of the media and of Kavanaugh, because I suppose you're right.
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I suppose I can agree there are some members of the media who are truth seekers, though
00:25:21.660
And I remember, even as a kid, the media destroyed you.
00:25:28.500
You went from being criticized by Republicans as a squish, as being too moderate, to being this
00:25:34.540
right-wing, rock-ribbed, knuckle-drag within two days.
00:25:39.120
It's because the White House turned its attention on you and the media followed suit.
00:25:42.640
We're seeing this all the way up through Judge Kavanaugh.
00:25:46.020
Now Judge Kavanaugh has lived this apparently unimpeachable life that, you know, we should
00:25:51.840
all be so lucky that the worst our enemies could drag up on us is this story heard for
00:26:03.520
Did it change under the Clinton administration, or have they always been bulldogs for one
00:26:10.560
political view over the other, for the Democrats, over the Republicans?
00:26:18.380
There are going to be partisans who have journalistic, what am I trying to say, credentials.
00:26:36.520
You know, Jefferson hated the Federalist-dominated press and was eager for more anti-Federalist
00:26:45.180
And yet he wisely knew we've got to have the free press.
00:26:52.320
So all I say is, be careful of who you're listening to, assess it, but always ask the
00:27:01.560
question, am I hearing the truth, am I hearing facts, or am I hearing sin?
00:27:07.600
And every White House has its propaganda operation.
00:27:12.900
But what Bill Clinton did with his operatives, the James Carvels at the time, the George Stephanopoulos
00:27:19.900
and so forth, those folks were masters at the art, the evil and dark art of fitting a
00:27:30.340
But in the process, I don't think Stephanopoulos ever did this, but Carvel definitely did.
00:27:42.900
Obviously, he's a naturally charming and charismatic guy.
00:27:46.360
I pay tribute to his many political gifts in the press.
00:27:53.280
She turned her back on her upbringing in the suburbs of Chicago.
00:27:58.280
When she went to Wellesley, she became radicalized.
00:28:03.500
No, as I described in the book, she became a follower and student of Saul Alinsky, the author
00:28:16.800
Now, not rules for Christians, rules for thoughtful secularists, rules for kind atheists, rules for
00:28:34.380
In the book, you talk about how she was so brazen in saying, I don't remember, I don't
00:28:39.460
recall, I don't remember, that you considered charging her with perjury, if I'm getting that
00:28:48.540
Because, you know, part of the meta narrative is, oh, Starr found nothing in Arkansas and then
00:28:54.820
went after the president because of a private consensual relationship.
00:28:58.640
So we all know that narrative, even if you were a child, you now know.
00:29:02.760
I mean, that's just part of our modern history, right?
00:29:06.440
And so one of the reasons I wrote the book, my memoir, is to set the record straight, to
00:29:18.080
And then most relevantly, in light of your comment, we seriously considered going before
00:29:23.800
the grand jury in Little Rock, Arkansas in the spring of 1998 and say, indicted Hillary
00:29:29.700
But we made the professional judgment that we did not have the evidence, sufficient evidence
00:29:35.340
to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she committed these offenses.
00:29:43.360
She should be down on her knees, I hate to use that image, at night, saying, thank you,
00:29:49.180
dear Lord, that for what I did, that I was not prosecuted by the independent counsel.
00:29:56.580
And that image of Hillary Clinton on her knees praying, I don't know, does the saying go,
00:30:06.480
I think the angels take care of drunks and lawyers.
00:30:12.340
And throughout the book, I love that you continually return to what is the truth.
00:30:19.360
Everyone you're speaking to, Monica Lewinsky, whoever it is, we're after the truth.
00:30:23.180
And it's something that maybe there isn't enough of these days.
00:30:26.040
So I really encourage people to read the book because I think a lot of us saw it on TV
00:30:30.800
and we were told a certain narrative of what happened.
00:30:38.180
Judge Starr, I've taken up far too much of your time.
00:30:48.260
In many respects, it's a cry from the heart about our country
00:30:52.480
and how good our country is and that our system of law does, in fact, work.
00:30:58.880
It can be quite ugly at times, but the ugliness is not our system of law.
00:31:03.640
The ugliness is the human condition, the human being in our system.
00:31:12.500
May we keep our system of a constitutional republic.
00:31:16.540
Dr. Franklin asked us to do that on Constitution Day, September 17, 1787.
00:31:22.220
May we continue to guard and love our constitutional republic.
00:31:26.520
Ken Starr, one of the most insightful people in our public life.
00:31:32.360
We have a whole mailbag today, and I'm going to get through all of them.
00:31:36.160
Probably I won't, but I'm going to try to get through all of them.
00:31:38.480
So if you are at dailywire.com, thank you very much.
00:31:41.460
You help us keep the lights on and covfefe in my cup.
00:31:43.640
If you are on Facebook and YouTube, get out of there, man.
00:31:47.380
It's $10 a month, $100 for an annual membership.
00:31:52.360
You get to ask questions in the mailbag, like the one that's just coming up.
00:32:28.360
Dear Dr. Covfefe, I often hear my leftist acquaintances of Caucasian descent say, check
00:32:37.240
I honestly have never been quite sure what to make of this ridiculous phrase.
00:32:41.480
Could you please explain it and deconstruct it for me?
00:32:51.920
That's the only action that is requested by that phrase.
00:32:56.600
It means you have an opinion that I can't refute or argue against.
00:33:02.760
So I'm going to, on the basis of your race or your sex, or if you're a man who thinks he's
00:33:08.640
a man or a woman who thinks she's a woman, tell you to shut up.
00:33:13.160
The reason that it's prevalent among left-wing circles is because everybody's got to serve
00:33:17.780
And leftist politics is a jealous, angry God, which will have no God before it.
00:33:26.260
You know, we've talked about this with environmentalism.
00:33:30.280
Environmentalism, global warming, has all of the trappings of religion.
00:33:36.660
It has indulgences in the form of carbon tax credits.
00:33:42.760
There are things that you can do to bring yourself closer to the God, Mother Nature,
00:33:47.440
Gaia, whatever you want to call it, Earth Day, whatever.
00:33:50.940
This is also true in the check your privilege, in the intersectionality, politics of identity,
00:33:56.120
race, sex, whatever, which is that when they walk around and say check your privilege, it's
00:34:01.080
a sort of inversion of mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
00:34:04.920
You know, when you begin a mass, you call to mind your sins.
00:34:08.700
I confess my sins to you, my brothers and sisters.
00:34:21.140
You've committed the sin of being a man who thinks he's a man.
00:34:23.240
You've committed the sin of being a man who's attracted to women.
00:34:32.580
But it is a feature of the religion of leftism.
00:34:38.400
I'm kind of lucky because I'm just swarthy enough.
00:34:42.880
You know, I don't know where I fall on the privilege scale.
00:34:48.260
I think people in colleges, for instance, who come from financial aid.
00:34:53.900
You know, my family did not have a lot of money.
00:35:01.280
Anyone who's a Republican is pilloried as being rich or coming from a lot of money or whatever.
00:35:13.840
You should never engage with those hateful arguments.
00:35:17.960
If you get into a fight with a skunk, it doesn't matter if you win.
00:35:20.680
You're going to end up smelling very, very bad.
00:35:29.860
Dear Michael Corleone Al Pacino lookalike knolls.
00:35:39.880
I recently had an argument to prove God to a friend of mine.
00:35:45.000
And a question came up that I really couldn't answer, so I'll pose it to you.
00:35:47.840
If God can see the future and knows how it goes, why create anything in the first place?
00:35:59.760
You can make arguments for God, but God is the basis of all meaningful speech.
00:36:03.820
So it sort of begs the question, even those arguments.
00:36:06.300
But there are good arguments for God, and there's a lot of evidence for God.
00:36:09.340
The question is, why would you create anything at all if you know how it's going to end?
00:36:18.980
Any artist who creates a work of art knows how it ends, by definition, because he creates the art.
00:36:25.220
If you're outside of time and space, if you're outside of creation, then you know about creation.
00:36:32.720
But what work of art would you create where you didn't know how it ended?
00:36:37.020
Could you write a novel and not know how it ends?
00:36:38.800
Could you make a movie and not know how it ends?
00:36:40.740
Could you paint a picture and not know how it ends, not know everything about it?
00:36:45.560
The relationship between God and man is similar to the relationship between Shakespeare and Hamlet.
00:36:59.420
I won't spoil it for you if you haven't read it.
00:37:01.340
But of course, I don't see that objection at all.
00:37:04.320
In fact, that objection seems to me a good argument for God as we know God.
00:37:09.060
And there's an extra part of the story because then the creator enters into the creation,
00:37:13.540
enters into the story, and makes the greatest story ever told.
00:37:16.000
But you've got to read past the first chapters to get to that part.
00:37:21.940
How do you think we can maintain a sense of purpose, whether as a society or as individuals,
00:37:26.020
if we reach a point by technological advances that will render work largely superfluous?
00:37:36.080
And so there's never a point at which we won't want to work.
00:37:40.620
Adam in the garden, in perfection, was given a job.
00:37:46.200
When people don't work, they atrophy and fall away and die.
00:37:52.580
Now, does that mean that I'm going to, at some point, there won't be a robot that can clean my house?
00:37:57.380
Yeah, there's probably going to be a robot that can clean my house.
00:37:59.540
That's great because then I can work on other things like not writing books.
00:38:07.020
But even if there is certain work that is automated, that will just create other work because we are creative people.
00:38:13.300
And this is, when people talk about artificial intelligence, they speak of the human mind as if the human mind is just a computer that only exists to solve problems presented to it.
00:38:23.320
That is such a misunderstanding of the human mind.
00:38:34.060
There is no robot that is going to stop me from creating or stop my impulse from creating.
00:38:39.340
That's, in a very essential way, what makes us human.
00:38:47.060
The other day I overheard someone who calls themselves a sexual free thinker asking why consensual incest is wrong.
00:38:54.280
It was made very clear that he doesn't put any stock toward religion's teaching on this and our moral viewpoints should be challenged on a regular basis by an honest and unbiased viewpoint.
00:39:03.020
He also mentioned that the argument for preventing the mental and physical dysfunctions brought on by such relations was a eugenic one and would effectively close off certain people from reproducing because it would likely result in the same thing.
00:39:15.320
This in mind, how would you argue against this line of thought?
00:39:25.480
What moral vision does not take into account metaphysics?
00:39:32.700
Well, leftist tiers have a lot of moral value, but they're not morals themselves.
00:39:38.740
So when we discuss morality, we discuss metaphysics, which is in the realm of philosophy and theology and religion.
00:39:45.280
So if he says, I want to discuss metaphysics without discussing metaphysics, then he's a dum-dum and should realize the error of his ways.
00:39:51.540
But to the question itself, why should consensual, why is consensual incest wrong?
00:39:57.820
Some teacher just got fired for asking this question to his students.
00:40:01.580
This has come up in a number of colleges and philosophy and psychology classes.
00:40:08.840
Well, you can't, I suppose you can look at physical evidence, which is that the kids are more likely to have disabilities and dysfunctions in them.
00:40:17.780
But even ignoring that, why is it wrong in itself?
00:40:20.540
Let's say that they used perfect sexual protection, you know, pills and prophylactics and this and that and the other thing.
00:40:38.180
And when we talk about natural rights, when we talk about human rights, the only way that human rights and natural rights make any sense is if we talk about a natural law to which we can associate them.
00:40:51.040
Now, what is the, if your friend says he doesn't want a moral argument for why it's immoral, then I can't help him very much.
00:40:58.880
But if he's asking for something that is beyond the realm of metaphysics, the only help I could give him is something that Leon Kass, who's a terrific bioethicist, a genius out of UChicago, he wrote an essay about this probably 20 years ago, about the wisdom of repugnance.
00:41:14.680
And I'm not saying that this should be the entirety of your argument for why incest is wrong, but this might be a good starting point if you don't want to rise to the higher levels of philosophy or theology or whatever, which is that there are certain things that we just feel to be wrong.
00:41:33.000
We feel it is wrong to watch a boy murder his grandmother, you know, or sleep with his sister, or we see assaults on the family as wrong.
00:41:48.040
It seems your friend is approaching it and saying, well, if I can't rationally explain right now with his apparently limited rational faculties why it's wrong, then it can't be wrong.
00:41:58.400
And then there's another way of approaching it, which is, hmm, why do I feel this way?
00:42:01.660
Why does it seem to me and to every great thinker ever that this is wrong?
00:42:11.120
If you drive up in the middle of the wilderness and you see a white fence just right in the middle of nowhere, one type of reformer says, I see no reason for that fence to be there.
00:42:20.760
But the wiser reformer says, before you pull that fence down, you need to explain to me why that fence is there.
00:42:27.040
When you explain to me why that fence is there, then you can tell me why we should pull it down.
00:42:34.980
And as a broader point on politics, this is something that the left and right differ on because I think, and I'm firmly on the right, I think that I could explain most of the views, most of the opinions of the left, of my friends on the left.
00:42:52.920
I've got a lot of friends on, probably most of my friends would call themselves left wingers.
00:42:56.200
And I think that I understand and could explain most of their opinions.
00:43:00.240
And I think they could not explain most of my opinions.
00:43:06.100
You should be able to understand the other point of view before you refute it.
00:43:12.680
I don't think there are a lot of Aruns watching the show.
00:43:14.540
Dear Dr. Covfefe, should we, yeah, it's definitely the same one, should we grant citizenship or permanent residency to immigrants who express consistently anti-American views in public, like taking a knee or calling America racist?
00:43:26.320
Both my parents are immigrants from India, and on the rare occasions when people in our community disparage America or the flag, it bothers us that they are denigrating the country that gave us everything we have.
00:43:35.020
Again, this sentiment is rare, but should people with these views be permitted to become citizens?
00:43:39.560
Or should they just be judged on their economic merits?
00:43:42.480
Thanks, and may your cup overflow with Covfefe.
00:43:44.540
Yeah, we should not allow those people to become citizens.
00:43:46.880
If you don't love the country, you should not be allowed to become a citizen.
00:43:52.360
I guess, you know, we'll have to deal with that.
00:43:57.300
The one is this total open borders, just, you know, make an idol out of free trade and what would be called globalism or imperialism, which says, yeah, if you can add to our GDP by 0.0002%, who cares if you're a Nazi?
00:44:15.840
And there's another view that says, no, in order to join the country, you have to love the country.
00:44:26.500
People who don't love America should not be permitted to become Americans.
00:44:31.700
And if they're here already and they're not citizens, boot them out.
00:44:37.280
Hello to the Daily Wire representative from the Vatican.
00:44:41.000
My question concerns how to deal with selfishness in a relationship.
00:44:44.520
I've been single my whole life, so I don't have a horse in this race.
00:44:48.060
But my friends and their partners all seem to be focused on what they can get out of the relationship and not about the other person.
00:44:53.840
I was wondering what is the best way to quell these selfish tendencies.
00:44:57.600
Also, I could use some advice on how to get into the dating game as I've not yet participated in it for all 18 years of my life.
00:45:11.080
I find this is, to use conservative philosophy in public policy and economics, it's very easy.
00:45:20.220
It's much easier to channel one's bad tendencies into a good tendency than to just try to stomp them out altogether.
00:45:27.100
So my argument for why you shouldn't be selfish in a romantic relationship or a marriage is that it will hurt you.
00:45:36.960
That you're ultimately being self-sacrificial or ultimately being self-destructive if you do that.
00:45:44.600
Selfishness in a relationship will poison the relationship.
00:45:51.640
You will look back on your relationship and think, gosh, what a waste of opportunity.
00:46:04.280
If you really are looking out for your own interests, then in a relationship, in a marriage, you should be selfless.
00:46:10.840
And then you'll have a better time and your life will be better and you will grow in love.
00:46:14.220
And you will have a smile on your pillow every night and you will wake up feeling joyful.
00:46:19.300
If you want to look out for your own self-interests in a relationship, don't be selfish.
00:46:28.300
Assuming someone is not naturally charismatic, how much of getting better at public speaking is just practicing it over and over?
00:46:34.320
And how much is it conquering your fear of failure or worry of what people think of you?
00:46:39.200
What is the relationship between this experience and this fear?
00:46:44.120
So I don't remember too much about when I was a baby, but I have heard that I spoke at a very young age.
00:46:49.920
I think I started speaking at 11 months or something.
00:46:53.020
So there might be a natural component to speaking publicly or being comfortable speaking.
00:46:58.400
And so perhaps some people are less naturally fit for that than others.
00:47:03.640
But I think much more important than that is practice and training over time.
00:47:10.300
You know, I recommend acting classes to everybody.
00:47:22.840
It gets you better at knowing just the muscles of speaking.
00:47:26.500
Sometimes people on Twitter will make fun of me for enunciating too much or having precise diction.
00:47:35.880
And it's good because then people can understand you more easily.
00:47:45.240
I don't think Abraham Lincoln was, you know, from the age of two just spouting off and listening to the sound of his own voice.
00:47:52.080
I don't think he was doing vaudeville shows or anything like that.
00:47:54.340
It can come with practice and with practice then you have to have, then you gain in confidence.
00:48:02.780
A little pro tip here, if you're ever doing a university play or something like that,
00:48:08.800
I think a lot of people when they're trying to memorize lines, they just read them in their head.
00:48:13.140
So they'll have the script up and they just read them in their head.
00:48:15.460
And you won't memorize lines very effectively that way.
00:48:18.520
The way that you most effectively memorize lines is to say them in a very exaggerated way.
00:48:22.620
So, you know, for a question you could say, dear Michael, President Covfefe, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.
00:48:28.160
And you do that because there is a certain muscle memory and it will trigger other things.
00:48:33.580
Especially in our culture, a lot of people just want to have a rationalist view of everything.
00:48:39.980
To have everything abstracted and in the ethereal realm.
00:48:43.760
And when you put it into your body, it'll become a lot easier for you.
00:48:51.820
And I'll get to the next part of that if it pops up in another question.
00:48:56.500
Michael, I'm in college and there are few girls in my classes that I'm interested in dating.
00:49:02.720
One of the reasons why I haven't asked one of them out is because I do not have a car.
00:49:06.580
I could call an Uber to pick her up, walk, take the bus, or have her drive us.
00:49:11.940
I don't do this because I feel like it is my traditional responsibility to provide the transportation.
00:49:16.080
The real answer here is me manning up and asking one of them out.
00:49:18.980
But then it comes to what is the most proper way for us to get around town.
00:49:23.140
Thank you and I can't wait for your next Valentine's Day conversation, Kyle.
00:49:34.580
If you're going to go to a bar or a restaurant or something that's near where you and she live,
00:49:42.560
Taking Ubers are great because then you can drink a lot and not worry about killing somebody.
00:49:49.300
This, though, does get to a point that I've talked about before when people ask me for dating advice.
00:49:53.880
You're not going to ask a girl out, even if you like a girl,
00:49:56.520
even if you think she's cute and you think she's smart and funny or whatever,
00:49:59.180
because you're worried that you won't impress her by not having a car.
00:50:08.540
Is it about you showing off to a girl or is it about you getting the girl?
00:50:19.580
Michael, your article, Here's All of the Evidence Against Brett Kavanaugh,
00:50:25.740
It shares the same level of precision as some of your other books.
00:50:34.760
That's a good question to end on because it's not a question.
00:50:38.440
And you clearly have a robust wealth of historical and political knowledge to draw on
00:50:43.180
if you could understand my article, Here's All of the Evidence Against Brett Kavanaugh.
00:50:47.420
Well, I've got a great book that I can send you.
00:50:51.160
We're going to have a show tomorrow because we didn't have one on Tuesday.
00:51:02.040
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Senia Villareal.
00:51:21.120
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.