Ep. 475 - The Best War Ever
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Summary
Trump's Iran statement is widely panned by critics, but it's hard to argue that it didn't need to be made, and that's because it's not about Iran. It's about how we got to the point where we're at now.
Transcript
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The smoke has cleared, and both Iran and the United States have signaled plans to de-escalate
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tensions after we killed their top general and they lobbed some missiles into the dirt.
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We take a look at the key lessons from the best war ever. Then Cardi B fears for her safety in
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Trump's America, so she's planning on moving to Nigeria. Joy Behar endorses white supremacist
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Richard Spencer on The View, and Prince Harry quits his own family, proving once again that
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you should never marry a feminist. Finally, the mailbag, all that and more. I'm Michael
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Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show. All right, we have got a lot to get to today,
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so we're going to fly right through it. I'm sure everyone has heard or seen snippets of,
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at least, President Trump's statement yesterday. He gave a statement on the tensions with Iran.
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Overall, it was a superb statement. We don't need to watch the whole thing in your own time.
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Listen to it. It was really, really good. I mean, it was just, I dare say it was a flawless
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statement. He tripped over a few words, so it wasn't technically flawless, but in terms of the
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strategy that was being conveyed, it was just perfect. Trump pointed out that Soleimani was a
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dirtbag who had to die. He pointed out that no Americans were injured in the retaliation from
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Iran. He said that America was going to reinstitute sanctions. Ilhan Omar and some other radicals in
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the Democratic Party were very upset by this, but that's par for the course. By saying he was going
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to reinstitute the sanctions, this was a de-escalation. Obviously, just as Iran said that in
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order to save face, they had to respond to the killing of Soleimani, so too the United States has
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to respond to the ballistic missiles that were shot at our base, even though nobody was killed.
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Thank God. Still, that response of the sanctions is a de-escalation. It's very smart. And then Trump
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reminded the mullahs, and he reminded all the other dirtbags around the world, that the United States
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has a bigger button than they do, and that our missiles work. I mean, this is basically the Trump
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doctrine is the bigger button doctrine. You could call it the Reagan doctrine in many ways, which is
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peace through strength. And he also got in a good knock on Barack Obama in the previous administration
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here. Just a short clip from the speech where President Trump explains how we got into this
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mess and how he's cleaning up what Obama started. Iran's hostilities substantially increased after the
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foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013. And they were given $150 billion, not to mention $1.8 billion
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in cash. Instead of saying thank you to the United States, they chanted death to America.
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In fact, they chanted death to America the day the agreement was signed. Then Iran went on a terror
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spree funded by the money from the deal and created hell in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan,
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and Iraq. The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available
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by the last administration. Right. The missiles were funded with the money sent over by Barack Obama
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to Iran. That is a very politically evocative way to look at the situation. It also happens to be
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correct. People are saying that this is gratuitous, that he didn't need to take the shot at Obama here.
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Yes, he did. It was one of the most important aspects of the whole statement because we have to
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ask ourselves, how did we get here? How did we get to the precipice of war with Iran? The left is trying
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to blame Trump. It isn't Trump's fault. The way we got to the precipice of war with Iran is not because
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we showed some strength and killed their general. Killing their general was a response to acts of
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war that Iran was already foisting upon us, including the attack on the Baghdad embassy,
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including the killing of an American contractor just a couple of weeks ago, including hundreds of,
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of American deaths at the hands of Soleimani in the region. How did we get here? The answer is
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the feckless policies in part brought about by Barack Obama. And for those saying that Trump
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shouldn't blame Obama for everything, Obama blamed Bush for every little thing that happened during
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his presidency, his completely failed economic recovery, the political obstruction, the wars in
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the Middle East, many of which he started, Obama started, he would just blame Bush for everything.
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No president in my lifetime has liked blaming the past administration as much as Obama, possibly
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until Trump because he learned a page out of Barack Obama's playbook. Trump here is rightly pointing out
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that he is solving the problems brought on by Barack Obama. And Obama and his administration,
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by the way, didn't just leave it at blaming Bush and then failing throughout their eight years.
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They have been undermining Trump's campaign and then presidency from the very beginning.
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They spied on him to begin with. They tried to cheat the 2016 election. And then ever since he got into
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power, they have, they've actually been calling foreign powers. They've been calling Iran to try to
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undermine Trump's Iran strategy. So Trump comes into office and he says, we're going to rip off that
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crappy Iran deal and we're going to negotiate our own deal. And John Kerry, Obama's secretary of state,
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gets on the phone with Javad Zarif, who's the foreign minister of Iran. And he gets on the phone,
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he says, Javad, I'm so sorry, honey, honey, monkey, please lovey dovey. He always sounds like Thurston
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Howell III at whenever I see him speak. And he, he kind of looks like, I don't know, Frankenstein or
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something or Herman Munster. And he's just there, this frozen waspy politician trying to cling to
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whatever power is still left. And he says, Javad, please, we'll work it out. Don't,
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don't let this deal fall apart because this is the Obama legacy in Iran is that Iran deal. And look
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at what the legacy has led to American deaths and attack on our embassy, fecklessness and a complete
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absence of deterrence. President Trump reinstituted that this has worked out perfectly. I was just
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recounting yesterday, the victories of the, of this administration, where this is the cherry on top
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of the Sunday. We'll get to that in a second. Then we'll get to the very important news, of course,
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Never go to the post office again. After this moment, this, this precipice on the brink of war,
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people saying it was World War III, a bunch of ignorant millennials and zoomers saying that
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they're going to reinstitute the draft or something. We haven't had the draft in this country in decades.
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Trump strikes back and causes Iran to blink, causes Iran to back down. And then we deescalate
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the tensions. Right now, Javad Zarif, John Kerry's buddy, says that there is not going to be a further
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response. And Trump is pulling back now. And it looks like we've avoided the war. Or maybe we've
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already had the war and it was the best war ever because no Americans died in that war.
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I was going through the math. I thought booming economy, record low unemployment,
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record high consumer confidence, manufacturing confidence, the leader of ISIS dead, the top
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military general in Iran dead, deterrence reinstituted, record deregulation, 187 judges,
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two of whom are on the Supreme Court, solid judges who will have a legacy far longer than the Trump
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administration. The list goes on and on and on. You have to admit it. We all have to admit it to
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ourselves. Even those who were skeptical of Trump, even those people on the left, maybe who hate Trump's
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character. You have to admit the man is an excellent president. He's doing a great job. The handling of
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this Iran issue from the Baghdad embassy attack before that, the response was, it was flawless.
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It couldn't possibly have gone any better. No American casualties. As we stand up to Iran,
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as we take out one of the most important men in their country and one of the most important men to
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global terrorism, and no American casualties is the response to that. Because we've now reestablished
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the credible threat of violence, and we've, we've maintained President Trump's unpredictability,
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one of the most important advantages you can have in foreign affairs. He's doing a great job. And
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if you're one of these people on the left, right or center, who are still laboring under this
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misapprehension that Trump is some bumbling idiot who just accidentally seems to get all these things
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right. He's just that bumbling fool billionaire who married a supermodel, who succeeded in network
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television and real estate and casinos and politics, got the biggest job in the world on his
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first try. If you still think that, you've probably got the wrong idea. You're probably looking at this
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a little wrong. Presidents have always had the advantage, successful presidents have always had
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the advantage of being underestimated. It was true of, it's certainly true of Trump. It was true of
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George W. Bush. It was true of Bill Clinton, right? George Bush. He was a total idiot. Bill Clinton,
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he's just a nice guy from Arkansas. It was true of Ronald Reagan. He's just a dumb actor. He's just
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the guy who did bedtime for Bonzo. They've always been underestimated. And then, and then they succeed.
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You know, Reagan takes down the Soviet Union, takes down the Berlin Wall, all the way fast forward
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to President Trump, who wins this incredibly complex conflict with Iran, with zero American casualties.
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That's a wonderful thing. The guy deserves credit for it. Trump also called this in the 80s. A lot
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of people don't remember it, but he, in the 1980s, when he was beginning to dip his toe into politics,
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set the stage for his political career, he took out massive ads in newspapers, the New York Times,
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a bunch of other newspapers, actually criticizing the Reagan administration. Something tells me that
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no matter who was president at the time, if Trump wanted to establish the basis for his political
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career, he would have attacked them all in the same way. But he criticized Reagan for not being
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strong enough on foreign affairs. And what he said was, there is nothing about our foreign defense
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policy that can't be fixed with a little backbone. Now, Ronald Reagan did take down the Soviet Union,
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so I think he had some backbone. But the general principle is correct. Because when you look at
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President Trump's foreign policy, he's not fundamentally reordering the world order,
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right? He's not fundamentally reordering American foreign affairs. He isn't actually dismantling NATO
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or allying with people that we don't ally with and betraying our allies and cozying up to our enemies.
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He's not actually doing that. I know the mainstream media says so, but look around. It all basically looks
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the same. The difference is the backbone. The difference is when you draw a red line, you actually
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back it up. The difference is deterrence. And it's so simple. I was talking to a friend of mine,
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very prominent in foreign policy, who said all these academics, all these intellectuals, they make
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foreign policy so much more complicated than it should be. Actually, the key to foreign policy is
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that it's very simple. Be good to our allies and crush our enemies. It's simple enough. You know,
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you don't need to make it more complicated. I think that's Trump's view of it and it happens to be
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correct. A Medal of Honor recipient at the White House earlier this week summed up the approach.
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It was a beautiful, beautiful, simple explanation of our foreign policy. We'll get to that in a
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second. Then of course, I promise you, we're going to get to the most important news. I know you're on
00:13:47.560
the edge of your seat because Cardi B is going to move to Nigeria and the royal family is, is breaking
00:13:53.480
up. Prince Harry is doing this and it's all the fault of one American actress. But first,
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slash Michael, Quip, the good habits company. So Staff Sergeant David Balavia was receiving the Medal of
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Honor earlier this week. And obviously there were tensions building with Iran. He explained the Trump
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doctrine. He explained the kind of basic fundamentals of American foreign policy very well. Be good to
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our friends, be bad to our enemies. We don't want war, but if, if you ask for war, we'll crush you.
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Our military should not be mistaken for a cable news gab fest show. We don't care what you look like.
00:16:08.200
We don't care who you voted for, who you worship, what you worship, who you love. It doesn't matter
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if your dad left you millions when he died, or if he knew who your father was. We have been honed into
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a machine of lethal moving parts that you would be wise to avoid if you know what's good for you.
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We will not be intimidated. We will not back down. We've seen war. We don't want war.
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But if you want war with the United States of America, there's one thing I can promise you. So
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help me God. Someone else will raise your sons and daughters. Simple enough. Jim Mattis has a famous
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quote. He was speaking to some officers in Iraq, some of the officers who could be our allies or could
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be our enemies. And he said to them, look, I am pleading with you. I am begging from the bottom of my
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heart. Do not betray us because I want to work together. I want to be friends with you. But if
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you betray us, I will kill every last one of you. That is sort of the American foreign policy
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fundamental. That's the Trump doctrine is we do not want war. We don't want it. Democracies,
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republics, we tend to hate war. Okay. And we're fickle and there are elections every few years and we just
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don't want war. However, if you provoke us, if you demand war, if you foist war on us, we will kill
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every last one of you. We will make sure that other people raise your children. Okay. That was what
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Trump told the mullahs in Iran and they listened. And their response to us killing one of the most
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important guys in their country was to lob a bunch of missiles into the dirt. Well done. And we're going
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to impose sanctions. We deescalate because America has strength. Now, not everybody is thrilled.
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Trump, I'm sorry to say, has lost a key voting demographic. He has lost the Cardi B vote. Who
00:18:07.560
is Cardi B? I don't really know. I guess she's a figure in music or something. She's a really funny
00:18:12.760
character. I really like her as a cultural figure. She, she's now become kind of a Bernie bro. But
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previously she had this video go out where she realized how much money the federal government
00:18:23.420
was taking out of her paychecks. And she was just irate. It was, it was this beautiful moment
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because it was like looking almost at a child at like a 16 year old kid gets their first paycheck
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and says, wait, where'd all my money go? And she, she famously said, what y'all doing with my mother
00:18:39.940
effing money? I want receipts. I want receipts. What y'all doing with my mother effing money? So ironically
00:18:45.380
then, because she probably hasn't thought too deeply about politics, she's now become
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a Bernie bro. Bernie who wants to take all of her money every last penny. But with regard
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to Iran, Cardi B just tweets out, nah, these memes are effing. And then a few emojis. So
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like all the memes about world war three, like they're funny and they're sad and they're terrifying.
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But SHIT ain't no joke, especially being from New York. It's sad. This man is putting
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Americans lives in danger. Dumbest move Trump did till date. I'm filing for my Nigerian citizenship.
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So first of all, Trump just staved off war. More Americans were killed by Iran in the weeks
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before we killed Soleimani than in the whole retaliation after we killed Soleimani. So this
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idea that American weakness is how you get peace has been disproven. All right. We just, it was
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disproven two days ago. However, I want to get to the Nigerian citizenship part because I don't know
00:19:45.520
that Cardi B has ever Googled Nigeria. Nigeria has three times the murder rate of the United States,
00:19:52.600
50% more crime overall. 27% of women in Nigeria suffer female genital mutilation.
00:19:59.180
One in four girls and one in 10 boys will experience sexual violence before the age of 18. And 31.4% of
00:20:08.900
girls will report that their first sexual encounter was rape. Nigeria is not a safe place. It's not a
00:20:17.440
particularly pleasant place. The United States of America, much safer, much more pleasant.
00:20:23.580
This is what happens. This is the effect of Trump derangement syndrome. Okay. This is TDS
00:20:31.160
in action is people, especially on the left, get so wrapped up in the eccentricities of Trump,
00:20:40.100
in the quirks of his personality that they begin to think patently absurd things like we will be safer
00:20:48.880
in Nigeria than we are in the United States. Look no further for this. You want to see the perfect,
00:20:54.180
the prime example of Trump derangement syndrome? Look at the ladies on The View, on The View yesterday,
00:21:00.880
Joy Behar, who's kind of the central leftist woman on The View. She literally sits in the center of the
00:21:05.640
table and she's the main leftist there. She was so happy because Richard Spencer, the white supremacist,
00:21:12.780
is furious at Trump that Trump is standing up to Iran. She didn't even think through the
00:21:18.600
implications of her excitement, which is that Joy Behar is now on the same side as Richard Spencer.
00:21:26.640
And they don't just accidentally fall on the same side or coincidentally, they're on the same side
00:21:31.820
of the same policy question for the same policy reasons. Maybe that would cause a rational person
00:21:38.400
to rethink their own views on the policy. Not Joy Behar. She's just so happy that anybody,
00:21:44.520
including a white supremacist, opposes Trump. There was one small thing you were saying.
00:21:48.620
What's some good news? This is a tiny thing that I noticed. You remember Richard Spencer? He's
00:21:53.760
basically the organizer of Unite the Right, the white nationalist group that was marching in
00:21:58.500
Charlottesville. It was all in for Trump. Not anymore. Here's his quote. He tweeted last night,
00:22:03.820
I deeply regret voting for and promoting Donald Trump in 2016. Oh my gosh. Wow. I mean,
00:22:09.940
that's, that's great. That's interesting. Do you know why? Well, because Trump, like I said yesterday,
00:22:15.140
Trump ran on not invading and not being a war. That's what I'm talking. I love it. And I love
00:22:20.640
the applause because we have some good news. We want another person over to our cause. We are on the
00:22:27.240
same side as Richard Spencer. Woo. Yeah. We're on the same side as that white supremacist guy. Woo.
00:22:33.120
Woo. If she had stopped to think about this for two seconds, she would say, wait a second.
00:22:40.080
If Richard Spencer opposes Trump and I oppose Trump, and if Richard Spencer opposes showing
00:22:46.880
strength to Iran and I oppose showing strength to Iran, that means that I'm on the same side as
00:22:53.620
Richard Spencer. That's, that's probably not a good look. Maybe I should be on the same side as
00:22:58.100
Donald Trump. Uh-oh. Whoops. That's not great. It wasn't just Joy Behar.
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I would say the key here is obviously the Trump derangement syndrome. The key is taking a moment
00:23:15.920
to think about the implications of your policy views. Okay. I'm not saying that you now, Joy Behar
00:23:21.980
needs to support Trump. I'm not saying, I'm saying she needs to stop, take a beat, hold
00:23:28.120
on a second, and realize the implications of what she's saying. Ilhan Omar did exactly the
00:23:32.640
same thing yesterday. Ilhan Omar, member of the squad, she came out and said, even Trump's
00:23:39.900
sanctions on Iran are unacceptable. We can't sanction Iran because, quote, sanctions are economic
00:23:46.840
warfare. Sanctions cause death and starvation and disease. Sanctions are terrible, right? Okay.
00:23:55.600
What she failed to remember is that a year ago, Ilhan Omar explicitly called for sanctions of Israel.
00:24:04.000
So by admitting that sanctions are economic warfare and they cause death and destruction and mayhem,
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what she's saying is, we can never engage in war with Iran, even if Iran is killing our servicemen.
00:24:16.840
To the tune of over 600, even if Iran kills a contractor, an American contractor just a
00:24:22.500
couple of weeks ago, even if Iran attacks our embassy, even if Iran lobs ballistic missiles
00:24:28.360
at US bases, we can never engage in that kind of warfare with Iran. Also, let's declare war on
00:24:35.420
Israel because why? Why? What did Israel do to us? I have a few suspicions of why Ilhan Omar wants to
00:24:45.600
declare war on Israel. But she, I'm not even saying she needs to all of a sudden like Israel
00:24:50.140
and hate Iran. I'm just saying if she weren't so warped and so wrapped up by this Trump derangement
00:24:56.160
syndrome, just like Joy Behar, just like most of the American left, she would probably take a moment
00:25:00.840
to think through the implications of what she's saying and maybe she wouldn't say it. Ideology
00:25:05.220
makes people crazy. You know what else makes people crazy? A specific ideology called feminism and
00:25:13.080
Prince Harry has just learned that lesson as has the entire United Kingdom. Pretty breaking news. If
00:25:17.660
we weren't just recovering from the best war ever, if we weren't just cooling off from the brink of
00:25:22.740
tensions with Iran, this would have been the biggest news story of the day. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex,
00:25:28.180
so Prince Harry and his wife, the American actress Meghan Markle, issued a statement yesterday that
00:25:34.100
they are quitting the royal family. I know it seems bizarre to quit your own family, but when you're a
00:25:40.740
royal, the family is the job and they are quitting both their family and the job of being a royal.
00:25:46.300
The reason they're doing this is to become financially independent, which if you're reading
00:25:50.700
between the lines means Meghan Markle wants to be in some movies again. You know, most girls grow up,
00:25:55.420
they say, oh gosh, I just want to be a princess. Oh, I want a Prince Charming to come up and marry me
00:26:01.640
and then I'll be a princess, right? And that's obviously Meghan Markle said that. She married a
00:26:06.380
prince. And then she said, actually, I want to be an actress. Nah, it's better to be an actress. Let me
00:26:12.200
tell you something. I've worked in Hollywood or worked in that particular industry. It would be better
00:26:18.500
to be a royal. I think she's going to come to regret this decision. They wrote, quote, after many months of
00:26:24.400
reflection and internal discussions, we've chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve
00:26:29.020
out a progressive new role within this institution. We intend to step back as senior members of the
00:26:34.740
royal family and work to become financially independent while continuing to fully support
00:26:38.820
Her Majesty the Queen. It is with your encouragement, particularly over the last few years, that we
00:26:42.860
feel prepared to make this adjustment. You might as well call Harry Prince Edward IX. He's just like
00:26:49.140
his great uncle, King Edward VIII, who abdicated the throne, caused mayhem in Great Britain because
00:26:57.520
he fell in love with a divorced American, just like Meghan Markle. This is very bad. I mean, first of all,
00:27:03.260
why do we care? There's a certain American view, which is that I haven't cared about the royals since
00:27:07.280
76, bang, bang, you know, but I don't think that's fair. The royal family in Great Britain is currently
00:27:17.700
a pillar of Western civilization. I mean, it's one of the few stabilizing forces that we still have
00:27:22.580
in this torrent of change throughout the West. And it shows you something that's so awful about our
00:27:29.200
modern individualistic liberal culture, which is we have no sense of duty. You know, we look at
00:27:37.100
politics primarily through this liberal lens, which is through the lens of rights and entitlement.
00:27:43.880
Me, me, me. I get to do whatever I want. I shouldn't have to have any duty. I should be able to choose
00:27:50.320
whatever I want to choose. And that is not in any way a conservative vision of politics. The conservative
00:27:56.600
vision looks at politics primarily through duty, through bonds of loyalty, through bonds of friendship
00:28:02.680
and kinship. Prince Harry, he didn't choose his life. He was born a royal. That comes with many
00:28:10.200
privileges, all the money, all the luxury, all the palaces, all the castles, all of the fame, all of the
00:28:17.280
fortune, right? It also comes with responsibility because your whole life is dedicated to the public
00:28:23.880
service. You are the beating heart of the nation in the United Kingdom. You are a pillar of stability.
00:28:32.160
You engage in public functions. You receive foreign dignitaries. You engage in philanthropy,
00:28:38.180
right? That's the job. It's a heavy weight to wear the crown. Queen Elizabeth has embodied this
00:28:44.260
beautifully. You don't get to go out and do whatever you want all the time. Your life is scrutinized. You have
00:28:49.780
to live a virtuous life. So many royals have failed at that. Queen Elizabeth has really done a very good
00:28:56.280
job of showing that kind of vision of duty. And Prince Harry is just giving it all up because me,
00:29:02.460
me, me. And actually his wife deserves more blame here, Meghan Markle, because she chose this. I mean,
00:29:09.800
she chose to marry a royal. She got this multi-million dollar wedding at public expense in the United
00:29:15.560
Kingdom. And then she broke up the British royal family and she dragged her husband away because
00:29:20.880
she doesn't like it because she doesn't want to accept the responsibility of being a royal. She
00:29:25.820
likes the perks. She likes the royal wedding. She likes all the fame and notoriety. Obviously she does.
00:29:30.320
She was an actress, but she doesn't like the duty, the responsibility, the idea that you have to serve
00:29:35.460
somebody else. And now your life is no longer just your own choices. I mean, I know a lot of actors and
00:29:40.100
actresses, a lot of people in show business, they tend to be selfish people. That's just the way
00:29:45.280
this industry works. You can't be selfish if you want to be a good royal. And it just teaches you
00:29:52.260
this lesson, one of the most important lessons for anyone writing into the mailbag, which is
00:29:56.840
never marry a feminist. Just don't do it. Don't marry a male feminist. Don't marry a female feminist.
00:30:03.840
It's a bad ideology. It's a bad ideology in part because it views politics primarily through the
00:30:11.680
lens of rights and entitlement and me, me, me, and I get whatever I want, regardless of certain
00:30:17.320
biological facts and regardless of the sort of social facts that we see in the royal family.
00:30:23.120
We have a role to play. Men have a role to play. Women have a role to play. The prince has a role
00:30:26.960
to play. The princess has a role to play. And they're just turning. It's very sad. I mean,
00:30:31.900
in some ways it's good because you're getting these giant radical leftists out of the royal family,
00:30:36.720
but it's a sad thing for Great Britain. Obviously, we Americans can look at this with a little bit
00:30:40.960
more distance because they're not our royal family, but it's sad nonetheless. It's sad for our politics
00:30:46.940
and what it says about the West. Before we get to the mailbag, I have got to get to how lame Elizabeth
00:30:52.840
Warren is. I just very quickly, Elizabeth Warren, you know, she does these painfully awkward social
00:30:58.420
media experiments where she goes and she pretends to drink a beer. It's like the first time she's ever
00:31:04.160
sipped beer. Then she awkwardly hugs her husband. Then she goes on with the queer eye for the straight
00:31:08.280
guy character. And it's just so stiff and awkward. She's trying to relate to people.
00:31:14.280
She just outdid herself. Elle magazine did an interview with Elizabeth Warren where they want Liz
00:31:21.700
Warren to give advice. And the whole premise is Liz Warren's got a plan for everything. And so she's got a
00:31:27.960
plan even for your questions to Elle magazine. Here's just a little clip.
00:31:31.000
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Warren and I'm running for president of the United States. I'm here with
00:31:36.180
Elle to solve your problems because if you haven't heard, I have a plan for that.
00:31:45.840
Oh my gosh, how weak and lame and awkward. So look, that's par for the course. That's how all these go.
00:31:53.380
She gets asked these questions. A woman says, hey, this guy that I'm dating, he's not texting me back.
00:31:59.560
What should I do? She says, dump the guy. You know, and she says, another person writes in and says,
00:32:03.800
hey, I want to get a dog. My roommate doesn't want a dog. Who cares? I could imagine if Trump did this
00:32:09.440
be so pathetic. This is so pathetic. Elizabeth Warren is a Harvard professor. Be who you are.
00:32:16.700
Just say who you are. You're trying to be president. You're not going to be
00:32:19.400
a gal pal. You're not going to be this cool, relatable person. Just be who you are. Trump knows
00:32:24.080
this. That's why he won. Same thing with Reagan. Anyway, they ask her all these questions and she
00:32:28.840
gives these individual answers. But when she tweeted out the link, she brought them all together as
00:32:34.260
though it were just one question and one answer. And I, I mention it because she's pretty much summed
00:32:40.200
up leftism here. The tweet says, you deserve better. Dump the guy who ghosted you, convince the roommate to
00:32:46.700
let you adopt a dog and I'll take care of you by canceling your student loan debt.
00:32:54.020
That's it. That's leftism. Dump your boyfriend. Don't get married. Stay alone forever. Get a dog.
00:33:00.760
That's fine. And just rely on me, the state. Me, me, me. I'll give you money. I'm your best friend.
00:33:06.820
Obama did this during the 2012 campaign. He had the life of Julia cradled a grave. It was an
00:33:11.520
explanation of how the government will take care of you and you don't need anybody else. At no point in
00:33:16.220
the life of Julia, does she fall in love or get married or start a family or get involved in her
00:33:20.660
community? No, the only meaningful relationship she has is with the state. And that's what Elizabeth
00:33:25.700
Warren wants you to have too. And that is not only lame and awkward and stiff and creepy. It's also
00:33:31.420
politically disastrous. It would be disastrous for our politics. It would be disastrous for our spirits
00:33:38.840
and our own humanity. That's Liz Warren. All right, we'll get to the mailbag so that I can give you the
00:33:43.260
real answers that Liz Warren did not give you. You know, Liz Warren has a plan for that. I don't,
00:33:48.100
but I'll just give you a straight answer. So come on back for the mailbag. Go to dailywire.com. You
00:33:52.280
know what you get. Me, Ben, Drew, Matt, you get another kingdom. You get the Leftist Tears Tumblr,
00:33:58.000
most importantly, and you get to ask questions in the mailbag, which is coming up in just a second.
00:34:02.660
All right, from Corey. Hey, Michael, how do I get over my fear of public speaking? I am the best man
00:34:21.840
at my brother's wedding, and it's a lot of pressure to deliver a good speech. Has public speaking ever
00:34:27.100
been an issue for you growing up or in your career? I obviously have spoken in public a lot.
00:34:35.120
Your first consideration as a best man should not be how you're going to deliver this great oration.
00:34:42.900
Don't worry about the public speaking first. You've got a mistake in here that if you fix this,
00:34:48.500
it'll really help you. You said, I've got a lot of pressure on me to deliver a good speech.
00:34:57.100
You're not going to deliver a speech. Do not deliver a speech. You are a best man. You are
00:35:02.480
delivering a toast. A speech is the Gettysburg Address. A speech is Pericles' funeral oration.
00:35:10.120
A toast is one minute long, and it wishes the groom and the bride well, and then you sit down.
00:35:17.480
I have seen so many bad best man speeches. I've seen worse maid of honor speeches, but I've seen
00:35:23.580
most best man speeches. I've seen have been terrible because they're speeches. Give a toast.
00:35:30.340
A speech is from you. It's full. It's big. It's long. It's giant. A toast is, hey,
00:35:38.140
all the best to these wonderful people. When you write your toast, keep it short. At the most,
00:35:46.080
two to three minutes. If it's closer to one to two minutes, it will be better.
00:35:52.440
Write it all out. That's fine. And then once you write it all out, go through and take out 80%
00:35:59.560
of the first person personal pronouns. I, me, my. Get out most of them. This is not about you.
00:36:08.240
Here's the bad version of a best man toast. Hey, all right. Hey, buddy. So you remember, look,
00:36:13.520
I've known Johnny for about 10 years now. And the one thing I noticed about Johnny,
00:36:18.600
the thing that Johnny really meant to me is we would go out drinking a lot in college,
00:36:22.800
make a lot of mistakes. You remember all those girls you dragged home? I, I actually didn't even
00:36:26.900
think you'd settle for a good girl, you know, but you did. You did. You know, I love you, Jenny.
00:36:30.980
Anyway, uh, look, you, you're great and you just mean so much to me and I want the best for you. And I,
00:36:37.640
I think we're still going to have fun. So, uh, anyway, happy wedding.
00:36:41.260
Now the, the, that's the kind of typical best man speech. The typical maid of honor speech is
00:36:47.620
even worse because it's, it's like, I don't know. The typical maid of honor speech is something like
00:36:52.740
this. Hey, Jenny, you remember when the Phi Beta Sigma girls would go out? Yeah. Well, look,
00:36:58.620
John, when you marry one Phi Beta Sigma girl, you marry all the Phi Beta Sigma girls. Anyway,
00:37:04.180
you're so, you're my best friend. I love you so much. I really think this is so great. And I really
00:37:09.380
loved when we hung out and I really love being here and I, me, me, my, I, me, me, my, and it becomes
00:37:14.760
a George Harrison song. Don't do that. Very simple. Why were you chosen to be the best man? Because
00:37:23.460
this couple loves you. You have a wonderful relationship with them. There is some real
00:37:29.320
intimacy there. So you have some insight into them. Make the toast about them. Do not get digs in. We all,
00:37:36.320
we all, because we feel awkward in these toasts, we want to kind of rib them and jazz them because
00:37:42.120
that's the way that especially men relate to one another. Don't do it. Don't, don't. It just always
00:37:47.100
looks lame and petty and people on their wedding day want nice things. They want beauty. They want
00:37:53.380
love around them. They want gratitude. Just do that. If you keep it simple, if you make it about the
00:37:59.580
couple, if you make it a genuine toast, if you make it a genuine honor of the couple, and if you get
00:38:05.740
yourself mostly out of it, you will give a best man toast better than 99.9% of them. From
00:38:12.860
Nicholas, dear renowned and austere religious podcaster, Dr. Covfefe, thank you for using my
00:38:18.860
title. And Slayer of Libs, Michael Knowles, thank you for using my other title. I have an issue. In the
00:38:24.940
last year, I've fallen madly in love with a fantastic young woman. The issue with that is that dating and
00:38:29.620
marriage isn't in her life plan of joining the Navy and working for the CIA and or some such things
00:38:36.300
that are over my head. My grand plan is trucking. She is one of my best friends and I don't want to
00:38:41.020
ruin that friendship by telling her how I feel. Should I remain content in having an amazing friend
00:38:47.120
or go for broke and lay it on the table? You don't have a friend at the moment. I mean, yes, you hang
00:38:57.440
out and you spend time together. What you really have is a love interest. She might have a friend,
00:39:02.480
but you have a love interest. So get that out of your head of, well, maybe we'll just remain
00:39:07.320
platonic friends and that's fine. No, you're both single people. You obviously, you say you're
00:39:12.700
fallen madly in love with her. So that's not no longer a possibility. You've only got one life,
00:39:17.860
guys. So go get the girl. Now, if you have completely different visions of your lives,
00:39:23.640
one of you is going to have to change that vision. So if you were to get married and she's going to go
00:39:29.620
join the Navy, then you're going to have to be able to move around with her and you'll be a sort
00:39:34.860
of military husband. If you're going to get married, you want to be a trucker and you're just
00:39:40.000
dead set on being a trucker and that's not going to work. If she's moving around all the time,
00:39:45.380
then she's going to have to give up what she wants. There's going to have to be some kind of,
00:39:49.420
some kind of give here. But if she is really the love of your life, as you seem to think that she is,
00:39:56.260
then try to win her over. Now, when you try to win her over, don't be weird and sappy about it.
00:40:01.840
Okay. This is a mistake that especially young guys make all the time because really when they're
00:40:06.940
pursuing a woman, they're making it all about them, themselves. Don't make it about themselves,
00:40:11.520
make it about the woman. Be crafty here. You've got to be innocent as a dove and wise as a serpent.
00:40:17.800
So instead of going out and saying, Oh, Jenny, I just love you so much. And I'm sorry, I have to
00:40:23.840
spill my, my guts here. I just, please, you're all I think about. You're all I dream about. No,
00:40:28.660
any woman is going to say like, ah, gross, get out of here. But you could say, Hey, let's,
00:40:34.500
let's go get a drink this weekend. You know, when you go get a drink, you say, Hey,
00:40:40.580
it's a lovely dress you're wearing. Oh, thanks. Thanks, Johnny. Yeah. No problem, Jenny. Yeah.
00:40:45.720
It's really, Ooh, look at that. Well, anyway, okay. We'll have another round, please. Okay. So
00:40:50.120
what are you thinking about this summer? What are you thinking about your career? What are you
00:40:54.820
thinking about this? Engage with her, get her thoughts on what she's interested in and then make it clear
00:41:02.480
slowly and deliberately and confidently that you like her. Present yourself as a man that she would
00:41:09.320
fall in love with too. And all that requires is a little bit of confidence, a little bit of
00:41:14.540
directness and a little seriousness, serious in purpose and light and funny in conversation.
00:41:22.320
Now, I have seen very ugly guys, guys with no prospects, guys who aren't that smart. I mean,
00:41:30.180
guys that you would say on paper, not the best catch, end up with very beautiful women,
00:41:36.540
very great women. Confidence is the key. All right. Seriously, that confidence and seriousness,
00:41:43.140
taking her seriously and having a little levity and a little humor in the conversation. Go for it.
00:41:47.960
Go kiss the girl. Come on. From Golda, dear Mr. Knowles, can men and women just be friends without
00:41:53.640
developing romantic feelings toward the other? Thank you for all that you do. Yes, of course they can.
00:41:58.040
I got plenty of female friends and I hope that my female friends have a male friend in me and other
00:42:04.740
people. However, there are parameters here. There are some limitations. So two married people,
00:42:11.740
a married man and a married woman can be friends with one another, right? There's no prospect and
00:42:17.720
you have to not be willing to cheat on your spouse. So there's no prospect of any romantic involvement.
00:42:23.480
Those kind of people can be friends. Or a man can be friends with a woman that he doesn't find
00:42:28.200
attractive or vice versa. A woman can be friends with a man that she doesn't find attractive.
00:42:32.380
Though that can get dicey because if you're both single, then there might be some unrequited feelings
00:42:36.580
here or there. It can happen. It is not the rule because men and women are made to be attracted to
00:42:43.600
one another. But it certainly can happen. And, you know, some of my great friends of my life are
00:42:48.880
women. And so you should embrace that when you can. But be careful because you don't want to find
00:42:54.200
yourself in a bad situation where there's unrequited love or you're cheating on your spouse or something
00:42:58.600
like that. From Blake, dear master of Daily Wire's intrigue and force, I was wondering if there were any
00:43:06.260
ways we could convince the left to support our efforts to sanction Iran. Do you know of any laws in
00:43:10.500
Iran that limit the rights of LGBTQ citizens? Maybe Iran has some strict gendered bathroom
00:43:15.100
rules or something that they've concealed from the left. Surely if we can only uncover laws like that,
00:43:19.960
we could find some common ground. Thanks. No, it doesn't matter. They know that. They know that
00:43:24.920
they push gays off of roofs in Iran and throughout the Muslim world. They know that.
00:43:32.180
It's not that they love Iran. It's not that they love these sort of countries and cultures that
00:43:37.400
fundamentally disagree with their own ideology. It's that they hate the West. It's that leftism
00:43:43.820
or progressivism is essentially an attack on Western tradition. It's progressivism, right?
00:43:50.740
They're trying to run away from the tradition that, that we currently have. So anybody who opposes that
00:43:56.460
Western tradition, they are going to cozy up to. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And there's no
00:44:00.720
Iranian law you're going to find that is going to change that. From Nick. Dear austere religious
00:44:07.420
podcaster, aka the Michael Knowles, who would win in a fight between you, Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan,
00:44:13.980
Matt Walsh, and the God King? The rules would be the only weapons allowed would be tumblers
00:44:18.740
and the published books of whoever wields them. Also mandatory ad breaks every five minutes for
00:44:25.820
ZipRecruiter. Who would win? Ah, that last part is what throws me off because if it were just the
00:44:31.620
published books of whoever wields them, then obviously I would win because I believe my best
00:44:36.740
selling blank magnum opus, Reasons to Vote for Democrats, a comprehensive guide, has outsold
00:44:41.700
all of those guys with their books with words. So I would win in that case. However, once you add in
00:44:47.540
the ZipRecruiter ads, then it just becomes a fight between Ben and Jeremy because Ben and Jeremy can
00:44:55.360
wield the ZipRecruiter to fire me and hire somebody else to take my show. So that's the trick there.
00:45:02.820
And then Ben and Jeremy would have to duke it out. And I don't want to get into predicting who wins
00:45:06.120
that. All right. One more question from Michael, because I like that name. Dear Michael of the Camp
00:45:16.140
Knowles, the most revered and austere religious podcaster. There is a lot of debate about whether
00:45:20.900
our country is a democratic one or a republic. As far as I can tell, the only difference is
00:45:25.400
representation and a charter at its core. Can you please explain what the difference is between
00:45:29.460
the democratic country and a republic? Thanks in advance. Yes. It is in many ways a question of
00:45:33.800
degree. A direct democracy is where every citizen is participating directly in the lawmaking process.
00:45:40.020
An indirect democracy veering toward what we would call a republic is when we elect representatives
00:45:45.480
to make our laws for us and to govern ourselves for us. The trouble that has happened in our country
00:45:51.120
is that our founders set up a republic, but over time it has become much closer to a democracy.
00:45:57.980
This is the natural inclination of representative governments. This is the natural inclination of
00:46:03.500
rule by the people. Our founders knew this and our founders feared this. And we've made democracy
00:46:08.800
into a byword for good or wonderful or the way things should be. And so anytime something that's
00:46:16.240
more democratic, we all cheer it on. But there are perils of democracy. You know, in a democracy,
00:46:22.060
you don't have constitutional protections. In a pure democracy, it's just the will of the majority.
00:46:27.320
That's all that matters. And it runs rush shot over the rights of minorities and certainly over the
00:46:31.820
rights of the smallest minority of all, which is the individual. We have become more democratic over
00:46:37.260
time. It's in the nature of these representative governments. It probably means that all things
00:46:41.880
must die, even including this wonderful experiment in government that we have. But we can try to
00:46:46.120
protect it today by preserving that republic, by keeping what Benjamin Franklin is reported to have
00:46:52.700
said at the Constitutional Convention, a republic if you can keep it, right, by preserving those
00:46:58.140
institutions. And that means thinking a little more seriously about our politics than, woo,
00:47:03.120
democracy now, everybody gets exactly the same thing all the time, woo, like pretty much
00:47:07.080
Liz Warren dancing around to music and to empty slogans such as that. It's on us. We have to do our
00:47:14.060
best to educate our fellow citizens and we got to preserve it at the ballot box. That's our show.
00:47:18.880
I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. See you on Monday.
00:47:37.080
If you enjoyed this episode, and frankly, even if you didn't, don't forget to subscribe. And if you
00:47:42.780
want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe.
00:47:47.640
We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Also,
00:47:53.160
be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show,
00:47:57.300
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00:48:00.080
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies. Director, Mike Joyner. Executive producer,
00:48:06.300
Jeremy Boring. Senior producer, Jonathan Hay. Supervising producers, Mathis Glover and Robert
00:48:12.380
Sterling. Technical producer, Austin Stevens. Assistant director, Pavel Widowski. Editor and
00:48:18.480
associate producer, Danny D'Amico. Audio mixer, Robin Fenderson. Hair and makeup, Jesua Olvera.
00:48:24.820
Production assistants, McKenna Waters and Ryan Love. The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire
00:48:29.580
production. Copyright Daily Wire 2020. On The Matt Walsh Show, we're not just discussing politics.
00:48:35.360
We're talking culture, faith, family, all of the things that are really important to you. So come
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