The Michael Knowles Show - December 30, 2021


Biden's DANGEROUS Plan For America | Sean Spicer


Episode Stats

Length

20 minutes

Words per Minute

199.00513

Word Count

4,174

Sentence Count

243

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary

Sean Spicer joins me on the show to talk about his new book, Radical Nation, and why he thinks Joe Biden is more liberal than anyone else in history. He also talks about why the Biden administration has been so radically different than what we were told it was going to be.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 If you were concerned about record inflation up around 7%, especially this Christmas season
00:00:13.580 when people are buying a lot of food and buying a lot of presents, I've got, I can't say it's
00:00:19.220 good news for you. It's just that the number to worry about is not the 7%, it's the nearly
00:00:25.920 10% of wholesale inflation that we have seen. It's even worse than we were told it was going
00:00:31.260 to be. This, as you're looking to buy your Christmas steak or presents for your loved
00:00:37.340 one, all in this year that we were told was going to be a return to normalcy. The main
00:00:42.980 argument for Joe Biden is he's good old Uncle Joe, he's moderate, he's been around forever,
00:00:48.740 and we're going to return from normal after so many crazy years under Donald Trump.
00:00:52.780 Some people predicted that things were going to be radical, including my friend, Sean
00:00:58.260 Spicer. Sean Spicer was the 28th White House press secretary under Donald Trump. He wasn't
00:01:04.140 the 28th one under Donald Trump, but he was the 28th White House press secretary and he
00:01:07.960 was secretary under Donald Trump. He has a wonderful show, Spicer & Co., which I love watching and
00:01:12.740 I love being on, by the way, as well. That is on Newsmax on weekdays, and he's the author
00:01:17.320 of the new book, Radical Nation. Sean, thank you for coming on.
00:01:20.540 Hey, it's a pleasure to be with you. It's always great to have you on the show as well. It's nice
00:01:24.320 to trade places, though, and answer your questions.
00:01:27.600 I feel so powerful. I really, I really love this. But as a citizen, I don't feel very powerful right
00:01:33.180 now because everything, I don't think I'm being hyperbolic, every single thing has gotten worse
00:01:39.280 under Joe Biden. This is reflected in his poll numbers. He's underwater on every issue, including
00:01:44.880 on COVID, which was the one issue that he was kind of above water on for a little bit. So
00:01:49.160 how did the Biden administration turn out so radically differently than what we were told
00:01:56.860 it was going to be?
00:01:57.920 So two things. First, you know, to your point, I was, I think it was last Sunday night. My
00:02:02.700 wife and I took the kids. We were out at the grocery store at the top of our street, just
00:02:06.380 getting some stuff, you know, picking up stuff. We'd already done grocery shopping for the rest
00:02:09.980 of the week. And I'm sort of a lemon addict. I have lemons in the morning. I just, it's
00:02:14.900 become the new health thing, I guess. So I keep getting told that you put lemon in everything
00:02:18.740 and apparently that'll make me skinny and healthy. So anyway, I go to buy lemons and I
00:02:24.360 look at my wife, it was 99 cents a lemon. And now granted, they were supposed to be the
00:02:28.940 large lemons. And I'm like, holy smokes, when did lemons become 99 cents? But that just tells
00:02:35.440 you. And then she was looking at something else that she had gotten on Thanksgiving. We were
00:02:39.660 in the produce area. And she said, you know, when I was here for Thanksgiving, this was like
00:02:43.880 $4.80. It's now $7.20. I mean, to your point, everything's becoming more expensive. But to your
00:02:51.380 question, Michael, the reason I called it Radical Nation wasn't because Sean Spicer thought Joe
00:02:58.200 Biden was going to be radical or the Daily Wire was saying that Joe Biden, it's because during the
00:03:03.800 presidential campaign, Joe Biden pledged to be the most progressive president ever. He said it.
00:03:10.080 No one took him seriously. And I and mostly people on the right and that you had all these
00:03:13.860 establishment right wingers coming out and saying, I've known Joe Biden, he's in the Senate,
00:03:18.160 he's a pragmatist, he's a moderate, he's an institutionalist. But Biden understood something
00:03:22.560 that I don't think we all appreciated, which he understood legacy. And then if you're only going
00:03:26.680 to get four years, which let's be honest, that's what's going to happen, that you can either try to
00:03:32.160 accomplish a great deal, or you can do a great deal that cements your legacy. One of the first
00:03:37.840 things I write about in the book is this meeting he had in the cabinet room with all of these
00:03:41.040 liberal historians talking about how to outdo FDR. And so you've seen him not through action
00:03:47.640 in policy, although that's part of it, but through appointment, Kamala Harris, the first woman of
00:03:53.280 color, Pete Buttigieg, the first LGBTQ person to lead a department, not in the cabinet, which was
00:03:59.240 Grinnell, but to lead a department. And all of these things, first transgender four star,
00:04:04.740 because all of these things allow him to say, I was more progressive, I was more liberal, I was more
00:04:09.780 radical than anybody else. And we missed it. And I think that we've got to make sure that we
00:04:16.160 understand his goal so that we can continue to protect the country. This is a great point,
00:04:21.720 because the reason that I never believed the whole Biden's a moderate, he's going to be a return
00:04:26.900 to normal thing, is that I think Joe Biden's political ideology involves licking his index
00:04:32.560 finger when he gets up in the morning, he puts it in the air, figures out whichever way the wind is
00:04:36.540 blowing, that's going to be Joe Biden's view that day. The man, I don't say it to be mean, but he
00:04:42.080 is as empty a suit as I have ever seen in American politics. But what you're suggesting is a little more
00:04:50.100 than that, which is it's wonderful to become president. But if you become one of those presidents
00:04:56.020 that are just totally forgotten, William Henry Harrison, I don't know, there are not a lot of
00:05:01.420 post offices to William Henry Harrison. That's, that's almost worse than never being president
00:05:05.540 at all. And so you've got, you've got to accomplish something and he is doing a lot of things. They
00:05:10.280 just appear to be backfiring. Well, but if you understand, if you're 78 years old and you,
00:05:16.220 you know, and first of all, it's funny that you mentioned the policy stuff. There's a whole chapter
00:05:20.440 in the book that I love about his position on being pro-life. I mean, he started off as a big
00:05:25.620 defender of life and talking about life begins at conception and Roe was wrongly decided. And now
00:05:32.020 suddenly he doesn't remember all of those quotes he gave to Catholic newspapers in Delaware when he
00:05:37.080 was a senator. But look, he, he understands I'm 78 years old. I'd be 82 when I ran. I'm way too old to
00:05:44.960 begin with now. And so if I do a bunch of stuff, and again, I think the policy is part of it, packing
00:05:50.380 the court, making DC a state, expanding government, allowing illegals to vote. All of that is part of it.
00:05:55.400 But the one thing that you can't take away from me, if nothing else gets passed, and I think some of
00:05:59.900 it will, he can at least say, I appointed all of these people. And he is the North star for
00:06:05.400 progressive leftists forever saying, well, Biden appointed the first woman of color to VP. What
00:06:10.800 will you do? He appointed the first transgender four star. What will you do? And so now Biden has
00:06:17.200 become the left wing bar, just as FDR has been for the last several decades. How do you outdo FDR?
00:06:24.120 How do you grow the government? Well, he is now sort of realized I need to outdo FDR,
00:06:28.720 but in my own way, in a way that I don't have to rely on policy. That's very perceptive because it
00:06:35.940 reminds me, and I had forgotten this, that Joe Biden actually jumped Barack Obama on the issue of
00:06:41.960 redefining marriage before Obama was, we forget now, but every Democrat was vehemently opposed to
00:06:47.560 redefining marriage. And then in 2011, right around 2011, before the 2012 campaign, Biden came out and
00:06:54.560 said, I'm, I'm for gay marriage. And, and then Obama finally came out with it as well. So there is this
00:06:59.840 idea of, if I can't actually accomplish anything, I'm at least going to be the new bar. I'm going to be
00:07:04.640 the furthest out there. On this issue of pro-life, I'd love to get your opinion because you've been
00:07:09.260 around DC a long time. You're a fellow mackerel snapping papist such as myself. Uh, you're very
00:07:15.920 pro-life. Joe Biden and the entire Democrats have given up any even pretense of being pro-life at this
00:07:22.860 point. On the court though, we just heard the oral arguments in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health.
00:07:28.980 This could overrule Roe versus Wade. If you were a gambling man, Sean, what do you think happens in
00:07:34.920 this case? So my personal view is I think that what they're going to do is thread the needle.
00:07:41.000 You saw Kavanaugh give commitments to Susan Collins of Maine during his confirmation process.
00:07:46.720 And so I think what they want to do is stay consistent to their commitments and to the
00:07:50.080 precedent that the court has set. But what they're going to say is that this new law is consistent.
00:07:55.220 It's saying that, that the States have the right to do something up to the point of viability where
00:08:00.380 science takes us or technology, which is what it is now. So therefore they're just going to
00:08:04.760 allow the bar to move down to say 15 weeks is the new bar. But I think that they're not going to
00:08:10.480 overturn Roe. They're just going to move the bar and say that what Texas, I mean, what Mississippi did,
00:08:16.100 and then we'll talk about Texas, but what Mississippi did is consistent with Roe because all it's doing
00:08:24.000 is moving the bar, if you will, with, with technology and science. It's not taking the role of, of the
00:08:31.820 federal government. It's not, it's not unprotecting it. I just, now maybe, maybe somehow you get a
00:08:37.380 majority vote and I'm wrong on this. I'm not a, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a SCOTUS watcher, but I think
00:08:42.620 that the commitments those guys made in their confirmation process, they've got to find a way
00:08:47.640 to thread that needle. So that's what I believe will happen. Well, you can certainly see chief
00:08:51.580 justice Roberts trying, doing everything he can in that, in the oral arguments to try to figure out
00:08:58.200 some way, well, but hold on, is it, it's 15 weeks is not viability, but is there a, please, please
00:09:03.220 lawyers give me some way to uphold the law while not overruling Roe. Yeah. And I think that that's,
00:09:10.600 he's, but look, he would give us, you know, the sixth vote. I think we've got five. Um, so the,
00:09:16.420 I think there's no question, but, but one of the things that we on the right need to do, and Lindsay
00:09:21.120 Keith, you mentioned my show at six o'clock on New York, so we've had these conversations off and
00:09:24.840 on is I think we need to get ahead of the decision because the left is going to try to define whatever
00:09:30.140 it is as an overturning of Roe v. Wade and the end of abortion. Even if Roe was overturned, that's not
00:09:34.880 the end of abortion. I mean, Gavin Newsom just declared California sanctuary state, right? Where people
00:09:39.400 can come and have abortions at will, God willing. I mean, it's disgusting. God forbid, right? Yeah.
00:09:44.480 But, but, but the point is, is that all Roe did was codified at the federal level. Undoing Roe would
00:09:50.960 just say, there's nothing that it doesn't have anything to do with abortion. It has to do with
00:09:54.700 who has the ability to regulate it. And in this case, it would be thrown back to the States,
00:09:59.340 which it should be. Right. This, this is an important point because for all the fear mongering
00:10:04.680 from the left, uh, overrule of Roe versus Wade would change abortion laws in a number of States,
00:10:10.160 but then you would have say California or New York saying we're going to be sanctuaries,
00:10:13.960 which would then raise the prospect of interstate commerce. And maybe there'd be another federal
00:10:18.240 case about, about pro-life there. So one of the arguments I've heard from cynical Republicans
00:10:25.540 who maybe they're pro-life, maybe they're not pro-life, but they say, you know, regardless
00:10:29.640 of what happens with Roe, the only bad thing is it's going to hurt us in the midterms because if
00:10:33.600 they do overrule Roe, sure, it'll save millions of babies, but you know, we might, we might not win
00:10:38.220 back as many house seats as we want. Now, is this a legitimate fear? Do you think that it,
00:10:42.980 an overruling of Roe could, could harm us in 2022 or are we, do we have so much momentum behind us
00:10:48.540 that the house is ours? Well, first, no. Secondly, if you want to run for office and can't stand for
00:10:55.920 your convictions and get out of the game, um, if you can't sit there and say, I am a proud
00:11:01.640 supporter of life, I will do what I can to defend it and message it. Well, then get out of the
00:11:05.700 business. You're bad. I don't want people who can't defend it. Um, I think frankly, there's too
00:11:10.040 many people that defend it that do a bad job, do it. I'd rather have people who can get up there
00:11:13.780 and explain it well and talk about, I listened to governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi, um, a few
00:11:19.500 weeks ago. He did a phenomenal job. Um, there are ways. And, and I think the work that Susan B.
00:11:24.980 Anthony list, um, has been doing with these ads explaining from doctors, how technology has evolved
00:11:31.860 so that what we saw in, um, in a, um, sonogram back in 1973, isn't close to what we can see now.
00:11:38.720 The viability of life has clearly, uh, improved vastly, uh, weeks in terms of, uh, viability. Um,
00:11:46.160 and so I think we should be talking about that we should be promoting adoption. There's a lot of
00:11:50.140 things that the folks on the right should be doing ahead of that decision because in some way, shape
00:11:53.720 or form, the decision will somehow create a new debate. Um, even if it didn't get over, I mean,
00:11:59.380 no matter what tinkering it does. And so we should start now, we know the decision is likely to come
00:12:04.160 down in June. So let's get ahead of it. But if you're going to run for office as a Republican
00:12:08.440 and you can't stand up and say, I support life and I'm willing to do whatever it takes. And even if
00:12:15.560 it means losing my seat, then I don't want you representing the Republican party.
00:12:19.120 Well, on here, here, totally agree on this issue of the elections. I guess this does kind of bring us
00:12:25.840 back to the book radical nation, which is regardless of the issue of abortion. And a lot of polls show
00:12:32.100 that people actually are not all that motivated by supportive abortion, right? And I'm glad you
00:12:36.540 brought that up. That's the other thing. There's this false premise. I'm thank you for mentioning
00:12:39.780 this because there's this sense that somehow as an issue, it's a loser. I don't believe that.
00:12:44.980 It's also, so when you look at polls, I spent most of my life in the campaign world and there's an
00:12:50.100 issue. There's a, there's a big decision between whether it, whether you care about the issue and
00:12:54.940 whether you will vote on the issue. In other words, if you're a single issue voter, then yes,
00:12:59.800 that matters. But if you, abortion is one of 10 issues, like in other words,
00:13:03.960 is abortion a huge issue for me? Yes. Do I support candidates who are pro-life? Yes. But at the end
00:13:09.200 of a day, if it's a choice between a Democrat and a Republican, I'll still take the Republican. So in
00:13:13.900 other words, it's not where Republicans miss this sometimes is they think somehow if I don't agree
00:13:18.920 with the far left in the media, I'm going to lose. And that's not how it works.
00:13:22.620 Right. That's, it's a very important distinction. And I think the left knows it,
00:13:27.100 you know, they're, they're reading these polls pretty, pretty closely. Now on the subject of
00:13:31.300 the polls, Joe Biden, as we mentioned earlier, is, is underwater, is approval rating somewhere
00:13:36.480 around 38%. Kamala Harris incredibly is worse. Her approval rating is somewhere around 27%,
00:13:42.860 lower than Dick Cheney after, after the Iraq war's worst days and after shooting a man in the face.
00:13:48.340 So that's not good for her. Uh, you've got Buttigieg is very low. He's also around 37%,
00:13:53.580 38%. Rest of the cabinet, really, really low. So, okay. Maybe Joe Biden will be written about
00:13:59.560 in some history books as, as the new bar of leftism. Maybe he'll even get some post offices
00:14:04.680 named after him. But, but what is the white house thinking right now, pushing policies that are so
00:14:11.120 deeply unpopular that, that all of their numbers are in the gutter and it might kill them at the ballot
00:14:17.200 box. So it's funny. I have a chapter in the book, chapter five, Kamala Harris, president in waiting.
00:14:22.480 And I think this goes back to the point I made. Um, they chose her not because of her experience.
00:14:28.120 If you think about it, you go back, uh, Gore to Clinton, Cheney to Bush, uh, Biden to Obama,
00:14:34.840 right? These are all vice presidents that were able to augment their president experience in
00:14:41.100 government, in politics. Kamala Harris had four years in the Senate. She was chosen because the color of
00:14:46.360 her skin and her gender, that's it. So she can't excel. Cause she was, she was pushed up by her own
00:14:52.200 party in the primary process before Iowa. I mean, you're basically picking the team, the guy that gets
00:14:58.440 cut in the first round. You're like, yeah, I want him to be the team captain. It doesn't, I mean, and
00:15:04.300 then you wonder why you're like, Hey, the guy can't hit. No kidding. You know, it's, it's, you picked
00:15:09.840 the worst person. And then you wonder why their approval ratings at 28. I don't think it takes a
00:15:14.840 course in political science to figure it out. The bottom line is you pick the loser. And, um,
00:15:20.380 and so I'm not shocked by this. I don't know why anybody is shocked by this, but the reality is,
00:15:25.260 is that, um, they picked somebody who wasn't qualified to do it. And then the, the policy piece,
00:15:32.080 Michael comes back to what we were talking about. It's not about popularity. It's not about getting it
00:15:37.820 done. It's about how do I cement this legacy? So if I pass and remember, here's the dirty secret
00:15:42.680 that everybody needs to remember, they're going to lose the house. Nancy Pelosi has already announced
00:15:48.620 she's not running for reelection. So whether you lose the house by five or 20, who cares?
00:15:53.440 They realize is that I want to pass these progressive things, trillions of dollars in spending
00:15:57.840 that will addict people to government for future generations. I want to get more people to vote
00:16:02.380 that are not in this country legally because it will affect future generations of democratic power.
00:16:07.080 I can do all those things and who cares? Katie bar the door. I have 12 months to do them. I will
00:16:12.600 become the most heralded left-wing politician. So win-win this isn't about popularity and trying to,
00:16:19.880 to win a reelection. This is about becoming the most progressive president ever.
00:16:24.660 And, and I guess you see that even with the selection of Kamala Harris, because as you say,
00:16:29.040 she was the first one out. She was deeply unlikable, but now Joe Biden gets credit. He picked the
00:16:36.180 first woman vice president and she's a woman of color. He had said during the campaign,
00:16:40.180 I will pick a black woman to be vice president. So he, he had three choices in terms of prominent
00:16:45.560 black women on his side in politics. He had Kamala Harris, uh, uh, Carol Bass, Karen, Karen Bass,
00:16:52.480 rather, who is an actual communist, like actually has been a member of communist organizations and
00:16:58.240 Susan Rice, who was the fall man for Benghazi. So, so there was the one, you know, the one choice and
00:17:03.820 she happened to be extremely unlikable and it, and it is going to, to harm them. But I suppose
00:17:09.300 you're right. It's the, it's not just about the 2022 election or even the 2024 election.
00:17:14.760 It's about the long game. It's a leg, it's about the legacy, right? It's, this is about how will I
00:17:19.960 be remembered? And if, if we go down in history talking about all of this spending and what it
00:17:25.460 did to get people, because it's not just the spending, it's a bailout to trial lawyers. It's a
00:17:29.100 bailout to the media. Remember this is in build back better billions of dollars to trial lawyers,
00:17:33.960 billions to the media, billions to, you know, all of these other left-wing climate change stuff.
00:17:38.960 So he will be the, that guy that I talked about the North star that, well, Hey, Biden did it.
00:17:43.440 Biden got us this. Why can't you do it? Now, assuming that Kamala remains extremely unpopular
00:17:50.720 and assuming that Joe Biden doesn't know what his name is half the time, what do you say? I don't
00:17:56.460 want to make you pull out a crystal ball, but I sort of actually do want you to do that.
00:18:00.100 What do you see happening for the Democrats in 2024? You have a pretty good track record
00:18:04.300 calling what was going to happen under Biden. So what's going to happen next?
00:18:07.580 So I, under the current environment, I see Pete Buttigieg as the 2024 nominee. Um, now interestingly,
00:18:14.100 and I just want to make sure people understand this because in the book, I've got a chapter going
00:18:17.660 through what I call Biden Inc and Buttigieg is one of the people. And I talk about the fact that he's a
00:18:22.000 38 year old mayor of a small town in Indiana, South Bend had a hundred thousand people.
00:18:26.080 And 66 buses. So he wasn't exactly the best choice to lead a department that oversees our
00:18:32.460 airways, seaways and highways. That being said, the, the establishment left sees Buttigieg as the
00:18:40.320 future. He is articulate, good looking. Uh, he's a veteran. He can really articulate positions well
00:18:47.860 and, and, and debate. Well, those are all things that are true. I don't doubt any of those.
00:18:51.400 They look at him as the future. And because he's LBGTQ, he checks a box. He's not just a white dude,
00:18:58.280 right? He can say that he's, you know, part of the minority. And so to them, uh, and, and everyone
00:19:04.120 understands that Kamala Harris just doesn't have the qualities that endear herself to anybody.
00:19:10.620 And therefore, um, you know, he, to them, to, to these establishment folks in DC is the guy.
00:19:18.000 And I, I think that, look, here's the dirty secret. All the money that was passed in the
00:19:22.380 infrastructure bill, he gets to run around the country for the next three years being like,
00:19:27.040 Hey, it's me, mayor Pete with $4 billion going into communities and talking about bridges and
00:19:32.120 roads and helping them rebuild their communities. I mean, you couldn't ask for a better job if you
00:19:37.660 wanted to run for president in three years. That's extraordinarily perceptive because you
00:19:42.960 wonder when was the last transportation secretary that, that we saw become president? Well, look at
00:19:48.440 the build back better agenda. Look at what that really means. And, and they have like, they might
00:19:54.120 as well start using funds to build floats for the guy. This is going to be Buttigieg highway,
00:20:00.300 Buttigieg bridge to replace all those racist bridges that, that Buttigieg was so angry about.
00:20:05.040 And I think you're right that the man is Harvard educated, gay, and perfectly glib. He is the
00:20:14.960 ruling classes ideal. I mean, he is, he is their dream sort of candidate. And he's, he like Biden,
00:20:22.600 I suppose, probably doesn't believe a damn thing and is willing to lick his finger, put it up in the
00:20:27.660 air and figure which way the wind is blowing, which in the past four years or rather the past year and
00:20:33.940 for the total four years of the administration seem to be blowing pretty far to the left. If you want
00:20:38.480 to read about it and a really spot on assessment and prediction of what has been going on when a lot
00:20:44.360 of people got it wrong, you got to check out Radical Nation by Sean Spicer and Sean's excellent show,
00:20:51.300 Spicer and Company, six o'clock on Newsmax. Sean, thank you, of course, for coming on.
00:20:56.020 Thanks, Michael. Always a pleasure. Appreciate it.