The Michael Knowles Show - Daily Wire Backstage： Barbiegate and other Kenspiracies.

00:00:00.000 Hey, Michael Knowles here. The latest episode of Daily Wire Backstage is available now.

00:00:04.240 Join me and a star-studded Daily Wire cast as we discuss the most important news of the day,

00:00:10.080 the cultural insanity spreading across the country, and take live questions

00:00:13.980 from the viewers, all while enjoying a wonderful cigar. Take a listen.

00:00:30.000 Fake laugh in three, two, one.

00:00:42.420 Welcome to Daily Wire Backstage. Tonight, I am not Jeremy Boring. I'm Michael Knowles. I'm joined by

00:00:49.800 Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, and Andrew Klavan. This show is brought to you by Preborn.

00:00:55.980 Preborn Network Clinics rescues 200 babies' lives every single day. Donate now at preborn.com

00:01:03.320 slash backstage, or dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby. We've got a lot. Man, do we have

00:01:10.720 a lot to talk about tonight. We've obviously got to talk about Barbie, the most important issue.

00:01:14.440 We've got to talk about Hunter Biden. We've got to talk about 2024. We've got a big member block.

00:01:18.600 Don't forget, all of this is because of you. So if you're just one of those hoi polloi out there 0.99

00:01:23.060 on YouTube, come on, man. Go on over to dailywire.com. Subscribe. You can still do it. Become

00:01:28.660 a member, and then we will chat with you in the member block after the public part of the show.

00:01:33.240 Then we can get into all the really juicy stuff. We have some breaking news right now.

00:01:37.480 The breaking news, of course, is that Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. The man has not

00:01:45.800 bitten the dog. It's Groundhog Day again, and Donald Trump has been indicted a few more times,

00:01:53.480 I guess, for something. I don't know. He put too much mayonnaise on his sandwich. He's indicted for

00:01:57.880 that. Has anybody read the latest indictment? This just happened. Mr. Shapiro, what is it this time?

00:02:04.820 So this is the January 6th indictment, the long-awaited January 6th indictment. They're

00:02:08.760 charging him on four counts. These are real stretches. I mean, on the legal basis, these are

00:02:15.520 very, very large legal stretches. They're charging him on a conspiracy to defraud the government.

00:02:21.420 Typically, that means financially defrauding the government, like they actually tried to steal

00:02:24.000 money from the federal government. They're claiming that that extends to trying to affect

00:02:28.100 election processes, which is a real stretch and going to be very difficult to fulfill by the elements

00:02:32.460 of the law. They're charging him with obstruction of justice, suggesting that he tried to interfere

00:02:36.240 with an official government proceeding. Again, that's going to be a bit of a stretch because

00:02:39.040 it's going to be hard to show that he actively attempted to overthrow the election rather than

00:02:45.060 exercising his free speech rights in pursuit of a specious legal theory. That's going to be the

00:02:48.800 defense. The defense is going to be, I honestly thought that this legal theory might be good,

00:02:52.240 and I'm allowed to pursue that because this is still America and you don't get to prosecute me

00:02:55.380 for that. He's being charged also with civil rights violations. The idea here is that he is

00:03:01.880 attempting to essentially have votes thrown out. So usually this charge is brought when you literally

00:03:08.060 stuff a ballot box or you take a box of ballots and you throw them in the river or dead people

00:03:11.960 vote in 1960 and make John F. Kennedy president. You put them in a locker in Michigan. Yeah. Yeah,

00:03:15.980 exactly. Well, you do those sorts of things. That's where this is charged. Usually doesn't

00:03:19.440 apply there. And then there's a fourth charge that is, again, related to the idea that he put

00:03:24.280 together false slates of electors and then attempted to submit that. The difficulty in proving any of

00:03:29.880 these cases is multifold. The first one is that as an element of the case in virtually all of these

00:03:34.180 things is intent. You have to prove somehow that Donald Trump knew for a fact that he had lost the

00:03:38.300 election and thus all subsequent efforts were not dedicated toward attempting to preserve his

00:03:44.260 purported election victory, but actively were an attempt to subvert a thing that he knew was not

00:03:48.200 true. Well, as I've said, the problem with Trump is that trying to establish intent crimes with Trump

00:03:52.480 is incredibly difficult because Donald Trump actually believes the thing that he is saying at any given

00:03:56.480 moment. So it is quite plausible that that night he thought he had lost. And by the next morning,

00:03:59.660 he thought that he had won. That sort of thing is not unusual with Trump ever. I mean, we all know

00:04:04.080 this. We've seen him switch in real time his positions and believe it both times. So intent

00:04:08.140 crimes are very, very difficult to charge with Donald Trump. Again, the charges in law are a large

00:04:13.220 scale stretch. January 6th gets mentioned multiple times here. But again, the defense there is going

00:04:17.980 to be, I didn't tell people to invade the Capitol building. I told them to peacefully protest at the

00:04:21.980 Capitol building. You may be angry at me that I didn't tell them to get out, but I didn't make them go in

00:04:26.660 in the first place. So that doesn't actually count as a conspiracy. You've shown no actual

00:04:30.200 proof that I told the Oath Keepers to go in and attempt to overthrow the election. You can blame 0.95

00:04:35.320 me for being inflammatory, but inflammatory is not prosecutable. Right? So that's going to be his

00:04:40.420 defense. Again, I believe this thing is being charged in front of a federal judge appointed by

00:04:45.880 Barack Obama, which means presumably a very unfriendly federal judge. I'm not sure which district this is

00:04:50.540 being charged in actually. I have to look that up real fast. It looks like it is being charged in

00:04:56.400 D.C. So obviously that means that he's a real disadvantage in this case because a D.C. jury is

00:05:00.920 going to be a lot less friendly to him than say a Florida jury would be. And that's basically what

00:05:04.880 I assume Jack Smith is counting on here. So then the question becomes how long the trial actually

00:05:08.740 takes. When does the trial actually begin? He's going to be able to make the case. And I think it's

00:05:11.780 a pretty solid case that it should be delayed until after the election. The reason that he's going to be

00:05:14.940 able to say that is he's going to say, listen, I have at least two major ongoing legal cases. I have

00:05:19.180 the Manhattan DA's case, which is, again, that one is complete BS. And then I also have the

00:05:23.960 classified documents case being charged by Jack Smith down in Florida. And I'm probably going to

00:05:27.760 get indicted in Georgia. And how do you expect me to simultaneously perform four defenses in the

00:05:32.620 space of 12 months? You can't. So really what you should do is you should delay this trial until

00:05:36.820 after the election. We already know that the Florida trial is likely to begin sometime in the

00:05:40.360 middle of next year, right in the middle of the election cycle. I think the date was set for May 20th.

00:05:44.040 I think that's right. So that means that you'll probably get a verdict in that trial pretty quickly.

00:05:48.740 I would imagine that that case is, to me, that's the most dangerous case to Trump. Of the

00:05:52.840 indictments that have come down so far, clearly the classified documents one is the most dangerous

00:05:56.740 case on a legal level. Even though it's happening in Florida, which is red state, and it's a Trump

00:06:00.460 judge who's presiding over it. Yes, but the Trump judge is still a judge. He had the documents, right?

00:06:05.960 Right, exactly. I mean, the biggest problem for Trump is if you're going to do the criming,

00:06:08.660 don't do the criming on tape, right? Like that's the first rule of criming, don't do crime on tape.

00:06:12.740 It's just, you know, as your lawyer, folks, don't do the crime on the tape. It's just a bad idea.

00:06:17.220 So that's the big problem for Trump. He's going to make the case essentially to the jury in that

00:06:22.060 case for jury nullification. He's going to say, this shouldn't have been charged, not because

00:06:25.320 I didn't do it. It shouldn't be charged because I wasn't risking national security and because

00:06:28.560 they didn't charge Hillary Clinton. And it's unfair that Hillary gets to skate and I'm going 0.94

00:06:31.800 to get charged for all of this. And it's obviously political. They're trying to stop me in the middle

00:06:34.860 of an election cycle. So that's kind of where things stand legally speaking right now.

00:06:39.580 So the D.C. indictment out of all Trump's 500 indictments and coming indictments in terms of

00:06:47.300 risk to him, where do you rank the D.C. indictment? I would rank this one at number two. I think the

00:06:52.880 Florida is the riskiest one because I think the New York one is not particularly risky. I think even a

00:06:56.920 New York jury is going to have a real tough time finding Donald Trump in violation of a state

00:07:00.860 campaign finance law that's connected to a federal campaign finance law that's connected to a payoff

00:07:05.440 he made to Stormy Daniels in 2015. Which would effectively be an in-kind contribution to his own

00:07:10.980 campaign. Yes. I mean, again, I think that one's real tough. So I think that one's super weak.

00:07:15.220 I think that the Georgia case is going to be about as strong as the D.C. case because it's a very

00:07:20.180 similar case. It's going to be basically very similar charges, but on a state level with regard

00:07:23.820 to him pressuring Brad Raffensperger to supposedly shift votes, although his defense is going to be in

00:07:28.920 that case. I wasn't telling him to shift votes. I was saying, I know that there's fraud. All I need

00:07:32.600 is this number of votes to win. I certainly know there's been more fraud than that. So you're

00:07:35.980 telling me you can't find that number of votes that are fraudulent, right? That's that's what

00:07:38.720 he's going to say. So that seems to me like a fairly solid defense, actually, because, again,

00:07:42.500 it goes to intent. It's also in Georgia. It depends where in Georgia it's held. If it's held

00:07:46.520 in Fulton County, it looks a lot like D.C. So those kind of tie for a second. Again, I think the most

00:07:49.920 dangerous indictment for him remains the classified documents case, because to me, on an evidentiary

00:07:54.040 level, this is just putting on my lawyer hat, on an evidentiary level, they almost have him dead to

00:07:58.100 rights on that one. I mean, he literally said on tape, here is a classified document.

00:08:02.600 I could have declassified it and I didn't declassify it. Would you like to see this

00:08:06.400 document right now? It's only it's always with Trump. The fact that they didn't do this.

00:08:10.820 Hillary Clinton did virtually the same thing, didn't have the right of a president to declassify 1.00

00:08:15.600 the documents and they didn't prosecute her and said she was wasn't it wasn't intentional when

00:08:20.240 she actually bleach bit her phone. Right. And that's going to be his defense. That's going to be his

00:08:23.960 defense is going to be that you didn't. The reason you didn't go after Hillary is because you said she 0.52

00:08:27.260 didn't intend to disseminate the documents to foreign powers. Essentially, there is no proof or even

00:08:31.000 implication that I intended to disseminate these documents to foreign powers. The most obvious

00:08:34.280 explanation, as I said, literally the day that this news broke, is that Donald Trump likes things

00:08:38.380 and he decides to keep them. Any attempt to complicate Donald Trump is always an exercise

00:08:43.140 in tomfoolery. Whether it's intellectualizing Trumpism as a coherent philosophy or whether

00:08:49.140 it's attempting to determine why the man kept a box of documents he should have given back to the

00:08:52.280 National Archives. Occam's razor always applied with Donald Trump. The most simple explanation

00:08:56.640 is always true. Donald Trump likes things and so he keeps them. The man literally kept Israeli 0.99

00:09:00.920 antiquities just because he likes them. His entire power comes from the fact that he is treated

00:09:05.320 differently. Like I would have had no objection to the press treating him as badly as they did if

00:09:10.460 they also treated Democrats the same way. That's the way I want them to treat people in power.

00:09:14.460 The original sin with regard to this case is that Hillary Clinton was not prosecuted,

00:09:17.620 which by the way is the reason Donald Trump is being prosecuted because he literally said to his

00:09:21.140 lawyers, remember that thing Hillary did over there? Can you do that for me? Which means that if 0.99

00:09:25.060 Hillary had been prosecuted, you know he wouldn't have said that. Right. Right. So again, isn't

00:09:28.760 there just at a higher political level getting out of the legal minutiae here? We, as a tradition

00:09:34.720 in America, don't imprison former presidents and we don't imprison the leader of the opposition.

00:09:39.560 And regardless of, okay, he technically violated the statute with a documents case or whatever.

00:09:44.340 You're making me nostalgic. I know. I mean, yeah, nostalgic for five years ago. Isn't there just

00:09:48.960 something really banana republic-y about arresting the leader of the opposition? This, by the way,

00:09:53.480 also is a case that if Trump were more articulate, he should be making. We now know because of the

00:09:59.300 collapse of Hunter Biden's sweetheart deal, we know the DOJ is corrupt. We know it is corrupt at

00:10:04.440 their highest levels. We saw it in court where the guy could not defend, was obviously trying to put

00:10:09.740 something past a judge. If they'd gotten a friendly judge, she might've overlooked it, but in fact,

00:10:13.460 she saw that it was being put past her. We know they're corrupt now. You know, and I think that

00:10:18.180 that's a case that I would be making on the stand. Well, he is going to be making that case.

00:10:22.680 And that is going to be his strongest case. If he can enunciate it.

00:10:24.820 The thing that is going to Trump's benefit is the fact that the Biden DOJ is so obviously and

00:10:31.100 clearly corrupt. I mean, the Biden sweetheart deal, for folks who didn't watch what actually

00:10:35.760 happened here, there's a pretty simple way to understand this. Hunter Biden was charged with

00:10:40.220 two sets of crimes. One was financial crimes, tax fraud. The other, and he pled guilty to

00:10:44.920 misdemeanors. And the other was the gun charge. In the financial crimes, there was nothing in there

00:10:49.680 that said we waive all future charges on financial crimes. Nothing like that, right? It said nothing

00:10:53.760 about that. In the gun crime case, which ended up being diverted, he ended up saying no charges,

00:10:59.740 you get to go to drug rehab or whatever. It said in there, in exchange for this, anything that's

00:11:04.420 mentioned in the financial crimes case, we will now waive. And so it was clear that the DOJ was

00:11:09.240 attempting to waive the crimes, all of the crimes, everything. And so the defense thought that was

00:11:14.740 the case, which is why they were signing onto the plea deal in the first place. And the DOJ thought

00:11:17.660 that was the case, but they didn't want the judge to know that was the case because it's so obviously

00:11:20.160 corrupt. It gets in front of the judge. The judge looks at this and says, hold up. So it's not in

00:11:23.760 the charging document that you're actually giving me that you want me to sign off on. It's in this

00:11:26.820 other document I have no actual jurisdiction over. And I'm supposed to apply that document to this.

00:11:30.760 You're clearly attempting to lie to the American people by putting the sweetheart deal in a document

00:11:36.020 that is not available publicly. At that point, the DOJ was so embarrassed by the public

00:11:40.340 disclosure of this that they immediately say, no, no, no, we didn't mean that at all. None of this is real.

00:11:44.100 And Hunter Biden's attorney goes, wait, if it's not real, we have no deal. And the whole thing

00:11:46.920 blows up, right? So what happened here is a pretty textbook case of the DOJ at Merrick Garland's

00:11:52.980 direction, because that's how this happens, which means at Joe Biden's direction, attempting to let

00:11:56.740 Hunter Biden off the hook for a wide variety of crimes, which again, that is getting worse for

00:12:01.480 Joe Biden. I mean, all that, the Hunter Biden stuff is going to get worse. It's so, so let's say they

00:12:06.260 put Trump in prison. Let's say one of the 7,000 indictments actually sticks. Worth remembering,

00:12:11.100 we have had people run for president from prison before. Eugene Debs got 8% of the vote. He was a

00:12:17.560 socialist, so very much out of the mainstream of the American political tradition. He still got 8%

00:12:22.140 of the vote when he was sitting in the can. As far as I know, there's no extra special rule and

00:12:27.780 restriction on how you can run for president. The Constitution lays it out. Even if the guy's wearing

00:12:31.820 an orange jumpsuit, Donald Trump could run for president from prison. He could win the presidency

00:12:36.160 for prison, and it would probably help him if he's sitting there. Yeah, I think it would help him,

00:12:40.780 but I actually think he would get the exact same amount of votes. I think at this point,

00:12:45.480 they're playing a psyop on us. The Democrats are actually playing a psyop, which is that they know

00:12:50.760 the more they persecute him, the more his base will stick. And the less popular he will be among

00:12:57.020 independents and the people who actually decide the election. I mean, I totally agree with that,

00:13:00.640 math. I also think that nothing, we now live in the era of nothing matters, and truly nothing

00:13:06.320 matters except for the turnout numbers in 2024. That's the entire game here, right? If Biden gets

00:13:10.560 low turnout, Trump could win even under those circumstances. Well, you know, I've long said,

00:13:13.620 Ben, and I learned this from Mitch Daniels, former governor of Indiana, there are two ways to beat the

00:13:17.980 left. You can either out-argue them or you can out-breed them. And when you want to talk about the

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00:14:34.420 say baby, that's the code word, or visit preborn.com slash backstage. And we're talking about the babies

00:14:42.080 and the sweet babies and the daddy and everything. I know we have to get to this because it's here on my

00:14:45.600 schedule. And I'm just, actually, before we get to this, I'm going to take my phone out right now.

00:14:49.440 And I'm going to set a timer. I'm going to set a timer. Let's do it. I don't, I can't,

00:14:53.660 I'm going to set a timer for six minutes. Oh, I was hoping more like 90 seconds. Here we go.

00:14:59.860 This is, I'm being very generous here with the timer. 16, add a one to that. Because, because

00:15:04.860 this stupid nonsense, forget about the indictments, the stupid nonsense going on at Capitol Hill 1.00

00:15:10.740 with the UFO hearings and the friend of a friend of somebody's cousin saw a little glimmer of light 1.00

00:15:17.600 in the sky. Oh, you mean the historic hearings? Okay, I'm clicking start. Here we go. Six minutes.

00:15:23.460 Matt, do you have any thoughts? I have more thoughts than can fit in in six minutes. I feel like I'm at

00:15:28.000 disadvantage here. I think the main point, first of all, as I've tried to explain to Ben when I

00:15:32.620 destroyed him in this debate a couple days ago, is that if you go into this already having decided,

00:15:38.740 as at least two of the people in this room have, that you're not willing to listen to the evidence

00:15:42.160 and no evidence could possibly convince you because you're, you are, you are committed ahead of time

00:15:46.260 to the proposition that aliens have never visited or that, or that they don't even exist. They don't

00:15:50.180 exist. Which is Michael's absurd idea. Then, of course, you're not going to be convinced by this. But

00:15:53.640 if you are open-minded, as I am, and I think I'm, I'm very known to be open-minded. Oh, absolutely.

00:16:00.800 Then I think you listen, and what do we have? We have, uh, dot, we have documentation,

00:16:05.860 we have photographs, we have video of these, uh, crafts in the sky. A little blurry. We have,

00:16:10.420 we have, we have, we have expert eyewitness testimony. I don't just mean the people that

00:16:13.860 are testifying in Congress. I mean, Navy pilots who are actual experts. Okay. I'll tell you what,

00:16:18.620 I'll buttress your ridiculous point of view. Uh, Nancy Mace and other Republicans were interviewing 0.99

00:16:23.720 some of these people who say that they have firsthand knowledge of, of these vehicles crashing and

00:16:31.100 even potential life forms being found on it. Take it away. If you believe we have crashed craft,

00:16:38.280 uh, stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft?

00:16:43.320 As I've stated publicly already in my News Nation interview, uh, biologics came with some of these

00:16:48.140 recoveries. Yeah. Um, were they, I guess, human or non-human biologics? Non-human, and that was the

00:16:56.700 assessment of people, uh, with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on

00:17:00.640 the program. Okay. Non-human, what do you think? They're raccoons? Like, what is it? Can I ask you

00:17:04.540 about a word? I pay attention to little, have you ever heard the word biologics before in your life?

00:17:11.760 I've maybe heard it in the context of medicine. Occasionally it's word, it's a very precise word.

00:17:16.860 Not, he's not saying we pulled E.T. out of the craft. What is a non-human biologic? I don't know,

00:17:20.840 like an ant crawled into the, it's so vague all the time. He hasn't seen anything. He hasn't,

00:17:27.280 this guy has, no, he's always like my cousin's friend's buddy's nephew. But this is no, hold on

00:17:32.100 a second. This is a guy, this is what he does. This, he's, he's on, you know, he's, uh, he works

00:17:37.180 with the government. He doesn't personally see all of these, talk to people that have. So if that's

00:17:43.880 all that we had, then I would agree that that's not very compelling. But when you add, so we're just

00:17:47.740 adding evidence on top of evidence. So here's my question to you. You're, you're anti-alien too,

00:17:53.420 aren't you? No, no, no, no. But, but I don't believe they're here, but I believe they're

00:17:57.580 okay. Well, then you're wrong also. So what we know that there are these crafts in the sky that

00:18:03.380 are doing things that defy the laws of physics. We understand them. We've seen them. Okay. We,

00:18:07.920 we, we can see the video. What, what are they? Okay. So excellent question, Matt. And I'm so glad

00:18:13.940 you asked. So two points. One, if evidence were presented that were overwhelming in nature,

00:18:19.920 I would shift my opinion, but these are outstanding allegations that require outstanding

00:18:24.660 evidence. Okay. Not all evidence, not all claims require equivalent evidence. If I claim that I'm

00:18:29.720 going to drink from this cup of water, the amount of evidence that it required to prove that claim

00:18:33.100 is very small. I would just have to drink from this cup of water. If I were to claim that there

00:18:36.340 is a massive dragon just outside the door right here, who's about to eat you, I would presumably have

00:18:43.040 to now provide you like actual physical evidence that that is a thing. So that's a pretty large scale.

00:18:47.560 We have the dragon, Ben. We have the dragon. Okay. So aside from your claim that we have,

00:18:51.960 we have the dragon, um, aside from that, the, the actual, let me ask you this. Do you think

00:18:57.720 that things? Well, no, no. So this is, so in order for me to answer the question, I have to,

00:19:01.500 as all Jews would ask a question. Okay. Which is, do you think that there are things that defy the 0.96

00:19:06.500 laws of physics in the physical universe? Because that is the phraseology you just, you just began

00:19:11.480 by suggesting that people have observed craft in the sky that seem to violate the laws of physics.

00:19:15.840 So let me ask you, do you believe in the laws of physics? Because if you actually believe in the

00:19:19.480 laws of physics, that might suggest that you now have two choices. One, you have to believe that

00:19:22.960 somehow these alien spacecraft defy those laws of physics, which are irrevocable and non-changeable

00:19:27.320 or miraculous, or two, that there has been some form of optical illusion or radar malfunction.

00:19:33.120 No, wait, wait, wait, wait. I said as a morally spiritual being. We could be incorrect about the

00:19:37.720 laws of physics. Yeah, that's why I said as we understand them. Right. Oh, we could, okay. So that's the

00:19:41.920 qualifier. The things that we would have to be wrong about in terms of the laws of physics are

00:19:44.960 things like apparently the ionization of the atmosphere in the wake of objects that are moving.

00:19:49.400 So what we have, we have. And these are, these are fairly basic physical principles. We have

00:19:53.220 physical objects in the sky that are flying at, at, at high rates of speed, stop on a dime

00:19:58.340 and then go up or go down. So we, we don't know, we would have no idea how to create something that

00:20:03.220 can do, do that. So this is, this is, someone has possession. They're here to do that on radar or at

00:20:08.940 very large distances that scientists have suggested also could be. And again, these are could be.

00:20:13.300 Okay. So let's, let's put the stack up these two possibilities. One, these are alien spacecraft

00:20:17.520 that come from light years away to earth to fly around, be observed by radar and then leave.

00:20:24.600 Okay. That's, that's it. That's possibility number. Possibility number two said they leave.

00:20:28.320 Oh, well not, not be visible anymore. Okay. Or possibility number two or possibility. Number

00:20:34.160 two, optical illusion or radar malfunction, which have you personally experienced more times? Optical

00:20:40.520 illusion and radar. Like when you look, I've never experienced a radar malfunction. I don't

00:20:43.800 have a radar. Can I introduce some evidence into this evidence list? Do you think that when you

00:20:50.180 look out into the distance on a real hot day, you think it's a lake out there or you think that

00:20:53.040 maybe that's actually just the heat rising? It's a Martian lake. They have radar where they're

00:20:57.460 locked in on an object that's moving. It does require, it does require that they have to be able to

00:21:03.560 bend space time, fly from another galaxy, arrive here, and then their spark plugs jam and they

00:21:08.840 crash. This is the thing. This is the part that I, that loses me. If they have the possibility

00:21:13.060 of violating what we think of as the laws of physics, and then they come here and then

00:21:17.800 it's like, putt, putt, putt. Oh, I'm out of gas. You know, they just crash. How does that happen?

00:21:20.940 The government is good at things. Thank you so much.

00:21:22.840 Oh my God.

00:21:23.480 Thank you.

00:21:23.980 We haven't even begun.

00:21:26.160 I'd like to introduce one piece of evidence here. How do I stop this? I'm kind of a

00:21:29.700 lot. Yeah, stop it. Here's a piece of evidence. And I've never introduced this before. You know,

00:21:33.880 my view is that aliens are just angels and demons for libs who don't, who don't believe in anything 0.59

00:21:39.740 beyond the material world. That's crazy too. But, but here's my piece of evidence. Alistair

00:21:44.140 Crowley, the most famous occultist and Satanist. Satanist, yeah. Satanist. He once had a vision

00:21:51.040 of a demon. I'm sure he had many visions of a demon, but one time he sketched out the vision

00:21:55.380 that he had of a demon. We don't have the graphic pulled and I frankly don't even want to have

00:21:59.240 to look at it. If you look at it, it just looks like people say aliens look. They're

00:22:03.880 just demons, guys. But I understand. Flying around in spacecraft? Yeah. Well, appearing

00:22:08.420 to, yeah. Because they're pure spirit and not body. So what are the demons? That's why

00:22:11.300 we don't have the bodies. We have non-human biologics, which is like a chicken sandwich

00:22:14.240 that some Navy pilot had or some like Chinese drone or something. Why are demons flying?

00:22:17.880 This is also one of my favorite graphics. I love this. This one's great. Reported UFO sightings.

00:22:22.400 Do you notice reported? Right. No, no, no. Reported. So this is what, there's not a lot

00:22:27.420 of reports coming from China because they're not telling us about them. What about Africa

00:22:30.460 or Latin America or even Canada? Who's going to report in Africa? Or maybe it's a bunch 0.99

00:22:34.220 of crazy people in America who have cell phones. Yeah. Maybe it's a bunch of crazy people who 0.92

00:22:37.400 are on social media all day. So that's, that's Western, uh, Western society, modern technology,

00:22:43.420 lots of cell phones. That's where you see the sightings. In, in, in places like China,

00:22:47.520 they're not going to report it. They're smarter than that. They're not going to tell us about

00:22:50.300 it. Africa. Who's doing the reporting in Africa? Who's doing the reporting in the Savannah?

00:22:55.600 Yeah. Maybe it turns out that when people are not bored and actually have to fight to

00:22:58.800 survive, they can rap about stupid optical illusions in the sky. There's also another, there's 0.99

00:23:03.140 also another question. When they found the slightest evidence that there was possible life on Mars

00:23:08.280 in the 1980s, they found the possibility that there had once been, it was on the front page

00:23:13.240 of the New York post. Why would they hide this? Why, why is this a secret? That's a very good

00:23:18.180 question. That's the question. I would love for us to be talking about that question so we

00:23:24.720 could get past this silly question of whether they exist in the first place.

00:23:26.880 Okay, fine. So what's your, what's your theory?

00:23:28.880 Why they're hiding it? Yeah.

00:23:30.160 Well, first of all, right now it's, they're, it's, it's, they're actually admitting it.

00:23:35.260 So like now.

00:23:36.600 Now, yeah, but why, why hide it up till now?

00:23:38.940 Are they good at hiding things in the government?

00:23:40.380 Yeah.

00:23:40.920 Are they good at anything, the government? Like they're so good that for 70 years,

00:23:44.380 they've been hiding the greatest discovery in the history of America.

00:23:46.380 No, I think this actually works exactly like you would expect it to. Like early on before

00:23:50.420 the internet and before everyone had cell phones and everything, they could easily hide it because

00:23:54.320 they didn't have to tell us. You have some farmer in Kansas, as I saw a UFO. It's easy for the

00:23:58.640 government to say, oh, that guy's crazy. But now there's so many videos coming out and you got

00:24:01.940 Navy pilots and all this stuff. They have to say something. And so now I have some whistleblowers

00:24:05.460 coming out. It's kind of working exactly as you would expect it to.

00:24:07.980 It's working exactly as you would expect it to.

00:24:09.000 Michael, I'm going to hang myself. Can we, can we move on?

00:24:11.060 My only question, look, I'd happily move on, except I don't know who owns part of Daily Wire right now,

00:24:16.360 because I always assumed that you were part owner of the company and that these guys were just,

00:24:20.040 you know, hired help. But then I learned today on the Matt Walsh show that in fact,

00:24:25.020 the turntables may have turned or something.

00:24:31.560 Well, he's not my boss anymore, though, because I owned him. Legally, he is now my employee.

00:24:38.320 This is written into law. A lot of people don't know this, but if you, it's an actual thing. If you

00:24:43.640 own your boss with a YouTube video, then after that, he actually becomes your subordinate.

00:24:50.040 So it's a little known loophole in our labor laws. But that's, that's the situation.

00:24:57.720 That is a shocking, that is a shocking development to me.

00:25:01.000 And I urge you to try to cash a check under those freebies.

00:25:03.480 You may not teach that at Harvard Law.

00:25:05.160 Hang on a second. There's a bit I have to do. I was, Ben, this is an Uno card.

00:25:08.700 I was told, so I was told offstage that the kids will understand that joke and they'll relate to it.

00:25:16.780 I don't get that joke at all. Even I understood that joke.

00:25:18.520 I don't know. I had this whole conversation about it. And I was told the kids, the kids will do it.

00:25:22.160 I am emotionally 12 years old.

00:25:23.420 I think we've all learned something here today.

00:25:24.960 Yep. Yeah. Listen, while we're owning Ben, I, I have, I have a, forget about the AL.

00:25:31.000 In violation of the 13th Amendment.

00:25:32.340 In violation. I, I have to, I, in preparation for this show tonight, I know you hate Barbie. 1.00

00:25:39.200 I know that you hate Barbie so much. And it became so much important.

00:25:41.200 I swear to God, if you defend Barbie, I'm going to come across the table.

00:25:43.740 I'm not doing, listen, I went into it wanting to like Barbie because I did want to disagree with you.

00:25:48.500 I know, of course you would.

00:25:48.980 But, but, but I kept an open mind and I thought, look, I'm not going to do it just to, I sincerely, I think it's, I think it's terrific.

00:25:58.780 I think it's anti-feminist. I know you disagree so much so that The View featured your harang, your violent attack on Barbie and Ken on their show.

00:26:10.700 Get worked up over a doll movie. Like it reminds me of the Bud Light, you know, scandal or whatever.

00:26:15.680 How, is there not something more important going on in the world to get super passionate about?

00:26:20.420 But it is, to Joy's point, it kind of shows how the right-wing influencers are actually out of touch with actual Republicans.

00:26:26.440 I'm so taken by some of these right-wing men who have all these thoughts on masculinity.

00:26:31.680 Like somehow the Barbie movie is going to make them feel emasculated.

00:26:34.940 No, caring so much about it is honestly the most emasculating thing I could think about.

00:26:39.560 Wasn't that Ben Shapiro?

00:26:40.900 Yeah.

00:26:41.240 Because if you're sitting there and you flipped it on a head and it was.

00:26:43.680 He looks like he should be in the Barbie movie.

00:26:44.980 Well, if you flip.

00:26:46.620 Why? Because I have a rippling six-pack?

00:26:48.640 Apparently you've got energy.

00:26:50.400 This is.

00:26:51.040 Meanwhile, but, sorry, I'm not going to guess, but they are the ones, these people celebrate the movie.

00:26:55.160 It's some great triumph.

00:26:56.340 Right.

00:26:56.900 And then if we, so it's the same thing.

00:26:58.440 If we criticize it, well, why do you care so much?

00:27:00.780 You're the one saying it's the great feminist triumph in the first place. 1.00

00:27:03.580 This is my face tattoo syndrome routine.

00:27:05.700 It's like you go into the Starbucks and there's some weirdo with a face tattoo.

00:27:08.360 And then you look at the face tattoo, like, what are you looking at?

00:27:10.320 Like your face tattoo.

00:27:11.880 It's like, well, you're the ones who decided that Barbie was not just a movie about it.

00:27:14.540 A child's toy.

00:27:15.500 You decided that it was a movie about the power of feminism. 1.00

00:27:18.040 And it was so important that every child had to see it so that girls could be empowered. 0.60

00:27:21.440 And then I'm like, well, I think that it's a crappy movie.

00:27:23.480 I don't think it's funny. 1.00

00:27:24.160 I think it's kind of stupid. 1.00

00:27:25.340 I think that it promotes a bad message. 1.00

00:27:27.160 And you're like, oh, how dare you be upset about this movie that's going to earn a billion dollars at the box.

00:27:31.640 You did set the doll on fire.

00:27:32.900 Let's have me.

00:27:34.040 It's a Barbenheimer joke, first of all.

00:27:36.540 Second of all, I made a lot of money off of that.

00:27:38.920 And so they asked me, my producers came to me, and they said, with all the money that we've made off of that Barbie review, what would you like to do with that?

00:27:43.940 And I said, well, you have to keep investing in the business.

00:27:45.400 So we obviously have to buy, like, 800 more Barbies and set them on fire. 0.99

00:27:48.400 Set them all on fire. 0.97

00:27:49.300 I mean, you just... 0.98

00:27:49.840 It's arbitrage at that point.

00:27:51.320 That's right.

00:27:52.020 You have to keep investing in the business.

00:27:53.540 You don't pull out until the business is essentially done.

00:27:56.940 Quick note to Alyssa Farah, who...

00:27:58.920 I met Alyssa Farah when I was in President and Vice President of Mike Pence's office, in the Oval Office.

00:28:04.580 And she was a large-scale fan of the show at the time.

00:28:08.360 Really?

00:28:08.880 Oh, yes.

00:28:09.600 And so her mock horror at learning that I disliked the Barbie movie, I find rather unconvincing.

00:28:17.600 What she has here is very strong 2012 GOP energy, which is, you know, who cares about the culture?

00:28:24.580 Let's just talk about things that matter, like...

00:28:26.280 They're really smart.

00:28:27.280 Regulatory reform.

00:28:28.080 Regulatory reform.

00:28:29.000 I think we should pause here for a moment.

00:28:30.560 Let's hear...

00:28:31.080 Did you like the Barbie movie?

00:28:31.920 I did.

00:28:32.880 First of all, I'm proud of you for coming out as a gay man.

00:28:36.220 Listen, you know, living your truth.

00:28:38.180 Grew up in New York.

00:28:39.160 I went to a certain university.

00:28:40.860 Yeah, that's really...

00:28:41.880 You know, no socks in my loafers.

00:28:43.920 I sincerely liked it because... 0.99

00:28:46.700 You're the worst person.

00:28:47.380 Listen, this is not... 0.84

00:28:49.140 Certain movies... 1.00

00:28:49.840 That's a big badder shit, my friend. 1.00

00:28:50.740 Certain movies I will grant you. 0.99

00:28:52.980 This is the kind of sophisticated conversation that I love to be a part of.

00:28:56.180 I try...

00:28:57.900 In some movies, I'll totally grant, maybe I'm inclined to read a little too much into it or something like that.

00:29:03.620 I don't think that's what's going on here.

00:29:04.900 I think the movie is very clearly anti-feminist.

00:29:08.060 Here's my brief evidence for it.

00:29:11.140 Barbie Land is a feminist utopia. 1.00

00:29:12.680 It's established that way from the opening scene.

00:29:15.180 The opening scene...

00:29:16.060 This is spoiler alert, by the way.

00:29:17.780 The opening scene is an homage to 2001 A Space Odyssey.

00:29:20.940 And the little girls are having fun playing with their baby dolls until Barbie comes around. 0.73

00:29:25.060 And Barbie, the symbol of feminism, comes in and inspires these girls to murder their baby dolls and to pursue Barbie. 1.00

00:29:32.880 Then in Barbie Land, the women run everything. 1.00

00:29:35.080 They're all feminists. 1.00

00:29:35.880 The woman is a president. 0.95

00:29:37.040 Woman's a doctor. 1.00

00:29:37.780 Woman's this. 0.92

00:29:38.240 Woman's that. 1.00

00:29:38.680 The men are total second class. 0.99

00:29:40.400 Technically, a man who's playing a woman is a doctor, but yes.

00:29:42.660 A man...

00:29:43.160 Oh, yeah, I know.

00:29:43.820 But, you know...

00:29:44.720 As a trans woman.

00:29:45.400 The trans thing is there as part of the Barbie universe, but it's not totally emphasized.

00:29:52.140 And so, in Barbie Land, you get a view of all of the Barbies.

00:29:57.580 And, oh, this Barbie is this figure and this, that, and the other thing.

00:30:00.320 Except for one gets written out very early on.

00:30:02.300 There's a pregnant Barbie. 1.00

00:30:03.700 But then very quickly, they say, oh, no, she's not allowed to be here.

00:30:06.840 We got rid of her really quickly.

00:30:08.940 And in Barbie Land, Barbie's not totally happy.

00:30:13.420 I mean, she's happy in the sense that it's the same fun party every single day.

00:30:17.060 But there's no future.

00:30:18.020 There's only this perpetual present.

00:30:19.780 And then she goes into the real world.

00:30:21.520 And by the way, even when the feminist guru character offers Barbie the chance to go into 1.00

00:30:26.260 the real world to see what it's like and to try to fix some problems, she says, okay,

00:30:30.480 you take the red pill or the blue pill?

00:30:32.080 The red pill is the Birkenstocks.

00:30:34.780 The blue pill is the high heels. 0.94

00:30:36.360 What does Barbie say?

00:30:37.060 She goes, oh, I have the choice.

00:30:37.940 It's good.

00:30:38.380 I'll take the high heels, please.

00:30:39.700 I want to just be a happy woman.

00:30:41.540 And the feminist says, oh, you weren't supposed to pick that. 1.00

00:30:44.720 You don't actually have the choice.

00:30:46.300 You've got to wear the Birkenstocks.

00:30:47.620 Go into the real world.

00:30:48.560 So she goes into the real world.

00:30:49.800 The real world is supposedly a patriarchy.

00:30:52.840 And you hear the word patriarchy, as you pointed out, Ben.

00:30:55.040 You hear the word patriarchy like a dozen times in the movie.

00:30:57.140 But what's very interesting is the actions that move the plot along, that actually have consequences

00:31:04.680 in the world, they're all done by women in very subtle ways. 0.99

00:31:07.780 It's a woman who draws a little picture of Barbie, a woman who has a thought about death 0.75

00:31:11.380 and the future and generations.

00:31:12.740 The central theme of the whole movie is motherhood.

00:31:16.740 And so then I'm not, I won't, maybe I'll go into it a little bit more on my show tomorrow.

00:31:20.120 But let's fast forward.

00:31:20.780 We'll go back to aliens.

00:31:21.640 This is where I think, where Greta Gerwig, who is a fairly conservative filmmaker, if you watch Lady Bird,

00:31:27.880 where Greta Gerwig I think really tips her hand.

00:31:29.760 And this is a major spoiler alert.

00:31:31.240 At the very end, there's this scene where after the big feminist speech, the woman is complaining. 0.78

00:31:37.120 She says, it's so impossible to be a woman because we're expected to be girl bosses. 1.00

00:31:42.360 We're expected to work all these jobs.

00:31:45.540 The things she's complaining about are the result of feminism, not traditional society. 1.00

00:31:49.640 Then Barbie is given the choice.

00:31:51.280 Do you stay in the feminist utopia Barbie land? 1.00

00:31:52.960 Do you go into the real world, which is supposedly patriarchy?

00:31:55.320 She chooses the real world.

00:31:57.460 She goes out there and she meets the creator of Barbie, Rhea Perlman.

00:32:00.900 Great scene.

00:32:02.660 And Rhea Perlman actually says, she says, well, what about all this, you know, this awful world out here?

00:32:08.420 She goes, look, we come up with all these make-believe things to make sense of the complicated world.

00:32:13.600 We make things up, like Barbie, like patriarchy.

00:32:17.900 So she actually says, this notion of the patriarchy is a made-up thing.

00:32:21.580 And then here's the question.

00:32:23.440 Isn't she saying that the patriarchy itself is a thing that we know?

00:32:26.500 No, she's saying the notion of patriarchy.

00:32:28.820 And here's the final proof of it.

00:32:30.540 The final scene, right before Barbie decides, okay, this is going to be my life in the real world.

00:32:35.260 So the montage of what she can achieve in the real world is not her going out to be a girl boss at some widget company or whatever. 0.50

00:32:41.160 It's motherhood. 0.62

00:32:42.400 And then the very final scene, this is the clincher where I think you couldn't deny it.

00:32:46.460 She's walking in and it's supposed to be the big triumph of feminist Barbie. 1.00

00:32:49.780 She's walking in for her job interview.

00:32:51.900 Walks up to the secretary and she says, hi, my name is Barbara Handel and I'm here for my appointment.

00:32:58.720 And the woman says, okay, what can I do for you? 0.65

00:33:00.820 What are you here for?

00:33:01.740 And she says, not I'm here for my job interview.

00:33:04.900 She says, I'm here to see my gynecologist, which is, it's a play on the motherhood from the beginning.

00:33:11.380 It's a play on Barbie.

00:33:12.460 Wait, I have to say something.

00:33:14.800 I can't defend you because I didn't see Barbie because I'm a heterosexual adult now.

00:33:21.280 But I have to say that Greta Gerwig is not a radical feminist director just having seen Lady Bird, which is quite a good film.

00:33:28.060 But she is, but she, like Noah Baumbach, her paramour.

00:33:32.280 Yeah, who also is against, did that wonderful movie about divorce.

00:33:36.520 Oh, I can't believe you like that movie.

00:33:37.780 It was about how destructive divorce was. 1.00

00:33:39.560 That entire movie is about a bunch of self-obsessed, narcissistic jackass. 0.99

00:33:45.180 But how destructive. 1.00

00:33:45.700 Who don't give a shit about their kid. 0.99

00:33:47.200 That's what that movie is about. 0.99

00:33:48.340 And somehow I'm supposed to care about these people and their story.

00:33:51.240 No, no, no, no.

00:33:51.980 It was about how destructive.

00:33:53.200 You're right.

00:33:53.500 These are all secretly.

00:33:54.020 Do you imagine?

00:33:55.200 No, I didn't say she was conservative.

00:33:56.720 She's not a feminist. 1.00

00:33:58.180 Here's what I will grant you.

00:33:59.580 Anti-feminist.

00:34:00.560 She's anti-feminist. 1.00

00:34:01.300 You think she intentionally made this broadside attack on feminism itself? 1.00

00:34:07.700 I mean, you would have to be a far conservative, like hardcore conservative to do something like that.

00:34:12.840 No, that's no way.

00:34:13.600 Wait, wait, wait.

00:34:13.920 That's actually not my point.

00:34:14.540 Here's what actually happened.

00:34:15.480 No, wait, wait, wait.

00:34:16.040 You know what actually happened?

00:34:16.720 You haven't seen the movie.

00:34:17.540 Be quiet.

00:34:18.020 No, no, no.

00:34:18.600 Hold on.

00:34:19.200 All right, Drew, finish.

00:34:19.740 There is a movement now among highly intelligent, semi-left-wing women rejecting feminism. 1.00

00:34:26.180 It is growing up, and the only person covering it is me because I actually listen to what they say.

00:34:30.660 What?

00:34:30.940 Like the Red Scare podcast, right?

00:34:32.500 Yes, the Red Scare, Mary Harrington.

00:34:34.460 These are women who identify as more or less left-wing, but they suddenly say, you know, 0.84

00:34:39.080 these babies are kind of nice and we're being written out of existence by the transgender movement, 1.00

00:34:43.980 which is a logical extension of feminism. 1.00

00:34:46.200 They're not dumb, and they see this, and I'm not, I haven't seen the movie and really 0.86

00:34:50.180 don't want to, except now I'll have to. 0.59

00:34:51.360 This whole conversation makes me want to take a sleeping pill, but I have to get to the

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00:34:56.940 Black Rifle Coffee literally fuels the Daily Wire.

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00:35:48.240 Okay, so, let me now give a couple pronged response.

00:35:52.800 One, there's a movie that you are seeing, and then there's the movie that the American

00:35:56.940 public is seeing.

00:35:58.180 Okay, you're doing a real Straussian esoteric read on this film.

00:36:01.320 I don't think it's that esoteric, but yeah.

00:36:03.140 It's definitely a deep read on Barbie.

00:36:05.320 Okay, the surface read on Barbie is nothing remotely like this.

00:36:07.500 The surface read on Barbie is that Barbie herself, when she goes into the real world,

00:36:13.280 is immediately victimized by the patriarchy.

00:36:15.380 That Ken, when he goes back to Barbie land, immediately establishes the horrors of the

00:36:19.340 Kendom, which must be overcome. 0.90

00:36:20.780 Which women love.

00:36:21.660 And the conclusion.

00:36:22.760 The women love Kendom. 1.00

00:36:23.700 Until they are disabused of their love of Kendom by the truth, which is feminism.

00:36:27.680 At which point, they do not actually...

00:36:29.500 The normal, by the way, course that this movie would take, if you were to actively make

00:36:33.580 it, you know, in an anti-feminist direction, is that Barbie land would become more equal. 1.00

00:36:37.420 Everyone would treat each other as an individual.

00:36:38.920 That's not what happens.

00:36:39.660 Instead, they reestablish the matriarchy at the end, with the men in a subservient position. 1.00

00:36:43.180 And the tagline at the end, where she learns emotion and so she has to go back to the real

00:36:46.820 world, and therefore goes to the gynecologist, is not about motherhood. 0.99

00:36:49.700 It's a throwaway joke about her growing vagina, because that's the entire film. 1.00

00:36:52.760 The film has these kinds of jokes littered throughout it. 0.98

00:36:55.700 The notion that this is like a deep read on feminism is not right.

00:36:58.820 The only plausible notion I can see is that Greta Gerwig herself is trapped by feminism. 1.00

00:37:02.920 Meaning, that she made a movie that was meant to be an homage to feminism, it was meant 1.00

00:37:06.860 to be a rip on the patriarchy, and she finds herself unable, because she is not truly, as

00:37:12.440 you say, like an ardent feminist, she finds herself in this false bind of not being able 0.99

00:37:16.920 to get out.

00:37:17.320 And so what that's reflected in is a very messy movie.

00:37:19.560 The movie is a thematic mess.

00:37:21.000 There are a bunch of elements of it that do not fit your narrative, and they don't fit

00:37:24.360 my narrative.

00:37:24.620 And the reason is because they're in conflict with one another.

00:37:26.500 I don't think so.

00:37:27.520 I mean, I just...

00:37:28.660 There is literally a speech where Barbie articulates that in order to live

00:37:32.900 as a woman in the real world, either you have to buy fully into delusion, or you have 0.93

00:37:36.520 to be considered a crazy weird Barbie who is lesbian, Kate McKinnon, weird Barbie. 0.98

00:37:40.060 Right? 0.98

00:37:40.220 Those are the only two choices.

00:37:41.420 There is no third choice whereby you can live a happy life as a traditional woman. 0.99

00:37:44.780 This is forbade.

00:37:45.460 But then what does she do? 0.99

00:37:46.620 You're right that she's troubled by the...

00:37:48.720 America Ferrera's speech does not... 0.91

00:37:50.840 America Ferrera's speech is not about how the solution to this is traditional joys of motherhood. 0.99

00:37:54.620 It's about how it's impossible because men are evil pigs for women to live happily. 0.99

00:37:58.240 No, there is... 0.99

00:37:58.760 She literally says that in the speech. 0.93

00:37:59.780 No, no, no.

00:38:00.080 This is the point.

00:38:01.380 You're right that in these speeches, they're trying to work through the problems of feminism, 1.00

00:38:05.420 and they're speaking as many American and many liberal women would speak today,

00:38:08.960 and they feel that it's a trap.

00:38:10.380 But then at the end of the movie, the conclusion, the reconciliation of these problems...

00:38:14.260 So I have a question.

00:38:15.120 Why does the left love it?

00:38:16.340 Simple question.

00:38:16.940 Why do the women of the view like it? 1.00

00:38:17.540 Wait, wait.

00:38:17.880 Can I ask a question?

00:38:18.640 Why?

00:38:18.660 Is it because they're...

00:38:19.320 Are they misreading it or are you misreading it?

00:38:20.520 Because one of the views misreading it.

00:38:20.900 They're misreading it.

00:38:21.480 Of course.

00:38:21.900 They misread everything.

00:38:23.020 They don't know what a man is.

00:38:23.760 Okay.

00:38:24.060 So the 50, 60, 70 million people who are watching, you think they're reading it like

00:38:27.200 you, or you think they're reading it like the ladies of the view?

00:38:28.740 I don't know how they're reading it.

00:38:29.780 I do.

00:38:30.200 I do, but I can't...

00:38:31.100 Wait, I want to ask a question about that, because what I did is I went and see Oppenheimer

00:38:35.200 simply for the experience of having three hours of not watching Barbie, and I thought

00:38:39.340 Oppenheimer was a really good movie.

00:38:41.060 I thought it was, in fact, the first really good movie that guy has made.

00:38:43.980 I know everybody's...

00:38:44.860 I want to love him, but I thought it was the first movie he's made since the Dark Knight

00:38:48.300 trilogy that was really good.

00:38:49.380 And one of the things that truly impressed me about Oppenheimer was how art trumps politics,

00:38:54.960 because in politics, you have to sit around and talk about, were we right to drop the

00:38:58.880 bomb?

00:38:59.260 Yes, we were.

00:38:59.920 No, we weren't.

00:39:00.460 That kind of thing.

00:39:01.080 You know, it's this binary choice that you have to make.

00:39:03.180 But in the arts, you can say, we might have had to drop it.

00:39:06.300 It might still be an atrocity.

00:39:07.540 It might be an atrocity.

00:39:09.000 It might have been the best atrocity.

00:39:10.540 It might have been a good thing in the moment.

00:39:12.160 It might lead to the end of the world.

00:39:13.200 You can have this kind of complex vision of the world.

00:39:15.440 And so people are going to, people who are politicized are going to go to these movies

00:39:20.480 and come out and say, well, he talked too much about the communists, or he let the communists

00:39:23.660 off the...

00:39:23.940 But that's not what he's doing.

00:39:25.180 He's actually making art, which is much more complex than politics.

00:39:28.540 So maybe she's doing the same thing.

00:39:29.560 Well, this is, I guess this is, I don't know her politics.

00:39:32.320 And she's kind of coy in her politics. 0.97

00:39:34.040 But I will say, I think she's a genius filmmaker.

00:39:37.020 I think she's really an excellent filmmaker.

00:39:39.600 I think Lady Bird was terrific.

00:39:41.360 Okay.

00:39:42.140 Forget Lady Bird for a second, because we can discuss that.

00:39:43.680 And I think Barbie was terrific.

00:39:44.540 It's also just great filmmaking.

00:39:46.060 It is not even remotely great filmmaking.

00:39:47.760 It has about three laugh moments.

00:39:49.100 The movie's at least 20 minutes too long.

00:39:50.380 I was laughing the whole time.

00:39:51.260 It is too long, though.

00:39:51.980 The movie is...

00:39:52.600 But all movies are too long.

00:39:53.520 All movies are too long.

00:39:54.280 But it's a great sin in a comedy, because it's all timing.

00:39:57.500 The only funny performance in the film is given by Ron Gosling.

00:40:00.380 He's excellent.

00:40:01.580 Margot Robbie is not funny. 0.87

00:40:02.720 I thought she was good.

00:40:03.420 Robbie.

00:40:03.840 Okay, but the...

00:40:04.520 Ria Pramund was good.

00:40:06.460 She's the kind of writer who drops Proust-Barbie jokes in the middle of the film. 1.00

00:40:10.020 Which I lulled at.

00:40:11.100 I'll tell you.

00:40:11.740 Of course you did, because this movie was written for you.

00:40:13.820 It really was.

00:40:14.600 It was written for upper-class white females. 0.99

00:40:16.820 Well, upper-class white females. 0.96

00:40:18.520 That's who it was written for.

00:40:19.720 Okay, you know who it wasn't written for?

00:40:20.920 That was low, Ben.

00:40:22.640 Because you know who this was not written for?

00:40:24.080 True, but low.

00:40:24.820 You know who this was not written for?

00:40:26.220 The actual people who like Barbies, namely young girls.

00:40:30.000 It was not for young girls.

00:40:30.680 But you know who was showing up at the theater?

00:40:32.540 Yeah.

00:40:32.680 I know, because I was there. 1.00

00:40:34.060 Because I had to go to this damn thing. 1.00

00:40:35.300 Yeah. 0.99

00:40:35.500 I was there, and you know who it was?

00:40:36.520 It was mommies and their eight-year-old girls.

00:40:37.880 I saw...

00:40:38.220 And all those eight-year-old girls were being told on the screen by a man playing a woman

00:40:42.700 that the way that women are to be upheld in society is to literally separate from the 1.00

00:40:47.680 men.

00:40:47.900 This is the message...

00:40:48.660 One of the messages in Barbie land.

00:40:50.240 In the bad place.

00:40:50.880 In the good place, there are no men.

00:40:52.520 They don't exist.

00:40:53.400 The only men in the good place are after them.

00:40:54.740 No, the bad place is Barbie land.

00:40:56.800 That's why Barbie leaves. 1.00

00:40:58.400 She leaves because she's become too human, okay?

00:41:01.360 Isn't she like immediately assaulted as soon as she gets to the real world? 1.00

00:41:03.700 Yes, she slapped on the ass immediately. 1.00

00:41:05.460 But she still chooses to go back because she likes the patriarchy. 1.00

00:41:08.740 But also, Michael, the existence of this trans person in the film at all completely destroys 1.00

00:41:15.340 your theory.

00:41:15.900 This is correct, of course.

00:41:17.280 The trans person is... 1.00

00:41:18.980 I guess my theory...

00:41:20.120 It's hit on by Ryan Gosling in the film as a...

00:41:22.300 But my theory...

00:41:23.240 The trans person is there to make some kind of anti...

00:41:24.880 Well, no, they're pointing out that Barbie has all of these very feminist aspects to 1.00

00:41:28.600 it, including the transgenderism point.

00:41:29.860 I don't even want to go to see Margot Robbie's song.

00:41:31.080 But...

00:41:31.640 And Margot Robbie is...

00:41:33.140 Margot Robbie is great in the movie.

00:41:34.920 Let's just believe it at that.

00:41:36.140 But, no, I guess my theory hinges on Barbie land as a feminist utopia being the sort of 0.99

00:41:42.620 thing that ought to be rejected as it is by the protagonist at the end of the movie.

00:41:46.340 And yet, it's not destroyed.

00:41:47.460 If she wished to destroy it, then what she actually had to do was come to the natural

00:41:50.620 denouement of the movie, which they're building toward because she mistreats Ken.

00:41:53.660 The way that this is supposed to conclude... 0.98

00:41:55.320 But Ken is a cuck. 1.00

00:41:56.320 Ken is a simp. 1.00

00:41:57.340 He's not a man. 0.98

00:41:59.040 That's a...

00:41:59.640 Now...

00:42:00.160 He's not a patriarch.

00:42:01.600 Now you're getting...

00:42:02.580 He only exists...

00:42:03.220 He literally comes back and he establishes a man's utopia in her view.

00:42:06.440 And the proper conclusion of this film would be for Barbie and Ken to get along and for

00:42:11.840 them to actually share this utopia.

00:42:13.540 But that's not the conclusion of the film.

00:42:14.060 But they don't have a marriage.

00:42:14.880 They have a long-distance, low-effort relationship.

00:42:17.560 Can I rule it? 0.82

00:42:18.500 It's obviously gay, right? 0.99

00:42:20.300 Yeah. 0.94

00:42:21.560 By the way, the entire movie is just gay jokes about Ken and the fellow Kens. 0.74

00:42:25.860 Right. 0.93

00:42:26.120 That's the problem.

00:42:26.720 He's not a real man.

00:42:27.880 I mean, let's face it. 0.93

00:42:28.920 There's a four-minute segment at the beginning where they literally make jokes about gay 0.99

00:42:33.260 masturbation. 0.99

00:42:34.140 It's literally for four long minutes.

00:42:37.000 That's the feminist view of the man, which is... 1.00

00:42:39.760 Now, you got in trouble.

00:42:40.580 I can't deal with this.

00:42:41.600 Like, listen, I like Strauss, okay?

00:42:43.300 I read Leo Strauss.

00:42:44.400 I enjoy natural writing history.

00:42:45.840 I like all that stuff, okay? 0.99

00:42:47.060 But I'm just going to point out to you that you're so unbelievably full of dog crap at this 0.99

00:42:50.960 point. 1.00

00:42:51.080 I...

00:42:51.440 This is not a...

00:42:52.740 At best, what you can say...

00:42:55.000 Are you claiming...

00:42:55.540 In order for what you're saying to be true, Greta Gorg has to be a conscious anti-feminist. 1.00

00:42:59.160 How do we put a time limit on aliens, but not on this?

00:43:01.680 Okay, I'll tell you what. 1.00

00:43:02.420 I'll shift to a slightly related topic that you got in trouble for, which is you, jerk. 1.00

00:43:09.420 You outrageous, bomb-throwing maniac. 1.00

00:43:12.380 You criticized feminism and went viral for it. 0.99

00:43:16.280 What did you say?

00:43:18.080 Well, I mean, that's...

00:43:19.120 I haven't seen either movie, and I want to see Oppenheimer, but six kids, I can't see

00:43:22.720 a three-hour movie in theater.

00:43:23.880 It's just impossible.

00:43:24.560 It's impossible.

00:43:25.320 I did this last week.

00:43:26.560 Let me tell you, my wife is not super happy with me. 0.62

00:43:28.520 Yeah.

00:43:28.880 Oh, you went by yourself?

00:43:30.180 I went with a couple of friends, and I showed up like 45 minutes after the kids had gotten

00:43:34.680 back from camp.

00:43:35.720 It didn't go amazing.

00:43:37.440 Because I always had this idea that I should bring my wife for things like that, and that's 0.73

00:43:40.340 why I couldn't...

00:43:41.000 I asked my wife.

00:43:41.760 I guess we wanted to see Indiana Jones and not this.

00:43:44.060 But anyway, as someone who hasn't seen it, what I take from this is that it's a good

00:43:49.420 opportunity to reflect on the fact that feminism has killed more people than the atom bomb, 1.00

00:43:54.860 which is what I tweeted out. 0.51

00:43:56.180 It has killed far more people than the atom bomb.

00:43:58.400 The funny thing is...

00:43:59.080 It's so subtle about this point.

00:44:00.060 Simple fact, isn't it?

00:44:01.220 It's actually a simple fact.

00:44:02.100 It's not wrong. 0.84

00:44:02.620 It was interesting to me to see a lot of...

00:44:04.220 Not surprising, but even some conservatives reacting to that.

00:44:07.320 It's like, I don't even know what you're talking about.

00:44:08.400 What could you possibly...

00:44:09.280 Really?

00:44:09.640 60 million?

00:44:10.240 We can just start with 60 million babies.

00:44:12.640 That's really just the beginning of it before we get to the utter destruction of the family

00:44:16.520 by feminism. 1.00

00:44:18.240 Completely true.

00:44:18.900 But the interesting thing that happened from this...

00:44:20.820 Feels weird.

00:44:21.220 Is that it was an opportunity for what they call the gender-critical feminists, who are 1.00

00:44:26.560 the feminists who are critical of transgenderism, who have been really uncomfortable with me,

00:44:31.740 but they're kind of like, I don't know, this guy, and what is a woman? 0.96

00:44:34.080 And they saw this, and they're like, okay, screw this guy.

00:44:37.100 And they started passing along this video of Helen Joyce, who's a feminist writer.

00:44:42.360 And a year ago, she did an interview that I didn't even see, but she was talking about

00:44:46.900 what is a woman. 1.00

00:44:47.700 And she made the argument that all these gender-critical feminists think it's quite brilliant, that someone 1.00

00:44:53.280 like me, you know, I'm critical of transgenderism, but I don't understand that as a proponent 1.00

00:44:58.700 of gender roles, I'm actually, you know, setting the stage for transgenderism.

00:45:06.240 And so that's where the conversation went, which I think is very interesting, because

00:45:08.700 what they don't understand is that among feminism's many sins, it is that it is the thing that 1.00

00:45:14.980 actually set the stage for transgenderism.

00:45:17.660 Clearly, the logical and philosophical line, and historical line, is directly from feminism 0.93

00:45:23.020 to transgenderism.

00:45:23.980 I mean, there's just no question about that.

00:45:25.020 Julie Smith Firestone was writing about transgenderism in the early 1970s.

00:45:27.720 Right.

00:45:28.040 Like, this is, the statement you're making, which is on a purely philosophic level, which

00:45:33.240 is that feminism, in obliterating gender roles, has made clear that men can be women and women

00:45:37.080 can be men, because if there are no actual roles, then how exactly can't you be, right?

00:45:40.660 Gender non-binary is the status quo. 1.00

00:45:42.780 Then, put that aside, just on a purely historic level, the line of thinking goes from, essentially,

00:45:49.100 Betty Friedan to the next stage, Julie Smith Firestone, forward to trans ideology.

00:45:53.760 I mean, Julie Smith Firestone literally writes an entire paper about how this is the case,

00:45:57.740 how in the future, men will be able to have babies, and women will be the ones who are 0.98

00:46:01.220 inseminating them, and all of this kind of stuff.

00:46:02.720 I mean, so that's in 1970s.

00:46:04.840 So, like, they're just wrong, factually speaking.

00:46:06.880 And one of the points I made to Helen, and it's a really obvious one, that if traditional

00:46:13.260 gender roles lead to transgenderism, well, traditional gender roles existed across the entire world.

00:46:20.200 They were the only thing that existed for thousands of years, and yet transgenderism did not exist

00:46:25.180 in any of these cultures, and if you go even now, as we did in the film, and go to cultures

00:46:29.680 that still have these so-called traditional gender roles, they've never even heard of 1.00

00:46:33.160 this stuff.

00:46:33.940 And yet feminism comes along, and like a second later, you've got transgenderism. 1.00

00:46:38.120 By the way, just on the Oppenheimer note, since you tied it into this tweet, Oppenheimer

00:46:42.280 was a communist, and they should have denied his security clearance.

00:46:44.660 But he was not an official communist.

00:46:48.240 So this is under serious...

00:46:51.200 I thought he was.

00:46:52.520 There's a letter from a Soviet agent to Lorente Beria in 1944, I believe, talking about how

00:46:59.300 Oppenheimer was a funnel for information for the Soviets.

00:47:03.260 And, you know, whether that's true or whether that's false, there's no question that every

00:47:07.340 single person...

00:47:07.860 Like, in terms of was he a security risk?

00:47:10.040 Every single person he hung out with was like a card-carrying member of the Communist

00:47:13.120 Party.

00:47:13.440 Do you want that guy having access to, like, all your...

00:47:15.580 I mean, I understand why you do it in the middle of World War II, where you have to

00:47:18.340 win.

00:47:18.980 But after that, there's a pretty good case that at that point, you're like, you know,

00:47:21.520 thanks for the service, I really...

00:47:22.900 The thing about Oppenheimer that's really fascinating, only two of us have seen it, is

00:47:27.640 that every argument that is made by Oppenheimer's opponents is correct.

00:47:30.780 Every single one of them, right?

00:47:31.740 They argue that the hydrogen bomb is going to be necessary because the Soviets will develop 0.81

00:47:35.320 it without us developing it.

00:47:37.080 They argue that mutually assured destruction is going to prevent mass death, which it did.

00:47:40.040 If you look at the number of war deaths in the first half of the 20th century versus

00:47:42.640 the last half of the 20th century, it plummets.

00:47:45.000 I mean, America loses 400,000 men during World War II, and now in a typical, really horrific

00:47:50.240 war like Afghanistan, we lose 2,400 men.

00:47:52.780 Things are just radically different.

00:47:54.320 Oh, going to a physicist for your politics is like...

00:47:57.460 This is the part with the movie that actually, and I really enjoyed it, and I thought, enjoy

00:48:02.200 is not the right word.

00:48:04.140 I found out it's a fascinating movie.

00:48:05.460 It's a really fascinating movie.

00:48:06.020 It also has some of the best acting I've seen.

00:48:08.020 The acting is spectacular.

00:48:09.520 The cinematography is amazing.

00:48:11.140 The fact that Nolan is a movie god in the sense that he can make a three-hour film with

00:48:15.960 one explosion and make hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office.

00:48:19.060 And I have to say, I hate three-hour films on principle.

00:48:22.060 I think there should be a federal law against them.

00:48:24.000 It went by.

00:48:24.740 Yeah, the first hour of it is unbelievably compelling.

00:48:27.680 You know, I...

00:48:28.960 Sorry to cut you off, but I think, you know, obviously we're talking about Oppenheimer and

00:48:32.180 the atom bomb was rough for Japan, but one thing that's rough for a lot of people is dark

00:48:36.720 spots on their skin.

00:48:37.920 Too true.

00:48:39.320 Our friend...

00:48:39.920 Great segue.

00:48:40.780 Over at GenuCell sold out of their dark spot corrector.

00:48:45.680 And our listeners have been begging for a restock.

00:48:47.880 Well, I have great news.

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00:48:51.460 And thank goodness for that, because, you know, who needs the dark spot corrector more

00:48:54.820 than most?

00:48:55.420 I usually don't do transitions at all, and this is what happens when I try to...

00:48:57.860 There's a reason.

00:49:00.080 You know who has a lot of dark spots and terrible skins? 1.00

00:49:02.100 This show's producer, Mathis. 1.00

00:49:03.920 Mathis, I don't mean this to be harsh, but you are a disgusting, ugly freak. 1.00

00:49:07.920 I've never seen so many dark spots in my life. 1.00

00:49:10.500 Your dark spots have dark spots.

00:49:12.580 It's genuinely unsettling.

00:49:14.460 Put me in a bad headspace before the show. 0.99

00:49:17.380 One might even say it put me in a dark spot, just looking at your grotesque, disgusting 0.99

00:49:21.800 figure. 0.98

00:49:22.300 So please do the world a favor. 0.94

00:49:23.900 Better yet, do me a favor and fix your face, you monster, with GenuCell's quick-acting 0.93

00:49:29.460 dark spot corrector. 0.95

00:49:30.440 Consider this my gift to you as the new boss of The Daily Wire.

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00:50:08.840 GenuCell.com slash backstage.

00:50:10.920 I hope you've enjoyed being an owner of The Daily Wire.

00:50:13.000 In the HR lawsuit, Mathis is about to file a test.

00:50:15.560 He's going to remove all your equity.

00:50:17.380 It was short-lived, but it was worth it.

00:50:19.160 Speaking of people who don't look very good, Hunter Biden did not look very good this week

00:50:23.760 when his business associate testified behind a closed door that he did, in fact, chat with

00:50:31.220 Joe Biden about his business and that Joe Biden not only was aware of his business dealings,

00:50:35.220 which he already knew, but was actually on more than 20 phone calls with these crooks

00:50:41.200 that Hunter Biden was shaking down on behalf of the Biden crime family.

00:50:45.260 I'm a little doomer about the whole thing.

00:50:47.800 I'm just a little, I kind of think it doesn't matter. 0.98

00:50:51.020 Oh, yeah, Biden's corrupt.

00:50:52.820 Does it, is it going to change? 0.98

00:50:54.760 Yes.

00:50:55.080 Do you think it does?

00:50:55.740 It does.

00:50:56.300 You know, first of all, the polls on these things that show that people don't care,

00:50:59.220 they can crater like that.

00:51:00.620 They can, they disappear.

00:51:02.740 Watergate was like this.

00:51:03.580 Nobody cared about Watergate until everybody cared about Watergate.

00:51:06.240 And I think that this is the kind of thing, look, the press can cover this up and they

00:51:10.240 have covered it up.

00:51:10.980 The DOJ can hide it.

00:51:12.020 They have hidden it.

00:51:13.820 The Democrats can say it doesn't exist, but it does.

00:51:16.220 And it means that when somebody runs against Joe Biden, and this is why I'm still doubtful

00:51:22.440 that he's going to be the candidate, you can't keep them from pointing this out relentlessly.

00:51:27.760 If it's Trump, it'll be relentless.

00:51:28.940 If it's DeSantis, it'll be relentless.

00:51:30.320 And that's why I think the way that the election looks right now has nothing to do with the

00:51:36.820 way the election is going to look in the end.

00:51:38.740 It might be a Trump-Biden contest, but there's every reason to think that Biden won't be in

00:51:43.660 it.

00:51:44.120 And it's possible that even Trump won't be in it.

00:51:46.320 Wow.

00:51:46.800 You're always such an optimist.

00:51:48.200 That's what I love about you, Drew.

00:51:49.260 No, there is.

00:51:50.000 But yes, it makes a difference.

00:51:51.660 And the reason it makes a difference is because Joe, Trump has nowhere to fall. 0.98

00:51:56.680 Now, as I've said for literally, at this point, seven, eight years, Donald Trump's a mud monster. 0.99

00:52:01.580 He's made of mud. 1.00

00:52:02.300 The more mud you throw on him, the more he's made of mud. 0.99

00:52:04.480 And so, like you say, Donald Trump is a stooge of the Russians. 0.51

00:52:06.720 And he's like, OK, and he's not.

00:52:09.360 I mean, he clearly is not, but it doesn't matter.

00:52:10.580 You can throw that stuff at him.

00:52:11.420 It just doesn't have any impact.

00:52:13.680 When Joe Biden ran as I'm restoring honor to the Oval Office and cleanliness, and we're

00:52:19.340 getting past the corruption, we're getting back past the Trump and the evil corrupt time

00:52:25.240 and all of this kind of stuff.

00:52:26.860 And his character is now an issue in the election.

00:52:30.200 And it wasn't really an issue in the election in 2020.

00:52:32.140 It should have been because he actually is a venal and corrupt guy and has been for literally 0.80

00:52:34.880 his entire career. 1.00

00:52:35.700 He's a scumbag. 1.00

00:52:36.780 He's a bad guy. 1.00

00:52:37.940 He's been a bad guy his entire career.

00:52:39.580 But he got away with it because on the other side of the aisle was Donald Trump. 0.98

00:52:43.600 And everybody had already established that Donald Trump was, of course, the worst sinner 0.99

00:52:45.980 who had ever sinned. 0.75

00:52:46.520 And so now there's so much mud on Hunter, on Joe's, this, by the way, is the reason why

00:52:53.120 he suddenly acknowledged his seventh grandchild, because his final defense in all of this is

00:52:56.500 going to be, I just love my family too much.

00:52:58.260 They've moved the goalposts.

00:52:59.220 The goalposts went from, I've never heard of my son's businesses, to I was never on calls

00:53:02.740 with my son's friends, to I'm not in business with my son.

00:53:06.720 And eventually this is going to move to, of course, I was in business with my son.

00:53:09.500 He was suffering.

00:53:10.040 He was a crack addict.

00:53:10.840 I love him too much.

00:53:11.760 And then the comeback by us was going to be, oh, really?

00:53:14.900 So if you're a member of the family, then presumably you love that person and you take care of

00:53:18.140 them.

00:53:18.280 So why are you disowning the seventh grandchild?

00:53:20.080 And so he's preemptively cutting that up by saying, look, now all of a sudden I have

00:53:25.580 a seventh, and I love this seventh grandchild.

00:53:27.220 I love the seventh grandchild.

00:53:28.440 By the way, it is by far that that issue must have been pulling terribly, which is why Maureen

00:53:32.560 Dowd was writing pieces about it in the New York Times, which is the only feedback channel

00:53:36.680 that Joe Biden actually cares about.

00:53:38.860 Yeah, it matters.

00:53:39.480 And it matters mainly in terms of turnout.

00:53:40.960 The turnout is the way that Biden loses the election.

00:53:43.540 Turnout, if 150 million people show up to vote the way they did in the last election

00:53:49.020 cycle, Trump loses to Biden.

00:53:50.520 If it goes back to 130 million, 135 million, Trump could easily sneak by.

00:53:56.480 And this is the kind of thing, by the way, to be fair to Maureen Dowd, she has always

00:53:59.740 been really good on issues like this.

00:54:01.200 She was good when Clinton was cheating.

00:54:03.360 And this is what she stands up for.

00:54:04.940 The defense that was put forward by Dan Goldman here, which was that Joe was only on the phone

00:54:10.660 talking about weather, is the most absurd defense I think I have ever heard.

00:54:15.600 I mean, there are people laughing at Donald Trump's classified documents defenses, and 0.76

00:54:18.900 frankly, I think deservedly in many cases, because they're silly, that it was golf plans

00:54:22.480 that he was waving around Bedminster and so forth.

00:54:24.040 Now, that is not even remotely in the same ballpark in terms of just embarrassingly bad

00:54:28.300 defense, as the, he only was on the phone with Hunter during business meetings to talk

00:54:33.100 about the weather.

00:54:34.020 As I said on the show today, like, I'll be in business meetings all the time, and my

00:54:36.440 dad will call, because I'm really tight with my dad.

00:54:38.100 And you know what happens?

00:54:38.980 Either I don't pick up the phone because I'm in a business meeting, and I text him,

00:54:41.340 I'll call you back in a few.

00:54:42.460 Or I say, it might be an emergency, guys, excuse me for a second.

00:54:45.100 I walk out of the room, and I take the phone call with my father.

00:54:46.940 Or I get on the phone, I say, Dad, I'm sorry, I can't talk right now.

00:54:49.000 Hey, Pops, everything good?

00:54:50.160 Okay, fine, bye.

00:54:51.120 Exactly.

00:54:52.060 I'll tell you exactly how these meetings went, and we all know how they went.

00:54:54.280 The way these meetings went is that Hunter Biden said to the board of Burisma, I want

00:54:57.660 $83,000 to help broker a deal to get rid of Viktor Shokin here.

00:55:01.000 And they said, oh, really?

00:55:02.520 What can you do for us?

00:55:03.320 And he said, well, I am super tight with my father, the vice president of the United

00:55:06.080 States, who's in charge of Ukraine policy.

00:55:07.780 In fact, we're so tight that he picks up every time I call the phone.

00:55:10.180 Watch.

00:55:10.680 And then he picks up the phone, and he calls Joe, and he says, hi, Dad, I'm here with the

00:55:14.300 partners here at Burisma.

00:55:16.320 Say hello.

00:55:17.220 Oh, hi.

00:55:17.760 How's the weather over there in Kiev?

00:55:19.080 That's great, Dad.

00:55:19.780 I hope you're doing well, and I'll talk to you soon.

00:55:21.860 Click.

00:55:22.340 End of conversation.

00:55:23.340 Because you've heard the new defense of this is, no, these corrupt Ukrainian businessmen, 1.00

00:55:29.100 they didn't have access to Joe Biden.

00:55:31.940 They only had the illusion of access.

00:55:34.040 Yeah.

00:55:34.440 To which I say.

00:55:35.720 That's called access.

00:55:36.780 What's the difference?

00:55:37.480 That's called access.

00:55:38.140 That's like the guy who's there to shake down the bartender, and he calls up Al Capone.

00:55:43.260 He says, you know, Al, how's everything going over there?

00:55:45.240 Al Capone picked up the phone, and he's like, oh, it's going great.

00:55:47.380 How are you?

00:55:47.800 And he's like, well, it's going great.

00:55:48.600 And they hang up the phone.

00:55:49.420 And then he turns to the guy, and he says, so it'll be $10,000.

00:55:51.960 Yeah, exactly.

00:55:52.920 Or your bar burns down.

00:55:53.780 By the way, this defense that I never spoke to my son about his business is not actually

00:55:59.040 a defense.

00:55:59.780 If you went on the air one day and suddenly said, you know, abortion isn't so bad, your 0.99

00:56:03.640 father would show up at the door and say, you know, Ben, I think you're making a mistake

00:56:08.020 here because you're close to your brother.

00:56:09.400 Joe Biden is an enabler, okay?

00:56:10.820 This is the other problem here, is that his entire case is, I love my son so much that

00:56:14.080 I do everything for my son, and my son is great, and all this kind of stuff. 0.98

00:56:16.920 His son is a crack addict.

00:56:18.100 The first rule of people in your family who have a drug addiction is you deny them access to

00:56:21.860 money is literally the first thing you do.

00:56:23.960 You do not provide them access to large sums of capital, like $83,000 a month.

00:56:27.760 Beyond that, it is beyond me how the most smoking gun of any smoking gun in this entire

00:56:33.360 story is right out there in the open, and everybody just pretends it doesn't exist, which

00:56:36.680 is a text from Hunter Biden to his daughter, Naomi, in 2019, saying, at least you don't

00:56:42.840 have to pay my bills the way I pay dad's bills.

00:56:45.300 He literally says that in a text message.

00:56:47.040 Do you think that he just made that up?

00:56:48.300 He literally says, I'm paying this entire family's bills, and I pay pop's bills.

00:56:52.220 But you know, just in terms of a timeline, Obama, who, by the way, I've always said was

00:56:57.140 not money corrupt.

00:56:58.460 You know, Obama was too much of a- 0.62

00:56:59.740 He was power corrupt, yeah. 0.90

00:57:00.340 He was too much of an ideologue to be money corrupt.

00:57:02.760 But Obama puts Biden in charge of Ukraine corruption, and then Hunter Biden has a job

00:57:10.080 at Burisma, and Biden doesn't call him up and say, no, I'm sorry, don't do that.

00:57:14.400 That's a bad thing.

00:57:15.420 And so they really are in a kind of dance of blackmail, the two of them.

00:57:18.920 I think that they are in a very, very intense criminal relationship, which, in which Biden,

00:57:24.620 Joe Biden, may not be the power broker.

00:57:26.820 You know, Hunter Biden, in a lot of ways, can say to him, you know, you got to keep me

00:57:30.440 close, because if you don't, I'm going to tell the truth.

00:57:33.140 You know, I think this is a very complicated relationship, but the one thing it's not is

00:57:36.540 clean.

00:57:37.240 The one thing it's not is just talking about the weather.

00:57:39.400 Right, right.

00:57:40.140 Although I do love that guy, that Goldman, he's-

00:57:42.440 He is my favorite.

00:57:43.400 He truly, hummina, hummina, hummina.

00:57:45.200 Now, let's say Biden's out of it, then the alternatives are-

00:57:49.400 Gavin Newsom.

00:57:50.360 Gavin Newsom, for sure.

00:57:51.780 Whitmer.

00:57:51.920 He's the Whitmer. 0.92

00:57:53.700 Buttigieg wants it, he's not going to get it.

00:57:55.240 And then Kamala.

00:57:55.860 Did you see Kamala came out this week and attacked Ron DeSantis over the most-

00:58:03.120 It was probably her best performance, because she seemed almost human here, but it was such 0.96

00:58:07.400 a ridiculous accusation. 0.95

00:58:09.400 Here she is. 0.95

00:58:11.200 This is unnecessary to debate whether enslaved people benefited from slavery.

00:58:17.540 Are you kidding me?

00:58:20.300 Are we supposed to debate that?

00:58:22.420 Let us not be distracted by what they're trying to do, which is to create unnecessary debates

00:58:35.100 to divide our country.

00:58:37.880 Oh my God.

00:58:38.340 So what was-

00:58:38.940 Oh, the projection.

00:58:40.000 Oh, the projection.

00:58:40.820 This is your governor.

00:58:41.900 Debates to divide the country.

00:58:43.240 Yeah.

00:58:43.600 So this is your governor.

00:58:44.480 He's being accused of implementing new standards in education that say that black people really

00:58:50.660 actually benefited from it.

00:58:51.980 That's not what it said.

00:58:53.520 Being accused not just by Kamala Harris, but by other Republicans, too, which is the much

00:58:59.840 bigger problem here.

00:59:00.680 Okay.

00:59:00.860 What does the actual standard say?

00:59:02.220 What it actually says is that some slaves learned skills that they could actively use

00:59:06.520 to their own benefit post-slavery while they were slaves, which is not a statement

00:59:09.520 about the wonders of slavery.

00:59:10.680 It's a statement about the durability and the human heroism of slaves.

00:59:15.740 And it's one line.

00:59:16.680 One line.

00:59:17.420 In 212 pages.

00:59:18.200 But the line isn't even bad.

00:59:19.120 It's in the AP standards.

00:59:20.040 It's literally in the AP standards.

00:59:21.680 The AP standards say that slaves learned skills that they then put to use for their own benefit

00:59:25.680 afterward.

00:59:26.480 It's exactly the same.

00:59:27.240 It's an up from slavery by Booker Washington.

00:59:28.760 They did the same thing to Greg Gutfeld when he said that Jews survive by being useful.

00:59:36.780 The narrative that Greg is somehow appeasing the Holocaust, saying the Holocaust was a good 1.00

00:59:42.420 thing, is such a childish narrative.

00:59:44.660 And the narrative that DeSantis is pro-slavery is so childish.

00:59:48.100 In any other context, we recognize this as a tribute to the person.

00:59:50.960 Like if there's a story, I read recently there's a story about a man in the Holocaust that learned

00:59:56.160 how to sew and then later went on to become a world-famous tailor using that skill.

01:00:01.100 And usually, so if you made a, if you wrote a biography of that man, not only would you

01:00:05.040 mention that, but that's like one of the central facts.

01:00:07.200 It's to take, in the midst of trial and tribulation, you're able to take something and then use

01:00:12.140 that for success later in life.

01:00:13.520 And I think everyone, of course, understands that.

01:00:14.900 By the way, I was, we were literally told that that's the story of George Soros.

01:00:18.660 Yeah.

01:00:18.940 Is that he learned to basically survive and that those survival skills then translated

01:00:22.900 into his massive wealth later on.

01:00:25.120 Because during the Holocaust, he was actually like, you know, finding objects from killed 0.58

01:00:28.720 Jews and he was selling them. 0.67

01:00:29.920 And, and this was a part of his, his kind of hero's journey. 0.92

01:00:33.480 So the whole thing is just made up nonsense. 0.92

01:00:36.880 Don't be an anti-Semite. 0.99

01:00:38.320 Oh my God.

01:00:38.560 Part of it is, is obviously this is an attempt to attack the Santas is what it's about, but

01:00:42.460 it's also when it comes to slavery in particular, uh, we've gotten to the point now where it's

01:00:46.980 just, you're not allowed to say anything about it at all, other than it was very bad.

01:00:52.100 White people did it. 0.97

01:00:52.760 It was bad. 0.96

01:00:53.200 And that's the end of the conversation about slavery.

01:00:55.220 And if you attempt to expand it beyond that in, in any amount, what's the slaves in tribute

01:01:00.940 to the slaves, right. 0.93

01:01:01.980 And then, then it's, then it's super duper.

01:01:03.240 Also to say it was a black historian who wrote these standards.

01:01:07.700 Dr.

01:01:08.200 William Allen.

01:01:09.160 Yeah.

01:01:09.280 That's correct.

01:01:09.860 It's, it's, it's really a point of high irritation, but the media are so invested in the gaslighting

01:01:14.560 at this point.

01:01:15.440 The other Republican candidates who went after this are so, it's so disreputable.

01:01:19.520 It's so gross to, to try and prop up.

01:01:21.780 And what I find amazing about this is that apparently it's okay to do against any other

01:01:25.680 Republican.

01:01:26.100 You can't do it against Trump, right?

01:01:27.960 You can't even say true things about Trump, but if you say false things about Ron DeSantis,

01:01:31.860 then everybody just kind of goes, eh, well, that's the, that's the name of the game.

01:01:34.240 That's, that's totally okay.

01:01:35.360 You know, and I find that, I find that really difficult.

01:01:37.220 Imagine if Tim Scott came out and called and accused Trump of being essentially racist.

01:01:41.740 Oh my God. 0.97

01:01:42.220 Everybody on the right would, would, he'd be killed by everybody on the right.

01:01:44.820 Yeah, that's a good point.

01:01:45.720 But you could do it against DeSantis.

01:01:46.760 But, but part of that, look, if it's a campaign and a campaign is lobbying an attack on another

01:01:51.180 campaign, uh, you know, all is fair in love and war and politics.

01:01:55.160 But my, my fear is if any Republicans are sincerely making this attack, it's so preposterous

01:02:01.460 and it cuts at a deeper level too, which is something that has been accepted by the left

01:02:05.220 and unfortunately maybe parts of the right too, which is this idea that suffering is just

01:02:10.960 always the worst thing ever, morally evil.

01:02:14.080 You know, many of the moments when we most grow, when we, we become edified and sanctified

01:02:18.860 are in our moments of suffering in, in all of our own lives.

01:02:22.080 And that doesn't make the evil good.

01:02:23.620 It doesn't alleviate the responsibility for the evil.

01:02:26.120 That's right.

01:02:26.400 It doesn't mean the person who is doing the evil to you is somehow doing you a favor.

01:02:29.360 Of course. 0.99

01:02:29.580 That's not, that's, it's, it's, it's a ridiculous, ridiculous. 0.99

01:02:31.780 Wait, are you saying that slavery was a program that was meant to help black people grow? 0.99

01:02:35.860 Is that what you're saying?

01:02:36.340 Hold on.

01:02:36.800 Did I just, did Media Matters just point out that I said that I love slavery?

01:02:41.160 Really pro slavery or something.

01:02:44.180 Yeah.

01:02:44.420 No, I mean that, that is so disingenuous.

01:02:47.040 Now, of course the campaigns are all going to use this and they're all going to try to

01:02:49.880 attack each other.

01:02:50.540 And you make a very good point, which is that the attacks on Trump right now are not forgiven

01:02:55.360 quite so easily as attacks on the other candidates, notably DeSantis, who's number two.

01:02:58.980 But isn't that just because Trump is the dominant front runner right now?

01:03:02.660 And so he's got the mojo.

01:03:03.920 It's, it's because any attack on Trump is perceived by the right as disingenuous and an

01:03:10.800 attack on their, you're right.

01:03:12.440 It's because he's the front runner, but it's more than that.

01:03:14.340 Trump is, he is, I've come to accept this.

01:03:18.180 He is the greatest instinctual political id factor in the history of politics.

01:03:24.600 He really is.

01:03:25.420 I mean, just the guy, the guy, the guy channels id better than anyone ever.

01:03:30.320 Right.

01:03:30.660 It's certainly an electoral politics.

01:03:31.920 I mean, it's, it's, it's, it is a talent.

01:03:33.440 It is a skill.

01:03:34.180 It's not, it is instinctive.

01:03:35.480 It's not studied.

01:03:36.400 He, he, he just, he has a gift for being able to get right at what people are feeling.

01:03:41.880 It is, it's an amazing thing.

01:03:43.180 And, um, and because of that sort of visceral connection that he has with people, people

01:03:47.020 also feel a visceral connection to defend him in a way they don't with DeSantis.

01:03:49.520 They see DeSantis as a professional who gets things done.

01:03:52.020 And because he's a professional who gets things done, he can take a hit here and there.

01:03:54.740 But for Trump, because Trump is the part of you that wants to say the thing and Trump says

01:03:59.700 the thing that means that if he's attacked, you feel personally attacked and wounded.

01:04:03.900 And that connection is the reason why Trump is leading the field right now.

01:04:07.880 And what that means is that unless Trump stumbles, it's very difficult to see him not being the

01:04:11.560 nominee.

01:04:11.920 Now, wait, I want to be the minority.

01:04:13.960 You think he might not be the nominee?

01:04:15.520 What?

01:04:15.840 You think he might not be the nominee?

01:04:16.880 Well, I won't say that.

01:04:18.680 I won't go that far.

01:04:19.420 I can't predict the future and he's very far ahead.

01:04:21.700 But I will say that DeSantis has started to turn himself around.

01:04:25.600 When he came out, I was very vocal about the fact that he had blown the launch of his

01:04:31.060 campaign and that he was campaigning badly.

01:04:33.180 He's no longer campaigning badly.

01:04:35.280 He's actually starting to do some very smart stuff and he may be a slow burn.

01:04:40.500 Remember, at this point in the primaries, Hillary Clinton wasn't quite as far ahead of Obama

01:04:46.540 as Trump is, but she was far ahead of Obama and Obama was already being counted out.

01:04:51.800 And I think, you know, DeSantis, the more you see him, the better you like him, especially

01:04:57.980 in the kind of conversation you just had with Bret Baier, who went after him from the left.

01:05:02.080 Bret Baier is not a leftist, but he channeled the left-wing attacks and DeSantis handled them

01:05:08.020 professionally and excellently.

01:05:10.920 You know, there are certain things that he does that he should stop.

01:05:13.960 The thing with Florida, I've said this before, but every time he mentions Florida, I think

01:05:17.520 of band camp, you know, that one time in Florida.

01:05:20.160 You know, I think he's got to change the way he talks a little bit, but he's really good

01:05:25.460 at what he's saying and he really knows the issues at a level that Trump simply doesn't.

01:05:30.000 Well, I mean, of course that's true.

01:05:30.800 I think that's going to have a long-term effect.

01:05:32.720 I think the only way that changes, and I've said this out loud many times, is using the

01:05:39.760 Hillary-Obama comparison for a second.

01:05:42.060 The reason that Hillary started to collapse in the polls and Obama started to gain in the

01:05:45.600 polls is because there was excitement that was built up around Obama and there was no

01:05:48.600 excitement about Hillary.

01:05:49.320 There was an idea that she was basically owed it and Obama was the fresh new thing who was

01:05:53.420 going to change the phase.

01:05:55.280 Right now, there is a feeling that Trump owes it, but he also has the excitement of the

01:05:58.460 base behind him.

01:05:59.780 He does.

01:06:00.260 And DeSantis does not have that yet.

01:06:01.940 And the only way to generate that is oppositionality.

01:06:04.320 That's just the dynamic in the moment.

01:06:05.600 And so the issue that I see with the DeSantis campaign is that every week or so, they're

01:06:10.080 rolling out, like yesterday, he rolled out an economic plan or something.

01:06:13.140 And they treat this as though this is some sort of political point in his favor.

01:06:17.160 Well, it reminds me more of Elizabeth Warren than anything else, right?

01:06:19.180 Like every two seconds, we're getting a new plan.

01:06:21.860 No one cares about Ron DeSantis' economic plan.

01:06:24.080 What they care about is can he punch the left directly where it counts?

01:06:26.640 Because that's the feeling about Trump, rightly or wrongly.

01:06:28.980 I think wrongly.

01:06:29.540 I think Trump punches in every direction.

01:06:30.960 And sometimes he punches the left directly in the jaw. 0.89

01:06:32.900 And sometimes he punches himself directly in the nuts.

01:06:34.680 I think it's like, it just depends on the day.

01:06:37.500 Is that better than people who aren't punching at all?

01:06:39.080 Sure, because sometimes the left gets punched in the jaw.

01:06:40.900 But it also means he punches himself in the nuts a lot.

01:06:42.600 So what I prefer is somebody who punches the left consistently.

01:06:45.160 The problem with DeSantis' campaign so far is that for a brief moment in time, right after

01:06:49.800 the midterm election, there was a feeling like DeSantis was a weaponized version of Trump

01:06:53.380 who would just go right at the left and he would shed the possibility that Trump was going

01:06:59.540 to lose to Biden.

01:07:00.660 And he's been hampered by effectively three factors. 0.92

01:07:03.620 Factor number one is the fact that Trump sucks all the air out of the room.

01:07:08.080 And that just is that is a real phenomenon. 0.95

01:07:10.240 I mean, Trump sucks all the air out of the room and says that that it's really four factors.

01:07:14.240 That's factor number one. 1.00

01:07:14.860 Trump sucking all the factor. 0.92

01:07:15.980 Factor number two, Biden's low poll numbers are really hurting DeSantis because his electability 0.96

01:07:20.360 argument was a very solid argument in January of 2023.

01:07:23.640 And it's not nearly a solid argument when Joe Biden is running in the low 40s and is

01:07:26.680 running directly even with Donald Trump.

01:07:28.820 And in national polling, DeSantis isn't blowing Biden out because the electability argument

01:07:32.620 doesn't exist by the polling data.

01:07:33.880 It doesn't.

01:07:34.660 I think it's I think that's false, but I think it's not the way people.

01:07:38.500 It's not.

01:07:38.880 It's not right.

01:07:39.520 Third, his main point in terms of politics of differentiation from everybody else was

01:07:45.800 COVID.

01:07:46.540 No one wants to hear the word COVID ever again for the rest of their life.

01:07:49.360 And the DeSantis campaign, I know, has internal polling numbers showing this.

01:07:52.220 When he mentions COVID, people turn off the TV.

01:07:54.160 Really?

01:07:54.440 Because, yeah, for the same reason that we did this after the 19, 19, 20 influenza, right?

01:07:59.280 When that happened, everybody just said, I don't want to talk about this anymore.

01:08:02.500 It was a terrible time.

01:08:03.240 We didn't like the lockdowns.

01:08:04.140 We want to move beyond that.

01:08:04.920 We don't want to think about it.

01:08:05.780 Do you want to think about the COVID period?

01:08:06.900 Who wants to think about it?

01:08:07.880 It's negative and it's nasty and it's kind of like just yeah.

01:08:10.880 And who wants to think about that?

01:08:12.520 So like people don't want to hear about COVID.

01:08:14.360 And when he mentions Fauci, even Fauci, who the right hates, they don't hate him enough

01:08:17.920 that we want to think about COVID.

01:08:19.280 When people say Fauci, I mean, I can tell by the traffic on the site.

01:08:21.460 If we put Fauci articles on the site, nobody cares.

01:08:24.360 So that's that's point number three.

01:08:26.060 And point number four is that he has basically run a campaign on the basis of his record and

01:08:30.100 his policies.

01:08:30.880 You can't run that campaign against Donald Trump.

01:08:33.080 Everybody tried that in 2016 and it failed.

01:08:35.000 The only way to run a campaign against Donald Trump is to generate enough excitement based

01:08:39.180 on your oppositionality to the left.

01:08:40.560 And so he spent the first part of his campaign not doing any unfriendly interviews, knowing

01:08:44.080 they were going to sandbag him because they were.

01:08:46.260 But the reality is the reason why DeSantis was popular was not just his COVID policies.

01:08:49.760 Brian Kemp pursued the same exact COVID policies.

01:08:51.700 The reason DeSantis became a national figure is because the media made him the enemy.

01:08:54.720 They decided that Andrew Cuomo was the greatest governor of the world and Ron DeSantis was Ron

01:08:58.320 DeSantis.

01:08:58.980 And so he started punching back in the media.

01:09:00.740 You were pushing false narratives.

01:09:02.540 And that is when he started to climb and suddenly became sort of the new face, the fresh face

01:09:07.560 of the Republican Party.

01:09:08.580 The only way to recapture that magic is to go into dark spaces and fight monsters.

01:09:12.420 He needs to go.

01:09:13.020 He needs to go into he needs to go on George Stephanopoulos's show.

01:09:15.900 He needs to wait until George Stephanopoulos asks him about book bans in Florida.

01:09:19.160 And then he needs to wreck him.

01:09:20.640 Yeah.

01:09:20.800 Right.

01:09:20.940 That's what he actually needs to do.

01:09:22.020 And he's not going to do that in the interview with Brett Baier as much as I like that interview.

01:09:24.520 Or with Jake Tapper.

01:09:25.580 Or with Megyn Kelly.

01:09:26.620 When I say he's turned a corner, I mean, literally, he's turned a corner.

01:09:30.100 He hasn't gone down the road yet.

01:09:31.640 And I think that the interview with Baier was a setup for doing exactly what you're

01:09:36.100 talking about.

01:09:36.340 I hope so.

01:09:36.740 And I think you're absolutely right about this.

01:09:38.660 He has to go into the left and talk to them because that's what we want to see him do.

01:09:43.360 So that leaves the question of what how does he handle Trump?

01:09:46.440 What is what is what is what is his approach to Trump?

01:09:49.100 Now, I personally think that there was that a few weeks ago, there was the video that

01:09:54.200 DeSantis can't put out attacking Trump for kowtowing to the LGBT cult. 1.00

01:10:00.360 And it was like roundly condemned by the left.

01:10:03.180 And even people in the Trump camp said that it was anti-gay.

01:10:06.540 I personally think that's when going after Trump, that's exactly what he needs to be

01:10:10.360 doing.

01:10:11.320 I agree that the fact that Trump didn't fire Fauci should matter a lot.

01:10:15.940 It doesn't, though.

01:10:16.640 But painting Trump and pointing out that, OK, this guy is to the left of me on cultural

01:10:23.220 issues.

01:10:23.840 That was the Cruz strategy in 2016 was, hey, Trump is squishy on some of the LGBT issues

01:10:29.300 and I'm going to be the consistent cultural conservative.

01:10:32.320 And he did it very effectively.

01:10:34.540 Came in number two.

01:10:35.680 Now, you might say he only came in number two because, you know, Marco Rubio didn't drop

01:10:39.500 out before Florida.

01:10:40.500 And because, you know, that stuff also matters now much more than it did in 2016.

01:10:44.280 That's true.

01:10:44.640 In 2016, the conservatives had given up on all LGBT, trans wasn't a discussion among

01:10:50.040 most.

01:10:50.960 Now it really matters.

01:10:52.120 Now people understand that the pride flag is, they understand what it is and it represents

01:10:56.360 what it does.

01:10:56.700 Also, Cruz did something else, which was my good friend Donald.

01:11:00.280 And that was a big mistake.

01:11:02.560 He basically bet that Trump would eat him last.

01:11:06.100 And I think that's exactly what happened.

01:11:07.280 He's incredibly deferential.

01:11:08.380 And I love Cruz.

01:11:11.220 Cruz is like politically my spirit animal, but he has a problem with women. 0.99

01:11:15.000 You know, not not in his personal life, but as voters.

01:11:17.400 It's pretty funny.

01:11:18.160 Yeah.

01:11:18.580 No, as voters, they don't like him.

01:11:20.020 Well, I think that the only there are two possible strategies for DeSantis.

01:11:24.740 I can see him choosing either one.

01:11:25.620 One strategy is that he basically says, I'm not running against Trump as much as I'm out.

01:11:32.520 I'm outpacing him.

01:11:34.060 Right.

01:11:34.380 Because the problem with Trump is that, yeah, like basically he goes into the, let's say

01:11:38.920 he does the things we're talking about.

01:11:40.100 He goes and he punches the left and he does it effectively.

01:11:41.840 And then he says, listen, I just do this better than Trump does.

01:11:43.980 Right.

01:11:44.100 Like I'm doing this.

01:11:45.120 You can see they're afraid of me.

01:11:46.020 You can see what they're doing.

01:11:46.820 And you start building momentum that way.

01:11:48.620 And suddenly he becomes the DeSantis of 2020 during the pandemic, as opposed to the DeSantis

01:11:52.660 of 2023.

01:11:53.860 That's that's strategy.

01:11:54.840 Number one, I think it's probably the best strategy because what the data show are that

01:11:58.220 attacks on Trump backfire on everybody who does them in the Republican Party.

01:12:00.700 Yes.

01:12:00.960 Every single attack.

01:12:01.800 Not it doesn't matter what they are.

01:12:02.880 Especially.

01:12:03.080 Policy attacks.

01:12:04.240 Any attacks, any attack, any attack on Trump, because, again, he's got that kind of id

01:12:08.440 connection with the base.

01:12:09.720 Teflon Don, baby.

01:12:11.000 With the base, for sure.

01:12:12.260 Not with the American public, which is a problem for a general.

01:12:14.740 Right.

01:12:14.820 In order to be Teflon Ron, you have to win, you know, 49 states.

01:12:18.160 In order to be Teflon Don, you have to lose an election and then lose a midterm election

01:12:21.040 and then lose several special elections.

01:12:23.780 I'm only going to call you Teflon if you actually, you know, number one, don't go to jail

01:12:27.520 and number two, become president again.

01:12:28.720 If he becomes president again, then he truly is Teflon.

01:12:30.400 If you go to jail, that's a mark in your favor.

01:12:32.600 The real narrative, as far as I'm concerned, the actual true narrative is that Trump was

01:12:38.160 a godsend that turned the Republican Party around, that's focused it on the things that

01:12:42.440 need focusing about.

01:12:43.320 He opened the road to a conservative future.

01:12:46.080 I really do believe this.

01:12:47.760 It is DeSantis who is more equipped to go down that road.

01:12:50.740 It's a hard argument to make because it's essentially saying I'm the better Trump and

01:12:54.260 nobody is the better Trump.

01:12:55.320 Trump is the better.

01:12:55.700 He's also going to have to at some point say that Trump lost.

01:12:58.140 And this is a real thing.

01:13:00.040 You cannot say that you are more electable than the guy if the base thinks he won.

01:13:04.480 That's not a possible argument.

01:13:05.480 There's this other problem, which is we keep trying to evaluate Trump's candidacy as though

01:13:09.300 it were some normal year.

01:13:10.460 This is the first time since 1888 that a president has run for a non-consecutive second term.

01:13:15.600 So he is running for all intents and purposes as the incumbent, which is why a lot of the

01:13:21.380 strategies that were intended to quash him have not worked.

01:13:24.320 So then in terms of bringing the fight to the left, I had been long opposed to impeachment

01:13:31.280 without a strong legal foundation of Biden, even though they impeached Trump for waking

01:13:36.580 up too early.

01:13:38.460 Where are you now?

01:13:39.540 The GOP has started to indicate that they might impeach him.

01:13:44.560 Roundtable, are we pro-impeachment now?

01:13:47.260 I'm with Kevin McCarthy.

01:13:48.440 I think an impeachment inquiry is the way to go.

01:13:51.260 And so I think they need to go a little further down the road before the inquiry opens.

01:13:54.580 Because once you have the inquiry, then there has to be a conclusion.

01:13:57.700 Okay.

01:13:58.140 Right.

01:13:58.460 But no, I think we can't make the promise without giving the guarantee.

01:14:01.520 No, but I think we're there.

01:14:02.340 I think we are in terms of, well, I see your point politically.

01:14:05.960 If it added actual, right.

01:14:07.200 So if it added actual legal power, then sure.

01:14:10.600 It doesn't add actual legal power.

01:14:12.460 Right.

01:14:13.340 Declaring an impeachment inquiry doesn't add like additional subpoena power.

01:14:16.320 It's not like they have additional compulsory power.

01:14:17.980 No.

01:14:18.200 So it depends on if you are willing to, don't, you know, don't pull the trigger unless you're

01:14:24.200 willing to see where the bullet goes.

01:14:25.200 Yeah.

01:14:25.480 And so.

01:14:26.200 I do think this thing with this bribe, you know, like maybe I'm the last person in America

01:14:30.860 who thinks it's not a good thing that the vice president should be bribed for five minutes.

01:14:33.400 Oh, no, no, no.

01:14:34.500 Ten total.

01:14:35.400 I think, listen, I think it's a very real thing.

01:14:37.120 And I think it is absolutely moving in that direction.

01:14:39.040 I think we're about two steps away.

01:14:40.280 Okay.

01:14:40.680 Right.

01:14:40.880 So I'm not saying that they shouldn't do it.

01:14:42.900 Yeah.

01:14:43.040 I'm just saying that I think at this point it looks a little bit eager and premature.

01:14:46.980 And so they should, you know, they should actually try to subpoena the president.

01:14:51.200 I think they should actually.

01:14:51.980 There are like a few things they need to do.

01:14:53.240 They should.

01:14:53.520 They should actually try to subpoena the members of the DOJ who tried to sign the Hunter Biden

01:14:58.160 sweetheart plea agreement.

01:14:59.520 I think we should see the Devin Archer transcript first, which I totally agree.

01:15:03.480 See, this is another thing, right?

01:15:04.320 Yeah.

01:15:04.480 Like I went when the left says, okay, so show us the transcript.

01:15:06.640 I'm there.

01:15:07.200 Yeah.

01:15:07.420 That's fine with me.

01:15:07.880 I mean, I'm for I'm for full transparency.

01:15:10.080 Let's see what he said.

01:15:11.080 Matt, you pro impeachment?

01:15:12.260 Oh, absolutely.

01:15:13.220 I have been from the beginning.

01:15:15.000 From day one.

01:15:16.080 Yeah.

01:15:17.260 There's something else I do want to get to on which we'll probably have to get more

01:15:21.240 into it for the member segment.

01:15:23.140 So for the Hoy Floyd out there watching on YouTube, go on over dailywire.com.

01:15:26.960 You become a member.

01:15:28.000 Ben, you have a new show out, which is where you just do a very Ben-like thing and you

01:15:32.600 just dispel all feelings whatsoever and just go down this litany of facts.

01:15:36.620 And it's got very cool graphics about it.

01:15:38.380 Yeah.

01:15:38.560 And it's written in sunglasses.

01:15:39.520 It's very.

01:15:40.240 Just like Joe Biden.

01:15:40.900 There's strong energy going on, I would say, in that picture.

01:15:44.120 So in it, you're going after something that is not often talked about.

01:15:48.180 And it's it.

01:15:49.460 Everyone knows about ESG or maybe you've at least heard that that initialism.

01:15:53.060 The one that a lot of people don't know about is GARM, the Global Alliance for Responsible

01:15:57.600 Media, which is another one of these just bloated, multinational, corporatist, kind of

01:16:01.760 globalist, awful things.

01:16:03.280 And you went in and broke it down because we got some information that Facebook was colluding

01:16:08.580 with the Biden administration to really clamp down, not just on misinformation, on memes.

01:16:15.100 And GARM is like a big figure in the room here.

01:16:19.680 Here's just a little clip from the new show.

01:16:21.040 GARM is a cross-industry alliance that brings these megacorporations, the advertisers, together

01:16:33.840 with big tech companies like Meta, who owns Facebook and Instagram, Google-owned YouTube,

01:16:39.040 the CCP's TikTok, and even Snapchat and Pinterest.

01:16:42.320 This unholy alliance created something they call the Brand Safety Floor and Suitability Framework.

01:16:47.680 Think of brand safety as a dog whistle for censorship.

01:16:49.980 They say it themselves.

01:16:51.580 The brand safety floor means, quote, content not appropriate for any advertising support.

01:16:56.800 In other words, if you publish content that violates these guidelines, you will be blacklisted

01:17:01.980 from 90% of the advertising revenue in the marketplace.

01:17:05.780 If you think this is only something big news corporations have to contend with, think again.

01:17:10.200 Even the content you consume from independent content creators on social media platforms, like

01:17:14.440 the one on which you're watching this video, is subject to these globalist powers that be.

01:17:18.600 So, for example, my friend Matt Walsh, he was demonetized on YouTube.

01:17:23.120 Why?

01:17:23.600 Well, because he says that men are not women.

01:17:26.240 The same was true on TikTok, another GARM member, where Daily Wire hosts are routinely 0.58

01:17:30.040 hit with content strikes and various bans for saying things like men are not women.

01:17:34.000 Or, for example, if you question the accepted wisdom on COVID.

01:17:37.360 So, for example, let's say you say that the vaccine's not great for kids.

01:17:40.780 No evidence kids need them.

01:17:42.060 Kids aren't dying from COVID.

01:17:43.160 If you say any of those things, GARM, WEF, WFA, they will crack down on you with alacrity.

01:17:48.560 Why aren't you wearing those glasses now?

01:17:56.780 That looks great.

01:17:57.400 Right?

01:17:57.920 I really like the glasses.

01:17:58.960 It looks very strong.

01:18:00.080 Yeah.

01:18:00.340 No, it's a great-looking series.

01:18:03.200 The production team does a really amazing job in terms of inserting the graphics that are

01:18:07.040 necessary to understand really complex sets of facts.

01:18:10.040 The thing about our first video in the series.

01:18:12.400 Which is out now, right?

01:18:13.040 Which is out right now over on YouTube, is that it's breaking down what is a very complex

01:18:17.420 issue.

01:18:17.780 And it does require visual aids to really understand all this because this is how the

01:18:21.420 left hides the ball, right?

01:18:22.360 In the same way that if you really want to understand how the money is moving with Hunter

01:18:25.100 Biden and his friends, you kind of need a flow chart.

01:18:26.720 Well, that's kind of what facts is.

01:18:28.280 It's a visual flow chart that's going to explain really complex issues in ways that you can

01:18:32.640 understand and encapsulate and send your friends.

01:18:34.600 So the next time somebody asks you, is censorship happening on YouTube and why?

01:18:38.600 You just send them the video and that answers all the questions for them in a visually,

01:18:41.840 I think, exciting way.

01:18:42.680 So this is one of these new bombshells that no one's talking about.

01:18:45.460 And I think the left is trying to hide it.

01:18:47.360 The right is just so demoralized that we think none of this matters.

01:18:50.340 But these files came out showing that Facebook was suppressing conservatives.

01:18:54.960 We all know that.

01:18:55.800 But they were suppressing conservatives because the Biden administration was saying, hey,

01:19:00.400 that lab leak theory about Wuhan, yeah, you got to suppress that.

01:19:03.800 Hey, any memes, memes, joking about COVID, you got to suppress those too.

01:19:10.340 And Facebook complied.

01:19:11.180 And these are clear First Amendment violations, which is why a judge has already ruled that

01:19:14.700 the Biden administration is not really allowed to reach out to any of the social media networks

01:19:17.980 and tell them to take things down anymore.

01:19:19.340 They're saying that that is effectively speaking a First Amendment violation because it absolutely

01:19:23.040 is.

01:19:23.700 If the federal government invades your home and tells you that you have to censor your

01:19:27.760 friend, that's a First Amendment violation, even if you're the one who's technically doing

01:19:31.060 the censoring of your friend.

01:19:32.360 And so that's really where we are right now.

01:19:35.140 It's an incredibly dangerous place.

01:19:36.220 I mean, you know how bad the censorship is.

01:19:37.540 When even members of the internal team at Facebook were like, I'm not sure that we should do this.

01:19:42.220 Like, I think this is a kind of, and that was actually some of the feedback.

01:19:44.340 They're like, are we going to censor memes now?

01:19:46.200 Is that like really a thing that we're going to do?

01:19:48.500 I mean, that's how strong.

01:19:49.920 One of the things that we don't understand, people who are in this business don't understand,

01:19:54.080 we are protected by the First Amendment in ways that ordinary people are not.

01:19:57.680 We can go out and say things, and we can sort of parade the fact that, you know, we don't

01:20:02.120 care if we're canceled.

01:20:03.200 Come and get us and all this stuff.

01:20:04.860 And we can sort of strut around and be brave because we are protected by the First Amendment.

01:20:09.000 A guy who's in an insurance company, you know, normal, you know, white-collar to blue-collar

01:20:13.700 job, who has to go into HR and sign a document saying men can't become, he has no protection

01:20:19.140 whatsoever.

01:20:19.820 So they're already living in this censorship world.

01:20:22.140 And when you reveal these things, which are shocking to someone like me, beyond my ability

01:20:27.420 to express, they're not shocked at all because they're already living in that world.

01:20:31.180 And you have to make them understand that they're going to have to fight back.

01:20:35.140 They're going to have to, the little guy is going to have to fight back.

01:20:37.120 And we're going to have to give them some kind of cover because they're going to need

01:20:40.740 legal help.

01:20:41.740 They're going to need organizational help that an ordinary single guy does not have.

01:20:47.040 He's got to feed his family.

01:20:48.500 You know, he's got to keep his job.

01:20:50.240 And they're in a lot more danger than we are.

01:20:52.760 And don't forget, I mean, this was the way the Biden administration pushed the vaccine

01:20:56.060 mandate.

01:20:56.680 Yeah.

01:20:56.980 They didn't push it right away.

01:20:58.840 It wasn't, here's the vaccine.

01:20:59.980 OK, you all have to take it.

01:21:01.080 They waited until enough people had voluntarily taken it, that they had a significant enough

01:21:05.460 chunk of the people that they didn't think the pushback would be so great once they said,

01:21:09.500 OK, the rest of you have to do it.

01:21:10.800 And so you're totally right.

01:21:12.420 We get, we all get dinged on the big tech platforms frequently, but we don't get dinged as

01:21:18.660 much as ordinary people who can't make a big fuss about it.

01:21:21.600 That's right.

01:21:21.960 And so, you know, they always say the Supreme Court follows the poll numbers.

01:21:26.180 The Supreme Court reads the election results.

01:21:28.140 Well, the liberal establishment broadly does that.

01:21:30.940 And so if enough ordinary people just push back, which requires more courage than for public

01:21:37.080 people to do that, they're going to pay attention to that too.

01:21:40.060 And speaking of having these kind of conversations that are a little, a little smaller, a little

01:21:45.220 more private, I think we need to say goodbye to the hoi polloi.

01:21:48.880 The hoi polloi, all the freeloaders on YouTube, we love you freeloaders, but we want you to

01:21:53.100 come on over to dailywire.com, OK?

01:21:56.700 It is becoming increasingly challenging to find a platform that truly values free speech and

01:22:01.260 provides unfiltered perspectives.

01:22:03.580 Daily Wire Plus is a beacon of hope, I certainly think, amidst all of the chaos.

01:22:08.020 We are not afraid to challenge the status quo.

01:22:10.700 That is why we create groundbreaking movies, shows, content that you won't find anywhere

01:22:16.360 else.

01:22:17.020 Very soon, you are going to see kids' content.

01:22:19.680 I know a lot of you have been asking about it.

01:22:21.160 It takes a long time to spin up a kids' film studio, and we've got some really, really great

01:22:25.420 content coming up and so much more.

01:22:26.940 There has never been a better time to become a part of the movement.

01:22:30.720 Join Daily Wire Plus, not just today, join it right now so that we can take your questions

01:22:35.760 and talk about all the saucy stuff that we can't talk about on YouTube over at the member

01:22:41.360 block.

01:22:41.860 YouTube, see you guys later.

01:22:43.560 We will see you right now.

01:22:45.160 Become a Daily Wire Plus member.

01:22:47.280 Ask us your questions over there.

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The Michael Knowles Show - August 02, 2023

Daily Wire Backstage： Barbiegate and other Kenspiracies.

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