The Michael Knowles Show - Daily Wire Backstage SOTU Special

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, this is Michael. You're about to listen to our latest episode of Daily Wire

00:00:04.380 Backstage, where I join Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan, and the man who will one day fire me

00:00:09.320 for real, Daily Wire God King Jeremy Boring, for a great conversation on politics and culture,

00:00:14.760 and where we answer questions from Daily Wire subscribers. Without further ado, here is Backstage.

00:00:20.460 It's the State of the Union, you guys. Can we even really fake laugh at this point?

00:00:24.220 I'm just done.

00:00:25.700 I can fake yawn.

00:00:29.840 Welcome to Daily Wire Backstage, State of the Union special. Spoiler alert, it's not going to be very good.

00:00:36.860 I'm Jeremy, the God King of the Daily Wire, lowercase g, lowercase k, lesson the actual God King is watching.

00:00:43.740 Also, spoiler alert, he's not.

00:00:47.140 Let's get this thing started.

00:00:55.700 Tonight, we're going to be with you for three, yes, that is correct, three very long hours.

00:01:05.780 Why don't you tell me this?

00:01:07.080 It's going to be three and a half.

00:01:08.360 It's going to be three and a half.

00:01:09.720 Last year, Donald Trump went for one hour and 20 minutes, and that was considered a short State of the Union address.

00:01:15.400 But we're going to try to make it go fast with our usual, we'll see if Michael Knowles is wearing his best Ralph Northam costume or just that hideous cigar jacket of his, which alone should disqualify him from public office.

00:01:28.820 And yes, we will take questions from Daily Wire subscribers.

00:01:32.560 And tonight, you can ask questions only if you are a subscriber over at DailyWire.com.

00:01:37.920 That's where you want to go.

00:01:38.940 Hit the subscribe button and become one today.

00:01:41.360 We will be very grateful, as our subscribers are basically who keeps us in whiskey and cigars.

00:01:46.900 A tip for viewers while watching the president's speech tonight.

00:01:50.180 As with every State of the Union, all the politicians on the right side of the screen, that's the Republicans,

00:01:56.340 they will stand and clap continuously for an hour, no matter what is said.

00:02:00.380 And all the politicians on the left side of the screen, that's the Democrats, will be announcing their 2020 presidential campaign.

00:02:07.560 Contractually obligated to be with me tonight are Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan, Michael Knowles, and Alicia Krause.

00:02:13.260 Hey, Alicia. 0.97

00:02:14.040 I'm here. How are you guys?

00:02:16.020 Oh, we're just ready and raring to go.

00:02:18.280 Awesome, Alicia. Couldn't be happier.

00:02:20.180 Well, you do have a little old lady drink there. 1.00

00:02:22.440 I think that you look like you're drinking something with an 80-year-old woman from the villages.

00:02:26.560 Sinia thinks that you're drinking something that a 14-year-old girl would drink behind the bleachers at her, you know, spring formal. 0.99

00:02:31.380 I'm comfortable with that stuff, Alicia.

00:02:33.080 You know what? I don't have to fake my masculinity.

00:02:35.480 All this whiskey and cigars.

00:02:37.180 All I can say is that this is delicious.

00:02:41.040 With the umbrella?

00:02:42.120 I mean, you had to go all the way in the iridescent cup.

00:02:44.480 But thank you, everyone, for watching.

00:02:46.500 As Jeremy said, if you're a subscriber, you can go over to dailywire.com, log in, and type your questions for the guys into the chat box.

00:02:53.900 All the questions tonight are going to be about the State of the Union, so be sure to ask us those questions, and only subscribers get to ask them.

00:03:00.800 But anyone watching can head over now, because live on Facebook, we're going to be putting up a poll later,

00:03:06.640 and we want to know if you guys think it's necessary to have a State of the Union address.

00:03:10.280 So let us know your thoughts, and the results are going to be read live on air a little later.

00:03:15.200 Thank you, Alicia.

00:03:16.380 And hey, you guys know what today is?

00:03:18.040 Oh, my gosh.

00:03:18.880 Look at that.

00:03:19.640 Worst birthday ever.

00:03:21.240 Happy birthday to the God King.

00:03:23.160 Honestly, the only thing that makes tonight palatable is knowing that Jeremy has to suffer through this on his birthday.

00:03:27.420 It is brutal.

00:03:28.480 How did you plan this?

00:03:30.040 This is frankly the president getting revenge on you, I think.

00:03:33.340 Yes.

00:03:34.280 The president of the United States himself was sitting around the Oval and said,

00:03:37.980 I'm going to call Nancy.

00:03:38.980 Hey, Jeremy didn't vote for me for the president.

00:03:43.260 I actually had to cancel reservations at a beautiful steakhouse with friends tonight to spend time with you guys.

00:03:50.560 This is the first bit of joy I felt all day.

00:03:55.700 And it's not just any birthday.

00:03:57.640 It's like my last birthday.

00:03:59.020 It's the birthday.

00:03:59.760 I know.

00:04:00.320 This is the birthday.

00:04:01.360 This is the one where everything suddenly goes like, it's like that scene where everything speeds up in Goodfellas.

00:04:05.720 You know?

00:04:07.220 Suddenly everything's going really fast.

00:04:08.600 This is the one right before your milestone birthday of 41?

00:04:11.560 Yeah.

00:04:11.920 No, no.

00:04:12.240 Your next birthday is 60, believe me.

00:04:15.360 It's like, come on.

00:04:16.420 Well, before I die, let's make a little money, honey, to quote a great man, and talk about honey.

00:04:22.500 Well, I mean, this day it's impossible to agree on virtually anything.

00:04:25.700 But we can all agree that we need to save money, which is why I use honey and you should too.

00:04:29.720 Honey is a free shopping tool that automatically searches the internet for the best promo codes every time you buy something online.

00:04:34.460 They believe that everyone deserves the best prices possible on all the things you like.

00:04:38.260 And that's why it works on all your favorite sites like Amazon or eBay, J.Crew, Walmart, Best Buy, all of them.

00:04:42.880 In fact, honey has already saved listeners of this podcast an average of $26.34.

00:04:47.300 Every single time I buy something for myself or for my wife, I'm saving money when I use honey. 0.99

00:04:51.700 And again, all you have to do is you go in your register and then it just runs kind of in the background of your computer.

00:04:55.700 I did it before the Daily Wire existed.

00:05:00.540 It's the only thing Knowles has ever done for me.

00:05:01.820 It's the one productive thing I've done.

00:05:03.740 I've saved thousands of dollars.

00:05:05.260 And not quite as much as his salary has cost us.

00:05:07.520 And that's why honey is useful.

00:05:09.100 It could be great for you.

00:05:09.760 They have 10 million members, over 100,000 five-star reviews.

00:05:12.580 Honey is the money-saving shopping tool everyone can agree on. 0.99

00:05:14.860 So right now, add honey for free at joinhoney.com slash backstage.

00:05:19.140 That's joinhoney.com slash backstage because you are watching the Daily Wire backstage.

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00:05:25.380 Honey is the smart shopping assistant that helps you save time and money. 0.99

00:05:28.820 So go check them out at joinhoney.com slash backstage.

00:05:30.940 Ben should have used honey when he was setting my salary.

00:05:33.280 He could have saved 40%, 50%.

00:05:35.340 Or I could have just hired a woman. 1.00

00:05:39.480 Paying 77 cents on the dollar.

00:05:41.220 That would have solved everything.

00:05:43.040 By the way, you see this breaking news that Elizabeth Warren actually registered as a Native American

00:05:46.820 while she was registering for the State Bar of Texas?

00:05:49.160 I'm shocked.

00:05:50.000 This is remarkable.

00:05:50.520 It's the greatest thing in the world.

00:05:52.100 Believe all women.

00:05:52.600 Hashtag believe all women. 0.95

00:05:53.840 How long ago was this?

00:05:55.020 Well, I mean, she registered for the bar in the 80s, right?

00:05:58.080 In the 80s, yeah.

00:05:58.360 So it's 30 years ago.

00:05:59.580 But we've all known this, right?

00:06:00.520 She obviously used it to get into Harvard, and Harvard protects the record, so there's

00:06:03.980 no evidence of it.

00:06:04.740 So all this is is the first time that we're seeing what we all basically knew to be true

00:06:08.380 all along.

00:06:08.540 Yeah, I mean, she had appeared in a couple of the journals suggesting that she was sort

00:06:12.460 of the American Indian Harvard member.

00:06:14.780 And then she said, all the people there said, no, we didn't admit her based on this.

00:06:17.780 We admitted her based on other factors.

00:06:19.000 Whatever it is, the fact that she lied about this and that she actually put it on an official

00:06:23.200 form, she's toast.

00:06:24.440 I mean, you can kiss Elizabeth Warren's chances. 0.99

00:06:26.160 Completely true.

00:06:26.960 Good night.

00:06:27.600 But do we now have to listen to her tell that story again about her pawpaw and her nama,

00:06:31.380 whatever the hell?

00:06:32.100 High cheekbones.

00:06:33.060 Yeah, how they had to run away because of their forbidden love.

00:06:36.480 That's right.

00:06:37.060 She actually told the story of Pocahontas.

00:06:38.680 That's right.

00:06:39.040 And then it turns out that her respective father-in-law was going to threaten her father

00:06:43.320 with a club.

00:06:44.660 And then her mother came in and threw her body over her father. 1.00

00:06:47.380 And then everybody sang together, and then he went off on a ship.

00:06:50.060 I think her presidential hopes were blown away by the color of the wind, I think.

00:06:53.760 Yeah, right.

00:06:55.180 You know, I have the document pulled up right here.

00:06:57.740 The whole story was that, oh, this was a mistake from Harvard.

00:07:00.480 Harvard, she never had anything to do with it.

00:07:02.320 But there it is, 1986, April 11th, 1986, in her own handwriting.

00:07:06.660 American Indian, signature, Liz Warren, right there.

00:07:09.960 Pretty spectacular stuff.

00:07:10.900 Beautiful.

00:07:11.500 Man, well, I guess she's the second Democrat to blow herself up on the shoals of race. 1.00

00:07:17.040 Yeah, that's true.

00:07:18.260 That's true.

00:07:18.360 I mean, in Virginia, she, I mean, is it possible she's the other person that Ralph Northam photo?

00:07:22.860 Maybe.

00:07:25.400 Who the hell knows?

00:07:26.400 Everything is insane. 0.94

00:07:27.580 Maybe she becomes governor after Justin Fairfax. 1.00

00:07:29.640 Exactly.

00:07:30.800 Let's be real about this.

00:07:31.740 Right now, the only person, like, the front runner has to be Kamala Harris in the Democratic 0.88

00:07:35.820 House.

00:07:35.840 Oh, yeah, no question.

00:07:36.540 I mean, clearly, she's winning the intersectional war. 0.66

00:07:38.800 Yeah.

00:07:39.180 I mean, so much so that Bernie Sanders is being ripped up and down for having the temerity

00:07:43.220 to even give a State of the Union response tonight, because Stacey Abrams is giving the

00:07:46.740 official response.

00:07:47.540 So this is the third time he's given a non-democratic response to the State of the Union, and he's

00:07:52.220 giving one again tonight, but Stacey Abrams is giving the official response.

00:07:55.080 So it didn't matter when he did it when Joe Kennedy was doing it, but Stacey Abrams is a black 0.96

00:07:58.260 woman, and that means that he is a racist because he is giving a non-official State of 0.56

00:08:02.760 the Union response.

00:08:03.640 There are people who are tweeting out that he was talking over her.

00:08:06.240 He's talking after her.

00:08:07.340 Like, she's talking.

00:08:08.340 And then he said, oh, she's a great pick. 0.97

00:08:09.440 And also, I'm going to give my own thoughts.

00:08:10.520 Like, you can't give your thoughts.

00:08:11.620 You've got to stop with that thought giving.

00:08:12.920 Cut it out, Bernie.

00:08:13.800 I just want to know, is he going to do it shirtless like the Soviet Union video?

00:08:18.140 As long as he does it shirtless singing, then I'll watch it.

00:08:22.080 By the way, I don't know if collusion means what they think that it means when Bernie Sanders

00:08:27.540 can go over to the actual Soviet Union.

00:08:30.680 And sing American communist songs shirtless with the Ruskies. 0.63

00:08:34.000 With the Ruskies.

00:08:34.540 It's amazing.

00:08:35.380 Kamala Harris is surprisingly bad so far, though, at what she does. 1.00

00:08:38.780 She doesn't have to be good.

00:08:39.640 She just has to be mediocre and not Trump. 0.98

00:08:40.960 I mean, right now, the polls are showing right now that over 50% of Americans say they will

00:08:45.180 definitely not vote for Trump.

00:08:46.540 Now, that only matches up once he has an opponent, right?

00:08:49.180 You can say you're definitely not voting for someone.

00:08:51.120 And then you vote for them if the other person stinks enough.

00:08:52.940 Or if you just decide not to show up to the polls because the other person stinks. 1.00

00:08:56.400 Trump basically has to shut up for about two years and let the Democrats be as crazy 0.99

00:08:59.580 as they want to be. 0.99

00:09:00.420 Yeah.

00:09:00.840 And Kamala Harris, she does have some very weird mannerisms in the sense that, like, she has 1.00

00:09:05.680 the awkward laugh that Hillary used to do. 1.00

00:09:07.120 She has the exact laugh as Hillary. 0.95

00:09:08.760 Like, the exact same one.

00:09:09.760 It's very weird. 0.99

00:09:10.420 She's also corrupt. 1.00

00:09:11.640 I mean, there's something about, first of all, that Willie Brown story is a genuine

00:09:14.380 story.

00:09:14.800 It's an amazing story.

00:09:15.420 It's a genuine story of sexual malfeasance and political corruption mixed together.

00:09:20.380 Today, she was interviewing that judge candidate. 0.99

00:09:22.700 She is awful.

00:09:23.420 It was awful what she did to her. 0.99

00:09:25.280 You know, the woman had written a piece saying if you don't want to get raped at a party, 1.00

00:09:27.980 you don't get drunk. 0.56

00:09:28.560 It's one way to do it.

00:09:29.520 She was saying it was blaming the victim.

00:09:30.980 It was just absolute.

00:09:31.760 I mean, the entire article specifically says if you are raped, it is the fault of the rapist.

00:09:36.140 Also, you can mitigate your risk by not drinking heavily in the presence of young men.

00:09:40.220 It's just the simple truth.

00:09:40.600 Yeah.

00:09:40.780 But she has to do this because her actual record is of being a fairly tough prosecutor. 0.98

00:09:46.400 And so in the modern Democrat Party, in the era of criminal justice reform, in the era

00:09:52.840 of believe all women, in the era of stripping people of due process on these rape cases,

00:09:58.240 she has a liability because she, by Democrat standards, is pretty harsh. 1.00

00:10:02.840 She was actually a pretty oppressive prosecutor. 1.00

00:10:04.940 This is why she never talks about her actual professional record.

00:10:08.900 She opens up on the mood mix, what music she liked to listen to.

00:10:12.120 She went to an historically black college.

00:10:14.040 It's all just, Peggy Noonan called it.

00:10:15.620 She said it's just a mood that she's setting for her campaign.

00:10:18.660 Because even if sometimes she was a weak prosecutor, any prosecutor is going to be dead in the 1.00

00:10:24.100 Democrat primary.

00:10:24.340 But this is, she does present certain challenges, I think, if she's the dominee.

00:10:27.660 And right now, of the people who are declared, we have to call her the frontrunner.

00:10:32.220 No question.

00:10:32.820 Yeah, yeah.

00:10:33.620 The betting market.

00:10:34.180 She will do something if she winds up on a stage with Trump that will be for the left 0.66

00:10:42.380 what Trump being on a stage with Hillary Clinton was to the right.

00:10:45.620 Which is, she will prosecute him.

00:10:47.400 She'll call him a racist. 0.78

00:10:48.120 She will call him a racist to his face on national television.

00:10:51.360 And the left will get the same sort of glee from watching that happen, that the right

00:10:57.780 got watching Donald Trump be on a stage with Hillary.

00:11:00.940 I mean, that was all throughout the Republican primaries.

00:11:03.320 The question, who would you rather see debate Hillary, drove a lot of the national dialogue.

00:11:08.200 They're going to be having that exact same conversation on the left.

00:11:10.940 You know, she does have this legitimacy problem, though, or this authenticity problem, which

00:11:15.440 Trump does not, in that she's positioning herself as the girl from Oakland, launched

00:11:19.720 her campaign on Oakland.

00:11:20.800 It's all intersectional identity politics, launches on MLK Day, always talking about going

00:11:25.720 to a historically black college.

00:11:27.500 She grew up from age seven to college in Canada.

00:11:31.340 She left Oakland.

00:11:32.540 Her mother was a cancer researcher.

00:11:34.240 Her father was a Stanford economics professor.

00:11:36.120 This is not the rough and tumble streets of Oakland, and by pretending to be that way,

00:11:41.640 she may fall into a Hillary Clinton. 1.00

00:11:43.600 I don't think so.

00:11:44.320 I mean, Barack Obama had exactly the same problem.

00:11:46.140 It didn't matter to him one iota, right?

00:11:47.420 I mean, he grew up not poor in a not-minority discrimination area in Hawaii.

00:11:53.140 I think also, though, you know, you know, you talk about the mood mix, but they all have

00:11:58.880 done this.

00:11:59.260 Elizabeth Warren with the beer, and that's all they do.

00:12:01.380 Beto with the dentist.

00:12:02.280 Because we had Beto with the dentist.

00:12:03.480 And, you know, I think that they're making a mistake.

00:12:06.820 I do think that people care about policy.

00:12:08.980 I do think that Obama ran as a centrist the first time out, and he only canted left after

00:12:15.380 he was elected.

00:12:16.460 And I think that people do pay attention, and she is a far-left candidate, and I think

00:12:20.600 that's going to help Trump.

00:12:21.320 Well, it will if he can shut up, right?

00:12:23.860 I mean, really, I mean, that's really it.

00:12:25.600 I mean, if he provides for any sort of target, then she will be famous for demolishing the 1.00

00:12:29.380 target that's in front of her.

00:12:30.320 If he can be quiet and just let her talk, in the first week, she had to walk back from

00:12:33.580 Medicare for all, get rid of private insurance nonsense.

00:12:35.480 She had to do that in, like, the first three days of her campaign.

00:12:37.080 This is why I'm not actually sure that she is a far-left candidate.

00:12:40.180 I think that she understands the temperature.

00:12:44.120 I think she is a very shrewd, calculating politician who understands that in the era of

00:12:50.120 Trump, in the ascendancy of people like AOC, this whole freshman class in the Congress,

00:12:57.960 that there is a major leftward lurch happening in the Democrat Party right now, and she's

00:13:02.740 willing to play to it, especially in a primary where she needs to rally her base, and she

00:13:06.780 needs to make sure that Bernie Sanders doesn't get back in and divide up the party.

00:13:11.160 I don't think that Kamala Harris is an ideologue.

00:13:13.920 I think Kamala Harris is a, I'll sleep with Willie Brown to get power. 1.00

00:13:17.580 But, you know, this is the issue.

00:13:18.480 She is a power politician.

00:13:20.260 Bill Clinton was, for a few years, a far-left politician, pushing Hillary Care, and then

00:13:25.320 he loses in 94, and he becomes basically a center-right politician.

00:13:29.960 If you are rudderless, if you don't have any ideological mooring, and you just happen

00:13:34.120 to act in a very conservative or very leftist way, what's the difference?

00:13:38.080 No, I think that this is a very optimistic read on Kamala Harris.

00:13:41.200 I think that she is an ideologue who is also a clever politician, and she knows where the

00:13:46.040 tea leaves are.

00:13:46.620 I agree with that.

00:13:47.160 And what she's doing right now is there are several segments of the Democratic base, and 0.68

00:13:50.660 you have to win a plurality within each and within most, and a minority in a couple.

00:13:56.940 And so if you split it up into various segments of the Democratic Party, to use the 538 model,

00:14:02.360 there's sort of the black wing of the Democratic Party, the Hispanic wing of the Democratic Party,

00:14:05.500 the millennial wing of the Democratic Party, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party,

00:14:08.300 and the moderate wing.

00:14:08.820 Those are the five categories that 538 has laid out.

00:14:11.720 And she is the one who is best qualified to grab some of these and a little bit of the 0.57

00:14:16.140 others, right?

00:14:16.560 So she's not going to do that great among millennials, because millennials don't like criminal justice 0.98

00:14:20.080 stuff that she was involved in.

00:14:21.580 She doesn't have to do great there. 0.59

00:14:22.860 All she has to do is split the vote a little bit there, win the black vote, win some of 1.00

00:14:26.620 the Hispanic vote, not all of it.

00:14:27.960 If she has a unified block of black votes in her corner for the primaries, and she has 0.64

00:14:32.400 some Hispanic votes, and she does well with sort of the mainstream Democrats against Joe Biden,

00:14:36.220 let's say she splits that, and let's say he wins it, 70-30. 0.97

00:14:38.200 And then let's say that with the progressives, she only wins 20%, but nobody else wins more

00:14:42.240 than 20%.

00:14:42.960 All she has to do is outscore everyone in one category, and she runs the table. 1.00

00:14:47.560 I mean, this was the Trump path to victory in 2016.

00:14:49.720 He didn't win 70% of the vote in the primaries.

00:14:51.480 He won 40% of the vote in the primaries.

00:14:53.060 And in most of them, he won 25% to 30% of the vote.

00:14:55.580 And because there were 1,000 candidates, the vote split enough ways that it didn't matter.

00:14:59.260 That's all she has to do.

00:15:00.280 And so what she's doing right now is she's ticking off boxes. 0.57

00:15:02.840 So she's doing the, okay, I'll pay homage to AOC, and I'll pretend that I like AOC's

00:15:07.220 thing, and I'll pretend that she's clever because that's where the energy is, and then 0.98

00:15:10.020 I'll grab a couple of those votes.

00:15:11.880 And what she really is counting heavily on is doing really well with black voters in

00:15:16.820 the Democratic primary, because that was Obama's path to victory in 2008.

00:15:19.980 She's hoping to duplicate that. 0.79

00:15:21.140 The only person who can threaten her there is Cory Booker, and that's where what Michael

00:15:24.500 is saying could theoretically pose a problem for her, maybe.

00:15:27.280 Because Booker actually did grow up pretty impoverished.

00:15:29.840 The impoverished streets in Newark, right?

00:15:31.000 He is from Newark.

00:15:32.600 He's such a bad politician. 0.99

00:15:33.800 He is an awful, this is the problem for him, is that he is an awful, insincere, terrible 0.99

00:15:37.480 politician who is bad at everything. 0.99

00:15:39.920 I mean, he really is. 0.71

00:15:40.740 I mean, he's one of the worst politicians I've ever seen in my entire life.

00:15:43.580 And that's from a guy who actually has a unique capacity to grandstand.

00:15:46.680 He spent his entire career grandstanding.

00:15:48.240 That's true.

00:15:48.680 But now the grandstanding comes off as so false and so fake that I'm not sure anybody can even

00:15:54.440 buy into it.

00:15:55.240 Is it even possible to buy into Cory Booker at this point?

00:15:57.360 He couldn't even lead a gladiatorial revolt against Rome.

00:16:00.780 They were all crucified.

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00:17:30.740 I live one block from this office because I don't like to go anyplace.

00:17:34.060 No.

00:17:34.440 There's nowhere I want to go.

00:17:35.120 Nobody in LA likes to go anyplace.

00:17:36.740 We never talk about this.

00:17:37.620 You go home and it's like, should I go out?

00:17:40.140 No.

00:17:40.780 It's like now that everything's on your TV, you don't have to go out.

00:17:43.720 I ordered soup from across the street delivery today.

00:17:47.280 That's not true.

00:17:48.840 Well, it's been raining.

00:17:49.980 It's been raining.

00:17:53.400 There's something about when the car is in the garage, you're done.

00:17:57.060 Okay.

00:17:57.680 So what do you think Trump's actually going to say in the State of the Union tonight?

00:18:00.300 Well, he's got, obviously, I think it's going to center on the border thing.

00:18:04.520 Do you think he's going to bring actual blocks and then he's just going to build a wall?

00:18:06.940 Build the wall right where he's standing there.

00:18:08.160 Watch me build this.

00:18:09.020 Watch me do it.

00:18:10.820 I'm wondering if, like, the Democrats are actually going to stand up and hurl Honduran children at him, you know?

00:18:17.100 At some point, he's got to turn around and say something to Nancy Pelosi, right?

00:18:20.500 I know you hate it when I say that I think Trump is doing something smart, but I really do.

00:18:24.200 I think he has, like, kept a fairly low profile and he has allowed the Democrats.

00:18:27.880 Wait, wait, let me finish before you attack me, please. 0.96

00:18:30.580 He's allowed the Democrats to be as crazy as they want. 0.98

00:18:33.040 They now look like the unreasonable people. 0.95

00:18:35.680 He has kept this subject that nobody on either side wants to talk about.

00:18:41.000 He's kept it front and center and he has made them look like the unreasonable people.

00:18:44.580 And I think if he plays that without hammering them, which would be un-Trumpian, he could make some sense.

00:18:50.100 I think he has potentially done something smart.

00:18:52.220 So when you're unconscious and you don't talk, is that a smart thing or is that you being unconscious?

00:18:56.520 Well, with me, it's a smart thing.

00:18:57.620 I work at my unconsciousness.

00:19:00.500 You have the precise... 1.00

00:19:01.480 So my rule about politics is never attribute to malice that which you can attribute to stupidity. 1.00

00:19:05.220 Me too. 1.00

00:19:05.640 But you don't have that rule with Trump. 1.00

00:19:07.180 For you, it's never attribute to stupidity that which you can attribute to brilliance. 0.98

00:19:10.360 No, I think that Trump has two things that nobody talks about. 0.99

00:19:13.540 Well, people do talk about his instincts.

00:19:14.960 He has excellent instincts.

00:19:15.920 He has the instincts of a linebacker.

00:19:17.500 He knows where daylight is.

00:19:18.720 He always knows...

00:19:19.500 A running back, he knows where daylight is.

00:19:21.600 And the other instinct that he has, he changes.

00:19:25.020 Like, people don't pay attention to it, but he actually changes tactics while seeming to be Trumpian all the time. 0.98

00:19:30.980 Yeah, this is the part where you're crazy. 1.00

00:19:32.580 This is the part where you're crazy. 0.99

00:19:33.640 You're talking about a man whose first tactic was to marry somebody and then have an affair with someone and divorce the first one to marry that one. 0.96

00:19:39.600 And then his next tactic was to have an affair and divorce that one and then marry the third one.

00:19:44.080 That's a different...

00:19:44.780 He has changed his tactics.

00:19:45.880 It's been a while. 1.00

00:19:46.220 It's a different area of life where we're all a little stupid. 0.99

00:19:49.200 I think that he's done a few things that are potentially smart. 0.99

00:19:50.540 The problem is that he's not particularly disciplined.

00:19:52.920 And so, to the extent that he...

00:19:54.660 To the extent that he ends the shutdown, which, if the purpose of that move is to get his State of the Union address back and to demonstrate that I am the only one compromising.

00:20:09.060 I offered them the DACA deal.

00:20:10.660 They didn't take it.

00:20:11.880 They said we won't negotiate while the government shut down, so I opened the government.

00:20:14.880 If he actually can now go through with shutting the government down again at the end of this, then I think it was some high-level chess playing.

00:20:21.720 You think he'll shut the government down again?

00:20:23.140 No, I don't think he will.

00:20:24.080 Neither do I.

00:20:24.480 If he did, though, if he did, it would be magnificent.

00:20:26.680 If he did, it would be magnificent.

00:20:28.500 Yep.

00:20:28.800 Then he would be being strategic and making a power play.

00:20:33.220 What I actually think he's doing is just respond.

00:20:35.260 I think you're right when you say that he's a linebacker who knows where the daylight is.

00:20:39.560 A running back.

00:20:39.820 He's a running back, I'm sorry.

00:20:41.020 He's water, and he finds the crack and runs downhill.

00:20:44.640 I agree with that, too.

00:20:45.040 The problem is that that isn't strategy.

00:20:48.480 And so I think that he found a way out of the shutdown conundrum of the moment, but with no thought for the next moment where that was going to leave him.

00:20:56.160 I would like to go back, though, to why this would be magnificent if he shuts the government down again.

00:20:59.940 It's the only way it's magnificent.

00:21:01.480 Why?

00:21:01.600 If he doesn't shut the government down.

00:21:03.520 You don't get the wall.

00:21:04.340 At the end of his three-week ultimate, you know, I'm going to open it for three weeks.

00:21:07.740 He said, I'm going to open it for three weeks because they said they wouldn't negotiate while it was shut down.

00:21:11.420 So now it's open.

00:21:12.320 We can negotiate.

00:21:13.060 And if they don't negotiate, I'm going to shut it back down.

00:21:15.360 If he doesn't shut it back down, then all he really did was reveal that he was afraid of the government shutdown.

00:21:20.900 He didn't actually have a plan.

00:21:22.940 It is fear that's driving his decision-making.

00:21:25.420 It's just gravity pulling the water through the cracks and pulling the water downhill and not strategy causing the water to find the way.

00:21:31.320 I actually disagree.

00:21:32.700 I think that if he shuts the government down, it's going to be bad for him again.

00:21:35.020 I think that the only way that it was ever going to be good is you have to be willing to go through the pain and take as many hits as you're willing to take.

00:21:41.560 If you're playing a game of chicken, you've got to put the brick on the accelerator and just leave it there.

00:21:44.820 And when you take the brick off the accelerator, he's already demonstrated he doesn't like the government shutdown.

00:21:48.880 And so what's he going to do?

00:21:49.680 Okay, I'm going to shut the government down again, and the Democrats claim the exact same thing.

00:21:52.780 And then the minute there's pain, the media blame him.

00:21:55.000 And then he says, well, they weren't willing to negotiate.

00:21:57.260 It's not going to go any better the second time than it went the first time.

00:21:59.320 It's exactly the same man.

00:22:00.380 That's my guess, too.

00:22:01.140 But all of this is just a setup for him to declare a national emergency, and then we get what everybody wants except for the wall.

00:22:07.920 He's going to blame the judiciary when they strike it down, and the Democrats are going to say, we stood tall.

00:22:11.740 He gets the win politically because he did the tough thing by declaring a national emergency,

00:22:15.420 and the people who didn't back him are the cucks who didn't back him doing something that I think is actually constitutionally illegal.

00:22:21.260 And then the wall doesn't get built.

00:22:22.820 It is worth pointing out, when we hear national emergency, we rightly sort of think of it as this crazy thing that shouldn't happen a lot.

00:22:30.300 We do have currently, what, 28 national emergencies declared?

00:22:34.260 21, yes.

00:22:34.820 21, okay, yeah.

00:22:36.000 Well, that's true.

00:22:36.920 But a national emergency, by definition, is an event that happens immediately that requires an immediate response that there's already been delegated power to solve.

00:22:48.000 That's what the power of national emergency is that was delegated to the executive branch.

00:22:51.260 So there are only two statutes under which the president could theoretically declare a national emergency.

00:22:55.040 One is that he could declare that there is a drug corridor along the entire border of Mexico.

00:22:59.560 Even that would not allow him, really, to use eminent domain to seize the property.

00:23:03.400 You need congressional authorization in order to do that.

00:23:05.800 He could renovate fencing.

00:23:07.400 I mean, that he could do.

00:23:08.440 But the idea that he's going to rededicate a bunch of defense funding to build the wall, I think there's some real legal holes in that particular strategy.

00:23:15.160 But I don't think that's what he cares about doing at this point.

00:23:18.160 What he wants is to be able to say to his people, I did the best that I could, and I couldn't do it, but that's not my fault.

00:23:24.340 That's the fault of the judiciary.

00:23:25.680 I even went far enough that I was willing to declare a national emergency.

00:23:28.780 And I think his people will buy it.

00:23:30.560 I mean, I think that his base will buy it.

00:23:31.920 Because they want any excuse to let him off the hook for this, when the reality is this was a huge fumble from the beginning.

00:23:37.840 Shutting down—because let's imagine he had won.

00:23:40.820 He shuts down the government.

00:23:42.360 They crack.

00:23:43.240 They give him $5.7 billion.

00:23:45.540 You get 300 miles.

00:23:46.580 Two years from now, 50 miles of wall have been built against the promise of 250 miles of wall on a 2,700-mile border.

00:23:56.720 The win was not worth the price, and he ain't going to win.

00:24:02.100 Well, yeah, you'd want more than $5 billion.

00:24:04.040 You'd want $25 or $30 billion.

00:24:05.480 Well, again, the whole purpose of this whole game was to paint the Democrats as not caring about border security, which he succeeded in doing.

00:24:12.240 Except that he should have spent—if you're going to declare a national emergency, if you're going to suggest that this is the end of the world and it's a huge crisis, why are—like, you say that he was great because he went silent. 0.94

00:24:21.600 It's good that he went silent in the last couple of weeks because Democrats have been making fools of themselves.

00:24:26.280 But during the actual government shutdown, why was he not traveling by car to the border and giving a speech every day on why it was a border crisis?

00:24:34.160 I'm sorry.

00:24:34.520 Sitting in the Oval Office and tweeting randomly things, that's not an actual strategy.

00:24:38.460 I think it was a strategy.

00:24:40.280 I actually do.

00:24:41.000 I think he was making sure that he was the reasonable guy.

00:24:44.600 He made a good speech from the Oval Office.

00:24:46.900 He made a good offer.

00:24:48.200 The Washington Post was saying, sit down and negotiate with the guy.

00:24:51.660 He made them look unreasonable.

00:24:53.380 And it does seem to me—

00:24:54.760 He made them look unreasonable to who and where.

00:24:56.540 It's a weak—to the people, I think.

00:24:58.100 His approval rating has rebounded fairly well.

00:25:01.200 I mean, it was pretty low during that shutdown.

00:25:02.660 Look, I think there's not a lot of elasticity in his approval rating.

00:25:05.480 I mean, I think that he's constantly been between, you know, 42 and 47 percent, basically, his entire presidency.

00:25:10.460 And by most polls, he's had very little bounce since nearly the beginning.

00:25:13.940 Like, he was at 48 at the beginning.

00:25:15.100 On average, I mean, I know people cite the outlier Rasmussen poll from the Daily Tracking.

00:25:18.840 But in the average, he's always 42, 43 percent.

00:25:21.480 That's fine.

00:25:21.840 He doesn't have to be anywhere but there.

00:25:23.200 All he has to do is defeat the Democrat who's put in front of him.

00:25:25.720 In the end, I don't think a government shutdown actually matters.

00:25:27.960 I don't even think the wall necessarily matters all that much.

00:25:30.540 I think the only thing that does matter is him shutting up for the next couple of years, as I say.

00:25:36.400 And if that's strategic, let it be strategic.

00:25:38.500 Whatever it is, he needs to do that.

00:25:40.140 Because the more the Democrats talk, what Kavanaugh proved is the more people see of Democrats, the more they despise the Democrats.

00:25:44.960 And the more they see of Trump, the more they despise Trump.

00:25:47.100 If you stay away from everything, if you just deprive the media of oxygen, they've got no place to go.

00:25:53.640 They have to cover whatever the Democrats are doing at any given time.

00:25:56.580 The Democrats have shown that the people who voted for Trump, who said this country is in a serious precipice, they were right.

00:26:04.340 They were right. 0.99

00:26:05.020 They saw that the Democrats are this crazy. 1.00

00:26:07.400 I think they always were this crazy. 1.00

00:26:08.660 I think Hillary Clinton was a mask for how crazy they were. 1.00

00:26:12.600 I think she was a moderate-looking mask. 0.99

00:26:15.140 She was felled by her dishonesty and being a poor politician. 1.00

00:26:18.860 But behind them, they are really this bad. 1.00

00:26:21.540 They really are talking about killing live babies.

00:26:23.880 They really are talking about socialism.

00:26:25.760 They're really talking about 90 percent tax rates. 1.00

00:26:27.860 They're nuts.

00:26:28.640 And I think he's doing the right thing.

00:26:29.940 The thing about the emergency measure, and it's a weak strategy, but it is a strategy, is he couldn't delay the decision long enough to reach 2020 and say, well, it's in the courts.

00:26:40.780 Believe me, you're going to get your wall.

00:26:42.940 They'll put up an injunction within the first month.

00:26:45.040 Well, they'll put it up right away.

00:26:46.360 It's a question of how far it goes.

00:26:47.700 I do think, though, that if Trump came out tonight for his State of the Union speech, and he opens it up and says, my fellow Americans, the state of our union is deeply troubling.

00:26:56.820 In the last two weeks, two states have come out in favor of infanticide, the actual killing of babies who have been born.

00:27:05.420 You cannot have an abortion once a baby is born.

00:27:08.620 Fourth trimester.

00:27:09.340 Fourth trimester.

00:27:11.080 And in the last three months, we've seen the Democrats ascend a brand new crop of congressional leaders who are openly calling for socialism within one generation of us defeating our existential enemies in the Socialist Soviet Union. 0.65

00:27:28.900 And then I think that we would all go, well, yeah, the guy's got it.

00:27:32.020 And this is what I was saying on my show today, is that the problem is, like, they're constantly trying to cast him against type.

00:27:39.020 And everybody who tries to cast him against type fails.

00:27:41.260 He's never going to start being the nice unifier.

00:27:44.040 Yep.

00:27:44.380 It's not going to happen.

00:27:45.340 There's no world tonight where he says, I call for unity and reason to come on.

00:27:50.680 He may say it.

00:27:51.280 I call for unity and so much reason it'll make your head spin.

00:27:54.800 Reason out the last two.

00:27:56.080 Like, that's not going to work.

00:27:57.300 I am the unity president.

00:27:58.320 He won in 2016, the primaries and the general, because he was a hammer in search of a nail, as I said, a thousand times.

00:28:04.100 And sometimes he had a nail and sometimes he had a baby.

00:28:06.120 Okay, all he has to do right now is hit a lot of nails.

00:28:09.040 Let him be the hammer.

00:28:09.640 Let him go out there tonight and turn around and say directly to Nancy Pelosi, let him turn around on the podium in front of the American people and say, listen, I offered you legal status for all the dreamers who you are constantly suggesting you want to stay in this country.

00:28:19.920 And all I asked for in return is that you give me the money necessary for us to secure that border.

00:28:24.720 And you won't even negotiate with me.

00:28:26.440 He might do that.

00:28:26.720 Because you don't care about borders.

00:28:28.660 That sounds more like Trump than the way you were saying.

00:28:30.480 Right.

00:28:31.040 But he should do the same.

00:28:32.860 He should say there are several members of the Democratic caucus who have embraced openly anti-Semitic positions.

00:28:38.440 And the Democratic Party is fine with it and celebrating them. 0.99

00:28:41.360 Like, he should list out all the reasons Democrats suck. 0.96

00:28:43.700 Because he's not going to win by listing out all the reasons he's been great. 0.98

00:28:46.720 Because people who like him already tend to like him.

00:28:48.840 And people who don't like him already tend to not like him.

00:28:50.820 He's got to do exactly what he did to Hillary Clinton.

00:28:53.020 He doesn't need to sell himself.

00:28:54.780 Correct.

00:28:55.220 His gift is he can take anyone and drag them through the mud. 0.96

00:28:58.780 That is his gift in life.

00:29:00.780 Some of us are given the gift of wit and brilliance and good luck.

00:29:03.960 But enough about me.

00:29:05.420 You also have to.

00:29:06.500 He has a unique gift to drag people down and stomp on them with cleats.

00:29:11.000 And if he's not doing that.

00:29:12.000 And he's got a good target, too.

00:29:12.940 And he's got a great target.

00:29:14.460 If he'd ever been able to direct that, like, 100% of the time, he would be an actual weapon.

00:29:19.200 Oh, we all used to watch those debates with Hillary Clinton.

00:29:21.220 We all used to say, like, almost.

00:29:23.120 Exactly.

00:29:23.480 But it was enough because people knew who she was.

00:29:26.440 Now, you know, listen, I think that's a speech he could make.

00:29:28.800 I don't think he's going to make it tonight because I don't think he thinks this is the moment.

00:29:31.860 I think he does think this is the moment for him to appear reasonable.

00:29:35.820 He'll make that speech eventually, though.

00:29:37.080 No question about it.

00:29:37.340 Right, but the problem is that you run out of time.

00:29:38.780 You only have one chance to characterize your opposition.

00:29:40.960 This is the mistake John McCain made in 2008.

00:29:43.120 Right, John McCain thought, okay, I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll wait.

00:29:45.520 Last month of the election, hey, by the way, this guy Barack Obama, pretty radical.

00:29:48.620 And everybody's like, well, we already made up our mind about this guy.

00:29:50.480 You said he's decent.

00:29:51.560 You said he's a nice family man.

00:29:52.660 Right, exactly.

00:29:53.280 You said that he's fine.

00:29:54.140 Mitt Romney made the same mistake in 2012.

00:29:55.820 It was Barack Obama, nice family guy, decent, moderate.

00:29:59.060 I don't think he's crazy in any way.

00:30:00.200 And then at the end of the election, it was, well, actually, this guy's pretty radical,

00:30:03.020 and he's got a bunch of crazy policies.

00:30:05.100 Trump, right now, needs to be defining every one of the Democrats.

00:30:08.260 Like, I wouldn't mind if he went out there and gave nicknames to 25 Democrats tonight. 0.81

00:30:12.060 Like, crazy curry booker. 0.99

00:30:13.320 You just want to be entertained.

00:30:15.780 Well, yes.

00:30:16.660 That's the point in the room.

00:30:17.300 Bring me the entertainment.

00:30:18.440 Are you not entertained?

00:30:19.840 So the most entertaining thing that's happened to me today

00:30:21.680 is that Emily, our director of marketing and audience development, brought me a pitch.

00:30:27.940 And I think it's a little too late this year, but we're going to circle back on this next year.

00:30:30.900 It's a pitch for a Valentine's Day card.

00:30:34.040 On the front, it says,

00:30:35.320 Facts don't care, you open it, but I do.

00:30:38.680 Happy Valentine's Day on the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:30:40.780 And I feel like we're going to make millions of dollars.

00:30:45.460 It actually has a human heart, not like a cute red heart, but an actual human heart.

00:30:51.120 And as I looked at it, I thought, would I actually want to receive this?

00:30:54.000 And then I remembered Sherry's Berries, who sent me some amazing strawberries last week.

00:31:00.100 And I thought, no, we're not going to make any money on these greeting cards.

00:31:03.200 Got to give your Valentine's Day money to Sherry's Berries.

00:31:04.620 I ate Sherry's Berries before they became a sponsor, and they're, like, insane.

00:31:08.920 They're some of the best things ever.

00:31:10.940 As you know, I keep kosher, and that means that a lot of the products that I endorse,

00:31:13.760 I talk about how much people in the office enjoy them, because I can talk about that,

00:31:17.220 because I'm not eating them.

00:31:18.380 Sherry's Berries sent me a bunch of kosher stuff.

00:31:19.960 Oh, my God.

00:31:21.000 I mean, we had some of their cookies, and we had some of their caramel.

00:31:26.500 It's the greatest stuff, legitimately.

00:31:29.020 Like, my wife, immediately, we went to somebody's house the next day for lunch,

00:31:32.740 and we forgot to bring a gift.

00:31:34.020 And so she's like, well, you know what we should do?

00:31:35.740 We should order them some Sherry's Berries and have them send it to their house. 1.00

00:31:38.160 She'd only heard about it the day before, because it is just unbelievable.

00:31:41.600 How do they grow those strawberries? 1.00

00:31:43.380 They're the size of, like, pumpkins.

00:31:45.620 Well, you're never going to go wrong.

00:31:47.140 With their signature-dipped Valentine's strawberries,

00:31:48.880 they're dipped in milk, dark, or white, chocolatey goodness for any discerning palate.

00:31:52.320 She's going to fall in love with every single bite.

00:31:53.740 So if you want to get her something great for Valentine's Day

00:31:55.800 instead of the drugstore sushi that you got her last year,

00:31:58.340 instead, you should try some Sherry's Berries.

00:32:00.240 Always fresh, always tasty, always worth the wait.

00:32:03.080 They arrive fresh with a 100% Sherry's Berries guarantee.

00:32:05.620 They ship anywhere nationally.

00:32:07.000 So give sweet somethings to your long-distance love.

00:32:09.200 Send her the Valentine's gift of her dreams at the price of your dreams,

00:32:12.000 starting at just $19.99, plus shipping and handling.

00:32:14.640 So you're not spending a lot of money, and you look like you actually care,

00:32:17.300 which is my favorite thing, right?

00:32:18.880 Plus, order now and make this Valentine's really special.

00:32:22.060 By getting double the berries for just $10 more.

00:32:24.000 Go to berries.com, click on the microphone,

00:32:25.920 and enter promo code DailyWire at checkout.

00:32:28.340 That is B-E-R-R-I-E-S.com.

00:32:30.540 Click the microphone, enter promo code DailyWire at checkout.

00:32:33.580 Go order today.

00:32:34.880 They really are spectacular.

00:32:36.600 I mean, as I say, I cannot speak more highly of the chocolatey goodness that is Sherry's Berries.

00:32:41.380 You know, I've got to tell you, I've got to tell you,

00:32:43.080 I love that drugstore sushi.

00:32:44.740 Swiftly Lovelace every year.

00:32:46.200 That's how I know she really loves me.

00:32:47.800 I spent the last four months trying to get them as sponsors on the show.

00:32:51.340 There it goes.

00:32:52.620 Drugstore sushi.

00:32:53.960 I'm never going to get it back.

00:32:56.480 So here's my actual big question.

00:32:58.580 We all know what Trump's going to say tonight, and it's going to be pretty blase.

00:33:01.040 Because it's a State of the Union address.

00:33:02.260 It's a State of the Union address.

00:33:03.280 First of all, note.

00:33:04.780 Quick show of hands. 0.98

00:33:05.380 Who hates the State of the Union address and thinks it's garbage? 0.96

00:33:07.360 Just as a general rule. 0.99

00:33:08.720 There we go.

00:33:10.180 Hang on, hang on.

00:33:12.040 Spoiler alert.

00:33:13.220 Fast forward to the next Democratic presidential administration.

00:33:18.760 Show of hands.

00:33:20.000 Who hates the State of the Union address?

00:33:22.760 It's no question.

00:33:23.880 But I don't hate it on principle.

00:33:24.920 That's what you're asking.

00:33:25.480 I hate it on principle.

00:33:26.040 I'm not talking about Trump giving it or Obama giving it. 0.96

00:33:28.160 I hate it. 1.00

00:33:28.680 It's a monarchical garbage institution. 1.00

00:33:30.720 The president of the United States is not the king. 1.00

00:33:32.300 He is not a prince.

00:33:32.880 He is not a potentate.

00:33:33.580 Him descending into the chamber, to the cheers of the legislature, and then people worshiping

00:33:39.300 at his altar, taking selfies with him, and then the Supreme Court sitting there, an independent

00:33:43.520 branch of government, sitting there, and in past years having the president rail at them

00:33:47.480 in front of them and lie about them, which is what Obama did in front of the Supreme

00:33:50.380 Court at last time. 1.00

00:33:51.340 It's stupid. 1.00

00:33:52.500 It is backwards. 1.00

00:33:53.400 It is something instituted by Woodrow Wilson, which in and of itself means it's terrible.

00:33:56.500 If Woodrow Wilson had a dog, no one should have a dog.

00:33:58.600 Woodrow Wilson is one of the worst people ever to walk this earth. 0.75

00:34:00.400 He was certainly the worst president.

00:34:01.800 But this is true.

00:34:03.620 No one had done the State of the Union for a hundred or something years, except for George

00:34:08.360 Washington.

00:34:08.740 George Washington, yeah.

00:34:09.220 He gave a State of the Union address.

00:34:10.540 And then Jefferson did the best thing.

00:34:11.680 Jefferson got rid of it.

00:34:12.160 Jefferson was like, nope, not doing this.

00:34:13.120 Let me tell you, if something is good for Washington and bad for Jefferson, I love it.

00:34:16.540 I'm in.

00:34:16.880 So I have two questions.

00:34:17.400 But it's also good for Woodrow Wilson, which means it's bad for everyone.

00:34:19.460 So I have two questions.

00:34:20.220 Will Ruth Bader Ginsburg be there?

00:34:21.860 And two, is she alive?

00:34:22.880 So she doesn't come to...

00:34:23.620 If she's there, will she be alive?

00:34:24.660 She's never gone to a Republican State of the Union address, I believe.

00:34:26.060 Is that true?

00:34:26.400 This is amazing.

00:34:27.020 Yeah.

00:34:27.200 She only attends if a Democrat is the president.

00:34:28.540 People don't talk about this.

00:34:29.520 She's not partisan, though.

00:34:30.480 She's a completely objective, law-abiding justice.

00:34:33.260 Not a partisan hack in any way.

00:34:34.640 She's the notorious RBG. 1.00

00:34:36.080 It's Ginny Thomas.

00:34:36.340 How dare you, sir?

00:34:37.560 How dare you?

00:34:38.540 If anything, she's a moderate.

00:34:40.020 That's what I've heard.

00:34:41.060 It is astounding.

00:34:42.000 She is undoubtedly the most nakedly partisan Supreme Court justice in modern history.

00:34:48.660 And they end up painting Clarence Thomas or Scalia.

00:34:52.320 Or Ginny Thomas. 1.00

00:34:53.160 That's right.

00:34:53.560 Or Ginny Thomas. 1.00

00:34:54.060 The real problem is Thomas' wife is partisan. 1.00

00:34:56.380 Right, that's really the issue.

00:34:57.300 But in any case, so the institution itself is bad.

00:35:00.060 But the original question I was going to ask is, what do you expect from the response?

00:35:03.380 Because that's more interesting to me.

00:35:04.680 I think Trump is going to come out.

00:35:05.900 He'll give his unity speech.

00:35:06.920 Some people might yell or something.

00:35:08.920 He'll do his thing where he points to the random folks in the rafters.

00:35:11.260 Oh, there's Bob.

00:35:12.260 Bob has suffered.

00:35:12.980 Look at Bob.

00:35:13.580 Bob.

00:35:14.120 And then Bob just sits there and cries and somebody hands him a handkerchief.

00:35:16.380 Like, oh, we all feel bad for Bob, don't we?

00:35:18.440 Oh, a round of applause for Bob.

00:35:20.840 And then that's exactly what it'll be.

00:35:21.840 I do have to note, it is amazing trollery that the one person who is bullied who he

00:35:26.280 could think to bring to the State of the Union dress is Joshua Trump.

00:35:28.740 It's just spectacular.

00:35:30.600 I was desperately hoping that it would actually be like, and you know who's been the most

00:35:33.460 bullied man in the United States?

00:35:35.200 John Miller.

00:35:36.100 And then they just cut up there, and there's a cutout of Trump with a mustache.

00:35:39.080 It would be incredible.

00:35:40.000 But tonight, Stacey Abrams is giving the response, and that I find more interesting, because

00:35:44.840 Stacey Abrams ran a competitive race in Georgia, specifically because she did not run a wildly 1.00

00:35:49.820 intersectional race.

00:35:50.660 She did well in suburban Atlanta, basically, because she was running on kind of almost Bill

00:35:56.380 Clinton-esque policies.

00:35:57.740 Like, the idea was that she was a moderate who was trying to bring people together.

00:36:00.420 She was doing the unity theme.

00:36:01.560 And then she wrote a piece for Foreign Affairs, I don't know if you guys saw it, about intersectionality,

00:36:04.760 why intersectionality is wonderful, why we need to be doing American politics on the basis

00:36:09.180 of group identity.

00:36:10.880 And so I think tonight, she's going to go hard to the left.

00:36:12.860 I think that she's going to go very hard to the left.

00:36:15.180 She's going to say, I would not be surprised if tonight she straight out calls Trump a racist.

00:36:18.820 If she says, you know, there's a serious problem of racism in America, as we're seeing

00:36:21.700 in Virginia, as we see in the White House every day.

00:36:24.060 With that Republican, Governor Northam, with that right.

00:36:26.660 And it's interesting, too, that, I mean, typically, the response always gets bad reviews,

00:36:31.900 because it's just very hard.

00:36:32.640 They preemptively cage you.

00:36:34.280 But exactly, how are they going to give bad reviews to a black woman? 1.00

00:36:37.040 They cannot do it. 0.95

00:36:37.700 Yeah, they're already writing.

00:36:38.880 I mean, if you've read the, I mean, she's not even given the speech or probably written

00:36:42.180 it, right?

00:36:42.600 And they were writing things about how great it was going to be preemptively.

00:36:46.360 Really?

00:36:46.680 Who's doing that?

00:36:46.840 Oh, yeah.

00:36:47.300 I mean, it was like the Washington Post, like people, Stacey Abrams, she's, it's going

00:36:50.700 to be incredible, guys.

00:36:51.480 Like, just, just wait.

00:36:52.320 It's going to be incredible.

00:36:53.300 They've already pre-written their reviews.

00:36:54.720 It's like, it's like before Oscar season, whatever is the most SJW film.

00:36:57.840 Yeah.

00:36:58.020 And nobody's actually seen the film.

00:36:59.360 Right, of course.

00:36:59.700 It's like, that's how, that's how Shape of Water ends up winning an Oscar.

00:37:02.120 No one actually watches the film.

00:37:03.320 Because if you spent five minutes with that film, aside from the greatest and most world

00:37:07.060 famous ball actor, Nick Sirius.

00:37:07.980 It did have Nick Sirius.

00:37:08.640 It is, it is legitimately one of the, I think it is the worst film I have ever seen in my

00:37:13.300 entire life.

00:37:13.340 You just don't like Fishman.

00:37:14.340 You have a thing about Fishman.

00:37:15.060 Well, I gotta say, I've never been a sexual fish.

00:37:16.560 He's anti-Fishman.

00:37:17.520 I'm really not into, I'm not a fishophile.

00:37:21.360 No, you're, no.

00:37:21.760 I'm not into Sleeping with the Fishers.

00:37:22.940 You're P-sign phobia.

00:37:24.020 I don't like Sleeping with the Fishers.

00:37:25.260 It's not, it's not a thing.

00:37:26.960 I don't think that means what you think it means.

00:37:28.500 Yeah.

00:37:31.280 Yeah, I think that we're going to see the left tonight is going to give us the tone of what

00:37:36.900 the next election is going to look like, right?

00:37:38.680 So we're going to hear this hard tack to the left coming, coming from the rebuttal.

00:37:44.520 We're going to hear an even harder tack to the left coming from Bernie Sanders and the

00:37:48.180 rebuttal to the rebuttal?

00:37:50.440 The racist rebuttal.

00:37:51.400 The racist rebuttal.

00:37:52.480 That's right.

00:37:52.960 The pudding rebuttal.

00:37:53.740 He's kind of finished, Sanders.

00:37:55.440 This is the end.

00:37:56.200 He's done.

00:37:56.620 Well, they basically, in 2016, they basically declared that he was never going to win another

00:38:00.240 minority vote.

00:38:00.900 And now they have created this narrative that he'll never win another minority vote.

00:38:04.020 Right.

00:38:04.280 So they can make way for Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. 1.00

00:38:06.520 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:38:06.980 I got to tell you.

00:38:07.600 Because the dream was never to win an election.

00:38:10.000 The dream is to recapture not the Obama 08 coalition, the Obama 12 coalition.

00:38:15.160 That's the one they care about.

00:38:16.100 Because the 08 coalition was Obama, like it or not, his basic message was appealing to

00:38:21.160 the better angels of our nature.

00:38:22.480 That's what he was trying to do, right?

00:38:23.620 I completely agree.

00:38:24.040 It wasn't, you know, not red America, not blue America.

00:38:26.960 We're all Americans, right?

00:38:28.340 It was that routine.

00:38:29.360 And then by 2012, it was, we're black Americans and we're white Americans.

00:38:32.640 We don't like each other.

00:38:33.640 You should vote for me.

00:38:34.300 No politician in the modern era has had a greater opportunity to do good in the world

00:38:41.800 than Barack Obama in 2008.

00:38:43.080 This struck me.

00:38:43.580 I said this to you on the day the Northam scandal broke.

00:38:46.460 I said, imagine a country where, let's say there was a Republican governor, for sake of

00:38:51.720 example, and the Republican governor had a picture like Northam.

00:38:54.600 And it had happened during Obama's tenure.

00:38:56.100 And Obama had come out and said, listen, we are a country of forgiveness about a Republican

00:39:01.620 governor.

00:39:02.200 Yes.

00:39:02.440 We're a country of forgiveness.

00:39:03.900 And we understand that context change. 1.00

00:39:06.600 Sometimes people do things that are stupid. 0.98

00:39:08.220 It doesn't mean that they're vicious racist. 1.00

00:39:09.760 It means they're ignorant. 1.00

00:39:10.560 Yeah. 0.98

00:39:10.760 And it means that they're educated and we get better as a country.

00:39:12.880 And in the light of that, we have to look at the compendium of a man's life and determine

00:39:17.000 whether that person ought to be condemned.

00:39:19.380 Just the virtue of being true.

00:39:20.240 Right.

00:39:20.700 All of which would be true. 0.74

00:39:22.380 But he could have been the one to say it as a black man.

00:39:24.660 And which Obama uniquely could have done.

00:39:25.020 Right.

00:39:25.440 He could have said, as a black man, we have to be a country of forgiveness. 0.94

00:39:28.480 He could have said, as a black man with a white mother raised by white grandparents

00:39:32.300 who did their best, I, more than anyone, have seen the capacity of a man to try to correct

00:39:38.240 historic wrongs.

00:39:38.820 But they were typically white.

00:39:40.360 And that was the problem with Obama, is that he decided in 2012, and really as soon as

00:39:43.800 he became president, that it was more important for him to win on the back of polarizing

00:39:47.440 racial rhetoric, than it was for him to actually bring the country together.

00:39:50.660 I think, what I observed when he was doing, it was that his policies, you know, Obama was

00:39:54.420 a guy who didn't know what he didn't know.

00:39:56.100 And all his policies failed.

00:39:57.460 Everything he did failed.

00:39:58.640 Every single thing he did went bad. 0.97

00:40:00.480 And that's when he really went hard, I think, on the cops and the black men. 0.94

00:40:04.860 But that started from the beginning.

00:40:05.920 Henry Louis Gates was 2009.

00:40:07.440 So I think that what happened is that he got into office, and he came in with 85% approval

00:40:12.600 rating.

00:40:13.160 And he thought, my whole life in politics has been pretty easy.

00:40:15.760 I basically sailed from victory to victory.

00:40:17.640 I haven't shown up to my votes.

00:40:19.060 And they made me president, for God's sake, in a sweeping victory over a national war

00:40:23.580 hero, who was eight years ago hailed as the savior of the Republican Party and John McCain,

00:40:28.060 the maverick.

00:40:28.700 And I just walked all over the guy by doing nothing, basically.

00:40:31.700 And here I am.

00:40:32.780 And here's a bunch of my policies.

00:40:34.260 Why can't we all just get behind my policies?

00:40:35.920 And I think that within the first month, after he started proposing the auto bailouts,

00:40:39.160 and after he started talking about the stimulus programs, and there was backlash, I think

00:40:43.200 that he went, oh, well, I guess I'm not going to be able to do this anymore.

00:40:47.540 And at that point, if he'd been a better man, if he'd been a better person, what he would

00:40:51.220 have said is, people don't like my policies, and we can have legitimate disagreements on

00:40:54.600 policy without me maligning their character.

00:40:56.760 And instead, what he did is, they don't like my policies because they're racist.

00:40:59.600 They don't like that. 0.99

00:41:00.360 The Tea Party is a bunch of racists. 0.99

00:41:01.760 The people who don't like Obamacare, a bunch of racists. 0.99

00:41:02.800 And that's who he really was, though. 0.63

00:41:04.040 I think that's how he always had been up there.

00:41:05.020 Of course, he was in Jeremiah Rice Church for 20 years.

00:41:06.940 Of course, that's who he was.

00:41:07.820 But he masqueraded it as something else.

00:41:09.540 And that's why Trump was a response to that, and not a pretty response to that, by the

00:41:13.600 way.

00:41:13.700 Do you think, is there any well of optimism in you, where you look at, we look at these

00:41:18.340 eight years, Trump, Obama was an incredibly divisive, trollish president, worse in some

00:41:25.240 ways than Trump, just not as obvious as Trump.

00:41:28.780 And now we have this guy who is divisive no matter how you look at it.

00:41:31.420 He's very, you know, very harsh, his attitude, his affect is so harsh and divisive.

00:41:37.300 Do you think there's anything in the American people, like when I saw Harold Schultz, the

00:41:41.360 coffee guy, I was thinking, you know, I don't think this is the time when a third party can

00:41:45.980 win.

00:41:46.580 But I think a third party can win.

00:41:48.220 I think maybe not this election, but I think there's a time coming when people start to

00:41:53.000 say, you know, the people I disagree with, I live next door to them.

00:41:56.720 They're not that bad.

00:41:57.700 I'm sick of screaming at everybody.

00:41:59.740 I'm sick of everybody screaming at me.

00:42:00.760 Is there a time when the 70% of the people who kind of agree are going to get together?

00:42:04.780 Schultz is the wrong guy because the left won't vote for anybody who is financially successful

00:42:08.200 anymore.

00:42:08.920 Really, I think that this is a thing.

00:42:10.160 Like if you're too financially successful, then they'll tear you down.

00:42:12.520 But I think-

00:42:13.260 I mean, AOC said that billionaires' existence is immoral.

00:42:16.460 Well, I do love the-

00:42:17.300 It's a scary plot.

00:42:17.440 You know, there's that internet meme where you see the guy who has to choose between

00:42:20.900 two buttons and then he's sweating because he can't choose between two buttons.

00:42:23.160 So they should make that meme, except it's AOC, billionaires are immoral, and we need to tax

00:42:28.340 billionaires to pay for my program.

00:42:29.340 Right, because which one is it?

00:42:31.700 But with all of that said, like I agree with you that if there were somebody- I really think

00:42:36.360 in really divided times, the only people who can win and create a consensus around them

00:42:43.580 are people who are members of institutions that are well-respected.

00:42:47.020 One of the big problems we have right now is that all the institutions of America are

00:42:50.180 no longer respected, meaning no one trusts the press, no one trusts the banks, no one trusts

00:42:53.580 the educational system, no one trusts the churches, no one trusts the police even.

00:42:56.740 The only one, there's still a certain level of wellspring of respect is the military.

00:43:00.280 And even there, the left has some mixed feelings about that.

00:43:02.300 But let's say that General Stanley McChrystal were to run on a third-party ticket and he

00:43:05.600 were to say, listen, I think socialism is off the table.

00:43:07.780 I'm not going to begrudge success.

00:43:09.540 I think that America is a great country and we can come together around something.

00:43:12.820 I think that he would probably draw 15% of Republicans and I think that he'd probably

00:43:15.900 draw 10% of Democrats.

00:43:17.080 And I don't think that he'd win, but I think that he would win 15 to 20% of the vote

00:43:20.720 overall.

00:43:20.980 I think Schultz right now, running as a third-party candidate, would win somewhere between 7% and

00:43:25.280 10% of the vote.

00:43:26.500 So Schultz would be much more dangerous.

00:43:28.420 He also has no charisma.

00:43:29.340 He's much worse for Trump than he is for the Democrat.

00:43:31.400 I don't think so.

00:43:32.240 I don't think that's right either.

00:43:33.260 And the reason for that is because Trump's base is Trump's base, man.

00:43:36.200 That base has been so locked in.

00:43:38.220 Like, if you are planning on voting for Trump for re-election, there is nothing that can

00:43:42.960 happen that is going to dissuade you from voting for Trump.

00:43:44.600 But you're talking about a 20% base.

00:43:47.100 No, I'm talking about Trump's base is solid.

00:43:49.580 It is not 20%.

00:43:50.340 His base is about 35% of the American public.

00:43:52.420 You think so?

00:43:52.840 Yeah, I don't think it goes any lower than that.

00:43:54.240 I think that if you, and you can look at the polls in Iowa, because what they were showing

00:43:57.500 was that, like, when you match up Trump with Elizabeth Warren, it shows that he beats Elizabeth

00:44:01.780 Warren in Iowa by 52 to 48.

00:44:03.580 Now, that was before we all learned that she's Native American. 0.99

00:44:05.940 So maybe that changes the fact pattern on the ground.

00:44:06.940 Yeah, because people don't like those Indians.

00:44:08.980 But now that she's off the reservation, the polls may change. 0.94

00:44:12.340 But it goes from 50 to, but when you add Schultz to the mix, when you add Schultz, that's

00:44:17.960 not making fun of Native Americans. 1.00

00:44:19.280 Idiotic. 1.00

00:44:19.720 Media Matters, that's called making fun of Elizabeth Warren. 1.00

00:44:22.040 Native Americans are wonderful and historically victimized in the United States.

00:44:25.360 Elizabeth Warren is a white woman who is not historically victimized in the United States 0.97

00:44:28.560 and claims credit of historical victimization for political purposes.

00:44:31.500 She's worth $18 million. 0.99

00:44:32.140 And for all the people who Media Matters will call, that's what I'm saying.

00:44:36.520 Can I be any clearer about this? 1.00

00:44:37.700 Idiots. 1.00

00:44:38.400 Okay, so with all that out of the way, now back to our story. 1.00

00:44:42.100 When you add Howard Schultz to the polls, what it shows is that he wins 11% of the vote

00:44:45.440 and Trump's margin goes from 4% to 9%.

00:44:48.360 So he is taking a, because think of the battleground sector right now.

00:44:52.880 The battleground sector is not the urban population.

00:44:55.820 I'm not talking black. 0.56

00:44:56.400 I'm talking about urban.

00:44:57.000 I'm talking about because urban white people also vote for Democrats.

00:44:59.320 It's not the urban population, which is solidly Democratic.

00:45:01.720 It is not the rural population, which is solidly Trump.

00:45:04.100 It is the suburban population, which swung heavily for the Democrats in 2018,

00:45:07.780 which is why we got walloped in 2018.

00:45:10.320 That population looks at someone like Schultz, who is non-threatening,

00:45:13.320 feels like a return to normalcy candidate, feels like, okay, well,

00:45:17.180 like I look at Schultz and things are so crazy.

00:45:19.660 I disagree with him on policy more than I disagree with Trump on policy.

00:45:23.040 I look at Schultz and I go, he's saying some reasonable things.

00:45:26.000 I agree with you.

00:45:26.480 Like, I'm not going to vote for him, but I look at him and he says things like,

00:45:30.020 why are we begrudging success in this country?

00:45:32.180 You know, I grew up poor and I now run an $84 billion corporation or whatever it is.

00:45:36.580 And that's great because that's what America is.

00:45:38.180 And we should stop beating each other over the head.

00:45:39.640 And I'm like, how is he the only person saying this?

00:45:42.240 But he is genuinely an inspiring figure in a totally backwards culture. 1.00

00:45:47.160 So he grew up in the projects in Canarsie.

00:45:49.540 He becomes the head of, I mean, he builds one of the great corporations.

00:45:54.460 And it'll hurt him.

00:45:55.580 It'll only hurt him.

00:45:56.200 So one thing I don't know if the president will talk about tonight, but I think we all hope that he does, is the Second Amendment.

00:46:02.060 We have, you know, this whole new crop of Democrats.

00:46:04.940 Everybody who's running right now, basically, is running on some form of ultimate confiscation.

00:46:11.360 I mean, it's the most radical gun positions we've ever heard from mainstream candidates.

00:46:15.760 We have friends over at Bravo Company Manufacturing who I think are as good on these issues as anybody in the country.

00:46:20.940 No question. Bravo Company Manufacturing was started in a garage by a Marine veteran more than two decades ago to build a professional-grade product that meets combat standards.

00:46:28.020 BCM believes the same level of protection should be provided to every American, regardless of whether they're a private citizen or a professional.

00:46:34.160 BCM is not a sporting arms company.

00:46:35.680 So when you hear me talk about the Second Amendment, I've always said, I don't own a gun to hunt because I don't hunt.

00:46:39.180 I don't own a gun for sport shooting because I don't really do a lot of that and have time for it. 0.96

00:46:42.840 I own it so that if someone comes into my house to do me harm, I can shoot them in the face, right?

00:46:46.340 And if my rights are threatened, we can mobilize the society and stop the threatening of those rights, right? 0.92

00:46:52.180 No, I mean, if someone comes into my house, they're getting shot in the face.

00:46:54.180 In any case, whatever it takes to neutralize the threat, okay?

00:46:56.820 I'm not going to say where I'm aiming.

00:46:58.100 How about that?

00:46:58.780 In any case, BCM, they believe that every rifle that comes out of their shop should be available to be used in a life-or-death situation.

00:47:07.040 Every component of a BCM rifle is hand-assembled and tested by Americans to a life-saving standard,

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00:47:45.400 Yeah.

00:47:45.780 So we do have these subscribers, dailywire.com subscribers, who I don't think we do enough to say thank you to them.

00:47:52.920 We have done one new thing.

00:47:54.120 I do.

00:47:54.480 I give them two additional hours a day.

00:47:56.020 I was going to say, we have done one amazing thing for our subscribers of late, and that's the radio show,

00:48:00.500 which for anyone watching who may not have tuned in since the last backstage, Ben is now doing a nationally syndicated radio show.

00:48:07.180 That means two additional hours every single day of the Ben Shapiro show.

00:48:10.580 And the only place you can get the show after it's live broadcast on radio is at thedailywire.com by becoming a subscriber.

00:48:19.260 The other thing you get to do, of course, if you're a subscriber, is ask us questions on this show.

00:48:23.640 We have Alicia Krause.

00:48:24.780 We'll be fielding your questions for you.

00:48:26.660 We're going to take several during the hour after the State of the Union address.

00:48:30.960 We want to hear from our subscribers.

00:48:33.760 And I think we have time right now maybe to check in with Alicia and see if we have a few questions ready for us.

00:48:39.200 Oh, we have some really, really important questions, including one from Louise who wants to know,

00:48:43.880 if you guys can all show your best moonwalks and let the audience rate it.

00:48:48.520 Inappropriate circumstances.

00:48:49.980 In other circumstances, I would.

00:48:52.040 Would you pass the shoe polish over here?

00:48:54.080 Not all circumstances are inappropriate.

00:48:56.660 This circumstance. 0.99

00:48:57.320 I would say that around the office, Michael Knowles is known for grabbing his crotch. 0.92

00:49:02.240 Yeah, but I've never heard of this Michael Jackson fellow. 0.89

00:49:05.660 Alicia, what's next?

00:49:06.920 Kyle says that this question is for everybody.

00:49:08.680 He wants to know, do you think the Democrats will come to the table and negotiate with President Trump on the border wall before this new shutdown deadline or not?

00:49:17.100 It's a show of hands who thinks the Democrats are coming to the table to negotiate.

00:49:21.160 I think there's a small chance.

00:49:22.680 Do you really?

00:49:23.340 Yes.

00:49:23.560 I think there was the most optimistic question on planet Earth.

00:49:27.000 You're so irritating, Drew.

00:49:28.280 I'm sorry.

00:49:28.920 I'm sorry.

00:49:29.280 Now I feel bad.

00:49:30.220 No, it's a disaster.

00:49:31.460 I'm still hoping for your hair.

00:49:32.800 Every day he wakes up in the morning and says, maybe today's the day.

00:49:35.100 My hair comes back.

00:49:36.800 How did you know that?

00:49:38.000 What is the narrow circumstance?

00:49:40.540 The narrow circumstance is that Nancy Pelosi loses control of the adults in the party and the people who are on the committee are not so bad that they might.

00:49:49.740 It's a small chance.

00:49:50.580 She is the adult in the party now.

00:49:52.620 She's the adult in the party, right?

00:49:54.240 Just by age, maybe.

00:49:55.640 No, I mean even by temperament.

00:49:57.740 Like the new fresh faces of the Democratic Party.

00:50:00.820 So fresh, so face.

00:50:02.300 You know, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 0.81

00:50:04.900 The catcalling is out of control tonight. 0.85

00:50:06.960 They're fully crazy, okay? 0.99

00:50:08.360 These are crazy people. 1.00

00:50:09.380 They're crazy people. 1.00

00:50:09.640 They're openly anti-Semitic. 0.99

00:50:10.680 She had a call with Jeremy Corbyn two days ago.

00:50:13.260 I know.

00:50:13.940 He's an anti-Semite.

00:50:15.040 Like not, he doesn't hide it.

00:50:15.960 He like hangs out with Hamas. 0.84

00:50:17.060 And then somebody tweeted her like, you know, you might want to check out his anti-Semitic background.

00:50:21.240 She's like, oh yeah, I'm happy to go check that out.

00:50:23.120 It's like, give me that.

00:50:23.880 No, Ben, but Rashida Tlaib and Omar, Ilhan Omar, they're going to be so busy wiping Israel off the map that Nancy Pelosi won't negotiate with Trump. 0.99

00:50:32.280 Alicia, give us one more. 0.64

00:50:34.180 Absolutely.

00:50:34.540 Rob really wants to know a fashion question this evening.

00:50:37.540 Where did Michael get the Gomez Adams smoking jacket?

00:50:42.120 And why has nobody seen Gomez Adams?

00:50:44.380 So I got this from my godmother because only your godmother could ever buy you this sort of jacket.

00:50:49.840 They don't make it anymore.

00:50:51.400 And I think it turns out.

00:50:52.720 Why?

00:50:53.000 It's so weird.

00:50:53.800 I mean, you think that you're rolling off the factory line, but it turns out not a whole lot of demand.

00:50:59.920 Off of which corpse did you get it?

00:51:01.300 The one that's out there in my studio.

00:51:05.880 Nobody has seen Gomez Adams since he got that jacket.

00:51:08.940 Alicia, give us one more. 0.64

00:51:10.380 A real serious one actually comes from Lawrence.

00:51:12.580 It's pretty good.

00:51:13.100 He asks about looking ahead to 2020.

00:51:15.400 If you guys think that the Republicans win back all three branches, number one, can they win it all back in 2020?

00:51:20.440 And if they do, will they take defunding Planned Parenthood more seriously now that they've seen how radical the left is?

00:51:26.640 Michael, why don't you field this since your last question was about your appearance?

00:51:29.740 How many times can I say no?

00:51:33.080 I don't think we're going to win it all back in 2020.

00:51:35.620 I don't think, unfortunately, the Republican Party has not taken seriously defunding Planned Parenthood.

00:51:40.960 I think there's a really perverse incentive here, which is that it's a great fundraiser.

00:51:44.520 It's a great issue that you can run on defunding Planned Parenthood.

00:51:47.720 If they wanted to do it, if the political will were there, they would have done it.

00:51:51.180 And I think the momentum is moving in the pro-life direction.

00:51:54.620 But you forget, I've worked on campaigns in New York, Republican campaigns.

00:51:58.200 There are a lot of Republicans out there who don't want to defund Planned Parenthood.

00:52:01.800 And maybe as our politics gets more polarized, maybe sometime way in the future, there's a chance.

00:52:07.320 But I'm not holding my breath for any of that.

00:52:09.260 Yeah, this is right.

00:52:09.900 I mean, first of all, it's important to look at the actual Senate map.

00:52:12.380 So the Senate map in the last election cycle was very positive for Republicans,

00:52:15.520 which is why Republicans maintained the majority and picked up a seat.

00:52:18.560 The next Senate map is not good for Republicans.

00:52:20.580 The next Senate map has a lot more Republicans than Democrats who are up for re-election.

00:52:24.020 And that means that there is a much stronger chance that the Democrats actually take the Senate

00:52:28.800 than there is that Republicans gain seats in the Senate.

00:52:32.100 And again, a lot of that is going to be dependent on President Trump down ballot.

00:52:35.260 If Trump gets blown out, then it's going to be an awful, awful term.

00:52:40.180 I mean, if Trump gets blown out and you have the possibility of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House,

00:52:44.820 Kamala Harris as President, and Chuck Schumer as Senate Majority Leader,

00:52:48.660 I mean, honestly, things are going to get so ugly so quickly because here's the—

00:52:54.300 Jeremy and I had been talking about this for a while,

00:52:55.700 and Jeremy's theory was basically the Democrats thought they were never going to lose again.

00:52:58.660 And one of the reasons they're so angry about Trump,

00:53:00.500 because they figured they had built this cohesive, durable coalition of minority groups

00:53:06.560 that were going to carry them to victory.

00:53:07.860 It was a growing minority, majority country, and all of this.

00:53:09.940 And then Trump stopped that.

00:53:12.380 And once you built—and now it's just pressure building up behind the dam.

00:53:15.100 And if the dam goes, the speed is going to be—the velocity is going to be incredible.

00:53:18.600 The amount of particularly anti-religious bigotry that's going to be unleashed

00:53:21.660 if the Democrats take back all three—

00:53:23.720 both branches of the legislature and the executive

00:53:27.340 and then reshape the judiciary to meet their needs.

00:53:29.380 I mean, if Ruth Bader Ginsburg is able to make it through Trump's term

00:53:33.960 and then the next justice to go—and then the next justice to go aside from Ginsburg

00:53:38.320 is somebody like, God forbid, Thomas,

00:53:41.020 and the balance of power shifts on the court again back to the left

00:53:43.640 and Democrats have unified control of all three branches of government,

00:53:47.120 I mean, I'm not sure the country is savable at that point, really,

00:53:49.820 because I do wonder whether it'll be impossible for religious people

00:53:53.620 to live in the state of California, whether we all have to move,

00:53:55.620 whether it is possible for people with high income to live in any place around the coast.

00:54:00.700 But I'm mostly worried about religious folks, because rich people will find a way to live. 1.00

00:54:03.780 Yeah, they always do.

00:54:04.980 But religious people—I mean, I'm deeply concerned about this. 0.95

00:54:08.820 I don't blame you on this.

00:54:10.080 What I saw as a religious person, what I saw in the state of New York,

00:54:12.920 where they just passed this anti-gay conversion therapy law

00:54:16.440 that's not actually about gay conversion therapy.

00:54:18.400 That law actually says in there that if you bring your child to a therapist

00:54:23.300 who discusses with them sexual identity, then that person can be prosecuted.

00:54:28.940 And even if the person says, I want to change.

00:54:31.680 Right.

00:54:32.000 And it's not even about sexual orientation change therapy,

00:54:34.380 which is controversial at best and a waste of time at most or damaging at most.

00:54:40.260 We're talking about a seven-year-old goes in who's a boy,

00:54:42.940 and the parent says, no, you're a girl, actually.

00:54:45.140 And you go to a psychologist for this.

00:54:46.920 That's illegal in the state of New York now.

00:54:48.980 I mean, this is insanity.

00:54:49.880 And not only that, I think the chances that they start cracking down on religious institutions are 129%.

00:54:55.880 You see it with Karen Pence, right?

00:54:57.600 They're already going after Karen Pence for having the temerity to go teach at a Christian school. 0.98

00:55:00.860 It is a voluntary association supported by zero taxpayer dollars.

00:55:03.960 And there's an article by Richard Cohen today saying that because Ralph Northam

00:55:07.180 may have to step down as governor of Virginia over his yearbook photo 35 years ago,

00:55:11.340 Mike Pence should have to step down as vice president of the United States.

00:55:14.120 And Karen Pence should be ousted from polite society 1.00

00:55:16.280 for having the temerity to teach at a Christian school.

00:55:18.240 I should say, though, just a note of hope because that does sound pretty dark.

00:55:22.220 I do think today, just looking at the Democrat field, I don't think we retake anything.

00:55:26.760 But I do think President Trump stands a very good chance of re-election,

00:55:30.040 not against a generic Democrat, but there's no such thing as a generic Democrat.

00:55:33.740 And the leaders right now, I don't think, can beat him.

00:55:35.460 Well, let's ballpark it.

00:55:36.480 I mean, what percentage do you think?

00:55:38.160 I mean, I know, listen, it's early.

00:55:39.740 None of these numbers are fungible.

00:55:41.240 By the way, and events change everything.

00:55:43.340 By the way, for the people who are tuning in at home,

00:55:46.120 we're getting very close to the arrival of President Trump in the House chamber.

00:55:50.260 We just saw the justices of the Supreme Court taking their seats.

00:55:53.560 And for anyone who is taking bets at home,

00:55:55.960 the notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not among them.

00:55:59.880 Actually, only four of them are right.

00:56:01.040 So Clarence Thomas didn't show up.

00:56:02.200 It's Kagan, it's Roberts, it's Kavanaugh, and it's Gorsuch.

00:56:04.760 Those are the only four who showed up.

00:56:05.960 Everybody else stayed home because they had better things to do, unlike us.

00:56:08.880 They're not getting paid by subscribers.

00:56:10.260 I literally had something better to do.

00:56:12.020 It's my birthday.

00:56:13.680 I know, subscribe just to support this man on his birthday.

00:56:16.380 My goodness.

00:56:17.040 I mean, we're here, we are here working our fingers to the bone

00:56:19.780 and drinking ourselves into oblivion just for you.

00:56:22.700 The least you can do is spend $9.99 a month to subscribe

00:56:24.840 or $99 a year where you can get the finest in beverage vessels.

00:56:27.160 Yeah, that's true.

00:56:27.620 I do want to say one thing because I'm the only person here who doesn't work for you.

00:56:30.800 And so I think, therefore, I'm the only person who can say this with sincerity.

00:56:33.280 I think you single-handedly changed the abortion conversation in America

00:56:38.200 over the last three weeks.

00:56:39.740 I think you did your podcast from the March for Life.

00:56:44.580 A million people listened to the podcast,

00:56:46.720 making it the most coverage that the March for Life has gotten

00:56:49.140 in at least the last decade, and I think probably in the last 20 years.

00:56:54.580 And there was this immediate pushback from the left.

00:56:58.560 Like, they usually like to ignore abortion

00:57:01.300 and in particular ignore the March for Life.

00:57:03.360 But they saw the kind of spotlight that you were able to bring to that event.

00:57:08.240 They immediately had to pounce and prove just how radical they are on abortion,

00:57:12.540 which I think is such a winning issue for us.

00:57:14.920 So, I mean, I really think this may be the most consequential political thing

00:57:18.740 that you've done in your career.

00:57:19.760 I mean, I certainly hope so because I think it's the most important issue

00:57:21.780 that there is in America.

00:57:22.980 You know, I really believe, you know, Thomas Jefferson wrote about slavery,

00:57:25.620 that he trembles when he thinks that God's justice cannot sleep forever.

00:57:29.100 And that's exactly how I feel about abortion.

00:57:30.680 I agree with you.

00:57:31.560 I agree with you 100%.

00:57:32.740 The fact that God has held out his judgments on us

00:57:34.960 in a country where we're killing a million babies here, 0.56

00:57:37.900 you know, God is a merciful being,

00:57:40.240 but that mercy cannot be held off forever.

00:57:43.200 And by the way, nor should it be if we continue this nonsense.

00:57:45.560 And it also is just the underlying philosophy

00:57:48.100 that allows people who are not insane,

00:57:50.540 who are not themselves psychopathic, 0.99

00:57:52.140 to go forward and say that you should be able to kill babies 0.99

00:57:55.080 the moment before they're born or the moment after they're born. 0.99

00:57:57.640 Or the moment after. 0.98

00:57:58.420 Yeah, this is a psychopathic.

00:58:00.960 You know, I remember watching a movie about... 0.89

00:58:03.240 The First Lady, by the way, walking into the House chamber now 1.00

00:58:06.500 and greeting people on her way to her seat.

00:58:08.360 So we're getting very close.

00:58:09.640 We are seeing a bunch of Democrats who are dressed in white.

00:58:11.640 As Drew mentioned earlier,

00:58:13.180 last time this many Democrats were dressed in white,

00:58:15.100 they were worried.

00:58:15.360 They were worried.

00:58:15.880 You know, I remember watching a movie

00:58:18.280 about the Tuskegee Airmen, the black air court.

00:58:21.500 And this actor was playing a senator

00:58:23.800 who was slinging racial slurs.

00:58:26.300 And my daughter came in and said, 0.97

00:58:27.440 is this guy insane?

00:58:28.780 And I said, no, the idea was insane. 0.99

00:58:30.860 You can have a psychopathic idea 0.98

00:58:32.560 that turns sane people into madmen. 0.89

00:58:34.480 And I think that this is the abortion thing 0.94

00:58:36.180 in front of us in real time.

00:58:38.100 Well, thank you for the compliment.

00:58:39.280 And also, but back to...

00:58:40.620 I am interested in hearing kind of your ballpark figure.

00:58:42.420 If you had to put odds on Trump being re-elected,

00:58:44.580 say out of 100%,

00:58:45.400 what percentage re-election do you think?

00:58:47.980 What do you think, Knowles?

00:58:48.980 It's over 50% right now,

00:58:50.900 judging by the leading characters.

00:58:54.000 If a really good candidate,

00:58:56.060 you know, Beto O'Rourke is an example

00:58:57.600 of a very charismatic candidate.

00:58:59.140 I'm sure he can do really well on the ground

00:59:00.540 in places like Pennsylvania.

00:59:02.620 But I think Beto's blowing himself out.

00:59:04.960 Really?

00:59:05.460 His self-obsession and that diary

00:59:07.840 that he wrote about himself.

00:59:09.100 That was tremendous.

00:59:10.260 Traveling around Texas, gazing at the stars,

00:59:13.120 thinking to myself, man,

00:59:14.840 skateboarding is rad.

00:59:18.600 But if you've got a really good candidate,

00:59:20.900 I think they could play, you know,

00:59:22.260 a candidate that could play well

00:59:23.140 in Pennsylvania, Michigan, wherever,

00:59:25.040 then you'd have a really good chance.

00:59:26.880 I just don't trust them to do it.

00:59:28.800 They've driven themselves so wild.

00:59:31.020 They've driven themselves so left.

00:59:32.540 I don't see Kamala Harris beating him. 0.99

00:59:34.320 I don't see really any of the others.

00:59:36.340 It is an interesting question.

00:59:37.220 In this moment,

00:59:38.660 can a Democrat capable of winning the primaries

00:59:41.360 win the general?

00:59:42.100 I mean, where are you on this?

00:59:43.820 I'm pretty much where Knowles is.

00:59:45.240 I think right this minute,

00:59:46.160 events are going to change everything.

00:59:47.660 You know, all kind of candidates.

00:59:48.980 Right, we're saying if the election were held today.

00:59:50.460 But if the election,

00:59:51.120 I think he's over 50%.

00:59:52.460 I think he's got a 55% chance

00:59:54.400 of winning right this minute.

00:59:55.500 Yeah, I actually think he has a 100% chance

00:59:59.300 of winning and a 100% chance of losing.

01:00:01.340 And I realize that that's a pretty cheeky thing to say.

01:00:04.700 But what I really mean is that

01:00:06.000 we are so through the looking glass

01:00:08.040 politically right now.

01:00:09.080 I've been saying for over a year,

01:00:11.040 we're post-prediction.

01:00:13.620 Because the reality of the country

01:00:17.120 and the perception of the country

01:00:18.980 about itself are both in such

01:00:21.920 an elevated, heightened state at the moment.

01:00:25.500 You don't know are people going to vote

01:00:27.520 on the basis of reality,

01:00:28.800 on the basis of perception of reality,

01:00:31.340 or on the basis of virtue signaling

01:00:34.880 about themselves.

01:00:38.380 And because I can't actually figure out,

01:00:41.880 because I think it changes from moment to moment,

01:00:43.920 what the driving need

01:00:46.940 of the American electorate is today.

01:00:48.900 It isn't need like,

01:00:51.020 I mean, we're the richest people who've ever lived.

01:00:52.780 We're perfectly secure in a time of peace.

01:00:54.660 Things, reality, things are actually quite normal.

01:00:57.220 Right, the kind of emotional hole

01:00:58.440 that we need to fill at the time.

01:00:59.320 That's right.

01:01:00.180 And so with that in mind,

01:01:02.500 I literally think anything could have,

01:01:04.520 we live in the timeline

01:01:05.340 where all things are possible.

01:01:07.080 I agree with that,

01:01:07.860 because what I really think

01:01:09.040 is we do not know who we are.

01:01:10.540 And I think that's what's happening right now.

01:01:11.800 We've lost our way.

01:01:12.620 Well, I wouldn't say that.

01:01:14.120 I think who we are has changed,

01:01:15.760 and we haven't quite figured out

01:01:16.900 what it's changed to.

01:01:18.680 So for the pessimistic view of the situation,

01:01:22.500 what I will say is that-

01:01:23.460 You?

01:01:24.400 Right, who could have predicted?

01:01:26.480 Suburban women hate Trump. 1.00

01:01:28.520 They really hate Trump.

01:01:30.280 The Republicans did show up to vote in 2018,

01:01:32.320 and they got blown out by nine points

01:01:33.620 in the House races.

01:01:35.480 You know, I think that Trump-

01:01:39.820 Look, you could hit a weird news cycle.

01:01:41.920 You could hit a Kavanaugh news cycle

01:01:43.080 right during the election,

01:01:44.040 and Trump could squeak to victory.

01:01:45.740 I don't see a sweeping victory for Trump,

01:01:47.700 because I think there are just too many states

01:01:49.000 that are off the table.

01:01:49.740 Democrats are starting with 230 electoral votes

01:01:51.520 or something.

01:01:51.980 So I think that the idea

01:01:53.040 that he wins some grand sweeping victory

01:01:54.800 is nonsense.

01:01:55.760 It is easier to see a sweeping victory

01:01:56.980 for Democrats than it is for Republicans.

01:01:58.560 Things go wildly wrong.

01:01:59.420 The economy goes down,

01:02:00.740 and Trump loses Florida.

01:02:01.980 He loses Georgia.

01:02:02.680 He loses Arizona.

01:02:03.400 He starts running competitive in Iowa.

01:02:06.320 Like, it's interesting to watch

01:02:07.240 as certain states move more into the red

01:02:08.520 and certain states move more toward blue.

01:02:11.040 Like, Colorado was a purple state.

01:02:12.240 Now it's a blue state.

01:02:13.540 Arizona is moving toward a blue state

01:02:14.920 pretty quickly.

01:02:16.100 Iowa is moving more red,

01:02:18.000 and so is Ohio,

01:02:19.060 which is really kind of interesting.

01:02:20.480 It charts really well

01:02:21.340 with non-college-educated white population, actually.

01:02:24.160 But with all of that said,

01:02:26.980 I'd have to put the odds for Trump

01:02:28.140 in no better than 35% right now.

01:02:29.720 Wow.

01:02:30.000 Just because he is-

01:02:32.200 Who has not made their mind up about this man?

01:02:34.560 In 2016, everyone made the mistake

01:02:37.400 of thinking that the election

01:02:38.320 was a referendum on Donald Trump

01:02:39.820 because he was the one

01:02:40.520 who was sucking all the oxygen out of the room.

01:02:42.300 And it ended up not being a referendum on Trump.

01:02:44.220 It ended up being a referendum on Hillary Clinton.

01:02:45.980 Donald Trump performed exactly like generic Republican.

01:02:48.160 He won nearly the same percentage

01:02:49.260 as Mitt Romney in virtually every state,

01:02:51.120 and he won because it was a referendum on Hillary.

01:02:53.360 People decided they didn't like Hillary. 1.00

01:02:54.980 The Comey letter broke a week before the election.

01:02:57.180 People decided,

01:02:58.200 we're just not going to show up for her,

01:02:59.120 and we think she's going to win anyway,

01:03:00.300 so why would we possibly show up for her?

01:03:01.980 That referendum on Hillary paid off to his benefit.

01:03:04.760 The question in 2020 is,

01:03:06.560 is it a referendum on him or on the Democrat?

01:03:08.540 When you're in the incumbent,

01:03:09.440 it's usually a referendum on you.

01:03:11.220 But it is also possible,

01:03:12.580 this is why I say if you shut,

01:03:13.500 I keep saying this over and over,

01:03:14.540 but it's actually true.

01:03:15.280 Like, if people around him have the capacity

01:03:16.780 to shut him up for a year and a half,

01:03:18.540 then we can have a referendum on the Democrat,

01:03:19.960 which is what you want.

01:03:20.580 You want a referendum on Kamala Harris.

01:03:21.840 You want a referendum on Beto O'Rourke.

01:03:23.380 You want a referendum on whomever it is they nominate.

01:03:25.240 But if it's a referendum on Trump,

01:03:26.180 I think that he loses it.

01:03:27.060 We also have to face down the Miller investigation,

01:03:31.540 which we're probably on the brink

01:03:34.020 of having answers about that.

01:03:35.400 I think it ends up being nothing, by the way.

01:03:36.560 It does live between here and there.

01:03:39.020 So we're going to, I think it's time to go

01:03:41.520 and hear from the president.

01:03:42.880 We're going to be listening,

01:03:43.920 and we'll be joining everybody back one hour from now,

01:03:46.480 or at the end of the speech,

01:03:47.720 one eternity from now.

01:03:48.560 Next year.

01:03:48.920 Next year.

01:03:49.700 With our thoughts, here's the president.

01:03:50.880 We'll be right back.

01:04:20.880 We'll be right back.

01:04:50.880 We'll be right back.

01:05:20.880 Thank you.

01:05:50.880 Thank you.

01:06:19.520 Thank you.

01:06:49.520 Thank you.

01:07:19.520 Thank you.

01:07:49.520 Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, the First Lady

01:08:00.640 of the United States.

01:08:22.640 And my fellow Americans, we meet tonight at a moment of unlimited potential.

01:08:30.920 As we begin a new Congress, I stand here ready to work with you to achieve historic breakthroughs

01:08:38.720 for all Americans.

01:08:40.720 Millions of our fellow citizens are watching us now gathered in this great chamber, hoping

01:08:47.920 that we will govern not as two parties, but as one nation.

01:08:53.920 Thank you.

01:08:54.920 Thank you.

01:09:00.920 Thank you.

01:09:01.920 The agenda I will lay out this evening is not a Republican agenda or a Democrat agenda.

01:09:22.040 It's the agenda of the American people.

01:09:25.720 Many of us have campaigned on the same core promises to defend American jobs and demand

01:09:33.360 fair trade for American workers.

01:09:37.120 To rebuild and revitalize our nation's infrastructure.

01:09:42.300 To reduce the price of healthcare and prescription drugs.

01:09:47.440 To create an immigration system that is safe, lawful, modern, and secure.

01:09:56.480 And to pursue a foreign policy that puts America's interests first.

01:10:03.600 There is a new opportunity in American politics if only we have the courage together to seize it.

01:10:25.200 Victory is not winning for our party.

01:10:29.320 Victory is winning for our country.

01:10:49.540 This year America will recognize two important anniversaries that show us the majesty of America's

01:10:56.920 mission and the power of American pride.

01:11:02.160 In June we mark 75 years since the start of what General Dwight D. Eisenhower called the

01:11:09.880 Great Crusade, the Allied liberation of Europe in World War II.

01:11:24.640 On D-Day, June 6, 1944, 15,000 young American men jumped from the sky.

01:11:36.120 And 60,000 more stormed in from the sea to save our civilization from tyranny.

01:11:47.100 Here with us tonight are three of those incredible heroes.

01:11:53.080 Private First Class Joseph Riley.

01:11:57.880 Staff Sergeant Irving Locker.

01:12:01.760 And Sergeant Herman Zaytchek.

01:12:04.880 Please.

01:12:06.880 Thank you.

01:12:15.880 Music.

01:12:19.880 Thank you.

01:12:49.880 Gentlemen, we salute you.

01:12:53.620 In 2019, we also celebrate 50 years since brave young pilots flew a quarter of a million miles through space to plant the American flag on the face of the moon.

01:13:08.560 Half a century later, we are joined by one of the Apollo 11 astronauts who planted that flag, Buzz Aldrin.

01:13:20.760 Thank you.

01:13:50.760 Thank you, Buzz.

01:13:55.220 This year, American astronauts will go back to space on American rockets.

01:14:00.920 In the 20th century, America saved freedom.

01:14:20.560 Transform science, redefine the middle class. 0.82

01:14:27.020 And when you get down to it, there's nothing anywhere in the world that can compete with America.

01:14:34.980 Now we must step boldly and bravely into the next chapter of this great American adventure.

01:14:58.120 And we must create a new standard of living for the 21st century.

01:15:04.440 An amazing quality of life for all of our citizens is within reach.

01:15:11.900 We can make our community safer, our family stronger, our culture richer, our faith deeper, and our middle class bigger and more prosperous than ever before.

01:15:26.800 But we must reject the politics of revenge, resistance, and retribution.

01:15:53.620 And embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise, and the common good.

01:16:01.540 Together, we can break decades of political stalemate.

01:16:23.120 Together, we can bridge old divisions, heal old wounds, build new coalitions, forge new solutions, and unlock the extraordinary promise of America's future.

01:16:37.820 We must choose between greatness, results, results, or resistance, vision, or vengeance, incredible progress, or pointless destruction.

01:16:55.900 Tonight, I ask you to choose greatness.

01:17:00.320 Over the last two years, my administration has moved with urgency and historic speed to confront problems

01:17:25.200 and elected by leaders of both parties over many decades.

01:17:30.200 In just over two years, since the election, we have launched an unprecedented economic boom,

01:17:37.200 a boom that has rarely been seen before.

01:17:42.620 There's been nothing like it.

01:17:44.560 We have created 5.3 million new jobs and, importantly, added 600,000 new manufacturing jobs,

01:17:52.460 something which almost everyone said was impossible to do.

01:17:57.540 But the fact is, we are just getting started.

01:18:00.460 Wages are rising at the fastest pace in decades and growing for blue-collar workers,

01:18:23.880 who I promised to fight for, they're growing faster than anyone else thought possible.

01:18:32.960 Nearly 5 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps.

01:18:37.060 The U.S. economy is growing almost twice as fast today as when I took office.

01:19:00.620 And we are considered far and away the hottest economy anywhere in the world.

01:19:09.500 Not even close.

01:19:15.840 Unemployment has reached the lowest rate in over half a century.

01:19:21.560 African-American, Hispanic-American, and Asian-American unemployment have all reached their lowest levels ever recorded.

01:19:46.860 Unemployment for Americans with disabilities has also reached an all-time low.

01:20:09.740 More people are working now than at any time in the history of our country.

01:20:27.380 One hundred and fifty-seven million people at work.

01:20:31.860 We passed a massive tax cut for working families and doubled the child tax credit.

01:20:45.340 We virtually ended the estate tax or death tax, as it is often called, on small businesses for ranches and also for family farms.

01:21:11.500 We eliminated the very unpopular Obamacare individual mandate penalty.

01:21:27.820 And to give critically ill patients access to life-saving cures, we passed, very importantly, right to try.

01:21:47.440 My administration has cut more regulations in a short period of time than any other administration during its entire tenure.

01:22:08.680 Companies are coming back to our country in large numbers, thanks to our historic reductions in taxes and regulations.

01:22:27.680 And we have unleashed a revolution in American energy.

01:22:37.680 The United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world.

01:22:46.680 And now, for the first time in 65 years, we are a net exporter of energy.

01:23:11.680 After 24 months of rapid progress, our economy is the envy of the world.

01:23:31.680 Our military is the most powerful on Earth by far.

01:23:36.680 And America is again winning each and every day.

01:23:54.680 America is again winning each and every day.

01:24:01.680 Members of Congress, the state of our union is strong.

01:24:10.680 UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY

01:24:12.680 .

01:24:13.880 Presents.

01:24:14.680 USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA.

01:24:37.280 That sounds so good.

01:24:41.120 Our country is vibrant and our economy is thriving like never before.

01:24:47.920 One Friday it was announced that we added another 304,000 jobs last month alone, almost double

01:24:57.580 the number expected.

01:25:11.120 An economic miracle is taking place in the United States and the only thing that can stop 0.98

01:25:22.280 it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous partisan investigations. 0.64

01:25:45.960 If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. 0.87

01:25:54.740 It just doesn't work that way.

01:26:00.120 We must be united at home to defeat our adversaries abroad.

01:26:07.540 This new era of cooperation can start with finally confirming the more than 300 highly qualified

01:26:16.860 nominees who are still stuck in the Senate, in some cases years and years waiting.

01:26:25.880 Not right.

01:26:41.300 The Senate has failed to act on these nominations, which is unfair to the nominees and very unfair

01:26:48.180 to our country.

01:26:50.640 Now is the time for bipartisan action.

01:26:54.400 Believe it or not, we have already proven that that's possible.

01:27:00.460 In the last Congress, both parties came together to pass unprecedented legislation to confront

01:27:09.100 the opioid crisis, a sweeping new farm bill, historic VA reforms.

01:27:19.060 And after four decades of rejection, we passed VA accountability so that we can finally terminate those who mistreat

01:27:29.580 our wonderful veterans.

01:27:49.200 And just weeks ago, both parties united for groundbreaking criminal justice reform.

01:27:57.940 They said it couldn't be done.

01:28:01.200 Last year, I heard through friends the story of Alice Johnson.

01:28:21.400 I was deeply moved.

01:28:24.180 In 1997, Alice was sentenced to life in prison as a first-time nonviolent drug offender.

01:28:36.220 Over the next 22 years, she became a prison minister, inspiring others to choose a better path.

01:28:48.180 She had a big impact on that prison population and far beyond. 0.96

01:28:55.660 Alice's story underscores the disparities and unfairness that can exist in criminal sentencing

01:29:05.220 and the need to remedy this total injustice.

01:29:10.780 She served almost that 22 years and had expected to be in prison for the remainder of her life. 0.53

01:29:23.000 In June, I commuted Alice's sentence.

01:29:28.060 When I saw Alice's beautiful family greet her at the prison gates hugging and kissing and crying

01:29:35.980 and laughing, I knew I did something right.

01:29:41.660 Alice is with us tonight.

01:29:45.520 And she is a terrific woman.

01:29:49.460 Terrific.

01:29:50.460 Alice, please.

01:29:51.460 Thank you.

01:30:20.080 Alice, thank you for reminding us that we always have the power to shape our own destiny.

01:30:29.080 Thank you very much, Alice.

01:30:30.480 Thank you very much.

01:30:36.480 Inspired by stories like Alice's, my administration worked closely with members of both parties

01:30:43.420 to sign the First Step Act into law.

01:30:47.560 This legislation reformed sentencing laws that have wrongly and disproportionately harmed

01:31:05.440 the African-American community.

01:31:09.060 The First Step Act gives nonviolent offenders the chance to reenter society as productive,

01:31:15.900 law-abiding citizens.

01:31:18.520 Now states across the country are following our lead.

01:31:24.000 America is a nation that believes in redemption.

01:31:28.220 We are also joined tonight by Matthew Charles from Tennessee.

01:31:35.780 In 1996, at the age of 30, Matthew was sentenced to 35 years for selling drugs and related offenses.

01:31:48.080 Over the next two decades, he completed more than 30 Bible studies, became a law clerk, and

01:31:56.680 mentored many of his fellow inmates.

01:32:01.360 Now Matthew is the very first person to be released from prison under the First Step Act.

01:32:08.360 Matthew, please.

01:32:13.360 Matthew, please.

01:32:36.600 Thank you, Matthew.

01:32:37.600 Welcome home.

01:32:43.600 Now, Republicans and Democrats must join forces again to confront an urgent national crisis.

01:32:59.280 Congress has 10 days left to pass a bill that will fund our government, protect our homeland,

01:33:07.560 and secure our very dangerous southern border.

01:33:12.160 Now is the time for Congress to show the world that America is committed to ending illegal immigration 1.00

01:33:20.080 and putting the ruthless coyotes, cartels, drug dealers, and human traffickers out of business.

01:33:50.080 As we speak, large, organized caravans are on the march to the United States.

01:34:02.880 We have just heard that Mexican cities, in order to remove the illegal immigrants from their 0.94

01:34:11.160 communities, are getting trucks and buses to bring them up to our country in areas where

01:34:17.980 there is little border protection.

01:34:21.820 I have ordered another 3,750 troops to our southern border to prepare for this tremendous onslaught.

01:34:35.140 This is a moral issue.

01:34:38.360 The lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security, and financial

01:34:44.980 well-being of all America.

01:34:49.280 We have a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of

01:34:55.900 our citizens.

01:34:58.100 This includes our obligation to the millions of immigrants living here today who followed

01:35:05.100 the rules and respected our laws.

01:35:09.940 American immigrants enrich our nation and strengthen our society in countless ways.

01:35:33.100 I want people to come into our country in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come 1.00

01:35:41.800 in legally.

01:35:47.020 I want people to come into our country. 1.00

01:35:58.440 Tonight, I am asking you to defend our very dangerous southern border out of love and devotion

01:36:06.340 to our fellow citizens and to our country.

01:36:11.120 No issue better illustrates the divide between America's working class and America's political

01:36:17.880 class than illegal immigration.

01:36:22.200 Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls

01:36:30.040 and gates and guards.

01:36:40.800 Meanwhile, working class Americans are left to pay the price for mass illegal immigration,

01:36:57.680 reduced jobs, reduced jobs, lower wages, overburdened schools, hospitals that are so crowded you

01:37:05.440 can't get in, increased crime, and a depleted social safety net.

01:37:14.640 Tolerance for illegal immigration is not compassionate.

01:37:19.620 It is actually very cruel.

01:37:30.500 One in three women is sexually assaulted on the long journey north.

01:37:37.940 Smugglers use migrant children as human pawns to exploit our laws and gain access to our country.

01:37:48.900 Women traffickers and sex traffickers take advantage of the wide open areas between our ports 1.00

01:37:56.040 of entry to smuggle thousands of young girls and women into the United States and to sell 0.98

01:38:03.480 them into prostitution and modern-day slavery.

01:38:10.900 Tens of thousands of innocent Americans are killed by lethal drugs that cross our border and flood

01:38:19.540 into our cities, including meth, heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl.

01:38:28.560 The savage gang, MS-13, now operates in at least 20 different American states.

01:38:37.640 And they almost all come through our southern border.

01:38:43.580 Just yesterday, an MS-13 gang member was taken into custody for a fatal shooting on a subway

01:38:51.100 platform in New York City.

01:38:54.620 We are removing these gang members by the thousands.

01:38:59.380 But until we secure our border, they're going to keep streaming right back in. 0.67

01:39:07.440 Year after year, countless Americans are murdered by criminal, illegal aliens. 1.00

01:39:14.480 I've gotten to know many wonderful angel moms and dads and families.

01:39:21.060 No one should ever have to suffer the horrible heartache that they have had to endure.

01:39:31.060 Here tonight is Deborah Bissell.

01:39:35.980 Just three weeks ago, Deborah's parents, Gerald and Sharon, were burglarized and shot to death

01:39:44.380 in their Reno, Nevada home by an illegal alien.

01:39:50.300 They were in their 80s and are survived by four children, 11 grandchildren, and 20 great-grandchildren.

01:40:00.620 Also here tonight are Gerald and Sharon's granddaughter, Heather, and great-granddaughter, Madison.

01:40:09.380 To Deborah, Heather Madison, please stand.

01:40:15.300 Few can understand your pain.

01:40:18.720 Thank you, and thank you for being here.

01:40:20.220 Thank you very much.

01:40:21.220 I will never forget, and I will fight for the memory of Gerald and Sharon,

01:40:51.200 that it should never happen again.

01:40:55.540 Not one more American life should be lost because our nation failed to control its very dangerous border.

01:41:05.540 In the last two years, our brave ICE officers made 266,000 arrests of criminal aliens, including

01:41:17.580 those charged or convicted of nearly 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes, and 4,000 killings or murders.

01:41:32.740 We are joined tonight by one of those law enforcement heroes, ICE Special Agent Elvin Hernandez.

01:41:42.360 When Elvin was a boy, he and his family legally immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic.

01:42:11.360 At the age of eight, Elvin told his dad he wanted to become a special agent.

01:42:18.360 Today, he leads investigations into the scourge of international sex trafficking.

01:42:27.360 Elvin says that if I can make sure these young girls get their justice, I've really done my job.

01:42:38.360 Thanks to his work and that of his incredible colleagues, more than 300 women and girls have been rescued from the horror of this terrible situation.

01:42:53.360 And more than 1,500 sadistic traffickers have been put behind bars.

01:43:02.360 Thank you, Elvin.

01:43:03.360 Thank you, Elvin.

01:43:09.360 We will always support the brave men and women of law enforcement.

01:43:28.360 And I pledge to you tonight that I will never abolish our heroes from ICE.

01:43:36.360 Thank you.

01:43:37.360 My administration has sent to Congress a common sense proposal to end the crisis on the southern border.

01:43:58.360 It includes humanitarian assistance, more law enforcement, drug detection at our ports, closing loopholes that enable child smuggling, and plans for a new physical barrier or wall to secure the vast areas between our ports of entry.

01:44:21.360 In the past, most of the people in this room voted for a wall, but the proper wall never got built.

01:44:30.360 I will get it built.

01:44:50.360 This is a smart, strategic, see-through steel barrier, not just a simple concrete wall.

01:44:59.360 It will be deployed in the areas identified by the border agents as having the greatest need.

01:45:07.360 And these agents will tell you where walls go up, illegal crossings go way, way down.

01:45:20.360 San Diego used to have the most illegal border crossings in our country.

01:45:36.360 In response, a strong security wall was put in place.

01:45:41.360 This powerful barrier almost completely ended illegal crossings.

01:45:49.360 The border city of El Paso, Texas, used to have extremely high rates of violent crime, one of the highest in the entire country, and considered one of our nation's most dangerous cities.

01:46:08.360 Now, immediately upon its building, with a powerful barrier in place, El Paso is one of the safest cities in our country.

01:46:24.360 Simply put, walls work and walls save lives.

01:46:43.360 So let's work together, compromise, and reach a deal that will truly make America safe.

01:46:52.360 As we work to defend our people's safety, we must also ensure our economic resurgence continues at a rapid pace.

01:47:04.360 No one has benefited more from a thriving economy than women who have filled 58% of the newly created jobs last year. 0.97

01:47:15.360 Thank you.

01:47:44.360 You weren't supposed to do that.

01:47:51.360 Thank you very much.

01:47:53.360 Thank you very much.

01:47:55.360 All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before. 0.77

01:48:05.360 Don't sit yet.

01:48:28.360 Don't sit yet.

01:48:29.360 You're going to like this.

01:48:32.360 And exactly one century after Congress passed the Constitutional Amendment, giving women the right to vote, we also have more women serving in Congress than at any time before.

01:48:49.360 Thank you very much.

01:48:50.360 Thank you very much.

01:48:52.360 Thank you very much.

01:48:55.360 Thank you very much.

01:49:07.360 USA! USA! USA! USA!

01:49:37.360 USA! USA! USA! That's great. Very great. And congratulations. That's great. As part of our commitment to improving opportunity for women everywhere, this Thursday, we are launching the first-ever government-wide initiative focused on economic empowerment for women in developing countries.

01:50:05.660 To build on our incredible economic success, one priority is paramount, reversing decades of calamitous trade policies. So bad.

01:50:25.460 We are now making it clear to China that after years of targeting our industries and stealing our intellectual property, the theft of American jobs and wealth has come to an end. 0.94

01:50:42.240 Therefore, we recently imposed tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods.

01:51:02.660 And now our Treasury is receiving billions and billions of dollars.

01:51:09.000 But I don't blame China for taking advantage of us.

01:51:13.640 I blame our leaders and representatives for allowing this travesty to happen.

01:51:20.660 I have great respect for President Xi, and we are now working on a new trade deal with China.

01:51:28.260 But it must include real structural change to end unfair trade practices, reduce our chronic trade deficit, and protect American jobs.

01:51:41.980 Another historic trade blunder was the catastrophe known as NAFTA.

01:52:02.240 I have met the men and women of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Hampshire, and many other states whose dreams were shattered by the signing of NAFTA.

01:52:18.160 For years, politicians promised them they would renegotiate for a better deal.

01:52:24.420 But no one ever tried until now.

01:52:27.940 Our new U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, the USMCA, will replace NAFTA and deliver for American workers like they haven't had delivered to for a long time.

01:52:44.540 I hope you can pass the USMCA into law so that we can bring back our manufacturing jobs in even greater numbers,

01:52:53.140 expand American agriculture, protect intellectual property, and ensure that more cars are proudly stamped with our four beautiful words.

01:53:08.680 Made in the USA.

01:53:23.140 Made in the USA.

01:53:24.180 Made in the USA.

01:53:24.800 Made in the USA.

01:53:26.040 Made in the USA.

01:53:27.640 Made in the USA.

01:53:29.640 Made in the USA.

01:53:30.680 Made in the USA.

01:53:35.360 Tonight, I am also asking you to pass the United States Reciprocal Trade Act—

01:53:38.480 so that if another country places an unfair tariff on an American product,

01:53:42.960 we can charge them the exact same tariff on the exact same product that they sell to us.

01:53:50.180 Both parties should be able to unite for a great rebuilding of America's crumbling infrastructure.

01:54:05.900 I know that Congress is eager to pass an infrastructure bill, and I am eager to work with you on legislation

01:54:27.060 to deliver new and important infrastructure investment, including investments in the cutting-edge industries of the future.

01:54:38.060 This is not an option. This is a necessity.

01:54:43.480 The next major priority for me and for all of us should be to lower the cost of health care and prescription drugs

01:54:54.240 and to protect patients with pre-existing conditions.

01:55:13.420 Already as a result of my administration's efforts in 2018,

01:55:18.420 drug prices experienced their single largest decline in 46 years.

01:55:35.420 But we must do more.

01:55:38.380 It's unacceptable that Americans pay vastly more than people in other countries

01:55:43.340 for the exact same drugs, often made in the exact same place.

01:55:51.700 This is wrong. This is unfair.

01:55:55.860 And together, we will stop it.

01:55:59.520 And we'll stop it fast.

01:56:00.940 I am asking Congress to pass legislation

01:56:16.940 that finally takes on the problem of global freeloading

01:56:21.300 and delivers fairness and price transparency for American patients.

01:56:28.140 Finally.

01:56:29.020 We should also require drug companies, insurance companies, and hospitals

01:56:41.580 to disclose real prices to foster competition

01:56:46.100 and bring costs way down.

01:56:49.120 No force in history has done more to advance the human condition

01:57:08.720 than American freedom.

01:57:11.180 In recent years...

01:57:13.180 In recent years, we have made remarkable progress

01:57:33.920 in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

01:57:38.240 In recent years, scientific breakthroughs have brought

01:57:41.840 a once-distant dream within reach.

01:57:47.960 My budget will ask Democrats and Republicans

01:57:51.160 to make the needed commitment

01:57:53.720 to eliminate the HIV epidemic

01:57:58.160 in the United States within 10 years.

01:58:02.580 We have made incredible strides.

01:58:05.020 Incredible.

01:58:05.660 Together, we will defeat AIDS in America and beyond.

01:58:22.800 Tonight, I am also asking you to join me

01:58:31.400 in another fight

01:58:32.820 that all Americans can get behind

01:58:36.140 the fight against childhood cancer.

01:58:40.200 Joining Melania in the gallery this evening

01:58:58.000 is a very brave 10-year-old girl,

01:59:02.700 Grace Eline.

01:59:03.640 Every birthday...

01:59:05.640 Every birthday...

01:59:06.640 Hi, Grace.

01:59:30.600 Every birthday since she was four,

01:59:36.820 Grace asked her friends to donate

01:59:39.120 to St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

01:59:42.940 She did not know that one day

01:59:45.060 she might be a patient herself.

01:59:48.840 That's what happened.

01:59:50.500 Last year, Grace was diagnosed with brain cancer.

01:59:54.040 Immediately, she began radiation treatment.

01:59:58.780 At the same time, she rallied her community

02:00:02.680 and raised more than $40,000

02:00:04.600 for the fight against cancer.

02:00:08.180 When Grace completed treatment last fall, 0.96

02:00:34.220 her doctors and nurses cheered.

02:00:38.080 They loved her.

02:00:39.240 They still love her.

02:00:40.800 With tears in their eyes

02:00:42.320 as she hung up a poster that read,

02:00:46.500 Last Day of Chemo.

02:00:48.360 Thank you very much, Grace.

02:01:09.300 You are a great inspiration

02:01:10.800 to everyone in this room.

02:01:12.260 Thank you very much.

02:01:13.080 Many childhood cancers

02:01:17.000 have not seen new therapies in decades.

02:01:21.200 My budget will ask Congress

02:01:22.600 for $500 million over the next 10 years

02:01:25.640 to fund this critical, life-saving research.

02:01:29.300 To help support working parents,

02:01:32.460 the time has come to pass

02:01:34.160 school choice for Americans' children.

02:01:37.220 I am also proud to be the first president

02:01:55.960 to include in my budget

02:01:57.940 a plan for nationwide paid family leave

02:02:01.580 so that every new parent

02:02:04.060 has the chance to bond with their newborn child.

02:02:08.620 Yes!

02:02:10.180 Yes!

02:02:10.680 Yes!

02:02:15.360 Yes!

02:02:16.000 Yes!

02:02:16.960 Yes!

02:02:17.460 Yes!

02:02:18.180 Yes!

02:02:18.620 Yes!

02:02:18.980 Yes!

02:02:19.420 Yes!

02:02:20.540 Yes!

02:02:20.860 Yes!

02:02:21.540 Yes!

02:02:22.540 Yes!

02:02:23.040 There could be no greater contrast

02:02:24.840 to the beautiful image

02:02:26.620 of a mother holding her infant child

02:02:30.160 than the chilling displays our nation saw in recent days.

02:02:37.400 Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight

02:02:40.600 upon the passage of legislation

02:02:43.520 that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother's womb 1.00

02:02:48.880 moments from birth.

02:02:51.660 These are living, feeling, beautiful babies

02:02:54.100 who will never get the chance to share their love

02:02:57.580 and their dreams with the world.

02:03:00.160 And then we had the case of the governor of Virginia

02:03:04.520 where he stated he would execute a baby after birth.

02:03:09.920 To defend the dignity of every person,

02:03:14.460 I am asking Congress to pass legislation

02:03:17.300 to prohibit the late-term abortion of children

02:03:22.460 who can feel pain in the mother's womb. 0.98

02:03:26.000 Let us work together to build a culture

02:03:39.760 that cherishes innocent life.

02:03:41.300 Let us work together to build a culture

02:03:51.760 that cherishes innocent life.

02:03:54.220 And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth.

02:04:09.080 And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth.

02:04:22.120 All children, born and unborn,

02:04:25.600 are made in the holy image of God.

02:04:28.380 the final part of my agenda

02:04:33.140 is to protect American security.

02:04:38.580 Over the last two years,

02:04:41.140 we have begun to fully rebuild

02:04:44.020 the United States military

02:04:46.560 with $700 billion last year

02:04:51.380 and $716 billion this year.

02:04:56.400 We are also getting other nations

02:04:58.900 to pay their fair share.

02:05:01.560 finally, finally, finally, finally.

02:05:17.560 For years, the United States

02:05:19.560 was being treated very unfairly

02:05:21.860 by friends of ours, members of NATO.

02:05:28.220 But now we have secured,

02:05:31.900 over the last couple of years,

02:05:35.560 more than $100 billion

02:05:37.740 of increase in defense spending

02:05:42.380 from our NATO allies.

02:05:45.560 They said it couldn't be done.

02:05:47.740 As part of our military buildup,

02:06:02.040 the United States is developing

02:06:03.720 a state-of-the-art missile defense system.

02:06:07.420 Under my administration,

02:06:09.500 we will never apologize

02:06:11.460 for advancing America's interests.

02:06:15.020 For example, decades ago,

02:06:19.140 the United States entered into a treaty

02:06:21.720 with Russia in which we agreed

02:06:24.680 to limit and reduce our missile capability.

02:06:29.900 While we followed the agreement

02:06:31.960 and the rules to the letter,

02:06:35.560 Russia repeatedly violated its terms.

02:06:40.380 It's been going on for many years.

02:06:42.640 That is why I announced

02:06:44.780 that the United States

02:06:46.100 is officially withdrawing

02:06:48.620 from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty,

02:06:52.860 or INF Treaty.

02:06:55.640 Perhaps

02:06:56.760 We really have no choice.

02:07:14.360 Perhaps we can negotiate

02:07:16.880 a different agreement,

02:07:18.480 adding China and others.

02:07:20.700 Or perhaps we can't,

02:07:22.600 in which case we will outspend

02:07:25.780 and out-innovate

02:07:27.300 all others by far.

02:07:41.600 As part of a bold new diplomacy,

02:07:45.060 we continue our historic push

02:07:47.200 for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

02:07:50.940 Our hostages have come home.

02:07:55.380 Nuclear testing has stopped.

02:07:58.020 And there has not been a missile launch

02:08:00.720 in more than 15 months.

02:08:03.680 If I had not been elected

02:08:05.820 President of the United States,

02:08:08.120 we would right now,

02:08:10.320 in my opinion,

02:08:11.700 be in a major war with North Korea.

02:08:14.420 Much work remains to be done,

02:08:24.680 but my relationship

02:08:26.420 with Kim Jong-un

02:08:28.660 is a good one.

02:08:30.700 Chairman Kim and I

02:08:31.820 will meet again

02:08:33.640 on February 27th

02:08:35.660 and 28th in Vietnam.

02:08:37.640 Two weeks ago,

02:08:47.360 the United States

02:08:48.280 officially recognized

02:08:50.040 the legitimate government

02:08:52.100 of Venezuela

02:08:52.980 and its new president,

02:08:54.920 Juan Guaido.

02:08:58.020 We stand with the Venezuelan people

02:09:10.260 in their noble quest for freedom,

02:09:13.200 and we condemn the brutality

02:09:16.480 of the Maduro regime

02:09:19.840 whose socialist policies

02:09:22.240 have turned that nation

02:09:23.720 from being the wealthiest

02:09:25.940 in South America

02:09:27.660 into a state

02:09:29.380 of abject poverty and despair.

02:09:32.360 Here in the United States,

02:09:40.900 we are alarmed

02:09:42.800 by the new calls

02:09:44.460 to adopt socialism

02:09:47.480 in our country.

02:09:52.260 America was founded

02:09:54.100 on liberty and independence

02:09:55.900 and not government coercion,

02:09:59.300 domination, and control.

02:10:01.040 We are born free

02:10:03.000 and we will stay free.

02:10:22.780 Tonight, we renew our resolve

02:10:26.060 that America

02:10:27.900 will never be

02:10:29.620 a socialist country.

02:10:31.860 One of the most complex

02:10:53.940 set of challenges we face

02:10:56.180 and have for many years

02:10:58.140 is in the Middle East.

02:11:01.220 Our approach is based

02:11:02.680 on principle realism,

02:11:05.380 not discredited theories

02:11:07.680 that have failed

02:11:08.560 for decades

02:11:09.560 to yield progress.

02:11:13.180 For this reason,

02:11:14.940 my administration

02:11:16.820 recognized

02:11:18.700 the true capital of Israel

02:11:20.700 will and proudly opened

02:11:22.160 the American embassy

02:11:23.460 in Jerusalem.

02:11:24.240 Thank you.

02:11:24.500 Thank you.

02:11:24.540 Thank you.

02:11:25.080 Thank you.

02:11:25.480 Thank you.

02:11:25.980 Thank you.

02:11:26.480 Thank you.

02:11:26.540 Thank you.

02:11:26.980 Thank you.

02:11:27.480 Thank you.

02:11:39.540 Our brave troops

02:11:41.220 have now been fighting

02:11:43.660 in the Middle East

02:11:44.640 for almost 19 years.

02:11:47.460 in Afghanistan and Iraq.

02:11:52.200 Nearly 7,000 American heroes

02:11:55.340 have given their lives.

02:11:58.580 More than 52,000 Americans

02:12:00.920 have been badly wounded.

02:12:04.300 We have spent

02:12:05.700 more than $7 trillion

02:12:08.020 in fighting wars

02:12:11.040 in the Middle East.

02:12:11.820 As a candidate for president,

02:12:15.420 I loudly pledged

02:12:17.940 a new approach.

02:12:20.420 Great nations do not fight

02:12:23.420 endless wars.

02:12:24.680 When I took office, ISIS controlled more than 20,000 square miles in Iraq and Syria just

02:12:51.400 two years ago.

02:12:54.060 Today we have liberated virtually all of the territory from the grip of these bloodthirsty

02:13:02.700 monsters.

02:13:05.380 Now as we work with our allies to destroy the remnants of ISIS, it is time to give our brave

02:13:13.960 warriors in Syria a warm welcome home.

02:13:19.640 I have also accelerated our negotiations to reach, if possible, a political settlement

02:13:28.080 in Afghanistan.

02:13:31.600 The opposing side is also very happy to be negotiating.

02:13:39.280 Our troops have fought with unmatched valor.

02:13:44.760 And thanks to their bravery, we are now able to pursue a possible political solution to

02:13:54.360 this long and bloody conflict.

02:14:09.000 In Afghanistan, my administration is holding constructive talks with a number of Afghan

02:14:21.640 groups, including the Taliban.

02:14:26.220 As we make progress in these negotiations, we will be able to reduce our troops' presence

02:14:33.260 and focus on counterterrorism.

02:14:36.200 And we will indeed focus on counterterrorism.

02:14:40.980 We do not know whether we will achieve an agreement.

02:14:46.160 But we do know that after two decades of war, the hour has come to at least try for peace.

02:14:55.380 When the other side would like to do the same thing, it's time.

02:15:11.380 Above all, friend and foe alike must never doubt this nation's power and will to defend our people.

02:15:20.380 18 years ago, violent terrorists attacked the U.S.S. coal.

02:15:28.580 And last month, American forces killed one of the leaders of that attack.

02:15:35.060 Yeah!

02:15:36.060 Yeah!

02:15:37.060 Yeah!

02:15:38.060 Yeah!

02:15:39.060 Yeah!

02:15:40.060 Yeah!

02:15:41.060 Yeah!

02:15:42.060 Yeah!

02:15:43.060 Yeah!

02:15:44.060 Yeah!

02:15:45.060 Yeah!

02:15:47.060 Yeah!

02:15:48.060 Yeah!

02:15:49.060 Yeah!

02:15:50.060 Yeah!

02:15:51.060 Yeah!

02:15:52.060 Yeah!

02:15:53.060 Yeah!

02:15:54.060 Yeah!

02:15:55.060 Yeah!

02:15:56.060 Yeah!

02:15:57.060 Yeah!

02:15:58.060 Yeah!

02:15:59.060 Yeah!

02:16:00.060 Yeah!

02:16:01.060 We are honored to be joined tonight by Tom Wibberley, whose son, Navy Seaman Craig Wibberley,

02:16:02.060 was one of the 17 sailors we tragically lost.

02:16:06.020 Tom, we vow to always remember the heroes of the U.S.S. coal.

02:16:11.060 call. Thank you.

02:16:32.860 My administration has acted decisively to confront the world's leading state

02:16:39.380 sponsor of terror, the radical regime in Iran. It is a radical regime. They do bad,

02:16:50.660 bad things. To ensure this corrupt dictatorship never acquires nuclear

02:16:57.500 weapons, I withdrew the United States from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal.

02:17:09.380 And last fall, we put in place the toughest sanctions ever imposed by us on a country.

02:17:25.840 We will not avert our eyes from a regime that chants death to America and threatens genocide

02:17:35.420 against the Jewish people. 0.72

02:17:51.420 We must never ignore the vile poison of anti-Semitism or those who spread its venomous creed.

02:17:59.420 With one voice, we must confront this hatred anywhere and everywhere it occurs.

02:18:07.420 Just months ago, 11 Jewish Americans were viciously murdered in an anti-Semitic attack on the Tree

02:18:19.260 of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. SWAT officer Timothy Mattson raced into the gunfire

02:18:27.420 and was shot seven times, chasing down the killer. And he was very successful.

02:18:37.420 Timothy has just had his 12th surgery, and he's going in for many more.

02:18:45.420 But he made the trip to be here with us tonight. Officer Mattson, please.

02:18:57.420 Thank you.

02:18:58.420 Appreciate it.

02:18:59.420 Thank you.

02:19:02.420 Thank you.

02:19:05.420 Thank you.

02:19:10.420 Thank you.

02:19:15.420 Thank you.

02:19:19.420 Thank you.

02:19:43.340 We are forever grateful.

02:19:44.680 Thank you very much.

02:19:45.980 Tonight, we are also joined by Pittsburgh survivor Judah Samet.

02:19:54.720 He arrived at the synagogue as the massacre began.

02:19:59.860 But not only did Judah narrowly escape death last fall, more than seven decades ago, he

02:20:07.380 narrowly survived the Nazi concentration camps.

02:20:13.340 Today is Judah's 81st birthday.

02:20:20.340 Thank you.

02:20:27.340 Thank you.

02:20:28.340 Happy birthday to you.

02:20:34.340 Happy birthday to you.

02:20:37.340 Happy birthday to you.

02:20:51.340 Happy birthday to you.

02:20:55.340 Happy birthday to you.

02:20:59.340 Happy birthday to you.

02:21:21.340 They wouldn't do that for me, Judah.

02:21:27.340 Judah says he can still remember the exact moment nearly 75 years ago, after 10 months

02:21:35.880 in a concentration camp, when he and his family were put on a train and told they were going

02:21:43.460 to another camp.

02:21:45.720 Suddenly, the train screeched to a very strong halt.

02:21:52.720 A soldier appeared, Judah's family braced for the absolute worst.

02:21:58.720 Then his father cried out with joy, it's the Americans, it's the Americans.

02:22:15.720 Thank you.

02:22:30.720 A second Holocaust survivor who is here tonight, Joshua Kaufman, was a prisoner at Dachau.

02:22:40.720 He remembers watching through a hole in the wall of a cattle car as American soldiers rolled

02:22:50.600 in with tanks.

02:22:51.720 To me, Joshua recalls, the American soldiers were proof that God exists and they came down

02:22:59.720 from the sky.

02:23:00.720 They came down from heaven.

02:23:02.720 I began this evening by honoring three soldiers who fought on D-Day in the Second World War.

02:23:13.600 One of them was Herman Zeitschik.

02:23:17.780 But there is more to Herman's story.

02:23:19.720 A year after he stormed the beaches of Normandy, Herman was one of the American soldiers who

02:23:29.600 helped liberate Dachau.

02:23:31.600 applause

02:23:43.480 He was one of the Americans

02:24:08.180 who helped rescue Joshua from that hell on Earth.

02:24:14.920 Almost 75 years later, Herman and Joshua

02:24:19.220 are both together in the gallery tonight,

02:24:23.560 seated side by side here in the home of American freedom.

02:24:29.700 Herman and Joshua, your presence this evening

02:24:34.340 is very much appreciated.

02:24:36.640 Thank you very much.

02:25:06.640 Thank you.

02:25:12.380 When American soldiers set out beneath the dark skies

02:25:16.080 over the English Channel in the early hours of D-Day 1944,

02:25:22.980 they were just young men of 18 and 19 hurtling on fragile landing craft

02:25:29.640 toward the most momentous battle in the history of war.

02:25:36.240 They did not know if they would survive the hour.

02:25:40.980 They did not know if they would grow old.

02:25:45.260 But they knew that America had to prevail.

02:25:50.320 Their cause was this nation and generations yet unborn.

02:25:57.900 Why did they do it?

02:26:01.260 They did it for America.

02:26:03.000 They did it for us.

02:26:05.800 Everything that has come since our triumph over communism,

02:26:14.380 our giant leaps of science and discovery,

02:26:18.820 our unrivaled progress towards equality and justice.

02:26:23.820 All of it is possible thanks to the blood and tears

02:26:26.960 and courage and vision of the Americans who came before.

02:26:34.800 Think of this Capitol, think of this very chamber

02:26:40.880 where lawmakers before you voted to end slavery,

02:26:45.380 to build the railroads and the highways,

02:26:49.480 and defeat fascism, to secure civil rights,

02:26:56.080 and to face down evil empires.

02:27:00.400 Here tonight, we have legislators from across this magnificent republic.

02:27:09.780 You have come from the rocky shores of Maine

02:27:14.580 and the volcanic peaks of Hawaii,

02:27:18.780 from the snowy woods of Wisconsin

02:27:21.980 and the red deserts of Arizona,

02:27:25.400 from the green farms of Kentucky

02:27:27.700 and the golden beaches of California.

02:27:32.180 Together, we represent the most extraordinary nation

02:27:38.220 in all of history.

02:27:40.880 What will we do with this moment?

02:27:45.520 How will we be remembered?

02:27:49.220 I ask the men and women of this Congress,

02:27:53.660 look at the opportunities before us.

02:27:58.240 Our most thrilling achievements are still ahead.

02:28:04.340 Our most exciting journeys still await.

02:28:09.540 Our biggest victories are still to come.

02:28:14.880 We have not yet begun to dream.

02:28:19.620 We must choose whether we are defined by our differences

02:28:24.900 or whether we dare to transcend them.

02:28:30.000 We must choose whether we squander our great inheritance

02:28:35.900 or whether we proudly declare that we are Americans.

02:28:41.240 We do the incredible.

02:28:43.720 We defy the impossible.

02:28:46.940 We conquer the unknown.

02:28:49.940 This is the time to reignite the American imagination.

02:28:57.460 This is the time to search for the tallest summit

02:29:02.420 and set our sights on the brightest star.

02:29:06.960 This is the time to rekindle the bonds of love

02:29:10.300 and loyalty and memory that link us together

02:29:14.260 as citizens, as neighbors,

02:29:16.940 as patriots.

02:29:19.840 This is our future, our fate, and our choice to make.

02:29:26.340 I am asking you to choose greatness.

02:29:30.560 No matter the trials we face,

02:29:34.020 no matter the challenges to come,

02:29:36.860 we must go forward together.

02:29:39.920 We must keep America first in our hearts.

02:29:44.660 We must keep freedom alive in our souls.

02:29:49.560 And we must always keep faith in America's destiny.

02:29:55.600 That one nation under God must be the hope and the promise

02:30:03.620 and the light and the glory among all the nations of the world.

02:30:11.260 Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

02:30:15.160 Thank you very much.

02:30:17.060 Thank you.

02:30:22.060 And that was the President of the United States, Donald Trump,

02:30:32.360 wrapping up his second State of the Union address,

02:30:36.140 clocking in at like one hour, 30 minutes.

02:30:38.960 It only felt like seven hours and 50 minutes.

02:30:41.640 It had some moments, though.

02:30:42.980 It did have moments.

02:30:43.660 I think that may have been...

02:30:46.660 There were highs there that were the best he's ever been.

02:30:48.640 I agree.

02:30:49.020 There were certain things that he did there that were the best he's ever been.

02:30:51.500 And some of them were exactly the sort of hammer-like attacks that we were looking for.

02:30:55.360 A couple moments stick out to me.

02:30:57.380 Obviously, his declaration that America will not be socialist.

02:31:00.580 It was a great moment.

02:31:01.320 Which is great because Democrats still want to run away from that label, rightly.

02:31:05.060 So you can see Nancy Pelosi sort of softly clapping in the back.

02:31:07.220 Not too loudly, but a little bit softly.

02:31:08.880 Washington Schultz actually standing ovation for that line.

02:31:11.480 Yeah, that's right.

02:31:12.260 And then the other moments that came to mind,

02:31:15.380 obviously the singing of happy birthday to the Holocaust survivor and the tree of life survivor

02:31:19.200 and Trump doing his little conducting thing from the podium.

02:31:22.200 But that's a great American moment.

02:31:23.580 I mean, and it's a great American story.

02:31:25.180 The following story about the Holocaust survivor next to the guy who helped liberate Dachau.

02:31:29.320 That's an amazing, amazing thing.

02:31:30.860 And look, this is an unbelievable country.

02:31:32.840 And when you come away feeling like it's a great country, the president did his job.

02:31:36.060 So I think that...

02:31:37.060 Americans are here is the line that the guy on the train is hearing.

02:31:40.600 It's very inspiring.

02:31:41.560 Right.

02:31:41.780 And then, obviously, his move on abortion, which I wish he had spent a little bit more time on,

02:31:45.840 but he went very hard on it for the time that he did spend.

02:31:48.740 And calling out Democrats on that issue was great.

02:31:51.200 Now, my only problem, honestly, is that he buried the lead.

02:31:55.340 I agree.

02:31:55.700 Meaning all that stuff, all the best stuff was in the last 20 minutes.

02:31:59.260 Like, you could have skipped the 45 minutes in the middle and just gone to the end,

02:32:03.340 and that was the best stuff in the speech.

02:32:06.280 You know, he did his immigration thing.

02:32:08.100 We've heard the immigration thing before.

02:32:09.540 It's good for what it's worth, but he went long on it.

02:32:11.880 And when he talked about the greatness of the economy and all of this, that's fine.

02:32:16.720 I mean, the media aren't telling that story.

02:32:18.100 It's worthwhile for him to tell that story.

02:32:19.760 He did make a gambit that worked. 1.00

02:32:22.920 He played to the egos of the idiots on the other side of the aisle by saying, 1.00

02:32:26.400 oh, look at all these women members of Congress. 1.00

02:32:27.780 And they got up and cheered themselves.

02:32:28.860 They wouldn't cheer low black unemployment, low Hispanic unemployment. 0.99

02:32:32.000 They wouldn't cheer record employment overall.

02:32:34.560 They wouldn't even, they wouldn't cheer any of those things.

02:32:36.700 But you tell them that lots of women are working, and you guys are in Congress,

02:32:40.500 and they're standing up and cheering each other and giving each other high fives.

02:32:43.180 I mean, it's just obnoxiousness in the highest order.

02:32:43.800 Is there anything less appealing than that?

02:32:45.760 Was there, than these Democrat congressmen dancing and cheering themselves?

02:32:50.780 Forget everything else in the speech.

02:32:52.180 It really, I can't imagine that's going to be a good point.

02:32:54.060 It's an unpopular opinion, but I hate all girl power nonsense. 1.00

02:32:58.220 And it's for this reason.

02:32:59.700 We live in a country where, you know, women have a probably better shot now at graduating college than men. 1.00

02:33:08.180 They have more political power in terms of the voting electorate.

02:33:11.740 There are more women in college than men. 1.00

02:33:13.380 There are more women in college than men. 1.00

02:33:14.760 Yeah.

02:33:15.120 And yet, women cheer themselves in a way that would be so unbecoming of any other group of people, male, female, regardless of race. 0.98

02:33:24.800 No one is allowed to celebrate themselves except women. 0.98

02:33:28.680 And I thought, I'm with you, I thought it was a fairly disgusting display for these women. 1.00

02:33:34.180 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not clap during the speech.

02:33:37.580 In fact, there were times where she would stand, as sort of the caucus would stand in support of...

02:33:42.120 She was trying to split the baby, but Democrats have been very good on that the last time we saw it. 0.99

02:33:46.580 But the one time that she's clapping is basically for her ascending power.

02:33:50.540 She did miss a high five. 0.73

02:33:51.200 She did miss a high five. 0.73

02:33:51.220 She did miss a high five. 0.73

02:33:51.240 She was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

02:33:53.380 It was maybe the story of her life, actually.

02:33:55.260 It was pretty great.

02:33:56.160 Now, there were a couple of low points for Trump, I thought, during the speech.

02:33:58.840 I thought, obviously, his statements that, you know, the economy is great and everything will be great if we can pass legislation and no investigation.

02:34:06.300 And it was like this little side note right here. 1.00

02:34:08.400 It was an actual stupid moment. 1.00

02:34:09.420 It was a stupid moment. 1.00

02:34:10.640 It was a real misfire politically because even his own people were going, am I supposed to clap for that? 1.00

02:34:14.560 Am I not supposed to clap for that?

02:34:15.080 Do we know?

02:34:15.480 Was it in the written speech?

02:34:16.240 I think it was in the written speech.

02:34:17.340 Really?

02:34:17.820 I think it was.

02:34:18.800 But it was a real...

02:34:19.860 And I'm sure he insisted on it being in there, but it's a mistake because the entire speech is him flying over the top of a lot of these controversies.

02:34:26.140 And then he just sort of dives right down in the middle of one to say, everything will be great if you leave me alone, which looks far too defensive.

02:34:33.220 That was one moment that struck me as particularly bad.

02:34:36.060 And the other moment that struck me as particularly bad is when he was suggesting that we would be in the middle of a major war with North Korea or not for his presence in the office, which, of course, is just absurdity on every level.

02:34:44.240 You know, I certainly agree with you.

02:34:45.740 I think the speech was built like kind of a mountain.

02:34:47.860 He got to the top of it.

02:34:48.980 That last 20 minutes was fantastic.

02:34:50.780 I can't help but notice, and I agree with you about the bad moments. 0.86

02:34:53.520 The investigation thing was just like kind of a clunky note, you know, and the thing about Korea was ridiculous.

02:34:59.560 However, however, the story that he tells is not the story that the Democrats tell.

02:35:04.400 And it is incredibly obvious and incredibly powerful that he is telling the story that this is a great country.

02:35:10.780 And, you know, the funny thing about that is it's almost corny when you say it, and it has the kind of jingoistic sound.

02:35:16.380 But this is a great country.

02:35:17.540 I mean, it's an amazing country, and the things that have happened here have happened nowhere else.

02:35:21.340 This is the pinnacle of human civilization on Earth forever, forever.

02:35:25.460 Never has life been as good as it is right at this moment.

02:35:28.620 And the fact that we have a president who gets up and says that after eight years of a president who is always kind of waffling around, apologizing to tyrants, always telling us we could be great.

02:35:38.320 We might be great.

02:35:39.280 We might someday, someday, if we could only follow his lead, we might achieve greatness.

02:35:43.740 To have somebody sit there and say, you know what, we have been handed a torch.

02:35:47.860 We've been handed a flame of freedom that people died for from the very beginning, and it's our turn, and we have to do something about it.

02:35:54.640 Just to hear somebody talk like that, it's uplifting, and it's beautiful.

02:35:58.320 And, you know, I wish he could do it more.

02:36:00.060 It cuts Stacey Abrams off the knees a little bit. 1.00

02:36:01.940 So we're not going to be able to see her response because we're not licensed to see her response, apparently.

02:36:06.780 But it cuts her off the knees because now if she comes out and she starts talking about all the problems with America, it seems almost petty.

02:36:11.700 Right.

02:36:11.880 I mean, after he went out there and paid homage to World War II survivors.

02:36:15.920 Moon landing.

02:36:16.660 Moon landing and 10-year-old girls surviving cancer.

02:36:20.320 And then if you have Stacey Abrams out there talking about what a problem he is and America is in a terrible place and all this stuff, it's a pretty feel-good speech.

02:36:27.440 So, you know, I think he accomplished his goal tonight, which I didn't think he was going to, and he did.

02:36:31.920 Yeah, you know, I played this thing on my show today of Don Lemon interviewing Gladys Knight, who sung the national anthem at the Super Bowl.

02:36:40.160 And she said, you know, in my day, we sang the national anthem.

02:36:42.880 We prayed when we went to school.

02:36:44.900 She said things that everybody in this room would say and agree to.

02:36:47.940 And Don Lemon said, aren't you going to hurt your career?

02:36:51.020 Aren't you worried you might hurt your career by singing the national anthem?

02:36:53.160 He's talking to the Empress of Soul, not the Queen of Soul, the Empress of Soul.

02:36:56.760 Don Lemon is telling her she's going to hurt her career at 74 because she sang the national anthem.

02:37:01.640 That is the difference.

02:37:02.620 And it's such a core difference that even Donald Trump, for all the problems we have with him, can hit that note and really make it rain.

02:37:08.840 This is actually why the woman power thing bothers me. 1.00

02:37:10.840 It actually, it's a microcosm of the greater problem you're describing, which is that a country where women are the most successful they've ever been in history 0.99

02:37:19.220 shouldn't be celebrating as though women are, like, finally, someone said something nice about women.

02:37:24.180 Let's all celebrate, move in.

02:37:25.380 But that's everything that the Democrats, every position they take is that, that you stand in the most prosperous country that's ever existed.

02:37:32.660 And you basically try to make the argument that people here are economically oppressed.

02:37:36.840 You stand in the country that innovates the health care that anyone on Earth today getting a pill, it was innovated in America.

02:37:43.540 Anyone on Earth today getting a surgery, it was innovated in America.

02:37:46.180 And you say that we have the worst health care system in the world, that they peddle this contra-reality.

02:37:53.460 And then they all buy into it and form a narrative around it.

02:37:56.560 And then they all celebrate as though they're, they legitimately, I think Don Lemon, I thought this watching the Super Bowl.

02:38:02.540 You're watching the Super Bowl and they trot out all these civil rights activists from the 1950s and 1960s.

02:38:08.520 You know, Dr. Bernadie's King and John Lewis and, and, and all these characters.

02:38:13.600 And I thought, you're, you're having to trot out all these 70-year-old civil rights icons because there hasn't been a civil rights problem in this country.

02:38:23.260 And the last, you can't find a 40-year-old civil rights icon because there aren't any, because there has been nothing to stand against.

02:38:31.200 But, but this perception that's peddled by Don Lemon and, and all the people who couldn't stand during this speech is that, no, no, no.

02:38:37.820 If anything, if anything, things are worse now.

02:38:40.560 You know, at least that.

02:38:41.620 You know, it's amazing.

02:38:42.260 It just occurred to me.

02:38:43.060 When you watch that speech.

02:38:44.360 Yeah.

02:38:44.600 The, you see all these Democrats and they're constantly talking about check your privilege this and check your privilege that.

02:38:50.180 Here is the fact.

02:38:51.080 Everyone who is born today is privileged.

02:38:53.600 Everyone who is born in the last 30, 40, 50 years in the United States.

02:38:57.400 These are the most privileged human beings ever to walk the earth.

02:39:00.180 So check your privilege.

02:39:01.740 Seriously. 1.00

02:39:02.420 Check your damn privilege. 1.00

02:39:03.740 Like all these women who are dancing there. 1.00

02:39:05.440 Oh, look at us.

02:39:06.040 We finally overcome. 0.97

02:39:07.060 You didn't overcome a damn thing. 0.95

02:39:08.540 Your grandmothers overcame something. 0.97

02:39:09.900 That's right.

02:39:10.100 Your great grandmothers overcame something.

02:39:11.720 And that's really what the speech was about, right?

02:39:13.200 When Trump was saying, when he was paying homage, half the people he was paying homage to are people who are over the age of 70.

02:39:17.580 Right.

02:39:17.760 And he was saying, you know, our privilege is to be their grandkids.

02:39:20.800 Our privilege is to be their kids.

02:39:22.240 They're the ones who did the heavy lifting.

02:39:23.840 We're just here picking up the leftovers.

02:39:25.720 And it's our job to push it on to the next generation.

02:39:28.160 The one privilege that people will not recognize on the left is the privilege of having been born here and the privilege of standing on the shoulders of giants.

02:39:35.120 They act as though the earth began spinning the moment they arrived here and that they've had to overcome such terrible burdens.

02:39:41.220 Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has not had to overcome a burden.

02:39:44.200 We live in a country.

02:39:45.060 We live in a country.

02:39:45.940 Neither have I, by the way.

02:39:46.820 No, of course.

02:39:47.400 And neither has anyone who's living in the United States to get a, with very rare exceptions.

02:39:50.640 There are some people who have to overcome burdens.

02:39:52.040 We live in a country where a young woman in her 20s of Hispanic origin can go from being a bartender to a sitting United States congressman and complain about it. 0.97

02:40:02.020 Right.

02:40:02.440 Right.

02:40:02.860 And consider herself a victim.

02:40:03.720 And consider herself a victim.

02:40:04.480 And say that she's not privileged.

02:40:05.680 And then when she does acknowledge her privilege, her privilege is that she's a cisgender woman, as though that's the privilege. 0.52

02:40:11.240 You know, the privilege is that you live in this country.

02:40:13.300 The privilege is that you are who you are at a time that is this time.

02:40:17.400 And that's why when Trump said, this is what the left number understood about Trump's slogan, make America great again.

02:40:21.860 It was never about this idea that America was ever at any point in the past a utopia.

02:40:26.380 It was about the idea that the people who inhabited America were infused with the idea of an American dream, that they were motivated by that idea.

02:40:32.860 And if you want to make America great again, you have to get back to that idea that motivated people, our grandparents, to storm the shores of Normandy.

02:40:39.080 You think anybody in that chamber is storming the shores of Normandy today?

02:40:41.540 They're barely storming the shores of UC Berkeley.

02:40:43.540 Yeah.

02:40:43.900 This is the thing that makes this speech so jarring, even for me in this culture, but especially for people on the left, is gratitude.

02:40:52.020 We have utterly lost a sense of gratitude.

02:40:55.340 It is nothing but pride and entitlement that people feel.

02:40:58.420 And so he goes out and he says, thank you.

02:41:00.220 Thank you for what you did, guy who stormed the beaches of Normandy.

02:41:03.360 Thank you for what you did.

02:41:04.580 And it's so, we're just not used to saying thank you anymore.

02:41:07.540 And this guy, the billionaire bragger.

02:41:09.600 Who has never said thank you in his life.

02:41:10.860 Right.

02:41:11.220 And he really is embodying that.

02:41:13.220 And, you know, we always have this joke between us about me being an optimist.

02:41:16.480 But think of my life for a minute.

02:41:17.680 I'm 152 years old.

02:41:19.560 I've never seen a major war.

02:41:21.580 I've seen racism and I've seen it disappear.

02:41:25.260 I've seen it disappear.

02:41:26.160 It vanished.

02:41:26.840 You know, it was gone.

02:41:27.820 And I think it's not personal racism.

02:41:30.080 That's always with us.

02:41:31.020 But institutional racism.

02:41:32.320 Like legal racism.

02:41:33.420 Just erased.

02:41:34.080 You know, I've seen all this stuff.

02:41:35.400 I've never had to fight.

02:41:36.680 I've never had to pick up a rifle.

02:41:38.000 I've never had to do any of those things.

02:41:39.720 And I'm so grateful. 0.97

02:41:40.940 I'm so, I'd be a jerk if I weren't an optimist. 0.95

02:41:43.360 And really, I think that that was the contrast. 0.80

02:41:46.100 Who are the people who are standing up?

02:41:47.820 Are you standing up to cheer the Holocaust survivor and the American soldier who liberated him?

02:41:52.600 Or are you standing up to cheer yourself for doing legitimately nothing?

02:41:56.440 For doing nothing.

02:41:57.980 For being born in the richest country in the history of mankind where nobody stood in your way

02:42:01.840 and where you were feeded for precisely the reasons that you're complaining about.

02:42:06.120 Where all of the attention that you're getting is based upon the intersectional identity you say is oppressing you.

02:42:10.660 Nobody would pay attention to Alexander Ocasio-Cortez or Rashida Tlaib or any of the fresh faces of the Democratic Party.

02:42:16.380 Were they not members of minority intersectional groups?

02:42:18.740 That is why they are receiving this attention.

02:42:20.340 They're brand new Democratic Congress people who are white folks and they're not receiving that attention.

02:42:24.540 Why?

02:42:25.000 Because in this country right now, we are so sensitive to the fact that we have had a terrible history with a lot of various groups.

02:42:31.680 And now we're bending over backward to say that we're excited.

02:42:34.660 This is a sign that we've welcomed everybody in.

02:42:36.940 And instead of people saying, you know what?

02:42:38.940 That's amazing.

02:42:39.600 What an incredible country.

02:42:40.660 Their answer is, yeah, you know, F this country.

02:42:42.520 This country, it's a terrible place and it continues to be a terrible place.

02:42:46.500 And we have to make the country not a terrible place by abandoning the central values that allowed me to be a 29-year-old bartender from Queens who becomes the most celebrated congressperson in America.

02:42:54.820 A country where no one loses their job on the basis of their race.

02:42:59.260 Where no one loses their job on the basis of their religion.

02:43:03.200 Where no one loses their job on the basis of their gender.

02:43:06.060 And where, in fact, a person is immeasurably more likely to get a job on the basis of their gender.

02:43:14.860 Get a job on the basis of their...

02:43:16.420 Only if you're licensed by the Texas State Bar.

02:43:18.760 But it is a good reminder.

02:43:22.260 And, again, it's the contrast that's the reminder.

02:43:24.480 That's right.

02:43:25.020 Remember when, like, if Trump had just said this in the Oval Office, we ought to have been like, all right.

02:43:29.520 But the fact that he was contrasting that with these Democrats who are playing victim at a time when they are not the victims.

02:43:35.080 They are not the victims.

02:43:36.140 And you know what?

02:43:37.000 You know, there's this concept in the military, obviously, of stolen valor.

02:43:39.980 People who pretend that they were members in service when they were not.

02:43:44.440 And then they are stealing the valor of people who actually went and fought and suffered and died and were wounded.

02:43:48.260 Like they were working on refrigerators while they were in the Army during the 1970s and not in Vietnam being shot at.

02:43:54.560 There is a level...

02:43:55.400 For instance.

02:43:55.640 For example.

02:43:56.280 There is a level of stolen societal valor that is taking place right now.

02:44:00.740 It's a really good point.

02:44:01.500 There are a number of people in the United States who say that they are victims of a system that has not only not made them victims, but has made them famous, in many cases rich, and has made them prominent, and has made them powerful.

02:44:10.100 And they are claiming victimhood on the level of the people who actually were victims, who were up there sitting in the rafters.

02:44:15.180 And, by the way, not all of whom are Republicans.

02:44:17.400 Right.

02:44:17.500 I mean, people like John Lewis.

02:44:19.080 Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar did not suffer.

02:44:21.860 John Lewis suffered.

02:44:22.660 Okay.

02:44:22.780 So if you want to stand there and say thank you to John Lewis, I'm with you.

02:44:25.220 And I disagree with John Lewis about nearly everything.

02:44:27.220 Right.

02:44:27.240 But if you're going to pretend that the young, fresh faces of the Democratic Party are somehow, that they've overcome a thing, you're going to have to explain to me what they overcame.

02:44:35.240 Like, really, I want to know, what did they overcome?

02:44:36.740 But it also leaves out what you're not thinking about when you're thinking about the injustices of the past.

02:44:40.700 And we all agree that there were injustices in the past.

02:44:42.580 There's no question about it.

02:44:43.660 But when you're thinking about those, you're not thinking about what you can contribute to the future.

02:44:46.760 And I say this to college kids, and I'll say it like the black kids. 0.98

02:44:50.040 I'll say, you know, people of your color were attacked by dogs in my lifetime, hosed in my lifetime.

02:44:55.480 But the police, the police attacked them.

02:44:57.880 You shouldn't be thinking about that because that's not going to happen to you.

02:45:00.500 You should be thinking about, can I get to Mars?

02:45:02.360 Can I cure cancer?

02:45:03.380 Can I do the next big thing?

02:45:05.120 Because once you're mired in that, once you have to pretend, that idea about stolen value is so true.

02:45:10.380 Once you have to pretend that you're a victim, you can't concentrate on what you can contribute, how you can make the next generation great.

02:45:16.380 And if you're going to pay attention to that, pay attention to pay homage to the people who made those policemen stop doing that.

02:45:22.300 And also the people who were marching and who were actually sicked on, who the dogs were sicked upon.

02:45:26.960 Yeah.

02:45:27.180 I mean, to suggest that you are the equivalent, we are the new civil rights movement, we are the new civil rights marchers, we are the new anything.

02:45:33.620 You're not the new anything.

02:45:35.100 Anything.

02:45:35.360 You're not the new anything.

02:45:36.300 Because the truth is, the worst thing that you have going for you is some people disagree with you sometimes. 0.97

02:45:40.480 That's the worst thing happening to you, is that you say dumb things and people criticize you on Twitter for saying a dumb thing. 0.96

02:45:44.940 And then they get banned. 0.98

02:45:45.860 And then they get banned.

02:45:46.640 And then they get banned.

02:45:47.500 Or you criticize the press for supposedly lying about you and they're not lying about you and then they praise you for it.

02:45:52.040 A real rough life you lead.

02:45:53.340 I mean, that's the part that really is, it is upsetting and it's galling.

02:45:57.340 And if Democrats keep doing this routine and Trump speaks like he spoke tonight, they're going to have a lot more trouble in 2020 than they think they're going to.

02:46:03.820 And you're so right about the fact that if he could be that guy all the time, he would be up to 60 percent his approval.

02:46:09.880 I mean, you know, the thing that gets me, that always drives me crazy about him, is on paper, he's doing a good job.

02:46:15.720 The country is doing well.

02:46:17.060 We're at peace.

02:46:17.840 We're prosperous.

02:46:18.920 He's doing fine.

02:46:19.940 But he is that person.

02:46:20.620 The power of perception, though, is what allows all of this to flourish.

02:46:25.920 And every piece of what we're talking about right now is rooted in perception.

02:46:29.500 And one thing the president didn't talk about during his speech tonight, which I think was wise of him, he didn't get into his whole enemy of the people media thing.

02:46:37.940 So let's us get into it for him.

02:46:40.920 Everything we're talking about here is maintained on the sort of scaffolding of the media and academia, which it requires their full-time effort to prop up these false perceptions and have people be able to live in them as though they were true.

02:46:56.100 Yeah.

02:46:56.500 And it has a double effect because, you know, we see the effect.

02:46:59.820 We see that the people strike back.

02:47:01.240 We see that the people don't always listen to them.

02:47:02.900 But if you're in Washington and you're there every day and you're governing, it's a cloud that surrounds you.

02:47:08.080 And we sometimes wonder, why don't Republicans have any guts?

02:47:10.680 Why don't they stand up here?

02:47:11.740 Why don't they stand up there? 0.78

02:47:12.540 It's because they are living in this miasma of press perception that they think is reality.

02:47:17.300 And they don't get out enough to see the people who don't care as much as they do and, in fact, as we do.

02:47:22.940 These guys have power because they have power over the people who have power over us.

02:47:27.340 What do we do about the fact?

02:47:29.140 So the media is what the media is.

02:47:31.000 We challenge them on free market grounds.

02:47:33.540 You know, we are not anywhere near as powerful as the combined power of the mainstream press, obviously.

02:47:39.800 But at least there's room on the Internet.

02:47:41.140 There's room on talk radio.

02:47:42.120 There's room in podcasting for conservative voices to get out.

02:47:46.260 What do we do about, to me, the bigger long-term problem, which is academia, where our tax dollars are actively contributing?

02:47:55.200 It's not a market situation.

02:47:57.120 We are, through coercion, being forced to pay for practically every young person in this country to be inundated with this view that they are either victims or oppressors, basically on the basis of nothing other than their birth.

02:48:15.400 I have to tell you, I was back at Yale over the weekend for a reunion.

02:48:19.100 You met any of your kids there?

02:48:20.040 I was back there, and we were talking about the problem of academia, higher education, that even at Yale or Harvard or wherever, top schools in the country, it has been hollowed out and just filled in with indoctrination.

02:48:35.000 Perhaps especially.

02:48:36.040 Perhaps especially there.

02:48:37.500 Actually, Yale is probably leading the charge.

02:48:39.920 And we were debating some of these proposals, taxing the endowments, pulling funding, this, that, and the other thing.

02:48:45.100 I have a sentimental attachment to my alma mater.

02:48:50.360 Absent that, I am basically willing to pull the plug on all of these institutions.

02:48:55.660 I think it's basically unsalvageable, the way that the system is set up, the administrators, the ever-multiplying administrators, the deans, the deputy deans, the deputy assistant, deputy inclusion dean, all the deans kicking you out of visiting schools.

02:49:08.260 I'm very offended because they don't kick me out of visiting schools, but all of those places, to say nothing of the faculty, to say nothing of the students, the craziest people of all, often, a minority of students, but a vocal leftist minority of students.

02:49:20.960 I think it's basically unsalvageable if we keep playing by these same rules.

02:49:25.920 We've done a great job at creating think tanks.

02:49:28.800 We've done a great job at new media, obviously.

02:49:31.060 But that, I don't think, is enough.

02:49:33.000 And I think we need a stronger, a more robust solution to higher education.

02:49:39.220 So I do think that there are a couple of possibilities that will crop up in the near future.

02:49:42.560 One is the possibility of online education, meaning that spending $100,000 to go to one of these colleges, when you could spend $100 to get the same courses, if we can get accreditation for these things, great.

02:49:55.220 And I think that there's a case we made that if you started in a real online university, in which people can pay to get in, and then they're weeded out on the basis of their performance in the classroom.

02:50:06.020 I mean, this is the way it used to be at a lot of the top law schools.

02:50:08.180 It was not that they actually admitted you on the basis of past performance.

02:50:10.920 They basically let everyone in, and then they weeded people out as they performed.

02:50:15.140 That would be one possibility, and I think that we should be making moves in that direction as a movement and as a people.

02:50:20.760 The other possibility is that employers, just conservative employers, need to stop credentialing.

02:50:25.180 We need to start going into high schools and recruiting people for internships and then saying, come work, come learn our business, and you'll be a good employee in a year and a half.

02:50:33.260 And you saved on college, and then you can work here, and then you have a work record.

02:50:35.960 And once you have a work record, you can move place to place, because a poli-sci degree from UCLA, which is what I have, I learned nothing with my poli-sci degree at UCLA.

02:50:43.420 Neither does any poli-sci major in America.

02:50:46.160 They are full of it.

02:50:47.420 All it is is credentialing so you can go to law school.

02:50:49.260 You know, I think we also have to revise the think tank system that conservatives created basically to oppose universities.

02:50:57.120 They are research centers, but they are all based on non-capitalist means of funding.

02:51:02.460 So they all have these old funders who do not know what we're, they have no idea what we're doing.

02:51:06.620 They think a really strong editorial in the Wall Street Journal is an incredible weapon.

02:51:10.780 If you go in there and say, yeah, I can make you a video that will reach a million people, they have no, a video?

02:51:15.800 What's a video?

02:51:17.060 I've never heard of this.

02:51:18.180 And they need to be more active.

02:51:19.640 What YAF is doing when they send all of us out to colleges, that is actually taking action.

02:51:24.760 But when you just sit and write articles, it does contribute to knowledge and it contributes to conservative research.

02:51:31.100 But they're not reaching out to the people.

02:51:32.740 But again, my real concern is we pay for these universities to do the work that they do.

02:51:42.580 And we, listen, the most rabid right-winger will send their kid to these schools to get liberal arts degrees and pat themselves on the back for doing it.

02:51:52.920 I'm so proud of you, honey, that you went to a school and got a degree in absolutely nothing.

02:51:57.560 But I won't.

02:51:58.120 Because there is still a false perception of the value of these educations that we buy into.

02:52:05.400 And we all agree, if you're going to be a heart surgeon, you've got to go to school.

02:52:09.560 But there is almost, if a liberal arts bachelor's degree qualifies you for a job, that is not a job.

02:52:17.340 But I will, I'm a strong defender of liberal education, actual liberal education.

02:52:22.080 I love liberal, it helps us make sense of our freedom.

02:52:25.320 That's, you know, what we do.

02:52:26.200 Then let's not pretend that that's what a liberal arts degree is.

02:52:27.580 But that's the issue.

02:52:28.780 You can now graduate from Yale with honors in English and never read Shakespeare or Chaucer.

02:52:33.880 So that's not a liberal.

02:52:34.620 That is not a liberal education.

02:52:37.100 Well, I mean, one of the things that actually has to happen, just on a legal level, is that we have to get rid of regulations that prevent people from going into particular industries.

02:52:44.280 So, for example, California actually has it right.

02:52:46.320 You do not have to go to an accredited law school in order to take the bar.

02:52:50.140 So that's good.

02:52:51.240 But most states, you have to go to an accredited law school in order to take a bar.

02:52:54.120 Well, who does the accrediting?

02:52:55.440 Well, it's an agency of the government that does the accrediting.

02:52:57.420 So you have a corrupt system where Democrats in the legislature decide what the accreditation standards are.

02:53:02.280 And they cram that down on a bunch of universities who are happy to do it because they get to upcharge the students for the payment.

02:53:07.460 And so they restrict the, it's a bottleneck in terms of who can actually join particular careers.

02:53:11.880 Getting rid of credentialing is the single, I mean, this is what Peter Thiel was working on, right?

02:53:15.720 Getting rid of credentialing is the single best way to get rid of the influence of academia on our lives.

02:53:21.520 And that's a long-term project.

02:53:22.900 That's not something that's going to happen.

02:53:23.980 And get rid of the stigma around not going to college.

02:53:27.400 And that's going to happen when you actually have conservatives who, I have been told, run major businesses.

02:53:32.740 Yeah.

02:53:33.040 Start actually hiring people without reference to the idea that if you went to Yale, you must be smarter than a guy who went to Hillsdale College because Yale requires a higher SAT.

02:53:39.460 It is one of the first things that I did when we started this company and we started having to hire people who weren't my immediate friends.

02:53:45.380 It was like yesterday, I think.

02:53:46.600 Yeah, just a few days ago.

02:53:47.800 They put together our first sort of job postings and they brought them in for me to see.

02:53:53.940 And they all said under the job requirements, must have a bachelor's degree or higher.

02:53:57.740 And I said, you cannot put that in there.

02:53:59.200 And they said, well, why?

02:53:59.820 They said, everybody does this.

02:54:00.960 I said, yes, but I can't live with myself as someone who did not go to college.

02:54:06.060 If I pretend that you have to have gone to college in order to work at this company, it is simply untrue.

02:54:11.980 And most CEOs don't go to the top schools.

02:54:15.040 They don't go to the Ivy Leagues.

02:54:16.600 It's not a requirement.

02:54:18.620 And all these guys who invented the computer revolution dropped out, half of them.

02:54:21.980 You know, I mean, I think it's obvious.

02:54:23.540 It's credentialing.

02:54:24.420 It's exactly what you say.

02:54:25.680 And it's why we're proud.

02:54:27.600 It's why I'm proud when my son went to Yale, even though.

02:54:30.380 I mean, it's funny.

02:54:31.300 I feel like you guys, you and my son, went to Yale in the last gasp.

02:54:35.680 We did.

02:54:36.080 It was the last couple of years, really.

02:54:37.900 And yet it is now, it's the men in black scenario.

02:54:40.800 If you all remember that movie where the alien comes, eats the guy, and then puts on his body as clothing.

02:54:46.740 That's what the left does.

02:54:47.800 They did it to the New York Times.

02:54:49.100 New York Times is not a great newspaper anymore.

02:54:51.100 It just has the body of a great newspaper with this alien philosophy inside.

02:54:55.040 Yale is the same way.

02:54:56.040 Most of our colleges are the same way.

02:54:57.260 They do not deserve the credit and the status that they have.

02:55:00.200 How do we get Donald Trump?

02:55:01.900 How do we get Ted Cruz?

02:55:04.060 I mean, it is a challenge that so many of our elected officials, I mean, that is one thing an elite education does,

02:55:10.960 affords you a certain amount of networking, open doors.

02:55:14.800 How do we get these guys to actually talk about this kind of issue?

02:55:17.820 Because at the end of the day, we actually can't win the future in a world where you can't spend 25 years training kids to think one way and then go,

02:55:26.380 You have to build the institutions and then ask people to sign on to them.

02:55:29.680 You can't ask Trump or Cruz to do the heavy lifting.

02:55:32.180 Yes, that's right.

02:55:32.420 You can have them endorse programs that already exist and say, you know, this is a great career path.

02:55:37.280 Like you see this right now, there's a big move for trade schools.

02:55:39.700 The big move for trade schools is specifically because there are a surplus of jobs in certain areas of the country,

02:55:44.640 and fracking in, you know, the Midwest, where you actually just go to trade school and you make $100,000 a year if you're willing to move to Wyoming or something.

02:55:52.580 And so people are recommending that now.

02:55:54.560 People are starting to say, go to trade school.

02:55:55.980 Don't get that liberal arts degree.

02:55:57.160 Maybe you think about that.

02:55:58.420 The problem is right now the Democrats are offering you free money and telling you that at the end of that rainbow,

02:56:02.720 there is going to be a pot of gold that, you know, you take all the free money and then after you go to college,

02:56:06.540 you'll make $100,000 a year no matter what you do.

02:56:08.360 But that's not actually true.

02:56:10.160 We actually have to start also pushing just in terms of messaging the fact that high-achieving high school graduates do better than low-achieving college graduates,

02:56:17.380 which is also financially true.

02:56:20.100 Again, you don't have to have a college degree.

02:56:22.460 The college degree, especially in liberal arts, as we've always talked about, is basically a substitute for an IQ test.

02:56:27.420 It's just a filtering system.

02:56:28.460 That's all it is.

02:56:29.220 Like when we look at somebody's bachelor's degree, we don't know what they actually learned in college.

02:56:33.140 We just know that if you went to UCLA, we can probably assume you're smarter than somebody who went to CSUN or something.

02:56:37.240 The sad thing, by the way, about the liberal arts is there is a liberal arts curriculum that needs to be touched,

02:56:43.400 that needs to be taught, that I was taught.

02:56:45.500 I went to Berkeley one of the—

02:56:46.700 It is being taught, but it's being taught informally in other settings, meaning the Great Courses Plus, for example.

02:56:52.100 Right, right, right.

02:56:52.960 They're teaching these things.

02:56:54.180 The Talk Program, Hudson Program.

02:56:54.880 Right, Hillsdale has courses that they put out for free.

02:56:57.220 Of course, absolutely.

02:56:57.580 And we buy these courses, right, as laymen because we're interested in them.

02:57:00.860 Like I wrote an entire book just now on pop philosophy, basically.

02:57:04.260 That's basically me doing reading outside of school, right?

02:57:06.660 I didn't read any of that stuff when I was an undergrad.

02:57:08.560 That was me deciding I wanted to delve into it on my own.

02:57:11.560 And we're fully capable of doing that stuff.

02:57:13.840 The problem is when we linked the idea of a college degree with an automatic income, which is not a false—which is a false statement.

02:57:20.020 I mean, if you went and you studied classics at Yale, there is no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow for you unless you're going to be a professor in classics at Yale, right?

02:57:27.140 That is the pot of gold.

02:57:27.900 This is the big issue.

02:57:29.340 I don't think it's up to Trump and Cruz and those guys.

02:57:32.000 I think it's up to you guys.

02:57:33.060 I think it's up to conservative businessmen.

02:57:34.900 Because the notion that a liberal arts education prepares you for a job is simply false.

02:57:40.900 People used to ask what I majored in.

02:57:42.280 I said history and Italian literature.

02:57:43.900 They said, well, that's not useful.

02:57:45.120 And I would joke about it.

02:57:46.480 Liberal arts education is specifically not useful.

02:57:49.680 Actually, if it is useful, it's not a liberal arts education.

02:57:52.460 You're supposed to go, you learn how to think about history for four years, and then if you are ready to do a job, that is a coincidence.

02:57:59.220 Or you go to law school or you do something else.

02:58:01.600 But we've created this ridiculous idea that studying Shakespeare for four years prepares you to be an analyst in some bank or something like that.

02:58:09.760 It really doesn't do that.

02:58:11.240 And I think it's not up to the politicians.

02:58:13.320 It's really up to conservative businessmen to realize, hey, maybe a guy who has a liberal education could be prepared for a job.

02:58:19.720 But that has absolutely no connection.

02:58:21.980 I think we just came up with our next business idea, so you better to, like, shut this up.

02:58:25.600 Cut the feed.

02:58:26.480 I do want to go to some of our Daily Wire subscribers because they keep the lights on and keep us in business.

02:58:31.040 And Elisha has been fielding some questions.

02:58:33.200 Elisha, are you with us?

02:58:34.080 Yeah, we do have some questions.

02:58:35.220 But first, we need to get to those poll results from that Facebook poll that everybody got to vote in, not just subscribers.

02:58:40.340 So that's really cool.

02:58:41.280 The question was, is the State of the Union speech necessary?

02:58:45.020 Our answers were absolutely, please no.

02:58:47.980 It is the bedrock of society.

02:58:49.600 And I wonder if the game is on.

02:58:51.280 I'm not a sports person, but I thought after the Super Bowl, all sports ended for, like, another year.

02:58:56.120 Anyway, here's our results.

02:58:57.900 Apparently, 83% of our Daily Wire fans think that absolutely the State of the Union is necessary.

02:59:04.820 Sorry, Ben.

02:59:05.280 I'm shocked that so many people I think so highly of could be so wrong.

02:59:09.160 Well, we should retake that poll when a Democrat is president because I have a feeling that things will reverse immediately to the other side.

02:59:16.380 Again, it was a good, useful State of the Union address.

02:59:19.020 Listen, the State of the Union address is a grand opportunity for the sitting president.

02:59:24.080 It's an opportunity that they can either take advantage of or choke and botch dramatically.

02:59:31.240 But it's useful for the president, which is why if your party's in power, you tend to like it.

02:59:35.700 Yeah, exactly.

02:59:36.000 You tend to like it.

02:59:36.560 Especially for Trump, who doesn't get any media love at all.

02:59:38.560 He just goes over their heads with this.

02:59:39.700 That's right.

02:59:40.440 Yeah.

02:59:41.080 What's next, Alicia?

02:59:42.020 So, please no, got 9%.

02:59:43.660 It is the bedrock of our society.

02:59:45.300 Got 3%.

02:59:46.080 And I wonder if the game is on, got 5%.

02:59:48.920 There's those results on your screen.

02:59:51.000 This comes from subscriber Jeremy.

02:59:52.800 Well, let me say this.

02:59:54.340 If that game was still going,

02:59:56.460 Yeah, the State of the Union Trump said terrible.

02:59:58.060 It was better.

02:59:58.760 Yeah, it was actually more exciting.

03:00:00.240 I am not a sports ball person, but I would strongly agree.

03:00:03.440 This question comes from a subscriber named Jeremy, not God King Jeremy,

03:00:07.200 but subscriber Jeremy who says,

03:00:08.940 Do you think that the Dems really believe half of the intersectional things they say?

03:00:12.860 Or do you think that they are just saying them to get votes?

03:00:15.700 Michael, what do you think?

03:00:17.320 I do think that they actually do buy into the intersectional politics.

03:00:21.880 I think it has been given to them through osmosis and training from kindergarten until college.

03:00:28.280 And they really do believe this narrative that women are incredibly oppressed.

03:00:32.300 I see it just in the millennial generation.

03:00:35.800 I think even some conservative millennials have an inkling that this is true.

03:00:39.880 And I don't think it's just cynical.

03:00:41.840 I think a little learning is a dangerous thing.

03:00:44.140 So they learn about some of the historical exclusions of blacks in the 19th and 20th century after freedom from slavery.

03:00:52.340 They learn about some of those things.

03:00:53.880 And they don't learn about the tradition.

03:00:55.680 They don't learn about the rest of the tradition.

03:00:57.580 They really do buy boilerplate Marxism.

03:01:00.880 They don't realize that there are other views of the world.

03:01:03.820 You don't learn about other political philosophies.

03:01:06.820 You don't learn about your own tradition.

03:01:08.100 And so when you hear, hey, hey, ho, ho, Western civ has got to go, that really did sever a lot of education about our own history.

03:01:15.720 And now they're just left with this bland ideology.

03:01:18.200 Could they defend why it exists?

03:01:19.920 Probably not.

03:01:20.640 But it doesn't matter because, unfortunately for them, their feelings don't care about the facts.

03:01:24.520 It's an interesting point that you raise that even conservative millennials, you know, there is this streak of really sort of left-wing feminism among conservative women that I pick up on quite often, 0.87

03:01:36.020 which I'm sure if I were paying more attention in other places, I would detect the same thing on other intersectional issues.

03:01:43.060 What is that, Ben?

03:01:43.980 So I think that there's basically two groups of people.

03:01:47.660 I don't think either of these groups of people are the cynical manipulators who just figure I'm going to tout the virtues of intersectionality for political gain.

03:01:53.980 I think that that's very rare.

03:01:55.240 I think that there may be a few people who are like that.

03:01:56.840 I think most of them actually believe the stuff that they're saying.

03:01:58.800 I'll at least credit my opponents with sincerity.

03:02:01.220 I do think that there is a large group of people who don't actually agree on a gut level with the intersectional philosophy,

03:02:07.900 but also are sick of getting clubbed.

03:02:10.760 They're just sick of getting hit.

03:02:11.620 And you see it on college campuses a lot.

03:02:14.120 And it's this feeling where if you proclaim, it's like a Maoist show trial.

03:02:17.960 If you proclaim your privilege, then we let you go.

03:02:20.740 So if you, I agree with the intersectional identity politics,

03:02:24.400 and then you proclaim that you are a privileged member of society and they leave you alone.

03:02:28.340 So, okay, we can all agree that certain, so just like most bad philosophies,

03:02:33.560 intersectional philosophy starts on a couple of foundational principles that are actually correct

03:02:37.180 and then proceeds to build an entire edifice of falsehood over those correct foundations.

03:02:40.680 So foundation number one is that there's been historic victimization of minority groups in the United States,

03:02:44.900 which, of course, is true.

03:02:46.400 And foundation number two is that if you are a member of two victimized minority groups,

03:02:50.860 sometimes you are more victimized than a person who's a member of one victimized minority group.

03:02:54.600 So if you're a black woman, maybe you are worse off than a black man in a similar situation, 0.79

03:02:58.880 or a white woman in the same situation. 1.00

03:03:01.120 Maybe that's true.

03:03:01.920 Maybe it's not.

03:03:02.400 Sometimes it's true.

03:03:03.500 Sometimes it's not.

03:03:04.180 But at least there's a plausible argument for it.

03:03:07.280 And then on top of that, they build this idea that the entire hierarchy is corrupt,

03:03:11.060 which is why the victimization itself has become so widespread and endemic to our society,

03:03:16.380 and that the only way to fight back against that hierarchy is to maintain the group identities

03:03:19.760 that were originally wrongfully thrust upon you from above.

03:03:22.320 This is the argument that Stacey Abrams makes in that foreign affairs piece I argued earlier.

03:03:25.500 I mentioned earlier, basically what she says is that group identity was built by the white patriarchy,

03:03:32.980 that there weren't black people and brown people and women.

03:03:36.260 It was that there were a bunch of white men who othered a bunch of various groups.

03:03:39.500 There's some truth to that.

03:03:40.560 I agree.

03:03:41.320 Obviously, there's some truth to that.

03:03:42.040 On the racial side, not on the sexual side, but on the racial side.

03:03:43.860 Right, on the racial side, that is obviously true. 0.99

03:03:45.860 And then she says, well, if there's a policy that targets any of these groups,

03:03:49.340 then they have to fight back qua group in order to overcome that.

03:03:52.200 So if you are targeted as black folks and you fight back against a law that targets black folks,

03:03:56.280 you obviously have to organize as a group of black folks.

03:03:58.880 Now, that's about three quarters true, but you do have to reach out beyond your immediate group

03:04:03.080 in order to reach allies, right?

03:04:04.220 The civil rights movement didn't just stop at black folks.

03:04:06.760 The success of the civil rights movement was entirely dependent on reaching beyond black folks 0.99

03:04:10.280 by invoking universal principles that should apply to everyone,

03:04:13.000 which is why we celebrate Martin Luther King Day and not Malcolm X Day, right?

03:04:15.920 So that's one of the great lies.

03:04:17.880 But the biggest lie of all is the idea that now every policy that is disliked by Democrats

03:04:22.840 is, in fact, an attack on a group.

03:04:24.860 And therefore, we have to identify as groups in order to fight back against that policy.

03:04:27.960 And that's where Stacey Abrams goes in that piece. 1.00

03:04:29.720 She says, well, you know, it used to be that there were laws that prevented black people from voting.

03:04:33.080 So we had to organize as black people to fight back against the laws that prevented black people from voting.

03:04:37.620 OK, I think everybody is basically fine with that and agrees with that.

03:04:40.200 And we also agree that you have to invoke universal principles that broaden your group

03:04:43.340 so that it's not just black folks arguing for their rights.

03:04:46.160 It's also everybody arguing for black folks' rights.

03:04:48.540 But then she says something different.

03:04:49.680 Then she says the problem is that we have reduced the definition of racism down to legal racism that can be touched.

03:04:57.080 Racism exists everywhere.

03:04:58.540 It's miasmatic. 0.95

03:04:59.180 It's all over the place.

03:05:00.440 And therefore, if you look at immigration policy, President Trump's immigration policy,

03:05:04.140 there you also see racism.

03:05:05.440 She actually mentions anti-abortion laws.

03:05:07.220 She says anti-abortion law targets minority women in particular because minority women have most of the abortions.

03:05:12.280 And therefore, we have to mobilize as black women, as a group, because we are targeted in the same way black people were targeted by voting laws cracking down on blacks.

03:05:20.980 That's fundamentally false.

03:05:22.260 Anti-abortion law is not directed at black women.

03:05:24.520 It is directed at saving the lives of children.

03:05:26.420 So now you are justifying a group identity attack on everyone else in just the same way that white people were a group identity attacking everyone else. 0.51

03:05:34.980 So you flip the entire script on its head on the basis of politics.

03:05:38.100 What you're describing, though, is you're describing a—and this happens all the time—you're describing an oppressed group adopting the values of the people who oppress them,

03:05:45.820 which is satanic, if you think about it.

03:05:47.600 And what they should be saying is, yes, we have to gather together as blacks because you have put us in this situation. 0.73

03:05:52.620 But we reach out to all of you who do not put us in this situation and say we are human beings, not blacks.

03:05:58.800 And that's where you have to be going.

03:06:00.340 You have to be—you have to not only oppose the people who oppress you, you have to oppose the values of the people who oppress you because that's what they're oppressing you with.

03:06:06.960 And that's what—that is what the intersectionalism has failed to do.

03:06:09.660 We're not far off from Martin Luther King Jr. actually being a pariah because he is not an intersectional figure.

03:06:16.180 Well, they've already done this, right?

03:06:17.300 I mean, so what they've done now is they say, yeah, Martin Luther King was great, but he was great for all the stuff you don't know about.

03:06:21.340 Right.

03:06:21.720 He's not great for the I Have a Dream speech.

03:06:23.380 He's not great for the call for unity and treating people as individuals beyond race.

03:06:27.540 He's not good for any of that stuff.

03:06:28.840 What he's really good for is that he protested for economic justice during the garbage strike in Memphis, right?

03:06:33.660 That's where he's really great.

03:06:34.860 He's really great because he understood that you need a socialist superstructure of economics in order to achieve a post-racial society. 0.96

03:06:41.660 They go to all the stuff that nobody—

03:06:42.680 Not for his bourgeois, white, middle-class values that are—

03:06:45.520 Not the stuff we built a monument to him for, right?

03:06:47.700 It's exactly the same thing they do with Thomas Jefferson now, which is, oh, well, you know, what we really should focus on with Jefferson is not the stuff that made him a hero.

03:06:54.040 We should focus on all the other stuff because that's more indicative of who he was as a person, right?

03:06:58.880 And so they've decided to deliberately read a counter-history.

03:07:01.420 It's the Howard Zinnification of American history. 0.91

03:07:03.960 Alicia, let's hear from another one of our Daily Wire subscribers.

03:07:07.280 All right.

03:07:07.540 Matt wants to know, what are some things that ordinary conservatives like him can do to influence the big power players in Washington, D.C.

03:07:14.500 without resorting to the radical tactics of the left?

03:07:18.680 Andrew?

03:07:19.080 Well, I think the two things that I—I mean, obviously, there's all kinds of political action you can take,

03:07:23.840 and I don't think you need me to describe the fact that you can call your congressman and get in touch with the people who are in government.

03:07:29.240 Try voting.

03:07:29.940 What's that?

03:07:30.440 Try voting would be a big one, yeah.

03:07:32.320 But I do think that too many people, especially the young—the question I get all the time is,

03:07:37.960 how can I convince people this?

03:07:39.220 How can I state this?

03:07:40.600 And what they really mean is, how can I do it without consequence?

03:07:43.260 And you can't.

03:07:44.020 It requires courage, and it requires the pain, the penalty of social, you know, of social approbation.

03:07:52.080 Yeah, that you have to do it.

03:07:54.140 You have to say the words.

03:07:55.620 You have to behave in a certain way.

03:07:57.580 You know, it's no good, to me, it is no good to oppose feminism.

03:08:01.960 I'm very much in favor of women's rights, but I'm very much against the philosophy of feminism. 0.92

03:08:06.040 If you don't open the damn door for a lady, if you don't treat women as you feel women should be treated, 0.60

03:08:10.960 if you are carrying the culture in your hands, the way you behave is a communication of culture, 0.99

03:08:16.140 not just to your family, but to the people around you,

03:08:18.400 and you have to be able to stand, as I have stood, and be yelled at by women for doing the things that you know are right,

03:08:24.180 and be yelled at by your professor, and take a little bit of a lesser grade,

03:08:27.660 take a little bit of a smaller audience, take some economic hits, you've got to be able to do it,

03:08:32.100 or else they're going to win in the long run.

03:08:33.500 The gospel reading this week was about how a prophet doesn't have any honor in his own hometown,

03:08:38.360 and the real difference is, if a kid gets into college or whatever,

03:08:42.420 and he's kept quiet, and he hasn't really said anything, that's great.

03:08:45.920 A hometown kid makes good, good for him.

03:08:48.120 The minute that he stands for something, people are going to start taking shots at him.

03:08:52.020 That's not something to be feared.

03:08:53.560 I mean, it's to be feared in that there will be consequences.

03:08:55.920 That's what makes you a man.

03:08:56.920 That's what makes you an adult.

03:08:58.020 That's what makes you have integrity.

03:08:59.240 I can't hear a guy dressed like that.

03:09:01.200 No, no, just a lot of integrity.

03:09:03.720 It's too much.

03:09:04.340 Jeremy, if you don't stand for bow ties, you'll fall for anything.

03:09:06.860 You know, it's also true that I think that, you know, since the company has gotten very large,

03:09:11.340 and because, you know, with added degrees of prominence,

03:09:13.980 it's easy to talk about the sort of sacrifices that you have to make to stand for the right things.

03:09:18.260 We're now in a time when people will deliberately take you out of context,

03:09:21.640 deliberately malign your character, deliberately try to destroy you.

03:09:24.240 So it's not just that you get to stand,

03:09:25.940 and then people attack you for the things that you're willing to stand and die for.

03:09:29.120 It's that people will deliberately attempt to destroy you for things that you've never said,

03:09:33.000 that you've never even thought.

03:09:33.900 I agree with you.

03:09:34.180 And it's a dangerous area.

03:09:36.900 I mean, you have to decide whether it's an area you want to go into.

03:09:39.820 I understand people who don't want to go into this fight.

03:09:42.300 I mean, so it makes it—this isn't a rip on anything anybody else was saying.

03:09:45.520 I obviously agree.

03:09:46.280 We're all in the same business.

03:09:46.980 But it is true that you have to consider the sacrifice on the level that the sacrifice is going to have to be made.

03:09:55.500 And that is that your life becomes, to a certain extent, not your own.

03:09:59.140 Basically, you wake up in fear every day that somebody is going—

03:10:01.500 I mean, like, I know this sounds a little self-centered, but it's true.

03:10:04.700 I mean, we're at the point now where I wake up in fear that somebody is going to deliberately take something

03:10:09.040 that I've written 10 years ago, one sentence, out of context,

03:10:12.140 and then it will blow up before I have a chance to respond to it on Twitter.

03:10:15.640 I can't go with you on this.

03:10:16.880 I mean, I feel I'm not going to be judged by the killers of babies.

03:10:19.680 I'm not going to be judged by the people who want socialism in this country.

03:10:24.020 And they can take me out of context.

03:10:25.300 And look, you know, I've lost millions of dollars, Ben.

03:10:28.160 I'm willing to go there.

03:10:29.480 No, no, no.

03:10:29.520 And that's something that, you know, you're willing to do.

03:10:32.580 It's something I'm willing to do, too.

03:10:33.880 But it is something that you have to steal yourself for.

03:10:36.600 Yes, yes.

03:10:36.860 And you have to do it on a routine basis.

03:10:38.780 And you also have to make yourself harder in a lot of ways that are unpleasant for a good person.

03:10:43.460 I agree with you.

03:10:43.680 Because as a good person, you spend a lot of time thinking about all the things that you've done wrong.

03:10:47.340 If you're a good person, you try to spend, when somebody criticizes you, your first reaction is, is that true?

03:10:51.640 Maybe it's true.

03:10:52.220 Yeah, of course.

03:10:53.000 And there comes a point where you do have to turn into Andrew Breitbart and it's just like, screw it.

03:10:58.200 But I think for the average person, maybe they're watching this show and they're wondering how they can get involved.

03:11:02.580 And my answer isn't start a multi-million dollar media company.

03:11:07.340 Although, if you got that in you, do it.

03:11:10.240 But a better piece of advice, I think, it isn't about what you should do.

03:11:14.220 It's about what you should not do.

03:11:15.840 If everyone would just stop with the Victorian era moralizing lack of grace culture that we live.

03:11:25.540 The first novel written in America is The Scarlet Letter.

03:11:28.880 And we have really come full circle now where a person makes a mistake or doesn't make a mistake.

03:11:34.160 Somewhere in their life.

03:11:35.880 But at a minimum, they run afoul of the prevailing virtue of society.

03:11:44.100 And everyone jumps on the bandwagon to destroy this person.

03:11:47.920 And I remember thinking this, I have a friend who, his father was a pastor.

03:11:54.100 And this was in the 90s.

03:11:55.200 He had to get up on the stage at the church and confess in front of 300 people that he had been looking at pornography.

03:12:02.800 Now, this was back when the internet was brand new.

03:12:05.120 And so, you know, back then it wasn't just like, you wouldn't, like now you walk through 7-Eleven,

03:12:09.840 you see a little six-year-old on their smartphone, you're like, oh, cool, they're probably playing a world.

03:12:13.520 Oh, dear God.

03:12:14.500 This was back when, you know, people had rolled up magazines hidden from their mom, right?

03:12:19.180 And somebody, his mom had found his rolled up magazine and made such a federal case out of this.

03:12:23.720 Because really a lot of these problems started in the church where masculinity just became the only sin that the church cared about.

03:12:30.620 Boyhood became the only sin that, that's not to say looking at porn is good.

03:12:34.900 It's just to say it isn't the highest evil ever conceived of by anyone, which is what it became, I think, when the church really lost masculinity.

03:12:42.620 I don't think in the Dante scheme of it, like at the very bottom is a nudie magazine.

03:12:46.820 So this kid had to get up, 19 years old, in front of 300 people in his church and confess that he had looked at pornography.

03:12:54.040 And all I thought was, what he should have said is, I'm so sorry, it's obviously not a good thing.

03:13:00.360 I'm embarrassed that my mom found this magazine.

03:13:02.520 I shouldn't have done it.

03:13:03.880 And I'm just asking, you know, by show of hands, who's been there?

03:13:08.700 And I actually think what would have happened is every man in the audience would have started to raise their hand.

03:13:13.020 And every wife would have gone, no, no, no. 0.97

03:13:14.840 You don't look at pornography.

03:13:16.700 And he would have been like, uh. 0.98

03:13:18.080 And then the next thing, but instead, all of those grown adult men sat there like cowards and let this guy take this hit. 0.93

03:13:29.380 And we do the same thing when a teenage girl gets pregnant. 0.95

03:13:32.960 Teenage girl gets pregnant.

03:13:34.500 And we, the party of life, shake our heads.

03:13:40.280 Humiliation.

03:13:41.300 Her mother should be disappointed.

03:13:43.260 We don't want our kids talking to her.

03:13:45.640 And then the question I want to say is, show of hands, how many people had sex before they were married?

03:13:52.060 Even once, you guys.

03:13:53.960 And not by your exaggerated definitions of what is and what ain't.

03:13:57.800 It depends on what the definition is.

03:14:00.200 Who's dodged a bullet in their day?

03:14:02.180 But we all live in this kind of common grace where the truth is the majority of our bad behaviors don't cause the worst possible consequence.

03:14:11.420 But we all sit, we all participate in the prudish stoning and shunning of every person who gets caught doing things that we ourselves are done.

03:14:21.000 And what's worse is that when people try to redeem themselves, then we still go after them.

03:14:24.440 And so we now live in a world where that guy would get up and he would do the confession.

03:14:28.000 And it wouldn't be enough.

03:14:28.720 It wouldn't be enough.

03:14:29.200 People would come up to him afterwards and say, well, why'd you do it in the first place?

03:14:31.340 Why'd you do it in the first place?

03:14:32.400 And it's the same.

03:14:33.460 I always say that we can't stand for value.

03:14:35.700 No, of course not.

03:14:36.780 Of course not.

03:14:37.140 But it's the same I always say about racists.

03:14:38.980 They're not wrong about the other guy.

03:14:40.680 They're wrong about themselves.

03:14:41.640 The other guy is as bad as they think.

03:14:43.000 But they're worse. 0.99

03:14:43.600 They're just as bad.

03:14:44.540 You know, and the left is the same way.

03:14:46.480 And I think the right is picking it up now.

03:14:48.480 Is this idea, I have hardly seen a guy, I mean, look, there are guys who are serial killers and all that.

03:14:53.880 Yeah, they're worse than me.

03:14:54.980 Most of these people that are being attacked, I've done things that I'm ashamed of.

03:14:58.780 Who on earth has not?

03:15:00.880 And when you're shouting at somebody and when you're shouting them down, you're basically virtue signaling.

03:15:05.720 You're basically saying, it's not me.

03:15:07.480 It is.

03:15:08.000 And if we don't get that back, that idea of original sin, that the guy sitting next to you is a sinner and the guy he's sitting next to also a sinner, you know, we'll never be able to talk.

03:15:17.060 And if we all jump on the bandwagons of crucifying the people who get caught while pretending that the fact that we didn't get caught makes us virtuous.

03:15:26.140 You can't live in a world where Liam Neeson confesses that he had a horrible thought 40 years ago.

03:15:33.740 He confesses it as a bad thing.

03:15:35.760 A thought.

03:15:36.380 A thought.

03:15:36.780 Yeah. 0.97

03:15:37.140 And everyone decides that the conclusion of that is that he should be destroyed.

03:15:40.820 Well, it is a pagan version of sin. 0.94

03:15:43.360 So the religious version of sin is that we all sin.

03:15:46.500 It's part of human nature.

03:15:47.540 It's what we do.

03:15:48.280 God built us that way.

03:15:49.300 And it's our job to try and overcome that.

03:15:50.520 But we are inevitably going to fail.

03:15:51.960 And then when we fail, then we seek God's grace and his mercy in that sin.

03:15:56.180 And that's what we call redemption, which is the core story of every religious experience that virtually anyone has ever had from Yom Kippur to Augustine.

03:16:04.700 I mean, this is the common religious tradition.

03:16:07.560 The pagan version of sin is you sinned, you will be punished, no mercy. 0.97

03:16:11.640 It doesn't matter what you do afterward.

03:16:13.060 There is no redemption.

03:16:13.940 You can't undo a sin.

03:16:14.820 It's already done.

03:16:15.640 So what exactly are you going to do about it?

03:16:17.600 And this has led to a bizarre situation where not only do we destroy people for sins of which they have repented or thoughts of which they have repented, we have made it impossible for you to even acknowledge the sin.

03:16:59.280 Well, there was a humiliating point where he tried to ask Naomi Rao, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee, whether she had ever had an LGBTQ clerk, to which she informed him I've never been a judge before.

03:17:07.640 But there was also a moment, a big exchange where he basically asked her, do you believe that homosexual activity is a sin?

03:17:16.920 And she said, why is this relevant?

03:17:19.060 I'm a judge.

03:17:19.740 That's not my, like, why are my personal religious viewpoints relevant to my interpretation of the law?

03:17:24.980 And he said, yeah, but do you think it's a sin?

03:17:26.680 Do you think it's a sin if two men get married?

03:17:28.220 Do you think it's a sin?

03:17:29.200 And she kept saying, like, this is not an appropriate question, right?

03:17:32.580 This is, like, we have a law in this country, in the Constitution, that you cannot have a religious test for higher office.

03:17:37.560 Like, this is absurd.

03:17:39.000 But the reason that Booker was doing that is because he has that same pagan notion of sin, which means that the pagan notion of sin is that if you commit a sin, then you will inevitably be punished by the person who finds out about the sin.

03:17:49.600 So he thinks that Naomi Rao's version of sin is the same as Cory Booker's version of sin.

03:17:53.620 So he thinks that Naomi Rao's version of sin is she thinks that homosexual activity is a sin.

03:17:59.300 Now, most traditionally religious people who read the Bible believe homosexual activity is a sin.

03:18:04.320 That doesn't mean that we don't think a lot of things are sins or that you can repent of that sin or that you can sin and still be a human being and operate in the good graces of society or that the government should get involved.

03:18:13.560 Right?

03:18:13.620 There are all sorts.

03:18:14.200 But Cory Booker actually doesn't think that.

03:18:15.320 But Cory Booker doesn't think that.

03:18:16.480 Cory Booker thinks that if you sin, you go down and you pay the price and it's my job to make you go down and pay the price.

03:18:21.040 So Cory Booker's version of sin is a Christian baker who won't serve a same-sex wedding.

03:18:25.800 And that person must pay.

03:18:27.360 That person must be paid to pay by the government.

03:18:29.660 And so he thinks the same thing about religious people.

03:18:31.260 He thinks religious people want to actually target people who believe that religious people who believe that homosexual activity is a sin want to go into the bedroom and somehow prosecute or persecute people who are gay, which is eminently untrue.

03:18:42.520 If the things that happened on Twitter happened in physical life and you saw mobs moving from place to place, hunting people down, dragging them out of their houses, beating them to death, which is essentially what they're doing, you would notice, you would know the horror of it.

03:18:55.120 You would understand the horror.

03:18:56.040 Might not stop it from happening, but at least we would be able to see what it really is.

03:18:59.240 Twitter, because it's a gathering place, but it's not a gathering place for the purpose.

03:19:02.360 Normally, in order for mobs to form, they actually have to have a common purpose, but Twitter is legitimately a mob without a purpose.

03:19:09.360 And mob mentality is really dangerous, so all it takes is one guy going, over there, and everybody just rushes over there.

03:19:14.220 Look at that smoking high school kid.

03:19:15.760 Actually, you have a purpose, and it's like, oh, well, a bad thing happened. 0.96

03:19:18.040 Let's get the mob together and go lynch somebody.

03:19:19.840 I actually made this argument. 0.75

03:19:20.120 That's bad enough.

03:19:20.880 I got into a conversation on Twitter just last night about whether or not Twitter is the real world, where a pal of ours said Twitter is the real world and people need to treat people on Twitter like they're real people.

03:19:32.680 And everybody's like, oh, yeah, that's beautiful.

03:19:34.060 We all need to be better to each other.

03:19:34.960 And I was like, no, I don't agree with this.

03:19:36.620 And I said, you know, you heard the record scratch, you know.

03:19:39.580 What do you mean it's not the real world?

03:19:41.220 And I said, well, it isn't the real world because more than 50% of people on Twitter write under pseudonyms.

03:19:47.820 Anonymity does not breed authenticity.

03:19:50.800 And in the real world, our relationships typically form around common circumstances.

03:19:56.240 But on Twitter, they only form over a common reaction to content.

03:20:01.240 Some abstract.

03:20:02.620 Some abstract.

03:20:03.360 Yeah.

03:20:03.660 We like the same thing.

03:20:05.380 Therefore, we are on the same side.

03:20:06.820 We don't know each other.

03:20:07.620 So we have no accountability to each other or to the people we're going to attack.

03:20:11.180 And so it all becomes this sort of purity.

03:20:14.000 Right.

03:20:14.140 And it's always that's why people are always taken aback when suddenly people are polite to each other on Twitter.

03:20:18.960 Yeah.

03:20:19.180 Because they understand it's all performative.

03:20:20.720 Right.

03:20:20.840 Twitter is just performative.

03:20:21.660 You're doing it in public.

03:20:22.340 Like today, I had an exchange with Pete Buttigieg, who's the mayor of South.

03:20:25.240 Oh, yeah, yeah.

03:20:25.680 He's trying to run for president on the Democratic side.

03:20:27.100 So I tweeted something out about how there's an NBC News article that suggested in the title, basically, that an ice shelf was about to collapse and inundate all the coastal cities in the world with two feet of water.

03:20:38.860 And I just pointed out that not in the headline and not in the subheadline did it say, based on a computer model, this might happen in 50 to 100 years.

03:20:45.500 So I pointed this out and the left went crazy because am I suggesting we shouldn't do anything about global warming?

03:20:50.060 No, I'm not.

03:20:50.940 I'm just saying, like, you might want to say in the headline that in 50 to 100 years, this might be a problem, according to a computer model that has not yet been proved to be accurate.

03:20:58.840 Right.

03:20:59.080 There are a few caveats here.

03:21:00.320 If there's a headline that said, nuclear weapons set to go off in downtown Manhattan, and then in paragraph 7, it says 100 years from now, you'd go, oh, we may be able to do something about that.

03:21:10.440 Exactly.

03:21:11.020 And so Pete Buttigieg, you know, wrote back to me and he was kind of mocking.

03:21:14.140 And I said, he said something like, well, you know, this is, I've never seen such, you know, unwillingness to consider the needs of the next generation.

03:21:21.360 I said, now do the national debt.

03:21:22.900 And he wrote back, well, you first.

03:21:24.520 And then I actually started a conversation with him where I was like, okay, fine.

03:21:26.740 Well, let's restructure our entitlements.

03:21:28.260 And it started going back and forth.

03:21:29.580 And finally I said, listen, why don't you just come on our Sunday special?

03:21:31.440 Yeah, I saw that.

03:21:31.980 You know, stop by.

03:21:32.840 We'll do an hour.

03:21:33.700 We'll actually have a con.

03:21:34.240 And he said, you know what? 0.99

03:21:34.660 That actually sounds great because Twitter kind of sucks. 0.99

03:21:36.780 And it's like, well, that's right. 0.99

03:21:38.500 Yeah.

03:21:38.740 Correct.

03:21:39.440 Yeah.

03:21:39.680 Right.

03:21:39.820 Because Louis C.K. does a great routine.

03:21:42.360 I know we're not allowed to mention Louis C.K.

03:21:43.240 No, I love the guy.

03:21:44.240 By the way, he's dead.

03:21:45.480 Still the most talented comedian of the last 50 years.

03:21:47.860 Definitely at least number two.

03:21:49.620 So Louis C.K. does this routine where he talks about how we act when we're in our car by ourselves.

03:21:55.580 Yes, I know.

03:21:56.020 Right, where, you know, when you're driving and somebody cuts you off in traffic, you just start mother-effing them, right?

03:22:00.880 You just start yelling at them and screaming at them. 1.00

03:22:03.100 Yeah, go die, you piece of it. 1.00

03:22:04.760 And he says, would you ever do that in an elevator? 1.00

03:22:06.440 Like someone bumped you in an elevator and just turned to them and said, go die.

03:22:08.880 Right, you would never do that.

03:22:10.240 We act like we're in our cars alone on Twitter.

03:22:12.720 Yeah.

03:22:13.160 And that's ugly stuff.

03:22:14.700 The physical presence means everything.

03:22:16.140 Yeah, that's right.

03:22:16.700 Physical presence, looking the guy in the eye, yeah.

03:22:17.940 Or even a phone presence.

03:22:18.860 Yeah.

03:22:18.980 Even like having a one-on-one relationship with somebody.

03:22:21.020 Let's use a little bit of the time that we have left to talk to a few more subscribers.

03:22:24.740 I often regret that we don't get enough subscriber questions in on the show since, as I've said many times, they pay us.

03:22:32.080 And it's not just because I'm a good capitalist.

03:22:35.120 Like philosophically, I support the fact that they engage in trade.

03:22:39.740 But that's not why I love them so much.

03:22:41.420 I love them because that money goes to me.

03:22:43.420 Directly to me.

03:22:44.540 It's much closer.

03:22:45.920 Yeah, so for that reason, we should answer more of their questions.

03:22:49.520 Alicia, do you have a few for us?

03:22:50.940 Absolutely.

03:22:51.680 Tom says, gentlemen, and Michael, we say that politics is downstream of culture, but I'm seeing the distance between the two shrinking.

03:22:59.420 Do you see this as well, or do I just watch The Daily Wire too much?

03:23:04.600 I couldn't hear the question.

03:23:05.740 The question is, you often say politics is downstream of culture, but it seems to me that the divide is shrinking.

03:23:13.460 Do you see that as being true?

03:23:15.920 Well, politics has become a real form of entertainment.

03:23:19.400 This is not the first time this has happened in American society.

03:23:22.440 Certainly in the 19th century, there were a lot of huge political speeches, and it was a form of entertainment as well.

03:23:28.820 I mean, it remains true.

03:23:30.320 Reality reasserts itself that in a properly aligned society, politics is downstream of culture.

03:23:35.240 Culture is downstream of religion.

03:23:36.700 It's etymologically related to cult.

03:23:39.120 What a culture worships defines that culture.

03:23:41.360 And in inverted societies, in inverted views of the world, like we see increasingly on the left, that goes exactly in the other direction.

03:23:50.140 So politics defines everything.

03:23:51.780 It defines your culture.

03:23:53.320 It defines what you do, your recreation.

03:23:55.180 And it defines what amounts to your religious faith, which is why you see, especially during the Trump era, so many left-wingers ending friendships with right-wingers, not just on social media, but in real media, in the real air, in real life.

03:24:08.880 Because you've violated that which is sacred to them, which is their politics.

03:24:13.760 Well, I think that, you know, quick distinction.

03:24:16.720 So I think that in the 19th century, sometimes entertainment took the form of politics.

03:24:23.540 Today, politics takes the form of entertainment.

03:24:25.080 In other words, people had to be entertained by something, but it didn't fundamentally change the nature of politics, meaning that people would go and watch a two-hour debate between Lincoln and Douglas.

03:24:32.400 And today, people will watch a 30-second clip of AOC owning somebody, or me owning somebody, for that matter, right?

03:24:38.680 I mean, that's what people do.

03:24:40.180 So politics has actually been shaped to meet the memery of the entertainment world.

03:24:45.160 And so, well, I do think that culture, politics was downstream from culture, and now we're seeing a merging of the two.

03:24:50.360 I mean, President Trump is a reality TV star, right?

03:24:52.880 And the next president will presumably be a new form of reality TV star, as Barack Obama was.

03:24:57.220 With all of that said, the part that's dangerous to me is that politics itself has taken the form of entertainment, as opposed to the way it used to be, which was politics remained its own form.

03:25:07.700 It's just people were entertained by it.

03:25:09.180 Now it's that we view a YouTube clip of a cat falling off a tile in the same way that we view a piece of political commentary.

03:25:18.120 I saw this last week.

03:25:19.220 Noah Rothman did a segment on MSNBC about his new book, Unjust, which is quite good, about intersectionality.

03:25:23.820 And somebody cut a two-minute clip in which it doesn't show him talking at all.

03:25:27.960 It's just somebody responding to a claim that we don't know, Noah made, about how he doesn't understand intersectionality, blah, blah, blah.

03:25:33.740 This thing that was retweeted by everyone on the left, this was the end.

03:25:37.040 And Noah was like, you might want to watch the next 30 seconds where I respond to that so you know.

03:25:40.520 But it was like, no, Noah Rothman owned.

03:25:42.820 Because we watch WWE in the same way we watch politics now.

03:25:46.600 So the actual form of politics has changed.

03:25:48.420 And that, I think, is pretty dark.

03:25:49.280 There was something, too, which speaks to what Jeremy was saying about perception, is that because the arts are monopolized by the left,

03:25:57.500 they've basically dictated what can be in our entertainment.

03:26:00.760 It's absurd to me.

03:26:02.160 They set the Overton window?

03:26:03.260 Yeah, exactly.

03:26:04.060 It's absurd to me that every single late-night comedian is anti-Trump. 0.96

03:26:07.260 Everyone, not one, is going to come on and say, oh, yeah, I like Trump, or Nancy Pelosi is also silly. 0.99

03:26:11.860 You know, in the day when Charlton Heston, the great Hollywood conservative, and Gregory Peck, the great Hollywood liberal,

03:26:19.120 could be good friends and could both represent the kinds of American heroes that we all respected, that was a different day.

03:26:25.080 Well, at the very least, I mean, Jay Leno, you didn't really know his politics.

03:26:27.340 You sort of figured maybe he was a modern Republican, maybe.

03:26:29.680 Johnny Carson, who was a Democrat, a lifelong Democrat, had no idea what his politics were.

03:26:32.800 Now you have Stephen Colbert basically fellating Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer on air.

03:26:37.220 Yeah, and embarrassingly, because he knows nothing about politics, I mean, he'll have some hacked Democrat on and treat her like she's, you know. 1.00

03:26:44.720 It's also just bad.

03:26:45.940 It's bad. It's not funny.

03:26:46.900 It's just bad stuff. 0.68

03:26:47.700 I mean, it's like, the new definition of comedy is just sucking radical.

03:26:51.800 I would rather have...

03:26:52.620 Well, because actual comedy is immoral, according to the new religious virtue system of the puritanical left.

03:27:01.400 Okay, can we do another question?

03:27:03.280 You want to?

03:27:03.740 Yeah, let's do it.

03:27:04.280 One more question.

03:27:04.780 One more question.

03:27:05.320 We do have more questions, and your statement just then reminds me of what my mom always said.

03:27:09.060 Behind every joke, there's a hint of truth, and as we know, people on the left just don't like the truth, so they won't laugh at it.

03:27:14.480 Donald says, hey, guys, with Cory Booker's prejudicial questions to Judge Candidate Rao, why doesn't McConnell remove him from the Judiciary Committee?

03:27:23.380 Well, I mean, you know, I think that the restrictions on removing people from the Judiciary Committee are pretty strict.

03:27:29.200 It's difficult to just censure somebody.

03:27:31.460 Also, if I'm a Republican, I want Cory Booker saying that kind of stuff.

03:27:34.140 Like, I want Cory Booker out there every single day being the doof that he is with his weird fingers and googly eyes doing his I am Spartacus routine.

03:27:42.640 Well, what I love about Cory Booker the most, honestly, is it's like you guys have any watches where you actually, the face isn't on the watch.

03:27:48.560 You can see the gears turning under the watch.

03:27:50.700 Cory Booker is that but a human.

03:27:52.480 You can see every political calculation happening in real time.

03:27:55.080 It's like if I turn this little gear right here, it turns the big gear, and the big gear is where I'm popular.

03:28:00.960 And so he does this with everything.

03:28:02.880 Everything has to be rehearsed a thousand times.

03:28:04.920 And it's so over the top.

03:28:06.760 He chews the scenery like no one I've ever seen.

03:28:09.540 I mean, the guy is just, I mean, he's the Nicolas Cage of politics.

03:28:12.880 He did this routine today where Ted Cruz responded to him after he did this religious attack on Rao, and Cruz said exactly what is true. 0.63

03:28:22.660 Ted said, well, you know, this is a religious attack, what you just did.

03:28:26.560 And Booker says, you know, Senator, you and I are friends.

03:28:29.580 And since we're friends, you know that I would die to protect someone else's religious freedom.

03:28:34.480 And I just thought to myself, yeah, go, you know.

03:28:36.340 I mean, slow wind up for the middle finger, my friend, because you have got to be kidding me.

03:28:41.980 Like, you legitimately just said that this woman should not be able to sit on a federal court because you disagree about her private religious views. 0.99

03:28:48.160 And then you're saying you would die for her religious freedom.

03:28:50.440 Now I'm going to go with I don't believe you.

03:28:51.840 So, you know, getting Cory Booker out.

03:28:54.120 No, more Cory Booker.

03:28:55.020 Lots of Cory Booker.

03:28:55.780 Make Cory Booker the nominee.

03:28:56.860 More Cory Booker.

03:28:58.260 So, Alicia and all of our Daily Wire subscribers, thank you guys for the questions and for making it possible for us to do what we do.

03:29:04.860 I have one last question.

03:29:06.800 Hey, hey, hey.

03:29:07.720 Before you get to this, we've made it through like two and a half, three hours right now.

03:29:12.840 It's this man's birthday.

03:29:13.940 It's not the big birthday.

03:29:15.100 It's not 41.

03:29:16.520 But it is your 40th birthday.

03:29:17.920 And that's a big deal, too.

03:29:19.060 Another year closer to death?

03:29:20.400 I think we have to celebrate that in some way.

03:29:23.300 Maybe just a rendition of Happy Birthday.

03:29:25.200 Did you guys get me a blue checkmark?

03:29:26.540 We finally got you a flaming blue checkmark.

03:29:29.900 Can we sing a round of Happy Birthday?

03:29:31.080 Absolutely.

03:29:31.840 Absolutely.

03:29:32.120 Happy birthday to you.

03:29:35.300 Happy birthday to you.

03:29:38.680 Happy birthday, dear God King.

03:29:42.360 Happy birthday to you.

03:29:46.640 You got it.

03:29:47.760 They wouldn't have done that for Trump.

03:29:54.820 All right.

03:29:55.780 You all get to eat this now knowing that some of my spittle is on it.

03:30:00.820 Oh, perfect.

03:30:01.540 It is the weirdest tradition, isn't it?

03:30:03.400 You can send that in to 23andMe.

03:30:04.620 You can find out whether you're more Native American than Elizabeth Warren.

03:30:06.540 I don't need 23andMe to answer that question.

03:30:10.160 Jeremy, I'm going to let you cut it.

03:30:11.240 Well, thank you.

03:30:12.100 I'll let you cut it while we cut the show.

03:30:13.580 And I will, as I prepare everyone a nice slice of this beautiful birthday cake, which appropriately has the lowercase g, lowercase k.

03:30:21.240 I will ask my final question, which is, did tonight help the president?

03:30:26.500 Yeah, it definitely helped him.

03:30:27.800 I mean, the question is how much play there is left in the joints.

03:30:31.340 That's always the question for Trump is, is there really any upside left for him?

03:30:34.860 If there is upside for him that's available, then he got it tonight.

03:30:37.920 Now, the question, the other question is, how long will it maintain? 0.99

03:30:41.860 Because how many times have we seen the, this was the moment that Trump became president, and then two minutes later, he's kicking himself in the ass and walking around with an accordion. 0.99

03:30:50.060 Like, we just don't know. 0.99

03:30:53.440 And now that image is in my head.

03:30:55.080 Thank you, Ben.

03:30:57.280 I don't think this, I don't think this moved the ball. 0.99

03:30:59.860 I think it helped his, again, it put him in a position where he is now in charge of the conversation again until he tweets some stupid thing. 0.70

03:31:09.360 And I think, I don't think it moved, it's going to force anybody to move off the dime on the immigration thing. 0.97

03:31:15.020 But I do think, you know, he always, there's always a chance with Trump that people will take another look.

03:31:20.080 The American public want a good president.

03:31:22.560 They want him to do a good job.

03:31:24.060 They want him to be presidential.

03:31:25.180 If he can reconstruct himself a little bit, which I just seriously doubt, you know, he put himself in a position to do that.

03:31:33.120 I just, I don't believe that.

03:31:34.380 There's a reason incumbents tend to get reelected, and it's that reason.

03:31:38.200 We are rooting for the guy.

03:31:39.920 And I think tonight was basically a win.

03:31:41.860 I think it was a win of a speech.

03:31:44.000 Does it move the needle out of it?

03:31:45.120 We'll see if the government shuts down again in a few weeks.

03:31:47.560 We'll just, that is hard to say.

03:31:49.740 But it at least wasn't a loss.

03:31:51.560 He didn't hurt himself tonight.

03:31:53.160 What more can you ask for?

03:31:54.280 I think there's one other aspect of it, too, that we haven't talked about, and that is, he really did expertly play the freshman women.

03:32:03.700 Oh, yeah.

03:32:04.080 Yeah, he did.

03:32:04.920 It was well done.

03:32:05.840 Democrats. 1.00

03:32:06.360 I didn't think they were going to be stupid enough to fall for it. 1.00

03:32:08.220 They just went right for it. 1.00

03:32:09.460 I mean, it was amazing.

03:32:10.180 He was like, so, and one more thing that you're going to love.

03:32:12.700 Yeah.

03:32:13.320 You're here.

03:32:14.320 And they're like.

03:32:14.820 Don't sit down.

03:32:16.220 If he had just set up confetti cannons.

03:32:18.080 It was like the sleaciest lounge singer trick that you used to like, and all the ladies, the beautiful ladies in the audience. 1.00

03:32:25.820 You're seeing all the women here who look under 40. 1.00

03:32:28.380 Not a day over 40.

03:32:29.560 It's a bunch of 80-year-old blue hairs.

03:32:30.960 I mean, that's what he was doing.

03:32:31.560 If women didn't keep falling for that, the human race would die out. 1.00

03:32:37.860 When Trump looks magnanimous, it really works.

03:32:41.080 He works for the audience.

03:32:41.860 I mean, that was it.

03:32:42.440 Like, his comedy routine tonight really works.

03:32:44.140 He had a couple of throwaway lines, and they were his best moments.

03:32:46.220 Every time he does that, he's great.

03:32:47.440 Yeah.

03:32:48.100 Like, the thing where he said they wouldn't, you know, do the happy birthday, they wouldn't sing that.

03:32:52.400 Or to the little girl with cancer, they wouldn't cheer for me that way.

03:32:56.120 Like, all of that, great.

03:32:58.940 All of that's great.

03:33:00.380 And I also think that he did a pretty expert job.

03:33:03.740 And I don't know if it was on purpose or if favor just broke in his direction, which is by framing so many of his arguments the way that he did,

03:33:13.520 he got to really show what Nancy Pelosi will stand for and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won't.

03:33:20.700 In several places, he drew out that distinction, which is potentially a really important fault line.

03:33:29.360 And it's always the best part of the State of the Union is always what the opposition will not stand for.

03:33:34.740 Because if you're not standing for black unemployment, you know, for black employment, who are you? 0.83

03:33:38.280 What do you represent?

03:33:39.680 And he did show, I mean, that's the definition.

03:33:40.960 You're the party of the Ku Klux Klan. 0.83

03:33:43.120 That is the definition of a wedge issue, right?

03:33:45.440 You put a wedge in between us.

03:33:47.000 And he nailed it.

03:33:48.040 I will say, the one other thing that he did, and it was clever, is that he gave us all the red meat that we wanted,

03:33:52.760 but he had a bunch of policy prescriptions that I don't particularly like.

03:33:55.580 And he just dumped them in there, and we sort of glossed over that.

03:33:57.520 But if people were listening, and you happen to be, you know, kind of slightly left of center,

03:34:02.140 and you like government spending on infrastructure, and you like tariff, and you like free family paid leave,

03:34:07.820 and all this kind of stuff mandated by the government.

03:34:09.500 You like actual leaders of drug rings getting their finances.

03:34:12.160 Getting who really is from prison.

03:34:14.920 I mean, like, all that stuff.

03:34:15.720 We forgot about that.

03:34:16.360 That was a low moment.

03:34:17.160 The only thing that could go to China, guys.

03:34:18.980 I mean, that's not red meat material for the right wing, and he can get away with that stuff.

03:34:22.180 That's right.

03:34:22.280 So this is why a lot of folks said if he had started off his presidency by making a couple moves across the aisle,

03:34:27.300 he would have been a little better off.

03:34:28.340 I still think that Democrats were never going to allow him to do that.

03:34:30.000 They wouldn't let him.

03:34:30.720 They couldn't.

03:34:31.760 Nevertheless, he wakes up tomorrow in a slightly better position than he started off today.

03:34:35.980 Yep.

03:34:36.340 And until the Mueller report comes out in two weeks.

03:34:38.300 So see you then for the backstage.

03:34:39.660 Yeah.

03:34:40.140 Tune in for backstage two weeks from now when the Mueller report drops.

03:34:43.160 Russia collusion.

03:34:44.160 It may not be two weeks from now.

03:34:45.080 I guarantee you when it drops, we're going to be doing one of these.

03:34:47.160 Oh, yeah.

03:34:47.520 All right.

03:34:48.700 Well, thanks again to our Daily Wire subscribers and everyone who's stuck it out this far.

03:34:51.840 You actually made it through the State of the Union, which is basically, it's your 40th birthday, too.

03:34:58.400 Congratulations.

03:34:59.380 We'll see you guys next time.

The Michael Knowles Show - February 06, 2019

Daily Wire Backstage SOTU Special

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