The Michael Knowles Show - Daily Wire Backstage State of the Union 2024 Coverage

00:00:00.000 Hold up, is that the new Kia K4?

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00:00:06.280 What's the inside like?

00:00:07.580 Super tech forward.

00:00:08.980 It has features like the Blindspot View Monitor to keep me safe while I'm driving.

00:00:12.460 Nice.

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00:00:16.620 A necessity when I'm driving to the cottage on weekends.

00:00:19.080 Sounds like a dream.

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00:00:27.420 Kia.

00:00:27.680 The movement that inspires.

00:00:30.000 Hey, Michael Knowles here.

00:00:31.340 The latest episode of Backstage State of the Union 2024 coverage is available now.

00:00:35.860 Join Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan, Matt Walsh, and the God King Jeremy Boring as they unpack

00:00:39.460 Joe Biden's State of the Union address with me piping in from the actual State of the Union.

00:00:45.700 Take a listen.

00:00:46.160 Welcome to the Daily Wire's live coverage of the State of the Union.

00:01:13.180 Tonight, I'm joined by two of the best-looking men in the business.

00:01:16.420 I don't want to say who.

00:01:17.740 I don't want to start no fights.

00:01:19.660 I'm your host, Jeremy Boring.

00:01:21.040 We're glad to have you with us.

00:01:22.100 Before we get started, I want to remind you that all of our Daily Wire Plus members can submit questions,

00:01:27.140 and we will do our best to answer a lot of them in the back half of the show coming up after the president's remark.

00:01:33.040 That's right. It's that time of year again, the worst night of the year, the night that the president stands up and goes on and on and on and on and on and on.

00:01:42.780 It doesn't really matter to me if it's a Republican president or a Democrat president.

00:01:46.000 People used to say, oh, Trump, it's going to be great.

00:01:47.980 It was not great.

00:01:49.140 The State of the Union is one of the worst things that happens in American public life.

00:01:52.880 That's why we joined together so that you can suffer right here with us.

00:01:57.000 The only thing that makes tonight's State of the Union somewhat more bearable to me is that while we're here suffering it with whiskey and Mayflower cigars and whatever it is that Ben's allowed to eat according to his religion,

00:02:08.340 Michael Knowles is actually there in person.

00:02:10.380 I know, I know.

00:02:10.940 He's suffering in an actual seat.

00:02:12.600 He's gone and his cigars are here. It's perfect.

00:02:14.580 It's the best use of Michael.

00:02:16.020 He totally deserves this.

00:02:17.920 Good for him. He's finally getting what he deserves.

00:02:19.800 Here's a little clip that Michael sent us from the event itself.

00:02:24.080 Hey, gents.

00:02:25.500 Sorry that I can't be with you all.

00:02:26.880 That's actually not true at all.

00:02:27.700 I'm very glad I can't be with you all because I'm here at the Capitol with Congressman Andy Ogles,

00:02:32.360 who very kindly invited me here for the State of the Union.

00:02:35.480 So you jerks can all watch it on camera.

00:02:38.300 But, you know, we'll be here for the real thing.

00:02:40.440 Andy, you just gave me a very important button on one of the biggest issues facing the country right now.

00:02:45.740 Well, every small town in America, every town in America is a border town

00:02:49.400 because of Joe Biden and his failed policies.

00:02:51.440 And so you have the results of Lake and Riley and so many others that have now come forward in the news

00:02:56.200 of the assaults and the rapes and the murders and the burglaries at the hands of an illegal at the feet.

00:03:01.180 You can lay this at the feet of Joe Biden.

00:03:02.780 Bring up Reagan's line.

00:03:03.960 Are you better now than you were three years ago?

00:03:05.820 And virtually any measure, that is not the case.

00:03:08.360 So we'll see how the president can possibly spin this tonight.

00:03:12.840 You know, one is hard-pressed to think of even one area that has improved or even remained status quo under his tenure.

00:03:19.500 So we'll see what he can do, if he can even stay awake for the speech.

00:03:22.880 And then we'll speak to you afterward.

00:03:24.440 That's Michael Knowles at the Capitol for the event.

00:03:31.600 Probably the greatest night of his life, honestly.

00:03:34.060 If any of us were going to have to go to this thing, who would love it more than Michael?

00:03:38.160 Absolutely.

00:03:38.760 An actual political creeper.

00:03:40.240 Again, he totally deserves it.

00:03:41.900 Anybody who enjoys it should be there.

00:03:43.620 Yeah, that's right.

00:03:44.380 Not only is it the worst night just because the president talks like a dumbass for a thousand years and lists all the things he's not going to do but he's going to yell at you about, but also it's just a monarchic, anti-constitutional spectacle.

00:03:56.260 You have the president of the United States descending among the various legislators who all ooh and ah over him and rush to grip and grin and take a picture with him and make kissy face.

00:04:05.820 And then he's like, right over there in the corner, there's old Bob.

00:04:09.300 Bob was a plumber during World War II.

00:04:11.440 Stand up, Bob.

00:04:12.440 And Bob's like, no, no, no, no.

00:04:13.500 I have it on good authority that Bob will not be there tonight and that every single person the president points out will be there to advocate for slaughtering innocent babies.

00:04:22.480 Oh, that's even better.

00:04:23.240 That's even better.

00:04:23.960 I actually think that's true tonight.

00:04:25.340 No, that's right.

00:04:26.060 He's big into the abortion talk.

00:04:27.600 And so it's all of that.

00:04:29.500 And then half the crowd stands up half the time, half the crowd sits down half the time, and every so often you have Nancy Pelosi rip something up in the background.

00:04:35.620 And that's pretty much the night.

00:04:36.460 It's garbage.

00:04:37.020 The painful part for me is the press.

00:04:39.260 The press has now gone so far.

00:04:40.700 I thought I was inured to it.

00:04:42.300 I thought I had gotten used to it.

00:04:43.300 And then I saw Joe Scarborough saying that Biden was, this was the best Biden ever.

00:04:48.920 So first of all, can I just say, Joe Scarborough now looks exactly like Waldo from Where's Waldo?

00:04:53.200 So we've answered at least one important question.

00:04:55.640 Where is Waldo?

00:04:56.520 Where is Waldo?

00:04:57.100 In the MSNBC set.

00:04:58.160 But I just thought, like, what has to happen to you before you can speak those words?

00:05:03.520 F you, he said, if you don't agree that this guy is on point.

00:05:08.420 He's alpha.

00:05:09.220 He's really.

00:05:09.780 It was the SNL routine.

00:05:11.840 Come to life.

00:05:13.020 And I just can't.

00:05:14.500 What Noel said, I hate to admit it, but Noel said something true.

00:05:17.400 But he's right.

00:05:18.180 There's no area of American life that's better since Biden took office that he has any control over.

00:05:23.540 And yet, you know, for the next two days, we're going to be listening to actual journalists wearing, who can dress themselves, wearing ties and dresses and looking like respectable people, lying about everything that just happened.

00:05:36.920 Well, Ben and I had a conversation today with a journalist who was asking us about why Gina Carano won't consent to being vaccinated if she purportedly wants to get back into the movie business, but she's unwilling to get vaccinated, which is now the industry standard in Hollywood.

00:05:53.920 And this guy, it was a wonderful conversation we had with him.

00:05:57.200 I'm sure he's on the other side, but it wasn't hostile in any way.

00:06:00.420 But he brought this up and he was actually, he said, God, help me understand.

00:06:04.540 I literally don't understand.

00:06:05.480 I do not understand.

00:06:06.120 I can't square it.

00:06:07.060 She says that what she wants is to be back in the movies, but she won't do the thing.

00:06:11.320 The only impediment is getting vaccinated.

00:06:13.900 Why won't she just get vaccinated?

00:06:15.180 Please, I genuinely don't understand.

00:06:17.560 And I thought, yeah, I know you don't understand because you live in such a bubble.

00:06:23.820 The left has built, they're against walls, ostensibly, but they have built walls between them and us such that they don't even understand how we think.

00:06:33.020 I'm not saying that he would agree if he knew how we think.

00:06:36.120 But you would imagine that he would at least understand the basic premise of what it is.

00:06:40.280 I have to tell you, I spent this week in New York and I was talking to a lot of publishing people and a lot of stuff about my work and all this stuff.

00:06:46.460 And they're the same way.

00:06:47.900 They're like, well, you can compromise here and you can cut this out.

00:06:50.180 And I keep saying to him, I can't because it's not like I disagree with woke a little bit.

00:06:55.680 I think woke is evil.

00:06:56.800 I think you guys are the bad guys.

00:06:58.500 So it's kind of like saying, you know, you could just put a nice thing about Hitler here, you know, and a nice thing about Mao.

00:07:03.940 But this speaks to, I think, one of the things that's happened to Biden.

00:07:06.840 So when Biden took office, he had about a 55, 60 percent approval rating.

00:07:10.020 And he came into office as a supposed moderate.

00:07:12.380 He was somebody who's going to unify the country and govern from the center left.

00:07:15.440 Right.

00:07:15.600 He won the entire race on the basis of not being Bernie Sanders on the one hand and not being Donald Trump on the other.

00:07:20.100 And so he enters office, and that's sort of the basis of his entire administration.

00:07:25.200 And very quickly, he shifts into, I'm going to be FDR.

00:07:28.100 And that means I'm going to swivel to the radical left, and I'm going to make myself subject to every single thing the radical left wants of me.

00:07:33.980 And I'm just going to keep pandering to the radical left.

00:07:35.920 The problem is there aren't that many radical leftists.

00:07:38.000 And so what has actually happened is that the reason he's doing poorly in the polls is not just because his base is unenthused about him.

00:07:44.260 It's because independents do not like him.

00:07:46.440 Moderates do not like him.

00:07:47.620 I've been saying this for weeks at this point.

00:07:50.100 Joe Biden is not the moderate in this race.

00:07:52.040 Donald Trump is the moderate in this race.

00:07:53.500 If you look at him positionally on every single issue, Donald Trump has now taken the center of the political spectrum.

00:07:58.720 That includes issues where we all disagree with him, right?

00:08:01.060 On abortion, for example, he might argue for, say, a 16-week federal abortion ban, which is way too late for any of us.

00:08:07.040 But for sort of the median American voter, that's a lot closer than Joe Biden, who's saying abortion up to a point of birth by every available poll.

00:08:12.760 About 48 percent of Americans, according to Gallup, support a 16-week abortion ban.

00:08:16.220 Only 24 percent of Americans want abortion available all the way up to birth.

00:08:19.440 The rest want more restrictions than that.

00:08:21.460 So that's not Biden's position.

00:08:24.380 That's Trump's position.

00:08:25.680 When you look at the Middle East, the crazies in Dearborn, Michigan, who are dictating to Joe Biden that he needs to be somehow putting pressure on Israel to stop the killing of members of Hamas.

00:08:36.840 That, like, that is not where the median American voter is.

00:08:39.620 The median American voter is in one of two places.

00:08:41.920 Either I don't want to hear about it anymore and don't care, which is totally understandable.

00:08:44.860 Or I like Israel more than Hamas.

00:08:46.760 The number of people in America who like Hamas more than Israel is minuscule.

00:08:49.520 I mean, truly minuscule.

00:08:50.660 And those are the people that Joe Biden is catering to in the middle of this entire thing.

00:08:54.160 In fairness, every one of the people in America who prefers Hamas to Israel is currently blocking the presidential route between the White House and the Capitol.

00:09:01.640 I'm not making this up.

00:09:02.720 All 17 to 18 of them are actually attempting to impede President Biden's approach to the Capitol.

00:09:09.780 And he's such a weakling that he won't actually just say to the cops, OK, move everybody.

00:09:13.260 Move them.

00:09:13.700 Right.

00:09:13.840 He'll just leave them there.

00:09:14.520 It'll be four hours from now and we'll be sitting here.

00:09:16.640 Yeah.

00:09:17.120 Look at these morons.

00:09:17.820 One of the things we miss, I think, because we pay attention to the news, is most people are so taken with appearances.

00:09:25.380 I talk to Democrats all the time who say, you know, the Democrat Party has gone too far, but they still believe in Joe Biden because he looks like that guy who used to be the moderate.

00:09:34.160 I mean, I've always detest the guy.

00:09:36.780 I've always hated him.

00:09:37.840 I think he's corrupt.

00:09:38.820 I think he's mean.

00:09:39.620 I think he's small.

00:09:40.140 People forget he gave us our dear friend, Andrew Breitbart, who would just mark the 12th year since Breitbart's death.

00:09:49.420 Breitbart became a conservative in essence because of Joe Biden.

00:09:52.900 That's right.

00:09:53.260 Because of Clarence Thomas.

00:09:54.140 And the other thing about Biden, first of all, I just want to say that I feel right at home because the start to this broadcast has been so negative and cynical.

00:10:02.580 It's like, it's great.

00:10:03.700 I love it.

00:10:03.940 It's a warm bath.

00:10:04.520 Yeah.

00:10:05.440 The other thing about Biden, though, he's the radical in the race.

00:10:08.760 He also, you know, what I think people are starting to finally realize about him is that he really hates the American people.

00:10:18.980 And that's not just like a slogan.

00:10:20.540 He actually does.

00:10:21.760 This has always been one of the distinctions between Trump and Biden because Trump has the reputation of, you know, attacking people and going after people.

00:10:28.360 But Trump always goes after the media.

00:10:30.840 He goes after celebrities.

00:10:31.760 He goes after politicians.

00:10:32.580 He goes after world leaders.

00:10:34.520 Trump never attacks people.

00:10:36.880 He never attacks just like the American people.

00:10:39.400 But that's exactly what Biden does.

00:10:40.660 And I would look for that.

00:10:41.660 That's one thing to look for in this State of Union address is when does he start going after the MAGA Republicans?

00:10:46.840 Because that's his favorite phrase now.

00:10:48.780 MAGA Republican means just people who vote for Trump.

00:10:52.420 That's right.

00:10:52.900 And that's, you know, that's tens of millions of Americans.

00:10:55.460 Well, it's another distinction that they don't understand on the left that I always get a kick out of.

00:10:59.580 Anytime a reporter writes something negative about Ben and I, they refer to us as MAGA Republicans or alt-right.

00:11:06.440 Four years ago, it was alt-right.

00:11:08.280 Now it's MAGA Republicans.

00:11:09.300 It's like you don't understand that no one hates Ben more than the alt-right.

00:11:12.980 And neither of us are MAGA Republicans.

00:11:15.260 Although, listen, Donald Trump's the nominee.

00:11:17.140 And I'm happy.

00:11:18.040 We both voted for him in 2020.

00:11:19.200 We'll both vote for him again.

00:11:20.360 That's right.

00:11:20.740 Yeah.

00:11:20.840 But the left has blinded itself.

00:11:24.220 You know, the truth is that politics has just rotted all of our brains to the point that we can't see distinctions.

00:11:29.580 One of the things I've been amused by all week is that when I talk to people on the left and when I talk to people on the right at the moment, they both tell me this is the most important election of our lifetime.

00:11:38.520 They both tell me our democracy itself is on the line.

00:11:42.220 And so to confront this existential threat, both parties have elevated men who will, either one of them, be the oldest man ever elected to president, both of whom presided over large chunks of the worst failure of our government in the history of the republic, which is the response to COVID-19.

00:11:58.040 Both of whom are obviously diminished, although one of them-

00:12:02.380 Way more than the other.

00:12:03.180 More obviously diminished.

00:12:05.960 It just, and both sides are going, I can't believe you would vote for that other guy.

00:12:11.580 Yeah, can't you see how old and corrupt and out of touch and, uh, well, what, what that shows me is that we, we are so convinced that our politics are so important, uh, that we're, that we're willing to overlook sort of the log in our own eye to a large degree.

00:12:28.640 And, and so both parties are in this position of thinking that the other, not only is, is evil, which is, that's one conversation, uh, but out of their minds.

00:12:39.600 Yeah.

00:12:39.820 For actually elevating the person whom they're elevated.

00:12:41.760 I think, I think to be fair, one of the things I've been talking about repeatedly on my show is I really do believe that we're watching the end of, really of my generation, of, of two failed ideas.

00:12:53.860 One is the great society, which has been a complete and utter failure, but it has fed money and power into the Democrat party, which is why they keep amping up the charges of racism against individuals.

00:13:03.580 And now the entire nation to deflect from the fact that really this stuff needs to be gotten rid of.

00:13:09.520 And, and that's Joe Biden.

00:13:11.220 He embodies that failure.

00:13:12.600 And the other is the failure of movement conservatism.

00:13:14.780 The idea that we're somehow going to repeal the great society and maybe even dial back the new deal and bring back a rebirth of freedom.

00:13:21.300 Donald Trump, as you say, is not a conservative.

00:13:24.600 He looks like a conservative.

00:13:25.940 He talks like a conservative.

00:13:27.360 He gestures like a conservative, but the stuff coming out of his mouth isn't conservatism.

00:13:31.040 And I think the reason that nobody can see what's happening is nobody knows what comes next.

00:13:35.200 Nobody's actually talking in the way I think they should be talking in big theoretical terms about what exactly the new movement, the new conservatism looks like.

00:13:44.820 I've been talking to 25 year olds and listening to a lot of their podcasts and, you know, it's frightening.

00:13:49.420 It sounds a little bit like Knowles, you know, it sounds a little bit like this kind of proto authoritarianism, this idea that this guy, Buke Kaley, what a great guy, you know, he suspended constitutional rights and got rid of the gangsters.

00:14:01.600 He is a good guy though.

00:14:02.340 In that country, he did the right thing, but I'm afraid that they like the suspension of rights more than they like the cleaning up of the gangsters.

00:14:09.320 That's what bothers me.

00:14:10.160 It's not the individual situation.

00:14:13.860 It's the idea.

00:14:14.680 What are they cheering?

00:14:15.480 Are they cheering the arrests of the gangsters?

00:14:16.700 Well, I think, I mean, not to get off on a tangent, but in his case, they're cheering a leader who cares about the safety and security of his people and will do what's necessary to secure that safety and to make their lives better.

00:14:29.260 Because that's, you know, it's like a radical concept in this country, but your leaders are supposed to make your life better.

00:14:34.180 They're supposed to make it, you know, easier for you to live and raise a family.

00:14:38.820 But doing that requires you to do ugly, it's ugly.

00:14:41.660 It requires you to do ugly things sometimes.

00:14:43.460 I can see the point in the case of Bukele.

00:14:45.580 I just think a lot of people cheering him or cheering the suspension of the Constitution more than what you just said.

00:14:49.740 Well, so I think that the key proviso, I would just add to what you're saying, and obviously I agree with it, is with minimum possible force, meaning that the idea that you should use the means necessary in order to secure the safety and security of your people, but using the minimum amount of government compulsion you have to do in order to achieve that is a different thing from saying that the government requires vast overarching powers in order to constantly do that thing.

00:15:15.180 And so the idea of, you know, for example, if Bukele was doing what he's doing as an emergency power, I think most people are okay with that, like on the normal person level.

00:15:24.980 I think the question is in the United States, what kind of powers are we talking about delegating to the government for how long and how broad?

00:15:29.540 When it comes to the movement conservatism point, I would agree with you, except I feel, you know, like the no true Scotsman communist here.

00:15:36.020 I would agree with you, except I don't think movement conservatism has ever been tried.

00:15:39.320 There's never been a candidate in my lifetime running for president of the United States who vowed to actually seriously tackle things like the deficit, vowed to seriously tackle things like the Great Society program.

00:15:49.880 George W. Bush increased spending. He campaigned as a compassionate conservative.

00:15:53.700 In 1996, Bob Dole was not campaigning as a slash-and-burn government guy.

00:15:57.920 In 1992, George H.W. Bush was not campaigning as a slash-and-burn government guy.

00:16:01.560 In fact, even Ronald Reagan was not a slash-and-burn government guy.

00:16:04.340 He talked like it, but he actually was not.

00:16:05.740 He wildly expanded government expenditures under his reign.

00:16:08.760 So, you know, the idea that what comes next might be something that looks like, say, for looking south of the border again, something like Javier Mille on the right, that would not be a bad thing.

00:16:17.320 Like Javier Mille coming in and just vastly cutting programs.

00:16:19.900 I'm totally in favor of that.

00:16:21.380 The big question for me tonight, you know, getting back to Joe Biden and away from South America, the big question for me is, of course, whether Joe Biden is capable of remaining conscious or whether he's going to fall asleep.

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00:16:39.340 Drew, don't you also have a Helix Sleep Mattress?

00:16:40.740 I do indeed, and I stay awake all night, so I actually know how comfortable it is.

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00:17:40.580 So, yeah, I mean, the truth is hovering over all of the political talk is the simple fact that most Americans vote based on who they just like when they get into the voting booth.

00:17:49.200 And who's taller.

00:17:50.260 Well, yeah, that's who.

00:17:51.720 And money.

00:17:52.560 It is amazing to me.

00:17:54.180 I think that the Democrats really thought that everybody would just ignore the fact that Joe Biden is no longer sentient.

00:17:58.260 Everybody knows that's the underlying question of tonight is whether they're going to have to break out the defibrillators.

00:18:02.300 The only question is how serious the health crisis will be.

00:18:07.940 You know, I'm sure there are over under bets on how long he will pause during the speech to regain it.

00:18:12.780 If somebody you can end his presidency tonight if you unplug the teleprompter.

00:18:17.300 If you unplug the teleprompter, dude is toast because he will just start me.

00:18:21.160 That's what my rosary is on.

00:18:25.420 It's just handing out Werther's original.

00:18:27.160 I mean, there's only one way I truly think, honestly, that he can save the speech tonight.

00:18:32.940 That's to reach into the podium and get one of these.

00:18:35.720 Oh, no.

00:18:42.200 And may the force be with you.

00:18:46.080 May the force be with you.

00:18:47.280 We're not going to explain that at all?

00:18:48.320 No.

00:18:49.100 That's not the way of our show.

00:18:50.080 We make obscure jokes.

00:18:51.260 Fine, we'll explain the joke.

00:18:52.300 Okay, for those who haven't seen.

00:18:53.260 No, where are you going to explain this?

00:18:54.040 Because it's a great clip, and so we have to show it.

00:18:55.740 Okay, fine.

00:18:56.900 So this went viral in 2003 in Chile.

00:18:59.560 We're back south of the border.

00:19:00.660 In Chile, they ran Star Wars A New Hope on TV, and they did not tell the advertisers that they were not allowed to do this.

00:19:07.540 So the advertisers just did something unique with Cerveza Cristal.

00:19:12.300 And so we bring you this masterpiece.

00:19:15.160 You fought in the Clone Wars?

00:19:17.100 Yes.

00:19:17.460 I was once a Jedi Knight, the same as your father.

00:19:24.040 I wish I'd known him.

00:19:25.700 He was the best star pilot in the galaxy.

00:19:29.400 And a cunning warrior.

00:19:31.320 I understand you've become quite a good pilot yourself.

00:19:36.000 And he was a good friend.

00:19:39.060 Which reminds me.

00:19:41.120 I have something here for you.

00:19:45.380 Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough.

00:19:48.040 Can I just say, when I watch that, I'm reminded by, I'm reminded about how bad the writing and acting in Star Wars is.

00:20:00.820 God bless it, Matt.

00:20:02.360 You're the worst person.

00:20:03.320 It doesn't hold up at all.

00:20:04.920 That's not true.

00:20:05.280 I'm not trying to be controversial.

00:20:06.260 I'm just saying.

00:20:06.780 It's not true at all.

00:20:08.060 It's not even remotely true.

00:20:09.560 Ben, because you watched it.

00:20:10.740 No, my kids watched it.

00:20:11.920 When was the first time you saw Star Wars?

00:20:13.600 I don't know.

00:20:13.940 Seven, maybe.

00:20:14.600 Exactly.

00:20:15.080 You have a nostalgic attachment to it.

00:20:16.720 If you wait like I did, and you watch it the first time when you're like 25, you go, like, this is Star Wars?

00:20:22.080 This is what everyone's freaking out about?

00:20:23.480 I have to tell you, this is the one opinion of Matt's I agree with 100%.

00:20:27.680 You do?

00:20:28.060 You do agree?

00:20:28.680 Of course you do, because you thought the talkies would never last.

00:20:32.940 By the way, you want to know something funny?

00:20:34.280 Alec Guinness in that movie is 56.

00:20:36.660 Is he?

00:20:37.480 Yeah.

00:20:37.960 He's born in 1914.

00:20:38.580 Every time I watch him, I think he's such an intelligent actor, he must be thinking,

00:20:42.100 I hope the paycheck for this is very good, because I'm making a fool of myself entirely.

00:20:46.200 And they're not Americans.

00:20:48.100 Are you going to defend the actor in this movie?

00:20:50.200 I never thought I'd want Michael.

00:20:51.160 Okay, so I'll defend it.

00:20:52.460 You think Mark Hamill?

00:20:55.140 Okay, Mark Hamill's indefensible.

00:20:57.020 But I will say that Alec Guinness is great in everything.

00:21:01.000 And he's great in everything.

00:21:02.100 And he's great in this.

00:21:03.200 And Harrison Ford is iconic.

00:21:06.660 He is.

00:21:07.280 I mean, you want to talk about the greatest run?

00:21:09.740 Sorry, Alec Guinness was 50, let's see, he was 63.

00:21:13.960 Anyway.

00:21:14.260 You don't have to defend Star Wars to these bozos.

00:21:17.020 It's one of the most successful films of all time.

00:21:19.760 Successful?

00:21:20.300 No question about that.

00:21:21.620 And it deserves it.

00:21:22.680 No, no, no.

00:21:23.500 It destroyed the movie industry.

00:21:24.840 It destroyed the movie industry?

00:21:26.280 Yeah, yeah.

00:21:27.000 In what way?

00:21:27.460 That's an interesting take.

00:21:28.340 Why do you say that?

00:21:28.800 That's a stupid take.

00:21:29.280 Because the IQ of movies before Star Wars was up around 140.

00:21:34.180 After Star Wars, the movie industry is not, the movies are now 90, you know.

00:21:38.120 What are you talking about?

00:21:39.320 I like that take.

00:21:40.020 I'm going to take that take.

00:21:40.320 Can I take that take?

00:21:41.400 That's a stupid take.

00:21:42.400 A little, you know, copyright on it.

00:21:44.220 The IQ of the movie industry started to really wreck itself during Marvel era.

00:21:49.340 Okay?

00:21:49.780 That's late.

00:21:50.320 But it's really during Marvel era.

00:21:51.380 No, but this created the Marvel era.

00:21:53.720 This created the place where the...

00:21:55.300 This is 30 years before Marvel era.

00:21:57.280 No, no, no.

00:21:57.960 77.

00:21:58.280 It took a long time for the cancer to reach through the entire body.

00:22:02.860 I mean, now, go back and watch, like, the worst B-movie made in 1948, and the intelligence

00:22:09.240 level is so far above Star Wars, and the depth of feeling and humanity.

00:22:14.080 People now think that they're good guys.

00:22:15.600 Yes, but there was a decade called the 60s, and the movies sucked.

00:22:18.220 And then there was a decade called the 70s, and most of the movies, except for anything

00:22:21.160 made by Francis Ford Coppola, sucked.

00:22:23.260 Okay?

00:22:23.580 And then you got Star Wars, and it saved the movie industry, because literally there wouldn't

00:22:26.180 be a movie industry in Star Wars.

00:22:26.720 Well, it saved the movie industry by turning it into a stupid...

00:22:29.580 Amadeus won Best Picture three years after this.

00:22:31.680 I'm so glad I brought this up.

00:22:33.260 I'm so glad I brought it up.

00:22:34.280 And also, yeah, that's a great take.

00:22:36.980 It's absolutely true.

00:22:37.940 I mean, I used to come...

00:22:39.260 When we were just starting the Daily Wire, I used to come in, and you guys would be

00:22:43.000 arguing whether Spider-Man was really dead or not.

00:22:45.760 And I would think, like, how old are these guys?

00:22:48.060 These people are over 12.

00:22:50.260 I know, he's talking about, like, Austin and Mathis would be arguing about it, and he's

00:22:53.880 blaming us.

00:22:54.480 I know.

00:22:54.840 Because from his vantage, we all look the same.

00:22:57.640 And by we, I mean anyone under 60.

00:23:01.420 I used to yell at you about it, because you were doing...

00:23:03.740 You would sit there...

00:23:04.300 I remember you sitting there yelling at people.

00:23:06.020 I felt like, who cares?

00:23:07.540 He's a guy in a costume.

00:23:09.840 Spider-Man?

00:23:10.560 Spider-Man.

00:23:11.260 I know.

00:23:11.820 What are you talking about?

00:23:13.040 Yeah, it was some movie where he died, and you were explaining to somebody that he had

00:23:16.580 to come back in the next film.

00:23:18.540 Okay.

00:23:18.780 I'm sorry.

00:23:19.520 Okay, I can't believe these...

00:23:20.520 You know, people tell me conversations that I've had with other people, and I can't believe

00:23:23.660 that I've had those conversations with other people, so I just don't believe that that

00:23:26.380 I'm not...

00:23:26.900 I'm just not going to defend Star Wars.

00:23:29.620 Star Wars doesn't...

00:23:30.500 It requires no defense.

00:23:31.120 Star Wars requires no defense.

00:23:32.200 Except for Kathleen Kennedy.

00:23:32.640 I will say this.

00:23:33.360 Except for Kathleen Kennedy.

00:23:34.160 Well, the real problem with Star Wars now, too, if you waited a long time to watch it,

00:23:37.920 is that it's almost impossible to actually see the original trilogy without all of the

00:23:43.100 self-destructive additions that were made later, that I think Lucas did on purpose.

00:23:49.280 I think he had a sort of subconscious need to destroy the original trilogy, because he

00:23:54.380 did not direct Empire or Jedi.

00:23:57.680 Empire is one of the great movies ever made.

00:23:58.820 That's right.

00:23:59.120 And I think that after he did write and direct the prequels, he needed to go back and make

00:24:06.320 the original trilogy much worse, so that people would quit saying, you're ruining Star Wars.

00:24:11.760 So he actually rewrote even your memory of Star Wars to make it as bad as his prequels

00:24:17.100 were.

00:24:18.360 I mean, my biggest problem with Star Wars was always that this is supposed to be highly

00:24:22.940 advanced technology that can go the speed of light, and they're using essentially swords,

00:24:29.280 like glowing swords.

00:24:30.360 Like, that's never...

00:24:31.520 That repel lasers, my friend.

00:24:33.100 Well, but even so, it just doesn't make sense with all the other technology that that's

00:24:38.640 the weapon you're using is a glowing sword.

00:24:41.320 That's actually a good point, too.

00:24:42.280 I'm sorry.

00:24:42.900 Why is that a good point?

00:24:44.420 That's a terrible point.

00:24:46.200 Anyway, well, you know, we can talk Star Wars all night, but let's talk about the old

00:24:49.380 man who might die tonight.

00:24:50.800 So, anyway.

00:24:51.680 He's sitting right here.

00:24:52.780 Wait a minute.

00:24:54.300 So, I want to speak to that.

00:24:55.720 I think Biden's going to do a great job tonight.

00:24:58.060 I mean, obviously, I hate the State of the Union.

00:24:59.540 I think every word he's going to say is a lie.

00:25:00.960 But I think the performance will not be what everyone thinks it is.

00:25:04.620 I think we always think, we always go into these things thinking that the performance

00:25:08.760 is going to be bad.

00:25:09.580 In fact, during Trump, people thought the same thing.

00:25:12.320 Oh, he's so blustery and bumbling, and he's going to get up there, and it's going to be

00:25:15.140 awful.

00:25:15.600 But it's not true.

00:25:16.580 They get up there.

00:25:17.080 It's a very controlled environment.

00:25:19.020 They're reading from the teleprompter.

00:25:20.680 Their side bails them out and claps for them anytime there's any sign of trouble.

00:25:24.820 I think that it's actually a very hard forum to fail in.

00:25:27.300 I think that we, on the right, correctly observe, of course, that Biden is very old,

00:25:33.940 too old to be president, and diminished.

00:25:36.280 But I think that we sort of assume that he's more diminished than he is.

00:25:40.300 And when you actually put him up on that stage in front of a teleprompter and pump a bunch

00:25:43.840 of heroin into it, he's going to do a fine.

00:25:46.020 He'll do fine.

00:25:46.800 Well, so here's where I disagree.

00:25:48.280 And I don't think it's possible for him to do fine.

00:25:50.180 The reason I say that is because I'm going to use the Roger Ailes before all the bad stuff

00:25:53.680 about Roger Ailes came out test.

00:25:55.540 OK, and the Roger Ailes test was...

00:25:57.860 Can he twirl?

00:25:58.460 Yeah, exactly.

00:26:00.000 Can he twirl?

00:26:01.320 The answer is no, he can't.

00:26:02.560 He can not twirl.

00:26:03.320 No, but the actual test that he used to determine whether somebody was good on TV or not is

00:26:07.060 he would mute the TV.

00:26:08.040 So if he was watching a news program and he wanted to determine if somebody should be

00:26:10.620 an anchor or not, he would watch them and he would mute the TV and see if he was still

00:26:13.400 interested in watching the TV, which is actually quite a good test because TV is a visual

00:26:16.260 medium.

00:26:17.280 Well, the thing about Joe Biden is that if you mute the TV, he looks like absolute death warmed

00:26:23.560 over.

00:26:24.020 He looks awful.

00:26:24.840 He looks so much worse than he did even four years ago.

00:26:27.920 It's astonishing.

00:26:28.760 The amount of decline that he has undergone...

00:26:30.020 I'm not even talking about how often he slurs his words or reaches for a word that he can't

00:26:33.760 find or starts bumbling basic facts like who is the president of Mexico and who is the

00:26:37.160 president of Egypt.

00:26:38.080 I'm talking about just looking at him as a physical specimen of a human being.

00:26:42.160 I know people who are 81, who are in significantly better shape than Joe Biden, like far, far better

00:26:47.020 shape than Joe Biden.

00:26:47.760 He has undergone a steep decline.

00:26:49.300 And so the very possibility...

00:26:50.740 So when you look at him, if you don't see Kamala Harris lurking in the background, you're

00:26:54.060 doing it wrong because that dude is not...

00:26:55.780 Trump is in much better shape, but Trump is also diminished.

00:26:58.720 He is diminished.

00:26:59.220 He is not 2016 Donald Trump.

00:27:01.140 He's not, but they've done everything they could possibly do to him to destroy him.

00:27:05.460 And he's kind of amazing.

00:27:06.560 He's still making jokes.

00:27:07.520 Well, he's preserved his life energy by eating cheeseburgers and never exercising.

00:27:11.980 Amazing.

00:27:13.100 Peter O'Toole said the only exercise he gets is carrying the coffins of people who exercise.

00:27:17.300 Also, the delta between 2016 Trump and 2024 Trump is not nearly the delta between...

00:27:26.060 Yeah.

00:27:26.340 Oh, absolutely.

00:27:26.860 And that's the real question.

00:27:28.060 It's not that...

00:27:28.980 Of course, he's diminished, but he was starting from a point where he was a stand-up comedian

00:27:32.600 who makes funny jokes, and you weren't expecting him to deliver a disquisition on the future

00:27:36.960 of Iraq or something.

00:27:37.960 Right.

00:27:38.200 You weren't expecting that if you watched from Joe Biden either, but that's what Joe Biden

00:27:40.600 held himself up to be.

00:27:41.880 Joe Biden always thought of himself as this sort of senatorial demosthenes, right?

00:27:45.880 He was going to be out there just speaking pearls of wisdom and speaking fluently and

00:27:50.220 smoothly with the gift of gab and all that.

00:27:52.200 Donald Trump has always spoken in short declarative sentences with about a fourth-grade vocation.

00:27:57.640 That's not a rip on him.

00:27:58.360 It's one of the reasons he's a successful communicator.

00:28:00.140 However, because of that, it hides a myriad of sins.

00:28:03.200 It's not as though he's a guy searching for the word myriad, right?

00:28:06.480 He's not going to be doing that, right?

00:28:07.840 I'm not trying.

00:28:08.640 Like, the only thing that he's searching for is whether to use dumb or stupid, or great

00:28:15.440 or magnificent, right?

00:28:16.740 Those are the big puzzles.

00:28:18.860 So when he has a brain fart for a moment, it also just fits well within his oeuvre, right?

00:28:23.920 That's what he does.

00:28:24.820 Like, okay, fine.

00:28:25.520 I agree he's diminished.

00:28:26.840 I do have to say...

00:28:27.880 He can barely walk.

00:28:28.500 When he does...

00:28:28.980 Him walking...

00:28:29.640 I swear, when he walks down the steps here, they're going to be so careful about him

00:28:34.040 walking down the steps and the ramp down here.

00:28:35.960 That's why I actually...

00:28:37.580 You know, there has not been a State of the Union that mattered in my entire lifetime.

00:28:42.560 No.

00:28:43.000 And generally, they're forgotten within...

00:28:46.060 A week.

00:28:46.460 Within...

00:28:47.240 Really, the next day, you know what I'm talking about.

00:28:49.260 This does have the chance to actually be a State of the Union that will matter politically

00:28:52.260 if there's a moment like that, if he slips and falls, if he has a really bad brain fart

00:28:56.100 type moment, it does have the chance of actually being a significant State of the Union.

00:29:00.140 I just don't think we'll actually get that.

00:29:02.120 I think that this is...

00:29:03.920 I think that if you set yourself up to think you're about to see Joe Biden fail, that you're

00:29:07.960 probably setting yourself up to fail.

00:29:09.580 No.

00:29:10.000 We're seeing some footage here now of the Supreme Court justices entering the House chamber,

00:29:16.040 and you may notice that all of the Democrat senators and...

00:29:20.980 female senators and congresswomen are wearing white, and that's to show that they stand

00:29:25.260 with the people who rip babies out of the wombs.

00:29:27.500 Wouldn't it be red?

00:29:28.660 I'm sorry.

00:29:29.340 You know...

00:29:29.920 They don't say white long in that line of work.

00:29:32.560 Yeah.

00:29:33.000 Props, by the way, here to Samuel Alito, who never shows up for this.

00:29:35.720 Yes.

00:29:36.120 So every year, Samuel Alito's like, we're a co-equal branch of government.

00:29:38.660 I'm not doing this stupid nonsense.

00:29:39.920 And then he doesn't show up.

00:29:41.200 And cheers to Samuel Alito, because that is precisely...

00:29:43.480 I don't see Clarence Thomas there either.

00:29:46.160 Yeah.

00:29:47.000 I mean, when was the last time Joe Biden spoke on camera for more than 20 minutes live?

00:29:52.640 When he gave that rousing...

00:29:54.720 Fascist, independent...

00:29:55.740 Fascist, independent state speech.

00:29:56.960 Oh, that was great.

00:29:57.760 I love that.

00:29:58.420 Hellraiser, too.

00:29:59.340 Speaking of Star Wars, he literally looked like he was...

00:30:02.060 I mean, it was Palpatine in the throne.

00:30:03.380 It was Palpatine, yeah.

00:30:04.460 It was pretty wonderful.

00:30:06.580 You know, to go back to Trump for a minute, though, I have to say, the stuff they have done

00:30:11.420 to him, I believe that every indictment against him, though not every one is untrue, some

00:30:16.960 of them are...

00:30:17.800 They're all unfair.

00:30:19.260 And they're obviously lawfare.

00:30:21.480 They're obviously political.

00:30:22.280 Of course, yeah.

00:30:22.780 And he is still upbeat.

00:30:26.160 And you can see...

00:30:26.600 Why wouldn't he be?

00:30:27.380 He's winning.

00:30:28.040 I know, but it's real.

00:30:29.440 Even if they put you through that and you were winning, wouldn't it beat you down a little

00:30:33.580 bit?

00:30:33.860 You know, he's like, he's having a time in his life.

00:30:36.100 Okay, so here's my problem with this.

00:30:37.860 I don't know what that means.

00:30:38.420 Because him being grumpy is a form of upbeat.

00:30:41.660 Right.

00:30:42.400 Like, really, what's he...

00:30:43.640 I mean, pugnacious is what you're looking for.

00:30:45.660 Donald Trump does not have a mode where he's in, like, mourning and self-reflection.

00:30:50.180 Right.

00:30:50.440 That mode does not exist in the spring.

00:30:51.620 Yes, that's right.

00:30:52.040 And so if you attack him, him being pugnacious is just the norm.

00:30:55.040 But he doesn't even have a mode where he feels, like, beaten.

00:30:58.040 It's like, it's...

00:30:58.740 I'm sorry, but it's moving, you know?

00:31:00.480 It's kind of like when they say, oh, you've got to pay half a billion dollars.

00:31:03.740 And he's like, corrupt guy.

00:31:05.760 I'm going to take him down.

00:31:06.880 But I'm kind of thinking, like, you go get him, buddy, you know?

00:31:09.440 I mean, listen, I agree with all of that.

00:31:11.260 Also, I just don't wish to attribute...

00:31:12.980 It's like when people say, oh, he did an amazing job fighting cancer.

00:31:15.460 And it's like, what else is he going to do?

00:31:16.440 Is he going to surrender?

00:31:17.300 I mean, like, what are his choices here?

00:31:19.380 I mean, like, he's running for president.

00:31:20.920 Once they don't even catch him in a candid moment, like, staring at his shoes, thinking,

00:31:24.580 you know, like, I could go to prison here.

00:31:26.380 Listen, he's a high-energy dude.

00:31:27.460 And the fact that he's a high-energy dude is the reason why he is such a contrast with Biden.

00:31:32.640 Because by all rights, he should be running 10 points behind Biden, regardless of what

00:31:35.940 Biden is doing as president, given all the things that he's been hit with.

00:31:38.440 And given the fact that, you know, he lost the last election, and now he's running again

00:31:41.860 against the same guy.

00:31:43.800 And yet...

00:31:44.600 And yet, there he is.

00:31:45.680 I mean, he's ahead in virtually all the swing states.

00:31:48.980 And the New York Times is saying things like, well, one conviction, and he'll be over it.

00:31:52.640 One conviction, he'll be elected in the last line.

00:31:54.980 Yeah, one conviction, he'll be president of the world.

00:31:57.000 Yeah, this is wishful thinking.

00:31:58.220 It's like, every single time, it's Lucy in the football.

00:32:02.240 Every single time, we've got him this time.

00:32:04.340 How did he escape?

00:32:05.680 How did it happen this time?

00:32:07.120 I will say, he's his party's nominee, which he wasn't the last time we were all together

00:32:10.560 in one room.

00:32:12.760 He's, you know, I mean, he's not officially the party nominee, but he's the last man standing,

00:32:16.080 and almost certainly, you know, acts of God notwithstanding, he's the nominee for his party.

00:32:24.040 And the truth is, he has been since the raid on Mar-a-Lago.

00:32:28.840 Yep.

00:32:29.420 Before the raid on Mar-a-Lago, there was the idea that there might be a primary.

00:32:32.760 After the raid on Mar-a-Lago, it pretty quickly became evident that to the Republican electorate,

00:32:38.580 this was an incumbent president.

00:32:40.380 In other words, the primary itself was perfunctory, just like Joe Biden's primary was perfunctory.

00:32:46.140 I think that that is why some of the criticisms, for example, of, say, Ron DeSantis were,

00:32:52.040 or, and how he ran a terrible campaign, I agreed with our buddy Kurt Schlichter, like,

00:32:56.920 maybe he did, maybe he didn't.

00:32:57.920 It wouldn't matter if he had run a great campaign.

00:32:59.760 Well, I agree.

00:33:00.140 It was Donald Trump.

00:33:01.260 It wouldn't have mattered, but I also think he ran a terrible campaign.

00:33:03.040 I mean, again, both of those things could be true, but I think that basically there

00:33:06.040 were two factors that cut against him.

00:33:07.920 One was the feeling of defensive protection that the Republican base took toward Trump the

00:33:12.680 minute he got hit with the indictment.

00:33:13.560 And the other was Joe Biden collapsing, absolutely collapsing, like a dying star in the polling

00:33:18.500 numbers, because the entire basis for a competitor to Trump was, he can't win, I can win.

00:33:23.980 That's the reason you run against him.

00:33:24.800 Let's say collapsing star.

00:33:25.880 I feel like dying star gives me visions of Kamala ascending, and I don't really want to,

00:33:30.260 oh my gosh.

00:33:30.720 But there just is no correct way to go after Trump if you're in a primary.

00:33:34.560 That's what, you know, what do you do?

00:33:36.540 Because you can not respond to him.

00:33:39.680 That's what DeSantis did at first.

00:33:40.840 Everyone's like, well, you got to go after him.

00:33:42.060 And you go after him, you alienate his supporters.

00:33:44.400 It's just no, it's a, it's, there's a no way, it's a no-win proposition.

00:33:47.780 His basic argument also was, I'll be Trump, but better, which is just not a very good sales.

00:33:53.440 Well, I mean, it would be a good sales pitch if Trump were running at 35%, but Trump wasn't

00:33:56.680 running at 35%.

00:33:57.580 Trump was running dead even with Biden at the time.

00:33:59.700 And so that's-

00:34:00.260 I think that Joe Biden is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Republicans that we didn't take.

00:34:06.600 There is a tragedy to DeSantis, who is the most successful governor of my lifetime.

00:34:12.060 Not being able to clinch the nomination.

00:34:14.140 I agree.

00:34:14.920 But he couldn't clinch the nomination.

00:34:16.520 I mean, it's funny to think, though, that like, Nikki Haley, I think, would trounce Joe Biden.

00:34:23.140 But I don't want Nikki Haley to be president either.

00:34:24.960 I don't think she'd be a very good president.

00:34:26.700 Well, I mean, the real question about whether, about what Trump does in term two is going

00:34:32.460 to be how serious he is about appointing serious people.

00:34:35.100 Yep.

00:34:35.660 And whether they'll show up.

00:34:37.480 Well, that's the question.

00:34:38.400 I think that when somebody's the president, people show up around him.

00:34:41.780 I do think that.

00:34:42.640 But I think that Trump also has this thing in his head that, you know, if you weren't

00:34:48.060 loyal to Trump from beginning to end, this time he's not going to take in anybody who

00:34:51.840 even showed an ounce of disloyalty.

00:34:54.220 And so there could be a sort of internal battle inside Trump administration, too, between

00:34:58.440 the loyalists who are not amazingly good at their job and the people who might be actually

00:35:02.040 really good at their job and transformational and being able to, say, clean out the executive

00:35:05.040 branch, but once said a bad word about Donald Trump or endorse somebody else in a primary

00:35:09.740 or something.

00:35:10.680 Right.

00:35:10.740 That could be a real problem.

00:35:12.200 I will say this, though, for Donald Trump.

00:35:14.640 Obviously, I'm not a fan of Donald Trump.

00:35:17.300 I wish he wasn't the nominee.

00:35:18.320 I hope, like, Hillary wins the general because he is the nominee.

00:35:23.560 He doesn't hold grudges.

00:35:26.340 I actually think that there's this image that Donald Trump holds grudges.

00:35:29.140 Donald Trump holds a grudge right up until the grudge ends.

00:35:31.540 So if you supported DeSantis, if you bashed Trump during the primary, some of Donald

00:35:38.280 Trump's supporters may not forgive you.

00:35:40.060 Donald Trump will stop caring the second that you say something nice about him.

00:35:43.240 That's true.

00:35:44.040 But you have to say the nice thing.

00:35:45.020 You have to say the nice thing.

00:35:45.600 If you don't say the nice thing, you're dead forever.

00:35:47.360 Forever.

00:35:48.020 No matter what.

00:35:49.320 But you say the nice thing, he lets it go instantly.

00:35:52.800 Which there's a kind of charm to that.

00:35:55.880 No, he does have a kind of charm.

00:35:58.100 And the press enhances his charm because they're worse than he is.

00:36:02.700 So that everything, all the kind of overstatements he makes, the hyperbole and all that stuff,

00:36:07.660 don't look like anything compared to the lies of the press.

00:36:10.280 And not only that, they take those and then they treat them absolutely literally.

00:36:12.860 Yes.

00:36:13.340 I mean, that's the part where we all start doing it.

00:36:15.220 And come on.

00:36:15.700 Yeah.

00:36:16.940 Shane Gillis has a wonderful routine about Donald Trump's speech that he made after Abu

00:36:21.540 Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed.

00:36:23.200 Oh, yes.

00:36:23.560 It's a wonderful, wonderful routine.

00:36:24.920 When he was saying about the wonders of Trump and how Trump came out and where Obama, after

00:36:28.980 they killed bin Laden, he came out and he was very somber and he was trying to explain

00:36:32.480 in very measured tones what had happened.

00:36:34.560 Trump came out and he's like, we killed him.

00:36:36.060 He's dead.

00:36:36.880 He died like a dog.

00:36:37.820 Dirty dog.

00:36:38.720 Dirty dog.

00:36:39.880 And everybody found that charming.

00:36:42.140 And the media were like, I can't believe he would talk like that.

00:36:44.280 That's just so terrible.

00:36:46.500 And nobody looks at Trump that way anymore.

00:36:48.740 Like, it's all baked into the cake.

00:36:49.960 Here's the other thing.

00:36:50.720 I think that there is a whole group of Americans who are older, who are looking at younger Americans

00:36:54.860 and they're like, what's happening right now isn't normal.

00:36:57.260 Like, it's weird and it's not normal.

00:36:58.800 And for younger Americans, guess what?

00:37:00.840 This is normal.

00:37:01.820 This has been happening since 2015.

00:37:03.420 It is now 2024.

00:37:05.000 There are people who are going to vote in the next election cycle who are legitimately

00:37:08.240 nine or 10 years old when Donald Trump became a presidential candidate for the first

00:37:12.580 time.

00:37:12.860 And a lot of them, a lot of them.

00:37:14.160 I had this guy I interviewed this week, a 24-year-old conservative talker with a small

00:37:19.660 show.

00:37:20.520 And he said, you know, 2020 happens.

00:37:23.280 You watch these riots go on.

00:37:25.180 You watch the press tell you that these riots will cure COVID.

00:37:28.580 But if you go to a Donald Trump rally, that will spread COVID.

00:37:31.720 And the riots are mostly peaceful with the buildings.

00:37:33.880 He said, you realize these people are not here for me.

00:37:36.080 They don't, they hate me, you know?

00:37:37.760 Yeah, I'm sorry.

00:37:38.240 On the screen, they're just showing that this is the greatest collection of IQ I've ever

00:37:41.280 seen.

00:37:41.500 So Maisie Hirono and Bernie Sanders laughing together about how many people they would

00:37:46.840 put in the gulag if they actually had the opportunity.

00:37:49.000 Combined age of 650.

00:37:51.440 Their combined age is significantly higher than their combined IQ.

00:37:53.940 She wasn't wearing white, which I appreciate in this setting.

00:37:56.500 That is true.

00:37:58.420 I hate all these people.

00:37:59.960 I truly do.

00:38:00.840 I mean, like, Congress is filled with dullards.

00:38:03.260 The Supreme Court is, eh.

00:38:05.100 Will there be actual support after this for a presidential age limit?

00:38:09.020 No.

00:38:09.540 No.

00:38:09.880 There should be.

00:38:10.660 There should be 100%.

00:38:12.100 Like, it's unassailable in my mind that obviously 75...

00:38:17.200 At some point, you stop.

00:38:18.160 ...should be the cutoff, if not earlier.

00:38:20.180 Yeah, that's correct.

00:38:21.900 I would cut off much earlier.

00:38:24.000 But this is telling us something, right?

00:38:25.380 It's telling us that the boomer generation is the last generation that was playing...

00:38:30.260 Well, I think that something you've said before, Drew, and I think this is right, is that

00:38:32.860 yes, we can yell at the boomer generation and blame them, and they deserve a lot.

00:38:37.380 But I think they think they're holding back something that's catastrophic.

00:38:40.920 I agree.

00:38:41.260 I do.

00:38:41.640 I do, too.

00:38:42.440 They probably are.

00:38:43.120 Yes.

00:38:43.560 Yes.

00:38:43.860 I agree.

00:38:44.400 I mean, you think about even the air...

00:38:46.060 You know, we talk a lot about the DEI in the airline industry.

00:38:49.300 Right.

00:38:50.180 And I think you've got this generation of...

00:38:51.660 And I've seen people talk about this generation of, like, boomer pilots who are just keeping

00:38:56.980 us from catastrophe.

00:38:58.560 And once they shuffle off, we're in trouble.

00:39:01.560 That's what this kid said, by the way.

00:39:02.920 He said, you know, you guys have a lot to answer for, speaking to me.

00:39:05.460 He said, you guys have a lot to answer for.

00:39:06.740 But you knew what you were doing.

00:39:07.600 You were competent.

00:39:08.360 You knew how to do your jobs.

00:39:09.680 And he said, that's just not true anymore.

00:39:11.260 Yeah, we will hearken back to the good old days when planes didn't crash.

00:39:16.640 I mean, one of the pieces of reportage that we've done on the DEI stuff is on the surgery

00:39:21.800 industry.

00:39:22.260 Yeah, good piece.

00:39:23.600 And the fact that DEI has now infused, you know, like, the people who are cutting you

00:39:27.400 open.

00:39:28.180 I mean, the insanity that is about to be unleashed among people of the younger generation is totally

00:39:33.860 crazy.

00:39:34.380 The middle is not...

00:39:35.340 There is no middle anymore.

00:39:36.380 The middle has been completely obliterated.

00:39:38.600 The truth is not that there wasn't a conservative movement, Drew.

00:39:41.120 The fact is that there was this sort of...

00:39:43.440 Everyone hates the blob.

00:39:45.060 And for a reason.

00:39:45.660 The blob is terrible.

00:39:46.500 Yeah.

00:39:47.120 The question is always what comes after the blob.

00:39:49.640 Right.

00:39:50.000 And so it could be something good or it could be something even worse than the blob.

00:39:53.500 That is certainly a real possibility.

00:39:55.240 You could get a polarization between the Wokies on one hand and, you know, people who really

00:40:01.240 do believe that the government should have extraordinary powers at the top level to ensure whatever

00:40:06.520 they want from that side.

00:40:08.100 I mean, it could get way worse from here.

00:40:10.120 As I'm fond of telling Jeremy, it always looks dark just before it goes pitch black.

00:40:15.600 Pour that on there.

00:40:16.460 But there is something that I think would make us all feel better at this point, of course.

00:40:20.620 Oh, boy.

00:40:21.180 You know, for the only thing.

00:40:22.000 So if you thought that joke was funny, you should become a Daily Wire plus subscriber.

00:40:33.920 You'll be able to ask...

00:40:34.240 Even if you didn't, yeah.

00:40:35.300 Yeah, you'll be able to ask us questions in the back half like, what the hell?

00:40:39.120 Which would be valid.

00:40:40.040 We'd try to answer that.

00:40:40.800 They say the president is still in the car, so it may be a minute here.

00:40:46.280 I don't know if that means that he's still stuck behind the...

00:40:49.480 Has Kamala Harris ever looked not awkward?

00:40:51.380 No.

00:40:51.780 She's like the Michael Scott of vice presidents.

00:40:53.460 You know that she has...

00:40:54.220 There's like a 20% chance that she is our next president.

00:40:57.680 Higher than that.

00:40:58.420 Higher than that at some point, yeah.

00:40:59.780 Yeah.

00:40:59.920 I mean, I would say right now that there's maybe a 50% chance because if you figure that

00:41:04.340 Biden has a 50% shot of being president, then she almost certainly will be president because

00:41:09.320 he will die, unfortunately, because you don't want that to happen to anybody.

00:41:12.640 There's Jill, who's guilty for pushing her...

00:41:16.400 The greatest doctor of our time.

00:41:18.280 There she is.

00:41:19.140 She is quite the doctor.

00:41:20.600 Very doctor-y.

00:41:23.120 Well, they made it in.

00:41:24.000 They must have run over a few protesters.

00:41:26.120 That's exciting.

00:41:27.940 Drew, what were you saying?

00:41:28.640 I still refuse to believe Biden's going to be the nominee, that he'll be the candidate.

00:41:33.380 Of course he's going to be the candidate.

00:41:34.540 Well, I mean, at this point, they have no choice.

00:41:36.980 Oh, they have one choice, but only if Biden were to die or...

00:41:41.440 The only path.

00:41:41.940 The only path would be...

00:41:44.000 Actually, that isn't a path.

00:41:45.420 The only path would be if they somehow convince Biden to step aside.

00:41:48.080 If he dies, Kamala Harris is the nominee and Donald Trump is the next president.

00:41:52.640 But if they could get...

00:41:53.980 If they could get Biden to step aside and get Kamala...

00:41:57.980 Man, look at this cabinet.

00:41:59.480 It's awful.

00:42:00.360 Lincoln.

00:42:01.000 Lincoln to me is the one...

00:42:01.820 Who has set the world on fire.

00:42:02.940 Janet Yellen, who has created 40-year inflation.

00:42:05.380 Lloyd Austin, fresh from the hospital, who has done nothing but cripple the American military

00:42:10.800 with woke garbage.

00:42:12.380 Yeah.

00:42:13.520 What a cavalcade of comedy geniuses we have over here.

00:42:17.040 Merrick Garland, the most corrupt AG of the modern era.

00:42:19.320 I think the...

00:42:21.320 Can I just say...

00:42:22.940 By Mitch McConnell.

00:42:23.700 Kamala Harris being the first woman to be president of the United States would be pretty

00:42:31.020 funny stuff.

00:42:32.080 It would be some pretty funny stuff.

00:42:34.220 I felt happy.

00:42:34.660 And they get there by default.

00:42:35.520 She's not elected.

00:42:36.260 She just inherits it.

00:42:38.860 This cabinet is such...

00:42:40.360 It is such a bleep show.

00:42:41.780 It's such a bleep show.

00:42:42.820 Like, one after the other.

00:42:43.960 My goodness.

00:42:44.480 Until you see them all in a room together, you're like, wow.

00:42:48.480 That's an amazing thing.

00:42:50.180 It's like watching...

00:42:50.660 It's looking like a Surratt painting of stupidity.

00:42:52.900 Each individual dot.

00:42:54.160 And then you pull back and suddenly it's an entire picture of Sunday in the Park with

00:42:57.920 George with morons.

00:42:59.560 Puntalism of evil.

00:43:01.140 I mean, there's Pete Buttigieg who went on paternity leave and he's...

00:43:04.460 Yeah, he's probably still on paternity leave and we just don't know it.

00:43:06.860 Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior, who, as far as I'm aware, does absolutely nothing.

00:43:11.840 I actually think that Democrats believe that Pete Buttigieg could be president.

00:43:15.880 Yeah, they do believe it.

00:43:16.740 They definitely believe it.

00:43:17.520 Man, they're high on their own supply.

00:43:19.020 They are so high on their own supply.

00:43:20.160 They think that Joe Biden is having trouble with his minority base.

00:43:22.860 Wait until you run Pete Buttigieg.

00:43:24.120 See how that works out for you.

00:43:25.420 Meanwhile, the transportation industry has, like, fallen apart.

00:43:29.100 I don't know what he really does anyway, but...

00:43:31.600 There's Alejandro Mayorkas.

00:43:32.880 He just walked in with two illegal immigrants under his jacket, smuggling them directly into

00:43:37.100 the House of Congress.

00:43:38.320 So that's exciting news for him.

00:43:39.760 Mayorkas is the closest thing we have to Putin.

00:43:41.540 He's the closest thing we have to a man who speaks with no connection to his heart or

00:43:45.200 mind.

00:43:45.680 The words come out of his mouth, and he actually means nothing that he says.

00:43:49.860 He's the most corrupt individual.

00:43:51.640 How dare you speak about Vladimir Putin that way?

00:43:54.000 He just wants the best for the Russian people.

00:43:55.040 He just wants the best.

00:43:55.940 It's true.

00:43:56.600 He's a strong man.

00:43:57.560 He's a strong man.

00:43:58.360 Strong leader.

00:43:59.280 Brides bearers the whole thing.

00:44:00.200 I mean, he's 40 IQ points dumber than Putin, though, I would say.

00:44:03.500 That's the only difference.

00:44:04.160 Well, that may be.

00:44:05.600 But just as wicked.

00:44:06.660 Man, it's so depressing watching these people.

00:44:11.240 This is a fact.

00:44:11.960 It's so depressing.

00:44:13.860 Matt, I'm becoming like you now.

00:44:14.960 This is your moment.

00:44:15.640 I'm becoming like you.

00:44:16.560 Yeah.

00:44:17.000 Just my...

00:44:17.580 No, this is your moment.

00:44:18.520 This is like every...

00:44:19.240 All my energy just drops and just stroke my much shorter beard.

00:44:25.620 Just, you know, I don't know.

00:44:27.980 Not sure I care anymore about life, about anything.

00:44:32.400 We're definitely getting people excited to watch this thing.

00:44:34.160 Yeah, I know.

00:44:34.820 Yeah, exactly.

00:44:35.540 Are we the uppers or are we the uppers over here?

00:44:37.840 Well, maybe there's a rerun of the Flintstones on it.

00:44:41.300 We could go back to the Star Wars conversation.

00:44:43.100 I was enjoying that.

00:44:43.860 That was good.

00:44:44.540 Star Wars is good.

00:44:45.860 Okay, so I have a question.

00:44:47.160 Flavin, I do have a question for you.

00:44:48.200 As long as I'm going to do this.

00:44:49.980 You're also anti-Empire?

00:44:51.700 I'm anti the entire thing.

00:44:53.120 You're a terrible person and you have no taste.

00:44:55.840 That's terrible.

00:44:56.740 Okay.

00:44:56.960 This is my...

00:44:57.560 Okay, the Empire Strikes Back is not...

00:44:59.500 Fine, the Oscars are happening Sunday night.

00:45:00.980 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

00:45:01.560 Let's do the Oscars.

00:45:02.880 But the Empire...

00:45:03.440 I'm just...

00:45:04.120 Do you think that's like high art, Empire Strikes Back?

00:45:06.020 Yes.

00:45:06.340 First of all, Darth Vader...

00:45:07.440 Again, when you're 25 years old, you watch it for the...

00:45:10.280 Darth Vader's a super corny villain.

00:45:13.100 He's just corny.

00:45:14.080 He's not like...

00:45:14.660 He's corny because you've seen every movie since he's got to him.

00:45:16.280 He's not intimidating.

00:45:18.060 You know...

00:45:18.740 He literally puts a dude up by his throat and kills him in the first five minutes.

00:45:21.880 A great movie villain is like Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men.

00:45:25.480 It's like...

00:45:26.280 You would actually be terrified to be in the room with that guy.

00:45:29.100 Darth Vader, you're like...

00:45:30.380 He uses his mind to...

00:45:31.660 I find your lack of faith disturbing.

00:45:32.960 Yes.

00:45:33.760 He uses his mind to choke people.

00:45:36.580 Like actually crush their larynx.

00:45:38.000 Like somebody who actually died of asphyxiation.

00:45:39.600 Yeah, he has great powers.

00:45:40.660 But I'm saying in the performance and in the writing, I just don't feel...

00:45:45.740 James Earl Jones?

00:45:45.840 James Earl Jones, highly overrated.

00:45:49.380 I'm just saying things now.

00:45:50.320 James Earl Jones was a great...

00:45:51.620 I saw him when he started out on stage.

00:45:53.220 I don't hold Darth Vader against him.

00:45:55.140 I'm just saying.

00:45:55.400 You thought this kid is going places.

00:45:56.380 Yeah, I did.

00:45:56.980 No, I actually did.

00:45:58.900 I saw him in the Great White Hope.

00:46:00.960 He stood next to me at the phone booths when my daughter was born because his son...

00:46:05.100 I think it was his son was born.

00:46:06.440 And the two deepest voices in New York were going, I have a daughter.

00:46:08.940 I have a son.

00:46:10.340 There's Lauren Boebert.

00:46:11.800 Fortunately, she doesn't have her boyfriend there this time.

00:46:14.380 That's exciting news.

00:46:15.720 There's the Secretary of Energy.

00:46:18.080 What's her face?

00:46:18.660 Oh, what's her face?

00:46:21.300 Oh, what's her face?

00:46:22.420 Former Michigan governor.

00:46:23.400 You'll remember her from the DNC in 2012, waving her arms like a nut job.

00:46:27.220 Boy, that shot just there before was like this textbook illustration of the fall of the Republican.

00:46:32.100 Yeah.

00:46:33.720 Man.

00:46:34.520 Oh, Jill.

00:46:35.400 Oh, the greatest doctor.

00:46:36.720 So doctorate.

00:46:37.980 And then there's...

00:46:38.900 I got to say, the Republicans have run their Congress beautifully, I think.

00:46:42.000 And the nice thing is, if you don't like this speaker, you can wait two minutes and you'll get another one.

00:46:45.880 So, as long as we're going to be depressed about everything, how about the fact that, like, they just booted a speaker for no reason and they appointed a new speaker and he cuts deals that look exactly like the old speaker.

00:46:54.960 He's the exact same guy.

00:46:56.360 The exact same.

00:46:56.980 But it's not even the guy.

00:46:58.320 It's the incentive structure.

00:46:59.560 When you have a one-vote majority, you're done.

00:47:01.560 You can't do anything.

00:47:02.440 That's all.

00:47:03.120 Because I think he is, this speaker, is more conservative.

00:47:06.620 On a gut level, no question he's more conservative than Kevin was.

00:47:09.300 But the idea that, like, Mike is way more conservative than Kevin in terms of governance, that's not the job.

00:47:13.640 People keep mistaking, and this is true for all of American government, people keep mistaking the man for the job.

00:47:19.160 And it's not the same thing.

00:47:20.700 When you keep redefining the job and leave the incentive structures the same as they always were, the same exact thing is going to happen.

00:47:26.140 That's particularly true for Senate Majority Leader.

00:47:27.960 When people say, oh, man, we'll get rid of McConnell and then we'll have somebody who's really go get him.

00:47:31.940 First of all, can I explain to you that Mitch McConnell achieved more conservative victories during his tenure than any Republican legislator of my lifetime?

00:47:39.140 You have a Republican majority on the Supreme Court because of Mitch McConnell.

00:47:42.100 That is why.

00:47:43.100 TV does not support institutional men.

00:47:45.880 It supports individuals.

00:47:47.660 Here comes the president.

00:47:49.160 Oh, my God.

00:47:50.480 The door creaked open.

00:47:52.540 All right.

00:47:53.940 It's like the fall of the House of Austria.

00:47:55.640 That's right.

00:47:56.120 The president is entering the House chamber, and we're going to take you live to the State of the Union.

00:48:00.880 And we'll be back to let you know just how bad it was as soon as the president's speech concludes.

00:48:06.020 Does he know where he is?

00:48:06.600 Well, that was s**t.

00:48:18.280 My goodness.

00:48:19.420 I think we can go home.

00:48:20.580 That's the commentary.

00:48:21.540 That was honestly the worst State of the Union address that's maybe ever been given.

00:48:25.560 Especially for the first 30 minutes, angry, slurring, starting with the most hyper-partisan issues he possibly could.

00:48:35.120 And the decision, the very first thing you talk about is Ukraine was...

00:48:40.060 Not the State of our Union.

00:48:41.460 Right.

00:48:41.900 He was using it only to get to call his fellow Americans equivalent to Vladimir Putin invading a sovereign country.

00:48:49.360 Yeah.

00:48:49.680 That's what that was.

00:48:50.300 I mean, that was his gateway into January 6th because democracy is a threat in Ukraine, and democracy is a threat here at home.

00:48:57.540 That was literally the reason that he led with the Ukraine stuff, was that he could call his fellow Americans akin to Vladimir Putin.

00:49:03.500 That's what that was.

00:49:05.500 I mean, wow.

00:49:06.680 This guy has always...

00:49:07.160 Guys, I need something.

00:49:13.900 I'm so glad that didn't work.

00:49:16.400 Even the music has stopped.

00:49:18.040 That's terrible, guys.

00:49:18.720 This guy has always been this guy.

00:49:20.500 He's always been an angry, mean, hateful, corrupt little son of a gun.

00:49:24.120 You know, this may be the only State of the Union that ever accomplished anything, which might be getting Donald Trump elected, if it accomplishes anything.

00:49:34.020 Number one, nobody listened to the State of the Union.

00:49:37.020 The only part that anybody heard was the first 10 minutes, which is why he led with all the hyper-partisan stuff, because he figures this is his last chance.

00:49:43.440 And he's figuring that what he can aim for here is energetic, passionate.

00:49:47.820 You know what the headlines are going to be.

00:49:49.200 Peppy.

00:49:50.280 He was fighting, feisty, with the Republicans.

00:49:52.820 And the Republicans, of course, were probably helping him along with that by fighting with him, because that way he can do his, look at me, I'm a feisty fighter.

00:49:59.180 I'm not an old geriatric dotard who feels like he's going to crap his pants any moment.

00:50:03.420 But, you know, the fact is that the State of the Union, just to remind everybody, is provided for under the Constitution of the United States so that the president can, from time to time, inform the Congress of the latest developments inside the executive branch.

00:50:19.540 That is the goal.

00:50:20.440 Instead, he didn't even get to the usual phrase you start with, the State of the Union is strong or whatever, he didn't even get to that until like 12 minutes into the speech.

00:50:27.720 And the entire opening of the speech was about how his fellow Americans are terrible and evil and corrupt and vicious and insurrectionist and terrible, and particularly because of Ukraine.

00:50:38.320 There's so many problems, logically, with the speech.

00:50:40.100 I mean, first of all, he starts with the, there have been a lot of attacks on democracy, and then he leads with Ukraine in January 6th.

00:50:45.060 He saves all the Israel stuff, which is an attack on a democracy, by the way, by a terrorist group.

00:50:48.140 He saves that for the end when he tries the Israelis for not being nice enough to the Palestinians and talks about how we're, did you guys know that we're going to build a pier?

00:50:55.860 I'm excited.

00:50:56.300 As an American taxpayer, I'm really excited to build like a pier.

00:50:58.520 You can put it like a Ferris wheel, maybe like a merry-go-round on the pier in the Mediterranean off Gaza.

00:51:03.480 He says we won't be putting American boots on the ground over there, which is weird because I'm not sure exactly, what are they going to do, swim?

00:51:08.320 Like, I think it would be like, there's going to be scuba divers, Gazan scuba divers are going to jump out into the water and take the stuff in.

00:51:14.560 Yeah, putting Americans, it seems like, directly into a foreign war zone is probably the smartest idea that you could do.

00:51:19.920 I feel like, how could that go wrong?

00:51:21.660 Probably it would be amazing.

00:51:22.680 You know, I can't help but think, and I know this is comparing great things to small, after the Civil War, 700,000 Americans slaughtered by each other,

00:51:32.380 Abraham Lincoln gets up and says, with charity toward all and malice toward none, you know, we're going to rebuild.

00:51:38.980 A couple of hundred doofuses go into the Capitol, and he actually puts this forward as the worst thing since the Civil War

00:51:46.720 and the kind of threat to democracy that Putin invading a country represents.

00:51:51.440 The meanness of it, the smallness of it, and the one, remember when Trump gave his inaugural, and all we heard was, it's dark, it's dark, it's dark.

00:52:00.160 Now you're going to hear it.

00:52:00.720 We heard one other thing.

00:52:01.920 Yeah.

00:52:02.380 That's some weird shit.

00:52:07.000 But now it's like he's feisty and energetic, and he's just mean.

00:52:09.860 That's right.

00:52:10.220 Just a mean man.

00:52:10.860 And angry.

00:52:11.480 It's the angriest State of the Union that's probably ever been given.

00:52:15.280 And the symbolism, I mean, of course it doesn't matter because nobody's going to remember, but the symbolism of, you begin with Ukraine,

00:52:21.880 he hits Ukraine, January 6th, abortion, IVF.

00:52:25.560 My predecessor, my predecessor.

00:52:27.140 Yeah, my predecessor.

00:52:28.380 And then he gets to, like, the size of chip bags.

00:52:31.820 And then finally, right after chip bags, he gets to the border, which is the thing that's most, you know, one of the top issues for most Americans.

00:52:39.540 Or he proceeds to blow the name of the victim that people are wearing the pin for.

00:52:42.540 Right.

00:52:42.800 Because Lincoln.

00:52:43.680 He called Lincoln Riley.

00:52:45.240 He's supposed to do Laken Riley.

00:52:46.300 Whatever.

00:52:46.620 It's not even her name.

00:52:47.440 It doesn't matter.

00:52:48.140 And then he starts jabbering about, like, and how many thousands have been killed by illegals?

00:52:52.560 So he's just downplaying the crime.

00:52:54.040 Right.

00:52:54.340 Right.

00:52:54.480 That's literally what he yelled back at the Congress when MTG, when Marjorie Taylor Greene was pushing him to say the name.

00:52:59.140 He said, he takes out the pin.

00:53:00.240 He mispronounces the name.

00:53:01.600 And then he says, and she was killed by an illegal, pissing off his entire left flank because you're not allowed to say the word illegal if you're on the left.

00:53:07.540 And then he follows that up by saying, and how many thousands have been killed by illegals?

00:53:11.060 The implication, of course, being that everybody is overestimating the amount of crime from illegal immigrants.

00:53:16.660 So that's like three screw-ups in three sentences right there.

00:53:20.340 But also, I think, you know, I understand that the State of the Union is forgotten and people don't watch it.

00:53:25.520 But I think people are going to remember that screaming.

00:53:27.800 I think they're going to remember the sound of that voice just scolding everybody and yelling at everybody.

00:53:32.880 And, you know, who the hell is he to do that?

00:53:34.740 What has he accomplished that he should be yelling at us for being unhappy that our price, the price of food has gone up 35 percent since he took office and the value of the dollar is lower than it's been since anyone but Carter after.

00:53:46.260 After this period of time.

00:53:47.800 And he's screaming at us.

00:53:49.180 It's like, go to hell, man.

00:53:50.500 I totally agree with you, by the way.

00:53:51.900 The screaming is going to be the takeaway.

00:53:54.320 And it's really bad for him.

00:53:55.500 Yeah.

00:53:55.700 Because during the 2020 election, one of the things that he had going for him is that Donald Trump was the screaming.

00:54:00.600 Yes, that's right.

00:54:01.200 You remember during that debate that was terrible for Trump.

00:54:03.780 It was the second debate.

00:54:05.900 And Trump came out really aggressive.

00:54:07.500 He came out super hot.

00:54:08.980 And he was, like, talking over Biden.

00:54:11.500 Just kept jumping in, talking over Biden.

00:54:12.840 And finally, Biden kind of turned to the camera and went, oh, shut up.

00:54:16.260 And everybody, even people who were voting for Trump, like me, well, I mean, Trump was being very loud.

00:54:21.780 And loudness is irritating and annoying.

00:54:24.540 The one who is being loud right now, he's out louding Donald Trump.

00:54:28.560 He's currently running the worst reelect campaign we have ever seen.

00:54:32.500 I mean, this is a truly awful reelect campaign.

00:54:35.160 And it may be because he is bound by the strictures of who he is.

00:54:38.900 And what else?

00:54:39.720 What's his skill set?

00:54:40.460 What's left in the bag?

00:54:41.560 Seriously, what's in the bag of tricks?

00:54:42.580 It can't be his policy.

00:54:43.300 His policies suck.

00:54:43.900 It can't be his charm because he's not charming at all.

00:54:47.060 It certainly can't be his energy level because he's dying.

00:54:49.840 And so what we end up with is the old man raging against the dying of the light, literally.

00:54:55.480 Yeah.

00:54:55.700 Like, literally just looking out at the crowd and yelling at you.

00:54:58.360 For how long was that speech?

00:54:59.720 It felt like about four years.

00:55:01.080 My kids are graduating college right now.

00:55:03.800 That was a shock.

00:55:05.460 It actually was a shockingly long speech.

00:55:07.740 There was a lot of talk going in that he might not be able to hold up long enough to give

00:55:12.020 a normally, you know, terribly long speech.

00:55:15.000 Yeah, also, my favorite part is where he said that he taught constitutional law for 12 years.

00:55:18.080 I like that part.

00:55:18.760 Where he said, I taught the second amendment for 12 years.

00:55:20.540 I think that he, I think, I'm not joking.

00:55:22.520 I think he's referring to Barack Obama and his time as a constitutional.

00:55:27.580 Really?

00:55:28.000 Lecturer.

00:55:28.520 Lecturer.

00:55:29.000 Yeah.

00:55:30.020 Legitimately, he's such a fabilist.

00:55:32.120 Yeah.

00:55:32.280 I think that he, and he, you know, he spent eight years of his life telling the fable

00:55:36.160 of Barack Obama.

00:55:37.120 Right.

00:55:37.440 I honestly think that he just lapsed into the wrong fable as his own biography.

00:55:40.820 Wow.

00:55:41.940 Well, that was devastating.

00:55:42.960 All those listeners.

00:55:43.420 During my time as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago.

00:55:48.080 As a young black man.

00:55:49.280 Yeah.

00:55:49.560 And growing up in Hawaii.

00:55:50.760 And remember how they counted every lie, every hyperbole that Trump used, they counted

00:55:55.700 it as a lie and they had 3,000 lies and all this.

00:55:58.500 Yeah.

00:55:58.620 But Joe Biden is our tale teller in chief, as the New York Times put it.

00:56:02.400 You know, it's okay because he's just telling tales.

00:56:04.620 You know, they're meaningful.

00:56:05.700 I will say that I, I personally enjoy the new trend now of shouting at the president

00:56:10.360 of the State of the Union.

00:56:11.360 I think it's great.

00:56:12.520 It's really British Parliament, right?

00:56:14.520 Exactly.

00:56:15.040 And also, if we're going to do this, like, you know, let's drop the pageantry of pretending

00:56:18.200 that we're all on the same side.

00:56:19.620 We all hate each other.

00:56:20.700 So, like, fine.

00:56:21.400 If we're going to do it, let's do it.

00:56:22.600 Eggs.

00:56:23.400 Like eggs, tomatoes.

00:56:24.540 Yeah.

00:56:25.000 Like, really go for it, you know?

00:56:25.880 Oh, yeah.

00:56:26.240 For sure.

00:56:26.640 Make it more amusing.

00:56:27.780 Like a dunk tank.

00:56:29.220 Like he says the wrong thing.

00:56:30.220 Mike Johnson just hits the thing.

00:56:32.460 Dunk tank opens.

00:56:33.400 I will say that Mike Johnson, I think, stood up one time the entire speech.

00:56:36.520 Yeah.

00:56:36.660 It was when he said that Hamas should surrender.

00:56:38.140 And that was pretty much it for the entire speech.

00:56:40.300 Yeah.

00:56:40.400 Mike Johnson had a really unenviable task tonight, which is he had to keep a straight face.

00:56:43.940 And behind him, you could see there were a lot of skeptical looks from Mike Johnson,

00:56:47.360 who does have a very memable face.

00:56:50.580 Yeah.

00:56:50.880 Right.

00:56:50.980 With the glasses and everything.

00:56:51.880 And so him, like, giving the kind of side eye to Joe Biden will be...

00:56:56.380 I was sorry he didn't tear up the speech at the end.

00:56:58.460 You know, like, let him come after me.

00:56:59.660 Make it a paper airplane.

00:57:00.600 Like, just do some origami.

00:57:04.680 Kamala Harris being as absolutely smarmy and irritating as it's possible to be.

00:57:08.800 Without even opening her mouth.

00:57:09.720 Without even opening her mouth, I was saying to Drew while we were watching that the noun

00:57:16.780 rictus was coined in ancient times to describe her smile.

00:57:21.040 Like, that is a rictus, a frozen rictus upon her face.

00:57:24.900 And it's just all the awfulness of American politics just telescoped into one hour and 20

00:57:30.180 minute segment right there.

00:57:32.240 You know, lie after lie, the tax stuff.

00:57:34.380 He does it every year.

00:57:35.160 I know we're supposed to be, at this point, inured to the stupidity of people suggesting

00:57:39.220 the rich don't pay their fair share.

00:57:40.400 I'm never inured to it because I used to be not rich and now I'm rich.

00:57:42.960 And I got to tell you, I pay a load of taxes, guys.

00:57:45.260 Like, a lot of taxes every year.

00:57:47.500 And they never pay fair share of what?

00:57:48.600 Fair share of what programs?

00:57:49.540 Well, define...

00:57:50.260 Also, define fair share.

00:57:51.860 Yes.

00:57:52.140 That's all I want.

00:57:53.120 If there is such a thing as a share which is fair, what is the size of that share?

00:57:56.800 Right.

00:57:57.400 Yeah.

00:57:57.920 And there's no fair share of garbage, you know?

00:58:00.460 There's no fair share...

00:58:01.240 There's stuff we're paying for.

00:58:02.880 It's not making life better.

00:58:03.900 Is life better than it was three, four years ago?

00:58:06.060 It's all lies also.

00:58:07.020 He'll say things like, well, you know, the billionaires only pay 8.2% on their money.

00:58:11.160 What do you mean on their money?

00:58:12.360 Do you mean on their income?

00:58:13.380 Because if it's on their income, I promise you, they pay exactly what the federal prevailing

00:58:16.480 income tax rate is.

00:58:17.640 Right.

00:58:17.780 If you mean their entire wealth base, yes, it's true.

00:58:20.080 Because you also do not pay a tax on the value of your house to the federal government,

00:58:24.880 for example.

00:58:25.440 That would be a wealth tax.

00:58:26.680 We don't have those in this country.

00:58:27.960 They're not legal on the federal level.

00:58:29.560 It's just like the number of lies that he's talking about.

00:58:32.700 He says, my favorite is when he talks about lowering the deficit.

00:58:36.420 I've lowered the deficit more into...

00:58:38.320 And then he's like, we cannot touch the retirement age.

00:58:41.120 Anyone who touches social security will immediately be shot.

00:58:44.000 It's like...

00:58:44.980 But then you're not doing anything about the deficit.

00:58:46.640 Yes.

00:58:46.980 But also he wants to...

00:58:49.260 Lower inflation.

00:58:50.280 Lower inflation by paying for everybody's mortgage.

00:58:52.240 Pretty money.

00:58:52.660 The other thing that always really disturbs me is this thing about controlling the price

00:58:57.900 of medicine.

00:58:59.220 Yes.

00:58:59.400 Because if you wanted to control the price of medicine, the thing to do would be to not

00:59:02.800 allow them to sell it overseas for lower prices.

00:59:05.920 Yes.

00:59:06.200 Not to change what it is here.

00:59:08.140 Well, it actually was sanctioned foreign countries.

00:59:10.020 Yes.

00:59:10.400 Because really what happens when that happens is medicines that you would have had, you don't

00:59:15.400 get.

00:59:15.660 So nobody understands that they're getting less.

00:59:19.180 So it's kind of sinister.

00:59:21.160 It's like let people die so that we can lie to ourselves that we lowered the price of

00:59:25.320 drugs.

00:59:25.680 Right.

00:59:25.960 But the other thing is you could lower the cost of healthcare in this country markedly

00:59:31.420 if you just let the market do it.

00:59:33.760 Yes, of course.

00:59:34.320 Everybody always says, we have a free market healthcare system in this country and it's

00:59:37.920 the highest prices in the world.

00:59:39.320 We don't have a free market healthcare system in this country.

00:59:42.680 First of all, if you cross that border illegally, you can go to any hospital in this country

00:59:46.820 and get any treatment that we offer and not pay for any of it.

00:59:50.020 Right.

00:59:51.580 Secondly, most healthcare expenses are incurred in the last two years of life.

00:59:57.300 And most people in the last two years of their life are on Medicare.

01:00:00.460 Right.

01:00:00.760 Which means the majority of the healthcare that you will ever receive in your life is

01:00:05.320 paid for by the federal government.

01:00:06.600 And when you...

01:00:06.900 That is not a free market system.

01:00:08.860 And when you look at things like that everybody has, like television sets, they come out, they're

01:00:13.040 incredibly expensive, and then when they've sold them to the people who buy them at those

01:00:16.660 prices, the prices drop.

01:00:18.300 The price of a TV that was literally $10,000 15 years ago is now $600.

01:00:24.740 You know, that's the way it happens.

01:00:26.320 But that doesn't happen in medicine because the government is the biggest customer.

01:00:30.840 Right.

01:00:30.960 And the second biggest customer are insurance companies.

01:00:33.980 And so you end up in this situation where there is almost no direct relationship between

01:00:38.980 who we think the customer is, which is us, and the provider of the service, which is the

01:00:44.820 drug company or the hospital.

01:00:45.740 It takes more than one second to explain.

01:00:47.060 And because it takes more than one second to explain, it's easier to just say,

01:00:49.740 Right.

01:00:50.040 Well, cap the price of pharmaceuticals, and now everything will be free.

01:00:53.080 That's right.

01:00:54.420 But, you know, the litany of lies...

01:00:55.960 I'm with Matt.

01:00:56.680 The litany of lies, to me, is pretty much utterly secondary because we've all watched...

01:01:01.780 I mean, I remember during the Obama years, fact-checking.

01:01:03.980 I was working at Breitbart at the time, and I remember fact-checking, like, at length all

01:01:07.600 of Obama's speeches, and you would tell dozens of lies like this during the speech.

01:01:10.640 That's not the new thing.

01:01:11.840 The new thing that we're seeing right now is the utter demonization of half of the American

01:01:16.020 public.

01:01:16.400 That's right.

01:01:16.820 And that is...

01:01:18.060 It really is a new thing.

01:01:19.160 It's something that...

01:01:20.020 No, it started under Barack Obama, who called Republicans his enemy.

01:01:23.480 Right.

01:01:23.720 I mean, that's true.

01:01:25.080 It's true, but I, honest to God, think that Joe Biden is going further than Obama did.

01:01:29.640 Oh, much further.

01:01:30.380 I mean, like, Obama was at least a little subtle about it.

01:01:33.600 It was sinister.

01:01:34.860 Right.

01:01:35.280 Right.

01:01:35.600 But Biden is not...

01:01:36.560 He's like stupid people version of that.

01:01:38.820 He's like...

01:01:39.180 He's saying...

01:01:39.740 He's just saying all the things out loud, and then he ends with something Orwellian like,

01:01:43.000 my unity agenda, I'm president for all of it.

01:01:45.420 You literally just said half of Americans are insurrectionists who are akin to Russian invaders

01:01:49.340 of Ukraine.

01:01:50.320 Well, I mean, since you are funding the killing of Russian soldiers in Ukraine, I don't know what

01:01:53.500 that means for, you know, those of us who disagree with you domestically.

01:01:56.240 I mean, that comparison doesn't sound so great.

01:01:58.660 I've got to be honest.

01:01:59.340 And if we assume...

01:02:00.380 If we assume that the election was fairly won, which I actually...

01:02:04.000 I've never seen have proven that it wasn't.

01:02:05.920 It's only a few people who were so angry at Donald Trump, who were so, you know, so opposed

01:02:12.940 to Donald Trump that they moved over to the other side.

01:02:15.280 Trump got more votes than any other president except Biden, you know, in the last election.

01:02:19.480 So he's actually saying that all those MAGA Republicans are the enemy.

01:02:22.600 He's saying like a huge number of people.

01:02:24.920 Well, you know, January 6th is an incredibly complicated topic, which makes it very difficult

01:02:30.960 to ever discuss.

01:02:33.840 Obviously, the Capitol compound is an enormous facility.

01:02:38.060 Obviously, there were tens of thousands of people there.

01:02:43.780 You know, people on this side of the building don't know what's going on on this side of the

01:02:46.900 building.

01:02:47.600 Obviously, there was a long period of time.

01:02:49.420 So there were people who were there and then left and people who came and then...

01:02:52.020 So no one's experience of January 6th can really tell you what January 6th was.

01:02:57.560 There were plenty of people who police just let them in the building and they walked through

01:03:00.780 the building and walked out the other side.

01:03:02.240 And there were people who broke glass and smashed through barricades and punched cops.

01:03:05.820 I mean, many, many things are true about January 6th.

01:03:10.220 And we, just as a people, I don't think this is just as Americans, I think it's as upright

01:03:15.720 monkeys, you know, as human beings, we cannot handle the complexity and nuance of an event

01:03:21.820 like January 6th, which means we can't create a true narrative about it.

01:03:26.680 We can only create these very, very hyperbolic political narratives.

01:03:29.780 What that means is that there are a lot of true narratives about it, but there's only one

01:03:33.000 false narrative.

01:03:33.900 And the false narrative is...

01:03:34.580 This is where I was going.

01:03:35.320 Yeah, the false narrative is that America was in dire danger of our democracy being

01:03:39.800 overthrown on January 6th.

01:03:41.120 That is a lie.

01:03:41.940 That is a lie.

01:03:42.360 There is no way to say that that is true.

01:03:44.760 It is not even remotely true.

01:03:46.560 It is not even a smidgen of remotely true.

01:03:48.760 At no point during that riot, and I hated the riot.

01:03:51.540 I thought it was awful.

01:03:52.440 I thought it was really a disgrace.

01:03:54.120 At no point during that did I think, oh my God, democracy in the United States is about

01:03:57.840 to end.

01:03:58.580 A military dictatorship is about to be declared with God, Emperor Trump at the head of it,

01:04:02.800 leading his way into the Senate and slaughtering his opponents.

01:04:05.140 At no point did I think that was even remotely true.

01:04:07.880 No, they took this issue that actually could have played well the Democrats took, and they

01:04:11.560 turned it into the Reichstag fire.

01:04:13.440 It's like this small thing that may not be a good thing to set the Reichstag on fire

01:04:17.600 if you're a socialist, but still, that's no right reason to take everybody's rights

01:04:21.360 away and to declare half the country as insurrectionists.

01:04:24.480 That's exactly right.

01:04:25.640 I mean, they flip on the language that he is constantly, and the Democrats are constantly

01:04:30.100 doing, is truly an amazing thing, right?

01:04:31.920 According to this speech, we're the safest we've ever been, which is presumably why Kathy

01:04:35.940 Hochul, the governor of New York, just unleashed 750 members of the National Guard to guard

01:04:39.200 the subway so people would stop shoving each other in front of the damn trains, because

01:04:43.280 things are going amazing.

01:04:45.040 He then suggested that his plan on the border was more hawkish than the Republicans' plans

01:04:51.360 on the border, despite the fact that obviously that's wildly untrue.

01:04:55.420 I like when he suggested that freedom is under attack because true freedom is being able

01:05:01.160 to kill babies.

01:05:02.440 Yes.

01:05:02.700 That portion of the speech was really solid to me.

01:05:04.800 When he just started ripping on the Supreme Court, which we know, by the way, is apparently

01:05:07.780 that, it's funny how that goes from being incredibly valuable and necessary to a danger to democracy

01:05:12.760 back to being incredibly valuable and necessary, depending on who's ripping the Supreme Court

01:05:16.680 at the time.

01:05:17.100 That's right.

01:05:17.420 So he's sitting there, and he's yelling at the Supreme Court, with the Supreme Court

01:05:19.680 sitting right there in front of him.

01:05:21.660 That's, I mean, that's another, that feels pretty unprecedented to me.

01:05:25.600 I mean, except when Biden has done it before, but usually, historically, Democrats will, they

01:05:30.420 might, you know, they'll make a few references to...

01:05:32.480 I remember Obama did it, and there was a justice who actually shook his head, and it was like

01:05:36.000 a national scandal.

01:05:36.740 But I mean, with abortion, with the abortion issue, they'll make a few references to reproductive

01:05:39.600 freedom or whatever, reproductive freedom, of course, that ridiculous euphemism.

01:05:43.140 But Biden, I mean, he spent several minutes going after abortion in a really direct way.

01:05:49.360 I mean, this is obviously the most radically pro-abortion president we've ever had.

01:05:53.020 Meanwhile, he's, of course, sending his federal government after pro-life protesters and trying

01:05:57.400 to put him in jail for 11 years.

01:05:59.900 And we've never seen anything like that.

01:06:02.820 I mean, we've never quite seen it.

01:06:03.880 Very disturbing to watch people stand up and applaud for abortion.

01:06:07.620 I'm sorry.

01:06:08.640 You know, I cannot get that out of my head, that this is now something that a vast number

01:06:13.760 of people feel is a human right.

01:06:15.140 And even if you would argue, oh, it's a terrible tragedy, but sometimes it has to happen, I

01:06:20.920 would disagree with you, but at least I would...

01:06:22.820 That's at least an argument.

01:06:23.660 I was making this point on my show the other day, which is that Donald Trump's campaign

01:06:27.600 is closer to Bill Clinton's 1996 campaign...

01:06:30.540 No question.

01:06:31.160 ...than Joe Biden's campaign.

01:06:32.920 By far.

01:06:33.660 It's not actually particularly close.

01:06:35.040 Yeah.

01:06:35.300 Right?

01:06:35.780 Donald...

01:06:36.380 Bill Clinton ran on welfare reform, reduction in crime, balancing the budget.

01:06:41.460 He ran on not gay marriage, because nobody's talking gay marriage in 1996.

01:06:46.260 He certainly wasn't trying to trans the kids.

01:06:48.300 He was, you know, like...

01:06:49.420 And when it came to immigration, he wasn't an open borders president at that time, because

01:06:54.820 it was already after Reagan's amnesty.

01:06:57.200 Like, it's...

01:06:58.540 The length to which the Democrats...

01:06:59.960 Safe, legal, and rare was the...

01:07:01.300 Safe, legal, and rare.

01:07:01.980 Right?

01:07:02.360 That was where I was actually going.

01:07:03.600 The fact that the Democratic Party moved in my lifetime from safe, legal, and rare to

01:07:08.160 cheer your abortion, celebrate your abortion, is totally insane.

01:07:12.700 And that's why, again, I think that the thing he needs to do...

01:07:15.480 He is under a fundamental misconception in this election cycle.

01:07:18.280 It's the same misconception every Democrat's been under since 2012.

01:07:21.200 If we get enough members of the base jazzed-vowed voting for us, we'll win.

01:07:24.500 It didn't work in 2016.

01:07:26.000 It did work in 2020, because they changed literally all the rules, and then went to every single

01:07:29.820 human in the United States eight times, and picked up the ballot from their house, and

01:07:33.040 dumped it in a mailbox.

01:07:34.000 That's right.

01:07:34.540 And in 2024, I don't think it's going to win.

01:07:36.360 And I don't think it's going to win, specifically because it's wrong.

01:07:39.760 The theory is wrong.

01:07:40.920 He can get all the members of his base out.

01:07:42.340 It is not enough humans.

01:07:44.060 The thing he needs to be doing right now is appealing to moderates and independents.

01:07:46.760 And you can only do that in two ways.

01:07:48.340 With Trump, you can do it in terms of personality, where you can say, he's a crazy person, and

01:07:52.060 I'm sane.

01:07:52.800 That was an insane speech, and he looked like a crazy, addled, old asshole.

01:07:56.580 I thought so, too.

01:07:57.140 And then you can also present a moderate policy agenda, and he doesn't.

01:08:01.320 He presents Bernie Sanders' policy agenda.

01:08:02.920 So he goes zero for two on the two things he needs to do to reach out to the median voter.

01:08:07.460 He's pushing the median voter over toward Donald Trump.

01:08:10.500 The only thing Trump has to do is shut up.

01:08:13.060 If Trump shuts up, he'll be president.

01:08:14.320 That would be amazing.

01:08:15.800 Trump is.

01:08:16.500 And he's shutting up for two reasons.

01:08:17.900 One, they literally don't allow him on any social media platform to express his opinion.

01:08:21.340 And by the way, it's been the greatest favor to him.

01:08:22.820 If you're on Twitter right now, it'd be way worse for him.

01:08:24.800 I wonder if he knows that.

01:08:25.600 Number two, he is running a form of Joe Biden's 2020 campaign.

01:08:31.600 I mean, Donald Trump is not really out there campaigning.

01:08:34.640 He does the odd rally every now and then.

01:08:38.300 But you're seeing less of Donald Trump so far in this election campaign than probably any

01:08:44.200 president or any candidate for the presidency in the modern era except for Joe Biden 2020.

01:08:51.180 And he's not out there in a major way, which is good.

01:08:54.020 Yes.

01:08:54.780 Keep doing that.

01:08:55.600 I mean, I guess people have pointed this out.

01:08:58.220 He's ahead in the polls, which he never was in the last election.

01:09:01.420 Right.

01:09:01.660 You know, we always attack the polls, but he was never ahead in the last election.

01:09:05.400 And now he actually is.

01:09:07.160 The great, hilarious thing about this election cycle right now.

01:09:10.920 Donald Trump is running the best he has ever run against any candidate.

01:09:15.160 2016, 2020, any of them.

01:09:17.220 He is currently running ahead of Joe Biden by a point or two in the real-clear politics

01:09:21.840 polling average.

01:09:22.520 He has led in, I believe, 24 of the last 31 polls.

01:09:27.140 He, Joe Biden has not had a real-clear politics polling average since mid-September.

01:09:31.840 At no point, literally no point during the 2020 race was Donald Trump polling ahead of

01:09:35.960 Joe Biden.

01:09:36.560 Literally no time.

01:09:37.780 As soon as we got to the point where Biden was the nominee, Biden led wire to wire in

01:09:41.260 that election cycle.

01:09:42.120 In the final result, in real-clear politics polling average, Joe Biden was up by seven

01:09:45.940 and a half points.

01:09:46.600 He ended up winning by four and a half points.

01:09:48.000 That's right, yeah.

01:09:48.680 If Donald Trump is up by two and a half points right now, or two points, he's actually up

01:09:52.600 by four.

01:09:53.300 That's right.

01:09:53.760 And because there are a bunch of people out there, independents, who are telling pollsters,

01:09:57.260 I don't know.

01:09:58.320 I'm not so sure.

01:09:59.500 And then when it comes right down to it, they're going to vote against Biden.

01:10:01.860 They are.

01:10:03.000 He is forcibly pushing moderates away from him.

01:10:05.480 I was in a major, I can't say who it was for reasons that will become clear, but I

01:10:10.340 was in a major New York media office this week where the head of that office started

01:10:17.100 talking about Trump in such a way that one of the other people said, I should close the

01:10:21.160 door because he was saying, you know, Trump really was a better president and he saved

01:10:26.180 this country in a lot of ways from some terrible things.

01:10:28.660 This is a guy I know left us down to his knees.

01:10:32.240 In every election of my lifetime, the question of who wins the presidential election is determined

01:10:39.160 by who it is that the election is a referendum on.

01:10:43.320 Yes.

01:10:44.380 And Donald Trump's enormous mistake in 2020 is that he could not subordinate his ego.

01:10:50.980 He couldn't let it be a referendum on the left.

01:10:54.020 It had to be a referendum on himself because he wanted to be at the center because that's

01:10:58.280 for better and for worse, that's Donald Trump.

01:11:00.960 But right now, if you are the president, you sort of are de facto who it is a referendum

01:11:09.840 on unless you change that narrative.

01:11:11.920 What Biden was trying to do at the beginning of his speech tonight was make the election

01:11:16.400 a referendum on Donald Trump.

01:11:18.900 But I think he did it in such a tone deaf and angry way.

01:11:21.620 Yeah, because he blamed the people.

01:11:22.720 Because he blamed the people.

01:11:23.880 That's a great point.

01:11:24.780 But it kept right now today, this election is still a referendum on Joe Biden.

01:11:29.120 He didn't do anything to change that.

01:11:30.600 And because even when Trump makes this election about himself, he's making it about them because

01:11:35.480 they're after him.

01:11:36.360 And they're legitimately after him in such a way.

01:11:38.420 I mean, this is a guy who's talking about unity while he gave instructions to his Justice

01:11:42.080 Department to indict his major competitor.

01:11:45.720 You know, the New York Times actually had an op-ed by this guy Edsel, who's one of their

01:11:49.900 big left-wing columnists, saying, we can't win unless we convict them.

01:11:53.680 Unbelievable.

01:11:55.480 So we're going to take a few questions from our Daily Wire Plus subscribers.

01:12:00.040 If you want to get your question in, head over to dailywireplus.com.

01:12:04.660 Be a member.

01:12:05.840 Submit a question.

01:12:07.120 And we'll see what we can do about it.

01:12:08.200 This first one is for everyone.

01:12:10.480 And the question is thus.

01:12:12.020 When would you guys say was the last time we had an election that was truly about voting

01:12:15.740 for the guy that you like, rather than voting against the guy that you don't like?

01:12:19.280 Like, to me, that was 2008 between McCain and Obama.

01:12:24.040 Why?

01:12:24.820 I do think...

01:12:25.480 Oh, four.

01:12:25.960 I think 2016 for a lot of people.

01:12:27.760 That's what I was going to say.

01:12:28.680 I think 2016 for a lot of people, you know, they...

01:12:31.800 Voted for Trump.

01:12:32.700 They voted for Trump.

01:12:33.660 I feel like that was still a referendum on...

01:12:35.600 Maybe for some people.

01:12:37.020 I mean, I think for the majority of people who voted for Trump, at least in the independent

01:12:40.320 crowd, which shifted two to one for him, was voting against Hillary.

01:12:43.580 Because she was the least popular...

01:12:45.320 Yeah, I mean, people hated her.

01:12:47.100 But I think it is fair to say 2008, the election of Barack Obama was an aspirational moment for

01:12:54.120 the country in 2008.

01:12:55.720 Obviously, I didn't vote for Obama.

01:12:57.040 I understood what he was.

01:12:57.840 But we're deeply initiated in politics.

01:12:59.780 I think for the average person in the country, they thought, elect a black man?

01:13:03.960 What a wonderful thing for us to do as a nation.

01:13:05.860 He speaks about unity.

01:13:06.880 And he speaks eloquently about unity.

01:13:09.180 And he speaks with a kind of authority about unity, because he's from the group that ostensibly

01:13:14.400 needs to be unified, that's not been part of the culture, you know, in the way that

01:13:20.960 that was perceived.

01:13:21.840 The problem is that, you know, everybody says this is the most important election of our

01:13:27.060 lifetime.

01:13:27.460 I'm starting to sound like Joe Biden.

01:13:28.960 Everyone always says that every election is the most important election of our lifetime.

01:13:32.040 And every election is very important and consequential.

01:13:34.920 The most important election of our lifetime was 2012.

01:13:37.200 It is not this election.

01:13:39.040 It was 2012.

01:13:40.200 Because 2008 was an aspirational vote for Barack Obama.

01:13:43.560 But by 2012, Obama had made a cynical political calculation to divide the country on race to

01:13:49.640 secure re-election because Mitt Romney was popular and was an actual threat to him.

01:13:54.380 I never liked Mitt Romney.

01:13:56.220 Mitt Romney was popular and was a threat to Barack Obama.

01:13:59.640 And he made that cynical calculation, he made it right out in the open, and we had one

01:14:03.680 opportunity to reject the fundamental transformation and all of the chaos that's ensued ever since.

01:14:10.440 You can say, well, Mitt Romney wouldn't have been a great president, Mitt Romney would have

01:14:13.200 been a squishy president, and electing Mitt Romney, all that's true, but electing Mitt Romney

01:14:17.660 would have been tacking back toward the traditional relationship between the parties, the traditional

01:14:25.000 relationship between the people and the government, traditional American history.

01:14:28.340 Instead, we'd tacked far away from that.

01:14:30.620 That's right.

01:14:30.840 It wouldn't have been about Romney being president.

01:14:32.580 That's correct.

01:14:33.020 It would have been about rejecting the argument that Obama was making, which is that there

01:14:37.460 is a victim-victimizer complex in the United States, and he was at the head of the Coalition

01:14:40.980 of the Oppressed, rising up against the system.

01:14:43.440 And when we miss that opportunity, everything else that's happened has happened as a result

01:14:48.680 of missing that opportunity.

01:14:50.180 And so, certainly voting for Obama in 2008 was because people liked the idea of Obama,

01:14:55.940 but voting for Obama in 2012 was a cynical decision by Democrats, and everything has

01:15:01.520 been a reaction since then.

01:15:02.500 That's my take.

01:15:03.640 No, I think this one.

01:15:06.960 Why do candidates make so many lofty promises when they know they can't actually deliver?

01:15:11.900 How is that helpful for them?

01:15:13.660 Do the majority of voters not look at these things realistically?

01:15:16.140 I actually believe that voters are somewhat smarter than we give them credit for.

01:15:22.520 TV has an investment, whatever you want to call it, the screen has an investment in making

01:15:28.700 us think that what we care about is witty lines at debates and the way people look and the

01:15:33.440 way they present themselves.

01:15:34.300 All those things are actually important.

01:15:35.520 We do live in a showbiz nation.

01:15:37.080 But people do understand that food is too expensive, that policies are not working, that some policies

01:15:43.500 are actually a threat to their freedoms.

01:15:44.960 People understand more, let me put it this way, more people understand more of that than

01:15:49.320 we give them credit for.

01:15:51.100 And so, the promises, you know, they're showbiz, they're part of politics, they've been part

01:15:56.300 of politics, democratic politics forever, as long as there have been people campaigning,

01:16:00.940 they've made stupid promises.

01:16:02.540 But I think it's partly a cynicism that actually the people don't deserve.

01:16:07.080 People actually have some sense of what's going on, more sense of what's going on than we

01:16:11.080 ever give them credit for.

01:16:12.000 It's just because they have nothing else, you know, they don't have actual policies

01:16:16.160 that work.

01:16:17.080 And I would just say that there is a complete information overload.

01:16:20.700 Obama really introduced this into our politics.

01:16:23.460 It hadn't existed before that.

01:16:25.020 They always say there were no scandals during his administration.

01:16:27.300 He was scandal-free.

01:16:28.300 When the reality is, he so overwhelmed us with scandalous behavior that you could never

01:16:34.000 focus on making any one of the scandals last or stick or be meaningful.

01:16:38.380 Also, the press was completely subservient to him.

01:16:42.100 But this sort of shotgun effect has been our national reality ever since Barack Obama.

01:16:48.660 Politics comes at us so fast and so constantly now, no one will ever remember any of the

01:16:53.540 promises that Biden made.

01:16:55.160 I don't think we can blame Obama for the information overload.

01:16:58.380 That is the story of our time.

01:16:59.580 No, but he steered into it.

01:17:01.480 I think the minute that we, and this is just a historic argument, the minute that we expanded

01:17:07.020 the inherent power of the federal government, this was the wage.

01:17:11.480 Because as soon as the power, when the power was small, you couldn't promise things that

01:17:15.540 were completely undeliverable.

01:17:17.080 If you promised that you were going to put a chicken in every pot in the United States,

01:17:20.980 everybody would be like, hell, you don't have that kind of power.

01:17:22.980 That's not a thing you can do.

01:17:24.120 Be like me arguing that for my income, I'm going to give each person in the United States

01:17:27.480 a million dollars.

01:17:28.260 Like, that's not possible.

01:17:29.780 And everyone would know that's not possible.

01:17:31.380 The minute that the government expanded its powers, what it did is two things.

01:17:34.260 It made an empty promise to the American people that it could use those powers for exorbitant

01:17:38.340 purposes.

01:17:38.980 And two, it did everything way more incompetently.

01:17:41.460 And that combination means that you get a spiral of promises.

01:17:44.040 Because what happens is that people look at the size of the government.

01:17:46.460 They're like, why can't the government fix this problem in front of me?

01:17:49.080 We spend $7 trillion a year.

01:17:50.460 Why can't we fix this problem?

01:17:52.420 A problem that the founders never would have thought the federal government should be in

01:17:54.860 in the first place.

01:17:55.520 It turns out the federal government can't fix that problem because the federal government is

01:17:57.940 crap at everything.

01:17:58.600 So instead, the federal government, but if you're a congressperson, you can't make the

01:18:02.920 argument, well, crap at everything, because if you're crap at it, it will replace you.

01:18:05.420 So instead, what you do is you say, I will fix it.

01:18:07.500 You put me in charge of the $7 trillion federal government, and I'll fix that problem for you.

01:18:10.840 Then you fail.

01:18:11.380 And you say, well, the reason that I failed is because I didn't have enough power, guys.

01:18:14.280 Obviously, if I had more power, then I mean, that's Joe Biden on the border, right?

01:18:18.480 He's obviously failing on purpose.

01:18:20.200 But if you just give him more power, then he'll fix all your problems for you.

01:18:23.860 And again, the only check that the American people had on that was the original constitutional

01:18:27.960 structure that limited the inherent power of the government.

01:18:30.880 As soon as it becomes a big grab bag of cash and power, then the person who promises to do the

01:18:34.740 most for you and your friends with it is going to win.

01:18:38.400 These are questions from our Daily Wire Plus subscribers.

01:18:41.420 They make it possible for us to bring you the show, so we try to give them horrible answers

01:18:45.220 to their questions.

01:18:46.340 What is your opinion on starting a boycott on CVS and Walgreens over the abortion pill?

01:18:52.140 Matt?

01:18:53.280 I mean, on an individual basis, if somebody decides they don't want to shop at a store like that

01:18:58.960 for that reason, I think that's perfectly noble.

01:19:01.140 Well, I wouldn't be in favor of announcing a boycott on CVS and Walgreens, or even one

01:19:10.240 or the other, certainly not both, because it will fail.

01:19:12.860 And the thing we learned with Bud Light is that you can have a successful boycott until

01:19:19.220 you have powerful people on the right who come along a year later and decide to undercut

01:19:22.260 it for ridiculous reasons.

01:19:23.840 But you can have a successful boycott, but you have to be very targeted and you have to

01:19:27.140 be smart.

01:19:28.180 You have to find a good target, a target you have a leverage over.

01:19:31.140 And that you could conceivably, you know, you could remove this from people's lives and

01:19:35.740 they, and it wouldn't be a huge inconvenience to them.

01:19:38.660 Um, you know, the problem on the right for so many years, the reason why we, we, we couldn't

01:19:42.800 successfully complete a boycott is because, you know, we're just, it's like every company

01:19:46.980 is woke.

01:19:47.460 Every company is doing stuff we don't like.

01:19:48.740 And so we're just kind of firing randomly.

01:19:51.180 And, uh, you know, something like Walgreens and CVS, you're just not people.

01:19:55.040 Where are you going to get your medicine?

01:19:56.080 They need, they need prescriptions.

01:19:57.280 And so we can announce that and say, we're not going to go there anymore.

01:19:59.960 Um, but it's legal.

01:20:02.020 I mean, and their farm pharmacies is kind of, it's kind of not quite the same thing as putting

01:20:06.800 Dylan Mulvaney on Bud Light.

01:20:08.620 Right.

01:20:08.860 It's just an insult.

01:20:09.860 It's just not, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a noble thing.

01:20:13.100 It's moral, but it's, it's not a smart strategy to announce a boycott like that.

01:20:17.640 I think that's right.

01:20:18.500 Next question.

01:20:20.540 I live in California and all of my friends are liberal, but they hate Joe Biden.

01:20:24.380 Of course they hate Trump too.

01:20:25.640 How can I show them that while Trump may not be ideal, he's definitely better than Biden?

01:20:29.720 Oh, I have an answer to that.

01:20:30.620 You absolutely can't.

01:20:31.940 You can't do that.

01:20:32.860 You're never going to convince people, left people in California, California left us

01:20:37.980 that Trump is anything but a monster.

01:20:40.300 Okay.

01:20:40.420 But generally on the left.

01:20:41.500 So here's what I'd encourage.

01:20:42.440 So I agree with this.

01:20:43.560 Your liberal friends break down into two categories.

01:20:45.300 The ones who will so do voce sort of say, oh man, I would hate to vote for Trump, but

01:20:49.060 if I, man, I might.

01:20:50.800 Right.

01:20:50.940 Those people, you can get those to vote for Trump and they probably will.

01:20:53.560 The people who are like, I hate Biden, but man, Trump is so much worse.

01:20:56.280 He's a jerk.

01:20:56.920 He's the worst person.

01:20:57.820 Trump is Hitler.

01:20:58.440 Right.

01:20:58.620 Trump is Hitler.

01:20:59.240 The Trump, Trump is Hitler.

01:21:00.160 People ain't going to vote for, for Trump.

01:21:02.540 Just convince them not to vote at all.

01:21:03.820 Yeah.

01:21:04.320 Right.

01:21:04.480 I mean, that's, that's the reality and you don't have to convince them.

01:21:06.860 You just be like, man, you're right.

01:21:08.460 This is what a, what a disheartening election.

01:21:10.120 You know, I, you know, like it's, I wouldn't be surprised if voter turnout's down this year.

01:21:14.300 It turns out that a vote not for Joe Biden is a vote that does not count it for, get

01:21:17.620 counted for Joe Biden.

01:21:18.600 You don't have to switch it over for Trump.

01:21:19.780 It's worth half a vote if he doesn't vote for Biden.

01:21:21.260 For, for years.

01:21:21.940 Just don't, I was going to say, don't, don't try to trick them by telling them that the,

01:21:26.940 the, the election's on a different day.

01:21:28.340 The election's on a different day.

01:21:28.560 Yes, of course.

01:21:29.400 If you tell them the election's on a different day, then, then Biden will throw you in prison

01:21:33.200 for 10 years or whatever.

01:21:35.500 Because he loves democracy and free speech.

01:21:36.080 You know, for, for years, many years, I've been telling my left-wing Jewish friends that

01:21:41.880 all the anti-Semitism is on the left.

01:21:44.580 So I thought I would cash in on October 7th by saying, I told you so.

01:21:48.760 Will you change your vote now?

01:21:50.340 Not one of them, not one of them.

01:21:51.820 They all say, yes, this is terrible, but it's not Joe Biden.

01:21:54.300 He's a big supporter of Israel.

01:21:55.620 And I keep saying he's going to stab Israel in the back.

01:21:58.540 You know, everything he says, he is actually, as he's not the greatest supporter, as he said,

01:22:03.360 but he's been a fairly steady.

01:22:04.440 To speak for the Jews, I will say that, number one, I'm going to separate off my community.

01:22:09.440 The Orthodox community is going to vote 197% for Donald Trump.

01:22:12.460 That's just the reality.

01:22:13.500 We did last election cycle.

01:22:14.780 We did the election cycle before.

01:22:16.380 It'll happen again in 2024.

01:22:18.060 But with that said, that's actually not my experience.

01:22:21.000 I've had a bunch of people who are liberal to kind of moderate left Jews who are quietly

01:22:26.460 saying to me, like people who I haven't talked to politically, just people I know from

01:22:29.980 my life, who have called me up since October 7th and been like, I cannot vote for this

01:22:32.960 party.

01:22:33.180 Like, this party has lost it.

01:22:35.160 I can't vote for this party.

01:22:36.320 Well, I believe that's happening.

01:22:37.360 Yes.

01:22:37.520 I'm just telling you, my experience is, I say these things to people and it's like hitting

01:22:41.540 a wall.

01:22:42.300 It's like hitting a wall.

01:22:42.820 You're also in California and New York.

01:22:44.060 Well, that's true.

01:22:44.640 That is true.

01:22:45.480 Yeah.

01:22:45.740 It is also the case that if you believe, as people have allowed themselves to believe,

01:22:52.180 that Trump is Hitler, nothing is worse.

01:22:54.740 Nothing can.

01:22:55.420 It doesn't matter what else happens.

01:22:56.800 Right.

01:22:56.860 And that's a, which is funny because, I mean, on the other side, you have people who literally

01:23:02.720 are standing with people who like Hitler.

01:23:04.920 So that's, that's interesting.

01:23:06.100 Yeah.

01:23:06.260 Yeah.

01:23:06.500 Great.

01:23:06.780 Isn't it illegal to use the State of the Union as a campaign speech?

01:23:13.560 The Hatch Act doesn't apply to the president, but surely this is illegal.

01:23:17.280 Well, I mean, because the Hatch Act doesn't apply to the president, it's not, but it's,

01:23:21.300 but would it be if you were not the president?

01:23:23.820 Yeah.

01:23:23.940 I mean, that was a campaign speech and he was obviously using the State of the Union as

01:23:26.780 a campaign speech.

01:23:27.380 Again, that's, that's another thing.

01:23:28.540 I just, I think that the Americans who like the State of the Union, who are the ones who

01:23:31.860 are most likely to be affected by the State of the Union, are not going to like this

01:23:35.380 approach to the State of the Union.

01:23:36.800 Yeah.

01:23:36.920 If you're like us, you know, you and me, we hate the State of the Union generally, or Matt,

01:23:41.240 you and me, and we're like happy to see eggs thrown at the president and all

01:23:43.580 that, like the, you know, again, no laws to be violent.

01:23:46.420 But when, you know, we're different.

01:23:49.260 The people who are watching the State of the Union because they want to see the pomp and

01:23:51.480 circumstance, like the Oscars of presidential politics, and then they see the president roll

01:23:55.940 on in there with his Harley Davidson jacket on and be like, I hate all yous all.

01:24:01.180 I'm not sure that's going to rub everybody the right way.

01:24:04.340 Who do you anticipate Trump will choose for his VP and why?

01:24:08.260 Himself.

01:24:09.980 Amazing.

01:24:11.000 Yeah, I kind of think, I think some of the predictions are probably off because.

01:24:15.700 Yeah.

01:24:15.880 Yeah, well, well, first of all, I don't think Trump wants a VP who he feels will get more

01:24:23.100 attention than him or overshadow.

01:24:24.660 That's why something like Vivek, I don't, I don't think that's going to happen.

01:24:27.680 Or people saying Tucker, not a chance.

01:24:29.100 Yeah, there's no, there's no chance.

01:24:30.280 So it would have to be someone who he feels is politically advantageous, but won't overshadow

01:24:37.660 him.

01:24:37.880 And I'm not exactly sure.

01:24:39.060 Tim Scott.

01:24:39.940 That's what, you know, I was going to say.

01:24:41.060 Yeah, well, Tim Scott.

01:24:42.380 Which I.

01:24:42.800 So he also, Trump likes to do this thing where he's like, I will cast this like a movie because

01:24:46.360 he's a producer.

01:24:47.300 So who looks like a vice president in that group?

01:24:51.380 He's like, oh, it's a racially diverse United Colors of Benetton cabinet.

01:24:56.480 And here's Tim Scott, who has kissed the ring and has been as subservient as I've made

01:25:00.300 him be.

01:25:01.180 And then he will stand beside me.

01:25:02.360 I guess it's Kristi Noem, I could see.

01:25:04.720 Maybe, although the personal life is dicey.

01:25:08.720 I also, I don't think that Trump wants a woman.

01:25:12.740 I actually don't think he wants a woman because I think that he's afraid that it will overshadow

01:25:16.240 his campaign.

01:25:18.040 So I would, I think right now that the, that Tim Scott is the, the obvious kind of front

01:25:22.640 runner right now.

01:25:23.900 That is my guess as well.

01:25:24.960 Yeah.

01:25:25.140 Which I find very dispiriting.

01:25:26.600 I know who I think should be chief of staff.

01:25:29.500 I think Jim Jordan should be chief of staff because personally, I think the chief of staff

01:25:33.020 is going to be the most important person in the next administration.

01:25:36.740 And he, he loves Trump.

01:25:38.200 He's been, you know, Trump's pal.

01:25:40.140 He's incredibly smart.

01:25:41.280 He knows how everything works.

01:25:42.520 And I think that he could actually run a good government while Trump is doing whatever

01:25:45.960 the hell Trump is going to be doing.

01:25:47.820 Yeah.

01:25:48.500 Well, there'll be, if Trump is to serve another four years as president, there'll be at least

01:25:52.420 five chiefs of staff.

01:25:53.880 So getting Jim Jordan in.

01:25:55.260 Yeah.

01:25:55.580 The first, I meant the first three months.

01:25:56.900 Yeah.

01:25:56.960 Definitely could happen.

01:25:57.900 A prop.

01:25:59.600 Let's see if we have any more questions from our Daily Wire plus subscribers.

01:26:03.660 Do you guys think that the VP pick really matters?

01:26:09.720 Nope.

01:26:10.280 No, not at all.

01:26:10.920 Nope.

01:26:11.100 It's stupid.

01:26:11.660 Makes zero difference.

01:26:12.500 VP's a dumb office.

01:26:13.180 It only exists when Joe Biden dies.

01:26:14.700 Kamala Harris is president.

01:26:16.200 Ugh.

01:26:17.560 Can we get some Dr. Dreadle t-shirts in the VW shop?

01:26:20.180 Absolutely.

01:26:20.820 Oh, come on.

01:26:21.420 I will say that the fax, from what I've been told, the fax sweatshirt that I wear in that

01:26:27.260 amazing rap video, that piece of high Western art, is one of the top selling items we have

01:26:32.820 ever had in our e-commerce department.

01:26:34.580 That it is, in fact, a monster smash hit.

01:26:36.420 It was a big hit.

01:26:37.400 I have to say that Dr. Dreadle may be one of my top five Daily Wire jokes, I think.

01:26:42.640 I agree.

01:26:43.600 Absolutely.

01:26:44.060 I wish we made it up.

01:26:45.400 We did not.

01:26:45.760 We did not.

01:26:46.520 We stole it.

01:26:47.060 I think it was terrible memes.

01:26:49.840 I think you're right.

01:26:50.820 I think it was terrible memes, and it was...

01:26:52.620 It's spectacular.

01:26:53.520 Yeah.

01:26:53.680 It is real, and it's spectacular.

01:26:54.740 Yes.

01:26:55.480 Can you please articulate why Trump's many character flaws do not disqualify a Christian

01:27:00.140 to vote for him?

01:27:01.320 I could tackle this one.

01:27:04.140 Can we get a King David reference?

01:27:11.400 An interesting thing happens in the Bible.

01:27:13.540 You know, Paul, kind of expounding on Jesus saying, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

01:27:21.000 Paul makes this point that you should obey the governing authorities and basically stay

01:27:25.320 out of revolutionary politics.

01:27:27.660 And I think that was a really pragmatic thing for Paul to say, because the early church would

01:27:31.520 have just been stamped out if it had taken any other position.

01:27:35.460 But I also think that there's theological truth to it as well.

01:27:40.600 Well, but something does happen in a republic.

01:27:45.500 There was no republic at the time that Paul was writing.

01:27:47.840 The Roman Republic had been supplanted by the Roman Empire, and the Jews didn't live

01:27:54.340 in a republic.

01:27:54.900 Obviously, they were colonized by imperial Rome.

01:27:59.460 But in a republic, in a democratic republic, the government is comprised and given its power

01:28:08.180 by the people.

01:28:08.700 And in that sense, what Paul said, or what Christ said, render unto Caesar what is Caesar,

01:28:13.820 it's not that that isn't still true.

01:28:16.120 It's just that that relationship looks much different.

01:28:18.400 You have a role in the government.

01:28:21.000 And so it's not, I think, a fair New Testament position that you shouldn't be involved in

01:28:26.460 the government when you live in a democratic republic.

01:28:29.020 So to the extent that you do exist in a democratic republic, you have responsibilities.

01:28:33.840 And one of those responsibilities is your vote.

01:28:37.540 You don't always, in an electoral system, have the opportunity to vote for a great person.

01:28:44.800 You very rarely have the opportunity to vote for a great person.

01:28:47.720 You don't always have the opportunity to vote for a particularly good person.

01:28:52.420 Nevertheless, you do have a vote.

01:28:54.980 And that vote does come with responsibility.

01:28:58.120 And it is a kind of power to impact the government.

01:29:00.600 And so the choice before you in this election, I could not vote for Donald Trump in the primary.

01:29:06.260 Even though Ron DeSantis has already suspended his campaign, I voted for him in the Tennessee

01:29:13.020 primary on Super Tuesday.

01:29:14.140 Why?

01:29:14.920 Because a primary is a party preference election.

01:29:19.040 And I do not prefer Donald Trump to represent him.

01:29:22.280 In a general election, however, it's not about my preference.

01:29:28.020 It's now we're down to a true binary.

01:29:30.480 Who is going to be the leader of the country?

01:29:33.040 To whom will I confer?

01:29:34.960 What little piece of power I have in a Republican system to represent me and to represent the country?

01:29:40.820 I don't have an option there for someone who I prefer, who actually has an opportunity

01:29:46.080 where my vote can make a difference and actually help them be elected president.

01:29:50.740 I saw this slightly differently in 2016.

01:29:53.000 I thought there were a lot of unknowns around Trump that could be as bad as anything.

01:29:58.820 I made a decision in 2016.

01:30:01.060 2020 was different because Trump had been president for four years.

01:30:03.940 And I had seen what it was.

01:30:07.380 Certainly he did bring some of the bad things I was worried about.

01:30:09.520 He brought some good things that I never thought in a million years that he would bring.

01:30:13.240 He didn't bring, and this is the critically important point,

01:30:16.340 he didn't bring the worst things that I feared in 2016 he might bring.

01:30:21.860 And so in 2020, he's a known quantity.

01:30:23.660 And it became clear to me that even as a Christian who objects to many of the behaviors of Donald Trump,

01:30:28.840 when I'm actually looking at the policy distinctions between Donald Trump and his opponent, Joe Biden,

01:30:34.020 I need to use whatever power I have, not to endorse Trump, but to oppose the agenda of...

01:30:42.440 It's also better to say that in 2016, both you and I had the luxury of being in a state that absolutely did not matter.

01:30:46.480 Wouldn't have mattered.

01:30:47.280 We were in California.

01:30:48.100 If we'd been in Ohio, I probably would have voted for Trump.

01:30:49.920 I think that's true.

01:30:50.500 We would have made a different calculation.

01:30:51.520 But you know, Antonin Scalia once said, when he is asked what it is to be a good Christian judge,

01:30:57.160 he says it's to be a good judge.

01:30:59.660 And I think that the same thing is true of being a good voter, and I think a good Christian voter.

01:31:04.680 That I'm not voting for the best Christian.

01:31:06.420 That's not what I'm voting for.

01:31:07.420 I'm voting for the best president that I think will win.

01:31:11.020 It's pretty simple.

01:31:11.860 The other guy wants to kill babies.

01:31:14.360 Grand kids.

01:31:15.800 Right.

01:31:16.160 And destroy the border, and he's hunting down pro-lifers and throwing them in prison.

01:31:19.100 And that's it.

01:31:20.660 Like, what is there to even think about?

01:31:23.140 That's right.

01:31:23.900 It's, again, your vote doesn't say that Donald Trump is the person who you would prefer to be president out of all of the people.

01:31:31.140 It says that Donald Trump is who you would prefer to be president in a race against Joe Biden.

01:31:35.060 Of the people who's going to win, yeah.

01:31:36.540 One of them will be.

01:31:37.940 Do you guys think that we are realistically on the brink of World War III,

01:31:40.600 and do you think Joe Biden being a weak leader is a main cause of that?

01:31:43.880 No, and yes.

01:31:44.640 I don't think we're on the brink of World War III, no.

01:31:46.780 I think that I could see a series of events that would lead to World War III,

01:31:50.320 but you can almost always see that, and I think the situation we're in is directly caused by his weakness

01:31:56.520 and especially the chaos, the chaotic leaving of Afghanistan.

01:32:02.260 But, you know, the brink of World War III is a little, that's very strong for this situation.

01:32:07.560 Brink means, like, right here.

01:32:08.780 Yeah, that's the brink.

01:32:09.880 Well, okay, so I think that to be realistic, in order for there to be a World War III,

01:32:14.420 you have to think about which powers would be involved in that world war.

01:32:17.740 Russia does not want to go to nuclear war with the West.

01:32:20.320 That is not a thing that Russia is pursuing or interested in.

01:32:22.700 Russia does not want to go to conventional war with the West.

01:32:25.100 It would be the end of Russia.

01:32:26.660 Oh, my God.

01:32:27.140 They're getting destroyed by Ukraine, which is a second-rate military being armed with our old weaponry.

01:32:31.320 I mean, so there's that.

01:32:32.860 I mean, where else could World War III come from?

01:32:35.640 Iran is not capable of fighting a World War III.

01:32:37.740 If Iran actually launched serious assaults on the United States,

01:32:40.840 the United States would end that regime inside of two weeks.

01:32:44.160 Like, really.

01:32:45.800 China is capable of theoretically fighting with us,

01:32:48.600 but China also does not want to do that.

01:32:50.600 They see themselves declining, but they don't have the strength to seriously challenge.

01:32:55.900 What they would do is make regional power grabs in places like Taiwan.

01:32:58.920 They don't want to get into, like, a real shooting war with the United States military.

01:33:01.840 They're fighting a different kind of Cold War with America right now.

01:33:05.300 An information Cold War, a cybersecurity Cold War, a trade Cold War.

01:33:08.980 And it does resemble sort of the later stages of the Cold War

01:33:12.200 in the sense that they have a collapsing demographic, a collapsing economy,

01:33:14.980 an expanding military-industrial complex, and a containment policy that's a problem.

01:33:21.800 So, you know, that's not going to be a Cold War.

01:33:23.420 That'll be a bunch of regional wars around its borders, if anything.

01:33:26.660 But that said, we have more war in the world now than we have at any time during, really, my lifetime.

01:33:32.240 Because in enough areas of the world, you have these wars that are cropping up.

01:33:37.080 Obviously, we had the war in Afghanistan, but that was, like, one place.

01:33:39.020 We had the war in Iraq.

01:33:41.460 That was one place, and we were directly involved.

01:33:43.360 But in terms of, like, international conflagrations that could break out more broadly,

01:33:47.080 we have two major ones right now, one in the center of Europe and one, obviously, in the Middle East.

01:33:51.180 Both of those are Joe Biden's fault.

01:33:52.820 Both of those are Joe Biden's fault.

01:33:53.860 I mean, what's happening in Ukraine, Joe Biden literally said a month before the invasion of Ukraine

01:33:58.900 that if, basically, Vladimir Putin just used the tip, he'd be fine.

01:34:04.320 Right?

01:34:04.700 He was like, if you just take part of Ukraine, then it'll probably be okay.

01:34:08.060 And Putin read that, and he goes, okay, well, what about if I go, like, further than that?

01:34:12.700 I mean, oops!

01:34:13.580 Oops!

01:34:14.140 And so, there was that.

01:34:15.600 There was the fact that he had already pulled out of Afghanistan,

01:34:18.140 and obviously had no stomach for any serious long-term conflict.

01:34:21.940 And communicated that very pronounced way to the world.

01:34:25.300 Right. It was his belief that he could split Europe based on European dependency on gas.

01:34:28.640 And so, he made a miscalculation, but that miscalculation was caused by Joe Biden's appearance of weakness.

01:34:34.880 In the Middle East, the real factor, there's not Afghanistan, obviously.

01:34:38.220 The real factor is re-engagement with Iran.

01:34:40.060 The attempt to re-engage with Iran, the attempt to re-center Israeli-Palestinian policy

01:34:44.940 at the center of Middle Eastern policy is the single worst foreign policy mistake of my lifetime.

01:34:49.200 You had a burgeoning peace deal between a wide variety of Sunni states in the Middle East and Israel.

01:34:56.000 All it would have taken for Saudi to sign on to a full normalization day one is, like, this much.

01:35:01.600 All Biden would have had to do is basically just pat MBS on the back.

01:35:05.700 Normalization would have happened.

01:35:06.900 Hamas is now trapped, and Iran is contained.

01:35:08.780 It was, like, this close.

01:35:09.900 And if Trump had been re-elected, there is zero doubt, I mean, less than zero doubt,

01:35:13.680 that that absolute 100% that would have happened.

01:35:16.820 The first thing that Biden did is he came in and he wrecked everything.

01:35:19.040 He came in and he delisted the Houthis, which are Saudi's enemies, as a terrorist organization.

01:35:23.760 He started renegotiating using Robert Malley, an Iranian cutout, as his go-to guy.

01:35:28.100 He started talking about how Israel needed to make concessions to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas,

01:35:32.420 both of which are Iranian-funded enterprises at this point.

01:35:36.200 And all of these things simultaneously led Iran to believe that if they push hard enough,

01:35:40.680 they're going to be able to scuttle all peace in the Middle East while killing a bunch of Jews.

01:35:45.120 And to be fair to them, strategically, so far, that's been a success.

01:35:50.560 I mean, strategically, by launching the war and forcing Israel, because what else are they going to do,

01:35:55.120 to then go in and wipe Hamas out, they have obviously put any peace deal on hold

01:35:59.340 because all the domestic populations in places like Saudi Arabia are not going to be super happy.

01:36:03.400 But beyond that, the next move the Biden administration is making is even more insane.

01:36:07.940 The idea that the United States is going to put its force and weight behind a Palestinian state

01:36:12.320 in the aftermath of the Palestinian government fomenting the worst terror attack in my lifetime or my parents' lifetime

01:36:21.860 is so batshit insane that all it's going to do is lead other terrorist groups in the Middle East and think,

01:36:27.840 OK, I mean, push where there's mush, man, go.

01:36:29.760 I think we are the closest to a third world war that we have been in my lifetime

01:36:35.160 with the possible, possible exception of the early days of the Reagan administration.

01:36:43.340 But I don't think that even compares.

01:36:45.540 I think we're the closest we've been to a third world war in my lifetime,

01:36:48.560 and I still don't think we're all that close.

01:36:50.100 Yeah.

01:36:50.740 Can we get the beer a bit one more time?

01:36:53.660 No, the button works.

01:36:55.240 Thank you for prouting me on that.

01:36:56.880 I think it's a great bit.

01:36:58.000 Thank you.

01:36:58.400 It's a good classic.

01:37:10.120 I just live to humor you here, Matt.

01:37:12.600 We have a clip from Michael Knowles.

01:37:14.580 We were hoping he might be able to make it to a studio across from the Capitol,

01:37:18.000 but we don't even have that clip.

01:37:19.260 No, they literally said in my ear,

01:37:21.020 we have a clip from Michael Knowles if you want to play it,

01:37:22.780 and then as soon as I started talking to you fine people about that clip,

01:37:26.240 they said we don't have a clip.

01:37:27.960 It actually is just a picture of Michael Knowles, as it turns out.

01:37:32.380 And it's not all that great.

01:37:34.640 I mean, I won't say he looks amazing in this picture.

01:37:36.440 It's not his best look.

01:37:37.720 I've seen him look better.

01:37:38.640 No, he's not better.

01:37:39.120 Not much better.

01:37:39.860 Not much better.

01:37:40.320 I mean, like, he's within a margin of error, probably.

01:37:43.240 Michael, has Michael ever been happier than being at the State of the Nose?

01:37:46.820 He pretended that he didn't want to be there when I saw him this morning.

01:37:49.660 He wants to not do things.

01:37:50.820 No.

01:37:50.940 He totally wants to.

01:37:51.680 Nobody's ever been happier.

01:37:52.480 Where else would he be?

01:37:54.440 Michael is to going to the State of the Union, as you are to directing films.

01:37:59.280 I really don't.

01:38:00.300 But a little I do.

01:38:01.460 A little, yeah.

01:38:02.300 A little, yeah.

01:38:02.720 I'll say one more thing about the Third World War,

01:38:07.900 which is I do think that we're...

01:38:10.480 I just like when you start sentences that way.

01:38:11.940 I do think that we're at a fairly high likelihood of finding ourselves in a war.

01:38:18.180 Not a Third World War.

01:38:20.120 I think we're at a very high likelihood right now of finding ourselves in a war.

01:38:22.020 By the way, with Biden's announcement today,

01:38:22.820 I think we're like five minutes away from the United States having to shoot things

01:38:25.600 at people in Gaza or at Hezbollah.

01:38:29.240 You bring a bunch of ships right off the coast there.

01:38:31.040 All it takes is one rogue Hezbollah agent firing a rocket in an American ship,

01:38:34.880 and suddenly America's active in Lebanon.

01:38:36.500 I mean, like, that's...

01:38:37.180 It's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in my entire life.

01:38:39.840 As somebody who does not want American boots on the ground in the Gaza Strip,

01:38:43.660 I would much prefer that we not put American boots on the ground

01:38:45.740 two meters from the Gaza Strip.

01:38:47.500 Wait a minute.

01:38:48.240 I saw on X that you're an evil Jew who's trying to get Americans...

01:38:51.720 Aside from that.

01:38:53.260 Aside from that.

01:38:54.300 You mean you can't believe everything?

01:38:55.520 Obviously.

01:38:56.220 I mean, listen, in my status as a Mossad agent,

01:38:58.900 I have to cover for my actual view.

01:39:02.680 How are we looking on that Michael Knowles clip?

01:39:07.320 I don't think we're going to get it.

01:39:08.740 Gents, I wanted to come to you live,

01:39:11.120 but unfortunately the deep state has conspired to shut down our signal here.

01:39:15.860 But we're just right here in the Capitol.

01:39:17.880 I'm with Congressman Ogles.

01:39:20.840 Congressman, you had a better view than I did,

01:39:23.560 and you were there with some of the hecklers and the rowdy crowd.

01:39:28.100 So what did you think?

01:39:29.280 Well, I was the first to speak to Joe Biden as he entered the chamber,

01:39:32.480 and I pointed to my pen and said,

01:39:34.560 Lakin Riley, and it didn't even ring a bell to him.

01:39:38.560 And when I pointed to my pen, he simply said,

01:39:40.580 I like your pen.

01:39:41.820 And then later in the speech, when he said her name,

01:39:44.080 he actually pronounced it incorrectly.

01:39:45.860 So the guy's clueless.

01:39:47.220 The lights were not on upstairs.

01:39:48.900 You know, for Joe Biden, he had some energy,

01:39:52.140 but I mean, you could clearly tell that he wasn't with them.

01:39:55.160 Michael Knowles and a congressman from our great state of Tennessee,

01:39:58.320 Congressman Ogles, who just attended the president's speech.

01:40:02.920 We've done all that we can do, fellas.

01:40:04.760 I think that we have...

01:40:06.180 We've done it.

01:40:06.780 We've done it.

01:40:07.540 We've delivered the people wonderful commentary.

01:40:09.640 So guys, what do you think about Return of the Jedi?

01:40:11.360 What's that?

01:40:11.920 Return of the Jedi.

01:40:12.360 We look forward to seeing you on the next Daily Wire backstage.

01:40:15.280 Thanks for hanging out with us tonight.

01:40:17.080 Good night.

The Michael Knowles Show - March 08, 2024

Daily Wire Backstage State of the Union 2024 Coverage

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