The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 106 - Mitt Romney Hasn’t Learned Anything

00:00:00.000 Mitt Romney is running for office again in some other state he moved to five minutes ago.

00:00:04.960 In other news, the sky will appear blue today and water will remain wet.

00:00:09.500 We will analyze the many, many faces of Mitt Romney,

00:00:12.580 what the inevitable Senator Romney means for the Trump administration,

00:00:16.460 and why Republicans need more conviction politicians

00:00:18.960 and fewer squishes from dynastic liberal families.

00:00:22.660 Then, breaking news, new evidence from the Mueller investigation

00:00:25.920 has undercut claims that Trump colluded with the Ruskies

00:00:29.820 and Jimmy Kimmel is crying again.

00:00:32.360 Aren't you shocked? Isn't that crazy?

00:00:33.840 I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:43.160 I get this question all the time in my mailbag.

00:00:45.400 We've got so much to talk about today.

00:00:46.720 We've got really, really great stuff in the news

00:00:48.600 because we'll make fun of Jimmy Kimmel for crying,

00:00:51.340 but we'll talk about why it matters

00:00:53.120 and also why we should learn some lessons from never-Trump Republicans

00:00:56.940 all the way from Mitt Romney to Bret Stephens.

00:00:59.640 But I get this question in the mailbag, I don't know,

00:01:03.280 two times a day, three times a day.

00:01:05.020 Michael, how can I feel like I'm sleeping with you?

00:01:08.080 I get it constantly.

00:01:09.120 I get it from people here at The Daily Wire.

00:01:11.940 The way to do that, of course,

00:01:13.540 is to get yourself a set of Bolin-Branche sheets.

00:01:17.060 Bolin-Branche sheets are so nice.

00:01:19.140 Look, you and I, we're never going to agree on everything, are we?

00:01:21.880 Maybe we will, and we'll probably agree on this, too.

00:01:24.800 We could all use some more sleep.

00:01:26.660 You know, last night, I kid you not, I only got 15 hours.

00:01:29.620 I got 15 hours of sleep, but I showed up today

00:01:31.460 because I knew I had to be here,

00:01:32.880 and I knew that I had to spread a little covfefe

00:01:34.780 and joy into your life.

00:01:36.460 You know, the best way to get a great night's sleep

00:01:38.760 is to use really premium bedding.

00:01:42.340 And I don't know if you know this.

00:01:44.020 Premium bedding costs a lot of money.

00:01:46.060 It can cost about $1,000.

00:01:48.280 I usually would just scrape pieces of cardboard apart

00:01:52.100 and lay them on my bed because I was very cheap.

00:01:55.020 Now I don't have to do that because I have Bolin-Branche sheets.

00:01:57.620 And Bolin-Branche is really good.

00:01:59.120 Everything that they make from bedding to blankets

00:02:01.480 is from 100% pure organic cotton,

00:02:04.380 which means that they start off very super soft,

00:02:06.920 and they get even softer over time.

00:02:09.280 It kind of reminds me,

00:02:10.400 if you've ever stayed in a really, really nice high-end hotel,

00:02:13.340 I've never paid to stay in a high-end hotel,

00:02:15.000 but I have stayed in a couple.

00:02:16.400 And, you know, being an actor,

00:02:17.840 we'll go into that later.

00:02:19.640 But they'll have really, really high-end bedding,

00:02:22.000 and it just feels like that,

00:02:23.620 but you get it every single night.

00:02:25.380 And it gets softer over time.

00:02:26.980 So you can buy directly from them,

00:02:28.480 so you're essentially paying wholesale prices

00:02:30.440 with Bolin-Branche.

00:02:31.360 Instead of spending $1,000,

00:02:33.180 which is what it costs from a lot of other companies,

00:02:35.240 you buy direct from them,

00:02:36.400 it is much, much less expensive.

00:02:38.440 Like, it's just a fraction of that cost.

00:02:40.680 Maybe a couple hundred bucks.

00:02:41.780 So everyone who tries Bolin-Branche sheets loves them.

00:02:44.760 That's why they have thousands of five-star reviews.

00:02:47.380 Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company,

00:02:48.940 are all talking about Bolin-Branche.

00:02:50.700 Even three U.S. presidents sleep on Bolin-Branche sheets.

00:02:54.240 And me.

00:02:55.320 Three U.S. presidents and little old me

00:02:57.320 sleep on these sheets,

00:02:58.560 and you should sleep on them, too.

00:03:00.040 Don't let Barack Obama have all the fun.

00:03:01.660 You don't.

00:03:01.940 Come on, guys.

00:03:02.960 Like, listen.

00:03:03.920 It's 2018.

00:03:04.820 Treat yourself.

00:03:05.720 Make sure that you can at least indulge

00:03:07.540 as much as those three U.S. presidents.

00:03:10.260 Shipping is free,

00:03:11.640 and you can try them for 30 nights.

00:03:13.040 If you don't love them,

00:03:14.000 send them back for a refund,

00:03:15.580 but you will not want to send them back.

00:03:16.920 I promise you,

00:03:17.620 you won't want to send them back,

00:03:19.040 but there's no risk at all.

00:03:20.120 So even if you do,

00:03:21.060 you know,

00:03:21.280 you can get them for 30 nights.

00:03:22.300 You have 30 nights of decent sleep,

00:03:24.020 and that'll probably power you

00:03:25.060 for a few more months,

00:03:26.000 and then maybe try to do it again.

00:03:27.440 So to get started right now,

00:03:29.340 my listeners,

00:03:30.180 don't you ever say

00:03:31.280 that I never did anything for you.

00:03:32.840 My listeners get $50 off of these sheets.

00:03:36.540 That is really good.

00:03:37.620 So you're paying a fraction of the price already,

00:03:39.680 and you get 50 bucks off of that.

00:03:41.420 Your first set of sheets

00:03:42.300 at bowlandbranch.com,

00:03:44.720 promo code Michael,

00:03:46.220 M-I-C-H-A-E-L. 1.00

00:03:47.520 Go to bowlandbranch.com today

00:03:50.060 for $50 off of your first sets of sheets.

00:03:53.300 That is B-O-L-L and branch.com,

00:03:57.180 promo code Michael,

00:03:58.800 $50 off your first set of sheets.

00:04:01.020 Very, very good.

00:04:01.900 Okay.

00:04:03.400 Mitt Romney is running for office again.

00:04:04.880 Is it a day that ends in Y?

00:04:07.020 It's got to be a day that ends in Y 0.54

00:04:08.520 because Mitt Romney is running for office.

00:04:11.180 And the main takeaway from it,

00:04:12.900 I'm sorry to say,

00:04:14.160 is that Mitt Romney has not learned anything

00:04:16.900 over these past few decades.

00:04:18.880 Here is the Romney announcement video.

00:04:23.000 Utah's admired not only for its beauty,

00:04:25.480 but also for the character of its people.

00:04:27.360 Utahns are known for hard work,

00:04:32.420 innovation,

00:04:33.200 and our can-do pioneering spirit.

00:04:36.840 But more than these,

00:04:38.480 we're known as a people who serve,

00:04:40.820 who care,

00:04:41.880 and who rise to any occasion.

00:04:44.620 Utah has a lot to teach the politicians

00:04:47.120 in Washington.

00:04:48.780 Utah has balanced its budgets.

00:04:51.400 Washington is buried in debt.

00:04:53.380 Utah exports more abroad than it imports.

00:04:58.320 Washington has that backwards.

00:05:00.500 Utah welcomes legal immigrants

00:05:02.160 from around the world.

00:05:03.860 Washington sends immigrants 1.00

00:05:05.060 a message of exclusion.

00:05:07.100 And on Utah's Capitol Hill,

00:05:09.180 people treat one another with respect.

00:05:13.240 I have decided to run for United States Senate

00:05:15.840 because I believe I can help bring

00:05:18.200 Utah's values and Utah's lessons to Washington.

00:05:21.820 Utah is a better model for Washington

00:05:25.000 than Washington is for Utah.

00:05:27.900 We feel that this is the right time

00:05:29.980 for me to serve our state and our country.

00:05:33.320 I ask for your support and your vote.

00:05:36.560 And I look forward to meeting you

00:05:37.960 over the coming years.

00:05:39.600 I'm Mitt Romney from the 1990s.

00:05:41.840 I'm running for our state.

00:05:43.500 I love how he says our state

00:05:44.840 about when it comes to Utah.

00:05:46.640 That's very cute.

00:05:47.440 He's lived in Utah for five seconds now.

00:05:49.760 He just keeps moving

00:05:50.560 to wherever he's going to run from.

00:05:51.820 So I guess he went to college in Utah.

00:05:54.420 And then he lived all of his life in Massachusetts,

00:05:58.220 worked there, Bain Capital,

00:05:59.860 was the governor of Massachusetts.

00:06:01.500 Then when he wanted to run for president in 2012,

00:06:04.560 again, for the second time,

00:06:05.820 he moved to New Hampshire.

00:06:07.720 So he started living in New Hampshire then.

00:06:09.420 And now that he wants to run for Senate from Utah,

00:06:11.440 he's going to move to Utah

00:06:12.600 and talk about our Utah values.

00:06:14.520 Utah, you've been there for three seconds.

00:06:16.080 The other aspect of this is like,

00:06:19.460 clearly the advice that his political advisors gave him

00:06:22.000 was Mitt, you know,

00:06:23.180 the trouble with the 2012 race

00:06:24.680 is you weren't plastic enough.

00:06:26.440 You weren't robotic enough.

00:06:28.360 It wasn't a preening and, you know,

00:06:31.640 pristine commercial enough

00:06:33.340 to get you over the finish line in 2012.

00:06:35.820 He's learned all of the wrong lessons clearly.

00:06:38.340 And that's just on the design front.

00:06:39.840 I mean, this doesn't work in 2018.

00:06:41.960 This is something that Donald Trump showed us.

00:06:43.820 The way that the media works now is not traditional.

00:06:47.160 We've moved into new media platforms.

00:06:48.700 We've moved into social media.

00:06:50.020 And what people like is authenticity.

00:06:51.940 We've seen a lowering of all of these things,

00:06:53.940 even from our movie stars.

00:06:55.500 Our, you know, movie stars now,

00:06:56.820 we see them on Instagram.

00:06:58.060 It used to be that you would never see them

00:06:59.520 until you were at the movies.

00:07:01.380 Now they go, they make PSAs

00:07:03.460 and they tweet and they go on Instagram.

00:07:06.460 It's much closer.

00:07:07.520 It's much more personal.

00:07:08.780 And that's how Donald Trump was able

00:07:10.300 to connect directly to the American people.

00:07:12.080 It's still how he connects to the American people

00:07:14.220 and cuts through the mainstream media

00:07:15.860 because his Twitter account has a much wider reach

00:07:18.720 than the New York Times could ever hope to have.

00:07:20.940 Mitt Romney didn't learn that lesson.

00:07:22.400 He's running campaign ads from the early 2000s.

00:07:25.440 You have to keep up.

00:07:26.860 This is what happens when politics becomes corporate

00:07:29.520 and becomes a bit ossified, is you can't pivot.

00:07:32.580 You rely on these consultants

00:07:33.880 who very frequently don't know anything.

00:07:36.500 They don't know very much about the candidate

00:07:39.760 and they don't know very much about the race.

00:07:41.500 And so they're always running the last election.

00:07:44.380 They're always running the last campaign

00:07:46.120 because they learn everything they were supposed to do,

00:07:48.100 you know, whenever the last Senate campaign was in Utah.

00:07:51.480 And they're not keeping up with the times.

00:07:54.460 Mitt Romney clearly hasn't kept up with the times.

00:07:56.480 That's just on the visual aspect.

00:07:58.540 From the content of it, it's very anti-Trump.

00:08:01.480 He says that Washington is sending

00:08:03.760 an exclusionary message to immigrants. 0.99

00:08:06.800 That is ridiculous. 0.90

00:08:07.940 The immigration to native population ratio 0.93

00:08:10.200 is the highest in this country

00:08:11.660 that's been since the 1890s, over 100 years ago.

00:08:15.400 And that immigration period in the 1890s

00:08:17.400 gave us the Kennedys.

00:08:18.680 So maybe we should be careful to see

00:08:20.760 which god-awful political dynasty we're importing now

00:08:23.740 from some other country in the world.

00:08:27.320 It's really frustrating because one would think

00:08:29.400 that after he was so anti-Trump during the campaign,

00:08:33.980 he might have pivoted and realized

00:08:35.540 that we're playing in a new political reality.

00:08:37.200 Maybe he said I was wrong about a few things.

00:08:38.840 I shouldn't have said this.

00:08:39.820 This was a little too much.

00:08:41.060 But that isn't what happened.

00:08:42.580 He's doubling down on all of these things.

00:08:45.340 Not only is he not listening to the American people

00:08:47.420 and to his constituents

00:08:49.640 when it comes to the tactics of campaigning,

00:08:52.600 but he's not even listening to them on the content.

00:08:54.900 You will remember during the 2016 campaign,

00:08:57.060 Romney was vehemently anti-Trump.

00:08:59.240 Here he is excoriating the eventual GOP nominee.

00:09:02.060 There are some things that you just can't imagine

00:09:05.020 happening in your life.

00:09:06.180 This is one of them.

00:09:08.480 Being in Donald Trump's magnificent hotel

00:09:10.880 and having his endorsement is a delight.

00:09:13.560 I'm so honored and pleased to have his endorsement.

00:09:16.480 He understands that our economy

00:09:18.120 is facing threats from abroad.

00:09:20.420 He's one of the few people who stood up and said,

00:09:22.340 you know what, China has been cheating. 1.00

00:09:24.240 They've taken jobs from Americans. 0.99

00:09:26.360 They haven't played fair.

00:09:27.660 We have to have a president who will stand up to cheaters.

00:09:29.680 We believe in free trade or free enterprise,

00:09:32.140 but we don't believe in allowing people

00:09:33.340 to cheat day in and day out.

00:09:34.860 I spent my life in the private sector,

00:09:36.660 not quite as successful as this guy.

00:09:39.700 No, wait a minute.

00:09:40.760 That wasn't when he was excoriating Donald Trump in 2016.

00:09:44.240 That was when he was saying exactly the opposite

00:09:46.460 four years earlier, begging for his endorsement,

00:09:48.860 when he said that Donald Trump

00:09:50.080 is a better businessman than I am.

00:09:52.760 Donald Trump is right about China. 0.87

00:09:54.800 He's right about trade.

00:09:56.020 He's right about all of these things.

00:09:57.600 What a magnificent hotel.

00:09:59.180 Donald, thank you for the honor of hosting me here.

00:10:01.700 That was four years ago.

00:10:03.140 But now we get the real Mitt Romney in 2016.

00:10:05.900 Here was Romney excoriating Trump last year,

00:10:08.500 two years ago. 1.00

00:10:09.040 Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. 1.00

00:10:11.740 His promises are as worthless 1.00

00:10:13.100 as a degree from Trump University. 1.00

00:10:15.500 He's playing the members of the American public for suckers. 0.97

00:10:18.340 He gets a free ride to the White House, 0.99

00:10:20.000 and all we get is a lousy hat.

00:10:21.880 And let me put it very plainly.

00:10:23.060 If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee,

00:10:27.500 the prospects for a safe and prosperous future

00:10:30.220 are greatly diminished.

00:10:32.360 If Donald Trump's plans were ever implemented,

00:10:35.440 the country would sink into prolonged recession.

00:10:38.860 Isn't he a huge business success?

00:10:41.260 Doesn't he know what he's talking about?

00:10:43.600 No, he isn't.

00:10:45.040 And no, he doesn't.

00:10:46.520 Well, you said he's more successful than you.

00:10:48.660 So what does that tell us about you, Mitt? 0.97

00:10:51.760 A phony and a fraud, huh? 0.98

00:10:53.160 A phony and a fraud.

00:10:53.880 I wonder if the Romney doth protest too much.

00:10:58.480 We have to analyze this a little bit more 0.94

00:11:00.140 and all of the ridiculous predictions he made 0.90

00:11:02.640 that did not come true. 0.69

00:11:03.880 But before we do that, listen,

00:11:06.120 I'm a man who likes to stay on time.

00:11:08.160 You know that.

00:11:08.840 That's why I can't get to all those issues right now.

00:11:11.900 And I love movement watches.

00:11:15.020 I'm wearing my movement watch now.

00:11:16.620 I wear it all the time.

00:11:17.460 You might see this.

00:11:17.960 This is a new one I got.

00:11:19.360 It's from their new collection

00:11:20.260 called the Revolver Collection.

00:11:22.160 And it is so cool.

00:11:23.260 How sleek is this watch?

00:11:24.600 Is there a sleeker watch out there?

00:11:26.080 No.

00:11:26.400 I don't think there is.

00:11:27.300 It is really cool.

00:11:28.000 It's a kind of retro,

00:11:29.020 but I think it's called retro futuristic,

00:11:31.900 even though it seems like a contradiction.

00:11:33.940 It's got a very modern dial, retro build, though.

00:11:36.820 I really, really like it.

00:11:38.400 I've gotten a lot of compliments on it.

00:11:40.220 And it was funny.

00:11:40.920 I was actually at the bank the other day,

00:11:42.920 and I was cashing a bunch of checks

00:11:44.720 and no doubt for not doing any work,

00:11:48.100 some kind of other blank thing I was doing.

00:11:49.800 And the guy handed it in,

00:11:51.720 and the guy at the bank teller,

00:11:52.700 he said,

00:11:52.940 wow, I really like your watch, man.

00:11:54.140 That's a cool looking watch.

00:11:55.260 I said, listen,

00:11:55.800 if you use my promo code,

00:11:56.800 I'll get you 15% off.

00:11:58.340 We can really both benefit here.

00:12:00.460 Movement Watches is the biggest watch company

00:12:04.040 in the world.

00:12:04.600 You know,

00:12:04.720 it's the fastest growing watch company

00:12:06.320 in the world.

00:12:06.880 It's the one that you've really got to keep your eye on

00:12:09.500 because they just started a few years ago,

00:12:12.280 and it has grown like gangbusters.

00:12:14.960 It was started by these two college dropouts.

00:12:18.020 They've now sold watches in over 160 countries.

00:12:21.440 They've sold almost 2 million watches.

00:12:24.180 So given the amount of time that they've been around,

00:12:26.100 they are the biggest thing on the market.

00:12:28.800 I don't know if you checked out the site lately.

00:12:30.240 They have doubled the number of watch styles,

00:12:32.080 and they're still expanding.

00:12:33.480 And I hope they keep expanding

00:12:34.800 so that I can get maybe a couple more of these things

00:12:37.560 and mix and match them.

00:12:38.700 And the reason you can do that,

00:12:40.500 I always loved watches.

00:12:42.040 I've worn watches since I was 7 or 8 years old.

00:12:45.060 Because I felt if you're going to be a serious person

00:12:47.380 or even look like a serious person,

00:12:49.820 you've got to wear a watch.

00:12:50.680 You have to keep time,

00:12:52.620 keep a schedule,

00:12:53.360 have places to go and people to see.

00:12:55.700 But I never wanted to spend ever

00:12:57.440 those insane prices for timepieces

00:13:01.340 that until recently you had to pay.

00:13:03.200 $5,000, $6,000.

00:13:04.660 I couldn't do it.

00:13:05.180 Even if you wanted a really nice-looking watch,

00:13:08.740 a watch that's kind of presentable,

00:13:10.780 a little more versatile,

00:13:12.900 if you went to a department store,

00:13:14.140 a watch like this would cost $500, $400, $500.

00:13:17.760 Luckily, with Movement,

00:13:19.460 they skip all of that middleman.

00:13:21.980 So you can buy direct from them,

00:13:24.860 and you can get watches at an incredible price point.

00:13:27.220 Movement watches start at just $95.

00:13:28.920 They've not only introduced a ton of new watch collections

00:13:32.340 for both men and women,

00:13:33.800 they've also actually expanded to sunglasses

00:13:36.060 and fashion-forward bracelets for her or for him.

00:13:40.060 I don't know.

00:13:40.460 Listen, it's 2018.

00:13:41.540 You know, you don't need to,

00:13:42.300 we don't need to have these gender stereotypes 1.00

00:13:44.640 and gender, socially constructed gender roles. 0.93

00:13:47.740 They're all about looking good and keeping it simple.

00:13:49.980 Movement watches don't tell you

00:13:51.480 how many steps you've taken.

00:13:52.880 I really, I'm not a big fan of that kind of watch.

00:13:56.180 I like an elegant, simple timepiece.

00:13:58.220 I don't want it,

00:13:59.140 I don't want it to tell me how many steps I've taken

00:14:01.000 because I usually don't take that many steps.

00:14:02.980 So it's very depressing when I do that.

00:14:04.940 And this is a timepiece.

00:14:05.980 It's a timepiece that tells you the time.

00:14:08.280 It doesn't tell you how many hamburgers you've eaten

00:14:10.500 or what the temperature is in Timbuktu.

00:14:13.020 It just tells you the time

00:14:14.280 in a nice, elegant analog dial.

00:14:16.700 And it doesn't blow up your wrist with text messages.

00:14:19.620 You know, some watches do that now.

00:14:21.000 I don't answer text messages ever on my computer or on my phone.

00:14:23.780 I certainly won't do it on my watch.

00:14:25.320 So it's really great.

00:14:27.080 You'll get the best price possible

00:14:28.940 because they sell direct to you online.

00:14:30.720 Classic design, quality construction, styled minimalism.

00:14:33.540 And I'm going to give you the same offer I gave my bank teller.

00:14:36.280 You can get 15% off today with free shipping and free returns.

00:14:40.120 So it's totally no risk whatsoever

00:14:42.420 by going to movement.com slash covfefe.

00:14:45.700 That's M-V-M-T dot com slash covfefe.

00:14:48.860 C-O-V-F-E-F-E. 1.00

00:14:50.920 We've left the vowels in the promo code in the covfefe,

00:14:53.500 but we've taken them out of the movement.

00:14:55.360 So you should see why movement keeps growing.

00:14:57.740 Check out their expanding collection.

00:14:58.980 Go to M-V-M-T dot com slash covfefe, C-O-V-E-F-E,

00:15:03.620 and join the movement.

00:15:06.900 So, okay, we've got to get back to Mitt Romney now.

00:15:10.460 All of those predictions.

00:15:11.760 He says if Donald Trump becomes president,

00:15:16.040 the economy is going to fall into recession.

00:15:18.320 Economy is growing at rates we haven't seen in a decade.

00:15:20.700 The economy is blowing up.

00:15:22.820 The market took a little bit of a hit during the election,

00:15:25.380 and then it shot right back up, and it's done very well.

00:15:28.440 Consumer confidence is very high.

00:15:30.260 We're finally, after a decade, seeing wages increase.

00:15:33.300 We didn't see that at any point in the last 10 years.

00:15:36.060 The economy is doing very, very well.

00:15:37.640 Even the IMF credits Donald Trump with boosting the global economy.

00:15:42.620 The International Monetary Fund, no particular fan of American conservatism,

00:15:47.200 but they have credited Donald Trump and the tax reform bill,

00:15:50.300 the tax reform now law, with raising the global economy.

00:15:54.780 So all those predictions were totally wrong.

00:15:57.080 By the end of the speech, Mitt Romney, preening as one might do during that election,

00:16:05.360 says this is a time for choosing.

00:16:07.700 And what he's referencing is Ronald Reagan's famous speech for Barry Goldwater,

00:16:11.180 a time for choosing.

00:16:12.380 You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

00:16:15.420 How dare Mitt Romney invoke a time for choosing?

00:16:18.420 How dare he compare himself with Ronald Reagan?

00:16:21.740 Here is Mitt Romney on Ronald Reagan.

00:16:24.220 You can judge for yourself.

00:16:25.060 Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush.

00:16:27.900 I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.

00:16:29.780 Oh, that's really, what political courage?

00:16:32.600 What standing with conviction?

00:16:33.960 The conscience of a conservative Mitt Romney.

00:16:35.840 That was Romney running against Ted Kennedy in 1994 for Senate in Massachusetts.

00:16:40.460 I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush.

00:16:42.420 I don't like Reagan-Bush.

00:16:43.580 I never watched Ronald Reagan.

00:16:44.900 I didn't even like GE theater.

00:16:46.400 I'm not with the Gipper.

00:16:47.280 I won't win one for the Gipper. 0.99

00:16:48.480 It's just pathetic. 0.97

00:16:49.260 And now he comes up here and he's, 0.99

00:16:51.580 what we now know in retrospect is that Donald Trump has governed as a conservative.

00:16:56.980 We know that he's been a conservative president and therefore his campaign promises came true.

00:17:01.920 He was, he campaigned to govern as a conservative.

00:17:04.400 And you have Mitt Romney coming up there pretending to be the standard bearer of conservatism.

00:17:09.580 Meanwhile, he's dissing Ronald Reagan throughout much of his political career. 1.00

00:17:14.360 Pathetic. 0.97

00:17:14.660 But we should have known this from Romney because Romney comes from a family of liberal Republicans. 0.99

00:17:20.820 Romney cites his father, George, as his hero, his guiding star in politics.

00:17:25.700 George Romney was another failed liberal Republican presidential candidate.

00:17:28.960 He was also the three-term governor of Michigan.

00:17:31.760 Bill Buckley.

00:17:32.580 We always talk about the conservative movement.

00:17:34.460 We have all these people saying, what movement conservatism?

00:17:37.020 What about the movement?

00:17:37.900 I know Donald Trump's doing great conservative things, but what about the movement?

00:17:41.060 Bill Buckley started the conservative movement to keep the Romneys out of office. 0.99

00:17:45.880 He opposed the first Romney explicitly in 1968.

00:17:49.500 He ran against liberal Republican John Lindsay for mayor of New York.

00:17:52.660 He sometimes supported Democrats over liberal Republicans because of what a threat liberal

00:17:57.560 Republicans were to the movement.

00:17:59.520 The conservative pearl clutchers on the right, they constantly now are endorsing Romney.

00:18:07.260 They've largely embraced this guy in opposition to Trump, who, regardless of his performance

00:18:13.340 on the campaign trail or whatever things he said on television in the year 2000, has governed

00:18:18.620 as a conservative.

00:18:19.620 How do the Romneys govern?

00:18:21.580 George Romney, as governor of Michigan, not only raised taxes, but he passed Michigan's

00:18:25.980 first income tax.

00:18:27.980 George Romney hated federalism.

00:18:29.640 He said, quote,

00:18:30.180 As far as I'm concerned, states have no rights.

00:18:32.740 Only people have rights. 1.00

00:18:34.500 Obstructionism masquerades as states.

00:18:36.460 States' rights as the height of folly, which is outrageous, by the way.

00:18:41.780 Our framers set up a federal system such that the federal government would be run in part

00:18:46.140 by the states and in part by the people.

00:18:48.100 That's why the Senate was elected by the states and the House was elected by the people, though

00:18:52.220 that fell apart after the 17th Amendment led to the direct election of senators.

00:18:58.120 The framers needed the states to have power because that's the only way that you can prevent

00:19:02.600 against demagoguery.

00:19:04.040 The need of the states to have power because it maintains the individual character of different

00:19:08.760 parts of America, and it doesn't make it into some homogenized, bland, gray, bureaucratic,

00:19:16.680 technocratic, single state government.

00:19:19.960 George Romney initially supported Vietnam, and then he accused the generals of brainwashing

00:19:25.420 him and said that he no longer supported the war, and it was terrible.

00:19:28.980 He did that thing.

00:19:29.660 He sort of cut and run, I guess, is the phrase we would use today.

00:19:33.700 Mitt Romney, for much of his political career, has followed in his father's ideological footsteps.

00:19:38.300 Let's just run through a quick little history of Mitt Romney in politics.

00:19:43.120 When running for Senate in 94, Mitt Romney supported gutting the First Amendment right to

00:19:47.720 political speech by limiting campaign contributions.

00:19:50.960 He flipped on this in 2007.

00:19:53.280 Initially, he had the same point of view as Hillary Clinton on this.

00:19:55.560 Then he flipped in 2007, but his explanation totally missed the point.

00:19:59.580 He said when he flipped, he said,

00:20:00.900 the original intent of McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform was to reduce the role of money

00:20:05.620 and special interests in our political system.

00:20:08.220 But on this, too, it has been a failure.

00:20:10.280 Political spending has been driven into secret corners, and more power and influence has been

00:20:14.180 handed to hidden special interests.

00:20:17.500 He's gotten the reasoning here totally, totally wrong.

00:20:20.220 The problem is not money in politics.

00:20:24.080 Money in politics is protected by the First Amendment, because money is speech.

00:20:28.860 If I want to hold up a sign that says,

00:20:31.420 don't elect Mitt Romney anymore, guys, we should elect conservatives.

00:20:35.120 If I wanted to have that sign, it costs money to make that sign.

00:20:37.960 That's what a campaign donation goes toward.

00:20:40.680 Now, it is true, it's bizarre to think that any law would wrote money out of politics.

00:20:45.760 There's no way that that would possibly happen.

00:20:47.420 Big politics attracts big money.

00:20:49.240 But we shouldn't even be trying to get money out of politics.

00:20:52.060 We know that money in politics doesn't decide elections anyway.

00:20:55.200 Donald Trump was outspent two to one.

00:20:57.580 Hillary Clinton spent twice as much money on her campaign as Donald Trump,

00:21:00.560 and he crushed her in the Electoral College.

00:21:02.040 It was a landslide.

00:21:03.540 You don't need to worry.

00:21:04.860 You don't need to protect the American people from themselves

00:21:06.860 and from their own freedom of speech and from their own desires.

00:21:10.780 They can govern themselves just fine.

00:21:12.380 Thank you very much.

00:21:13.500 Mitt Romney said that he supported the Citizens United decision,

00:21:16.120 which repealed all of those campaign finance laws,

00:21:19.040 those anti-constitutional campaign finance laws.

00:21:21.860 But then Romney criticized the substance of the decision,

00:21:24.580 saying, I'm not crazy about corporations making political contributions as a concept.

00:21:29.580 Why not?

00:21:30.100 This is the same man who said, corporations are people, my friend.

00:21:32.980 And he was right when he said that.

00:21:34.580 Corporations are people.

00:21:35.560 A corporation isn't a building.

00:21:37.460 A corporation isn't a parking lot.

00:21:39.340 A corporation isn't a desk with a computer on it.

00:21:41.780 It's people working in corporation with one another.

00:21:44.820 In corporate, right?

00:21:46.060 But without Citizens United, how on earth could we defend a newspaper endorsing a political candidate?

00:21:53.820 Is that the newspaper isn't a person, is it?

00:21:55.760 The newspaper is that it's a corporation.

00:21:57.500 But corporations are people, my friend.

00:21:59.400 Romney, you see this constantly.

00:22:01.220 He always wants to have it both ways.

00:22:02.940 He always, oh, I don't feel comfortable saying this conservative thing.

00:22:07.160 He'll say it, and then he walks it back, and you just don't know where the guy stands.

00:22:10.880 As governor of Massachusetts, Romney said he was, quote,

00:22:13.920 absolutely committed to fighting global warming because he said, quote,

00:22:18.320 I think the global warming debate is now pretty much over,

00:22:21.460 and people recognize the need associated with providing sources

00:22:24.600 which do not generate the heat currently provided by fossil fuels.

00:22:28.600 I don't think that's true.

00:22:29.720 I don't think scientific debates are over.

00:22:32.200 I don't think they're pretty much over.

00:22:33.660 And I certainly don't think this one is over.

00:22:35.200 Perhaps we should bring on our friend Richard Lindzen again to talk about this,

00:22:38.920 the MIT atmospheric physicist who would, I think, contradict Mitt Romney on that point.

00:22:45.300 But Mitt Romney, again, is taking this political highbrow elite position.

00:22:49.540 Don't we know what's best?

00:22:51.080 Listen, listen, we know what's best for you. 0.99

00:22:53.340 Come on, you silly little rubes. 1.00

00:22:54.600 I've read the science papers, and even that isn't true. 0.98

00:22:57.420 Romney, as governor, supported higher taxes on SUVs and taxing developers

00:23:01.380 for cutting down trees in the suburbs.

00:23:03.480 He supported expanding the soda can tax, the bottle bills.

00:23:06.360 You know, you have to pay more money whenever you buy 17,000 cases of La Croix

00:23:10.380 at the supermarket, as one does.

00:23:12.560 He appointed prominent environmentalists to regulate industry.

00:23:15.860 He put limits on oil and gas drilling.

00:23:17.680 He subsidized hybrid hippie cars, which no Republican should ever drive.

00:23:21.940 The only hybrid a Republican should drive is a Lamborghini that burns motor oil and gasoline.

00:23:26.420 He refused to offer tax relief on the gasoline tax during those sky-high gas prices of 2006.

00:23:33.800 His lieutenant governor wanted some tax relief for people.

00:23:36.720 You remember how high taxes were, or how high gas prices were back then.

00:23:40.220 And he said, no, no, we can't do it.

00:23:42.140 We need to teach people a lesson about conserving energy.

00:23:45.200 A more out-of-touch elite position one cannot imagine.

00:23:49.460 He supported cap-and-trade, cap-and-tax as governor,

00:23:52.220 though he flipped on this when he ran for president.

00:23:54.080 Again, he provided no sufficient explanation as to why he flipped on this.

00:23:59.300 When he was governor, he opposed the Bush tax cuts for some reason.

00:24:02.340 That was one of the best aspects of the Bush administration.

00:24:05.080 Every conservative was on board for it.

00:24:06.660 He opposed it.

00:24:07.660 I don't know why.

00:24:08.880 And, of course, as governor, Mitt Romney invented Obamacare.

00:24:11.600 He invented the prototype of Obamacare.

00:24:13.760 He installed it in his state.

00:24:14.940 And then he lobbied the federal government for an expansion of Medicare,

00:24:18.860 a federal entitlement program, the sort of which is responsible for driving all of the debt.

00:24:24.980 Quite a record.

00:24:25.760 Quite a record in office for Mitt Romney.

00:24:28.240 Now, all politicians change their minds.

00:24:30.020 That happens.

00:24:31.400 I've changed my mind about a lot of things.

00:24:33.200 I'm sure you have, too.

00:24:34.200 Donald Trump has certainly changed his mind about things.

00:24:36.820 With Trump, though, the comparison doesn't really hold.

00:24:39.200 He said lefty things on television in the year 2000, and then he said he changed his mind.

00:24:45.620 And as president, he's been very conservative.

00:24:48.080 His record in governing is a conservative record.

00:24:52.040 His rhetoric might be all over the place.

00:24:54.080 His Twitter account might be all over the place.

00:24:56.220 But his record, his actions, are conservative.

00:24:58.780 Mitt Romney, his public speech record is also all over the place.

00:25:04.040 But his record is liberal.

00:25:05.320 His record as governor was liberal.

00:25:07.040 Romney, he might say conservative things on the campaign trail.

00:25:10.480 But then he'll govern at best like a liberal Republican.

00:25:13.580 The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.

00:25:15.880 That's the case with government.

00:25:17.460 And a note on that phrase.

00:25:18.940 People always say the proof is in the pudding, which doesn't make any sense.

00:25:21.720 What does that even mean?

00:25:22.480 What is the proof in the pudding?

00:25:23.640 The phrase is actually the proof of the pudding is in the tasting, which does make sense.

00:25:27.560 That's just a little sidebar.

00:25:29.020 Now, I don't mean to run down Romney too much.

00:25:30.960 I voted for Romney in the general election in 2012 because he was obviously better than Obama.

00:25:35.460 I don't think he's a bad man in the way that a lot of politicians can be.

00:25:39.420 He seems like a nice enough guy.

00:25:41.020 I'd love to share a decaffeinated coffee with him or something, whatever we could drink, you know.

00:25:46.560 But I didn't vote for the man in the primary.

00:25:49.420 Most of my conservative friends didn't vote for him in the primary, except for the more elite ones.

00:25:54.120 I actually worked for two of his opponents in that primary.

00:25:56.860 I didn't think he was a good candidate then.

00:25:58.700 Certainly he wasn't a good candidate.

00:25:59.900 As we were running explicitly against Obamacare, we nominated the only guy on earth who could claim to have invented Obamacare.

00:26:07.900 Not a great judgment call.

00:26:09.900 But we have to question Mitt Romney's judgment here.

00:26:12.340 We have to question his judgment for political considerations and for policy considerations.

00:26:17.840 Mitt Romney undercut the GOP nominee in 2016 and disingenuously claimed to be the standard bearer of conservatism.

00:26:25.360 This is no small thing.

00:26:26.540 He turned on his party, and I'm not saying you can never turn on your party or turn on a candidate or a nominee, but you better be right.

00:26:33.500 You better be right when you do it, and he wasn't, and he wasn't right about it, and it ended up blowing up in his face.

00:26:40.160 That is a big thing to basically say, I would prefer Hillary Clinton become president than the Republican candidate become president, the Republican nominee become president.

00:26:50.080 That is a big statement, and it appears that that's what Mitt Romney said.

00:26:56.440 I don't think we just let him off the hook for that, especially given his very liberal record in government.

00:27:02.080 He also, in terms of questioning his judgment, he made a bunch of hysterical predictions that proved completely incorrect.

00:27:08.720 It didn't happen.

00:27:09.460 America is safer abroad than we've been in 10 years.

00:27:12.340 America, the American economy is doing much better than it has been doing in 10 years.

00:27:16.580 On social policy, we've got more social policy, good conservative social policy coming out of this administration than we did out of the George W. Bush administration, and he was a social conservative.

00:27:26.760 But we're getting more social conservative policy out of Donald Trump than out of him.

00:27:31.200 We're getting the embassy moved to Jerusalem in Israel.

00:27:33.700 Just that takes such brass cojones of conservatism to say, we're not going to let these other Middle Eastern states boss us around and tell us where we're going to put our embassy.

00:27:42.240 That's a really beautiful thing.

00:27:44.660 As a matter of foreign policy, he's handled our adversaries and our allies much better than Barack Obama did.

00:27:50.540 We're closer to our allies, and we're putting much more pressure on our adversaries.

00:27:55.320 Then, after all of that, Mitt Romney tried to suck up to Donald Trump to become secretary of state.

00:28:00.340 Do we have that photo?

00:28:00.980 You remember that photo?

00:28:01.500 Yeah.

00:28:01.900 Yeah, so this is the biggest questioning of his judgment, I think.

00:28:07.260 Did he ever think that Trump was going to make him secretary of state?

00:28:10.000 Donald Trump invited him to dinner to get that picture.

00:28:12.760 That's the only reason he did it.

00:28:14.540 And Romney fell for it because he really wanted to get a position in the administration.

00:28:19.020 He spent a year lambasting this guy in pretty brutal and personal terms.

00:28:23.520 And then we see that he just caved.

00:28:27.160 Do we really need more Romneys?

00:28:29.680 That's kind of what it comes down to.

00:28:31.160 Do we need more Romneys or even Bushes? 0.97

00:28:33.640 And I like the Bushes a lot.

00:28:34.920 I'm a fan of the Bushes.

00:28:36.100 I'll break from some of the people on the hard right.

00:28:38.340 I think they're great.

00:28:39.500 They're fine.

00:28:40.200 But don't forget, Bush was added to the Reagan ticket to appease the elite wing of the Republican Party,

00:28:46.580 to appease the moderates and the liberals in the establishment.

00:28:49.340 He wasn't added as some rock-ribbed conservative.

00:28:51.320 He never pretended to be a rock-ribbed conservative.

00:28:53.380 Neither did George W. Bush.

00:28:54.500 George W. Bush actually seemed to imply in the 2000 campaign that conservatism is cruel

00:28:59.260 because he said, I'm going to be a compassionate conservative.

00:29:02.060 He actually echoed what his father did after Reagan.

00:29:04.360 His father said, we need a kinder, gentler conservatism.

00:29:07.800 And Nancy Reagan was very offended by this and said, then who?

00:29:11.300 Kindler and gentler, then who, George?

00:29:13.620 So these guys were never conservatives.

00:29:15.560 They never pretended to be conservatives.

00:29:17.520 They did fine.

00:29:18.380 And I love that George Bush Sr. stood by Ronald Reagan.

00:29:21.860 He was a model vice president.

00:29:23.200 That's something we should admire him for.

00:29:25.040 And George W. Bush reacted well in the immediate aftermath of 9-11.

00:29:29.720 We should give him credit for that, too.

00:29:31.200 And he had some domestic advantages also.

00:29:34.100 Nominated some good justices.

00:29:35.640 We got Alito out of him, although we've gotten Gorsuch out of Trump.

00:29:38.600 That's really nice.

00:29:40.220 What I do mean is that the GOP needs conviction politicians.

00:29:44.120 It needs conviction politicians.

00:29:45.640 Not journeyman politicians, not career politicians, not social politicians who just seem to want

00:29:52.380 to be in the office and go to the dinners and be an important person and be just a statesman

00:29:58.020 or appear like a statesman.

00:29:59.500 We need people who believe something.

00:30:01.880 We need people who actually have beliefs.

00:30:03.520 I don't know that Mitt Romney has beliefs.

00:30:05.260 I'm sure he has core beliefs, but I don't think he has core political beliefs exactly.

00:30:10.440 None that he's really shown us.

00:30:11.760 All advances of conservative policy and governance have come through conviction politicians like

00:30:18.360 Ronald Reagan.

00:30:19.240 We need to seriously rethink our vision of politics.

00:30:21.820 The conservative movement needs to seriously rethink its vision of politics.

00:30:25.260 Winston Churchill is the great example of this.

00:30:27.520 Winston Churchill, he would fly airplanes.

00:30:31.060 And he was already a well-known figure at this point.

00:30:33.560 He escaped from prison camps in South Africa.

00:30:35.580 He was a hero from the Boer War.

00:30:37.000 He'd written books and he was a journalist.

00:30:38.840 So anyway, he would fly these airplanes and he wasn't good at flying them.

00:30:43.560 So he crashed them and he would, he crashed them three times.

00:30:47.580 And by the third time, it was a pretty tough crash, nearly fatal.

00:30:51.880 And he was interviewed about this and they say, aren't you, shouldn't you give this up? 0.57

00:30:56.000 Aren't you crazy to be flying these airplanes?

00:30:57.920 And Winston Churchill said something profound as he often did.

00:31:01.360 He said, I love life, but I do not fear death.

00:31:04.600 And you see this throughout his political career.

00:31:08.180 He loved life.

00:31:09.160 He does not fear death.

00:31:09.920 You see this when he broke out of a South African prison camp.

00:31:12.380 You saw this in all of his war service.

00:31:14.160 When he was in military academy, he begged to go to Cuba to help the Spanish put down an insurrection.

00:31:20.680 Just because, just because, just so that he could see some action and get trained and have bullets whiz by him.

00:31:26.860 He said it was the first time he ever had the pleasure of being shot at and missed.

00:31:30.160 You know, this was a guy who, he did love life.

00:31:33.320 It's not just like he was on a suicide mission. 1.00

00:31:35.900 It's not just, I don't care about death and he's a crazy person. 0.73

00:31:38.240 He did love life, but he doesn't fear death.

00:31:40.160 This is the Christian position.

00:31:41.660 This is, this is what we should think of as conservatives.

00:31:45.860 This is what we should think of as Americans.

00:31:48.500 These are the kinds of politicians that we need.

00:31:50.600 Ronald Reagan was a conviction politician.

00:31:52.860 He was the kind of guy who said, this is what I believe.

00:31:55.320 I'm not going to try to pander to everybody in the room and make that guy think I'm saying one thing

00:31:59.080 and make that guy think I'm saying another thing.

00:32:01.080 And just that mealy mouthed Bill Clinton.

00:32:02.960 They asked Bill Clinton what he thought about the desert storm.

00:32:07.120 What he thought about the first Iraq war.

00:32:08.680 And he said, if the vote were close, I would have voted with the majority,

00:32:12.680 but I sympathize with the opinion of the minority.

00:32:15.680 Uh, uh, that, and that is almost a verbatim quote.

00:32:18.820 I don't have the exact wording.

00:32:19.740 That is almost a verbatim quote.

00:32:21.320 Classic Clintonism.

00:32:22.280 Well, it depends what the meaning of the word is, is you don't hear that from Ronald Reagan, right?

00:32:26.860 Ronald Reagan tells you what he thinks straightforward.

00:32:29.080 In, in many ways, Donald Trump does this too.

00:32:31.560 People say Trump doesn't know what he believes.

00:32:33.500 He doesn't say what he believes.

00:32:34.340 He doesn't believe anything.

00:32:35.740 I don't see that.

00:32:36.940 Clearly he does believe certain things.

00:32:38.680 Clearly he does.

00:32:40.000 I don't know that he could give a time for choosing speech.

00:32:42.320 I don't think he's steeped in conservative thought and in historical thought and philosophical thought

00:32:49.940 such that he could give a great oration like that.

00:32:54.320 But I think he has beliefs.

00:32:55.480 I think he has gut beliefs.

00:32:56.520 And you see it with Twitter.

00:32:57.460 Twitter gives you a little bit of a glimpse into this guy's thought process because there,

00:33:02.940 there aren't a ton of filters there.

00:33:05.080 Even if some people are writing some things or whatever, you get a decent view into what

00:33:09.660 he's thinking.

00:33:10.440 And he has these gut reactions.

00:33:12.800 So the NFL players is, is one of them.

00:33:15.220 These NFL players are making a mockery of our country.

00:33:17.880 They're, they're so ignorantly undermining even their own protest because only in America could

00:33:24.080 you do this, only in America could you so disrespect your own flag, which the flag, which gives you the right to protest your own flag.

00:33:31.560 And Donald Trump's reaction to that isn't, oh, well, I, I guess, you know, what we should say is they have the right to do this, of course.

00:33:41.040 But really, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:33:42.760 He said, this is terrible.

00:33:43.620 This is a terrible thing.

00:33:44.560 They should stand for their flag.

00:33:45.820 It's that simple.

00:33:46.700 If you were raised right, you know that.

00:33:48.760 It's a terrible thing.

00:33:49.700 You should stand for your flag.

00:33:51.040 It's your country.

00:33:51.680 You should love your country.

00:33:52.920 And it's America, which is the best country ever.

00:33:55.200 And you should love that.

00:33:56.060 I think he has that gut feeling, a gut patriotism.

00:33:59.080 When asked who he would vote for in the election, Ben Stein, old Republican journeyman, economist, speechwriter for Nixon, and also a famous actor, he said, you know, I suppose I'll vote for Donald Trump.

00:34:12.580 I don't think he knows a damn thing about economics, but his campaign is pro-America and Hillary's is anti-America.

00:34:18.840 It's about ripping America down.

00:34:21.960 That's an important thing.

00:34:23.020 And we'll talk about that a little bit, too, some of the priorities that we have to think about here.

00:34:29.080 But you might see in Ronald Reagan something akin to a conviction politician, or at least what a conviction politician looks like in our current culture, which doesn't have very many deep convictions.

00:34:40.780 We might see the best of that in Donald Trump.

00:34:43.340 Okay, do I have to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube?

00:34:45.200 I do, don't I?

00:34:46.120 That's terrible.

00:34:46.680 I'm sorry, guys.

00:34:47.120 We have a lot more to get to.

00:34:47.960 But, well, I guess I'm saying goodbye to Facebook.

00:34:50.480 I said goodbye to YouTube a long time ago.

00:34:52.500 I think YouTube said goodbye to me a long time ago when they started censoring all of our materials.

00:34:57.040 If you're on Facebook, make sure you head on over to dailywire.com right now.

00:35:00.720 Why?

00:35:01.220 Well, you'll get me.

00:35:02.360 You'll get the Andrew Klavan show.

00:35:03.280 You'll get the Ben Shapiro show.

00:35:04.520 That's all great.

00:35:05.560 You'll get the conversation.

00:35:06.680 Next one up is the big boss himself, Ben Shapiro.

00:35:09.300 You can ask him any question you want.

00:35:10.840 He'll answer them.

00:35:12.380 Everybody can watch, but only subscribers can ask questions.

00:35:15.740 Many are called, few are chosen.

00:35:17.900 But none of that matters.

00:35:20.180 You guys see Jimmy Kimmel last night?

00:35:22.040 I assume you guys saw Jimmy Kimmel, right?

00:35:24.440 Well, I hope you had this handy.

00:35:26.540 Well, I know you had this handy because anyone who didn't is now floating in a puddle in their house.

00:35:30.900 They're floating upside down or something.

00:35:32.880 You need the leftist years tumbler.

00:35:34.300 I don't know how many times I have to tell you this.

00:35:36.720 You need this to protect yourself and your woman folk and your children and your family and your possessions. 1.00

00:35:43.540 This is the only FDA approved vessel to contain salty and delicious leftist tears, whether hot or cold.

00:35:49.460 You can have them however they come out.

00:35:50.740 But we're getting them from Jimmy Kimmel.

00:35:52.300 We're getting them all over the place.

00:35:54.240 So make sure that you get the leftist tears tumbler at dailywire.com.

00:35:57.900 We'll be right back to talk about all of the fake news, the school shooting and Jimmy Kimmel and so much more.

00:36:06.700 Dailywire.com.

00:36:07.420 We'll be right back.

00:36:07.920 Okay, so I will just touch on this at the beginning.

00:36:24.140 We'll loop back to it at the end.

00:36:25.760 This horrific school shooting was really awful and the left wasted no time in demagoguing it.

00:36:30.380 It was just terrible.

00:36:31.480 They're saying that the shooter was a white nationalist, and I haven't met that many white nationalists named Cruz or Fernandez or Jucarelli or whatever.

00:36:41.700 I haven't met a whole lot of those, you know, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

00:36:47.740 You know, there are a lot of fake statistics going around.

00:36:50.200 Some are saying that there have been 18 school shootings in 2018.

00:36:52.840 That isn't true.

00:36:53.940 They're playing around with the statistics.

00:36:55.640 Except most, you can say that a gun was even accidentally discharged five times around schools in 2018.

00:37:03.860 But that is neither here nor there.

00:37:06.000 We'll get back to what we really have to take away from this by the end of our show in that little last moment.

00:37:12.360 First, breaking news.

00:37:13.480 The Mueller investigation has indicted 13 Russians for trying to meddle in the 2016 election.

00:37:18.400 Russian information warfare sought to bolster Trump and hurt Hillary during the election.

00:37:22.420 But after the election, that same machine sought to bolster anti-Trump protests, the so-called resistance.

00:37:30.180 So this is really great.

00:37:31.440 They said for so long, the Russians, they're helping Trump.

00:37:36.340 They're here for Trump.

00:37:37.160 And we said, well, I don't know if that's true.

00:37:38.860 The Russians obviously always want to screw up our political process. 1.00

00:37:41.760 They've been doing that for a century.

00:37:43.100 They've been doing that since the Russian Revolution.

00:37:45.080 But I don't know.

00:37:45.860 They really like Trump.

00:37:46.660 Why do they like Trump?

00:37:47.360 Trump's doing things to harm them.

00:37:49.340 Just the other day, we've apparently U.S.-backed troops slaughtered dozens of Russians in Syria, right?

00:37:55.660 I mean, we are literally killing these people on the battlefield.

00:37:58.920 So it doesn't make a lot of sense.

00:38:00.460 And now it makes sense. 0.97

00:38:01.480 And I love it so much because all those people wearing the little hats, the pussy hats, 0.99

00:38:05.760 and with these disgusting, profane signs and paper mache things, they're tools of Russia. 0.98

00:38:10.900 Those guys are tools of Russia because the so-called resistance has started a lot of the anti-Trump protests 0.52

00:38:16.320 immediately after he won the presidency.

00:38:18.380 The indictment that we see now reads, quote,

00:38:21.800 Defendants and their co-conspirators used false U.S. personas to organize and coordinate other false U.S. personas

00:38:29.220 to organize and coordinate U.S. political rallies protesting the results of the 2016 presidential election.

00:38:35.320 One of those rallies included Trump is not my president, which was held right after the election in 2016.

00:38:42.120 So now listen to that.

00:38:45.080 I don't know if you picked up one of the little lines there.

00:38:47.160 Democrats are trying to shut this up. 0.99

00:38:50.240 They were using U.S. personas.

00:38:52.740 They were using U.S. personas.

00:38:53.940 The indictment goes on, quote,

00:38:55.200 Some defendants posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association

00:38:59.920 communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign

00:39:03.860 and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.

00:39:09.660 Did you catch that?

00:39:10.640 I don't know if you caught that.

00:39:12.980 That means, so they weren't saying they were Russians.

00:39:15.540 That means that if anybody tried to collude with them, and by collude we mean some guy comes to you on your campaign

00:39:21.000 and says I have dirt on your opponent, 100% of politicians take that meeting, which they should.

00:39:27.160 That's what a campaign is for.

00:39:29.180 Anything else would be campaign negligence.

00:39:31.060 Anything else would be negligent to your donors and your constituents and your candidate.

00:39:34.000 But if they took that meeting, the operatives from Russia pretended to be Americans, which means there's no collusion.

00:39:42.500 That means that there's no evidence of collusion.

00:39:44.680 For the 500 millionth time, more evidence mounting as ever.

00:39:48.600 To quote what Dianne Feinstein accidentally said and what Van Jones accidentally said,

00:39:53.180 the Russia collusion story is a nothing burger.

00:39:55.240 We see it now from Bob Mueller.

00:39:56.380 It's giving me faith in the Mueller investigation, by the way, that these indictments are coming out.

00:40:01.580 Who knows?

00:40:02.000 I'm still a little skeptical.

00:40:03.020 He clearly has too much power.

00:40:04.240 It should never have been appointed in the first place.

00:40:06.200 But not too bad.

00:40:07.380 I'll take what I can get.

00:40:08.880 Really good stuff.

00:40:09.820 They're going to try to cover this up all day.

00:40:11.320 So make sure if you're on Twitter or if you've got some Democrat friends, make sure to yell it really loudly in their faces.

00:40:16.960 Say, see, here is evidence that they were not colluding.

00:40:20.540 It's logically impossible for this to have been Russian collusion.

00:40:24.000 Okay, other good news.

00:40:24.920 The immigration deal failed.

00:40:28.260 What do you need to know about this?

00:40:29.360 It's a little confusing.

00:40:31.220 There was a big Senate bipartisan immigration deal that the White House basically shut down.

00:40:36.640 It would have legalized at least 1.8 million future Democratic voters or people who were likely 3.5 times to 8.75 times as likely to vote for Democrats as for Republicans.

00:40:49.680 Democrats were pretty thrilled about that.

00:40:51.400 It gave some border protection.

00:40:52.600 It sort of dealt with a little bit of the chain migration problem.

00:40:55.640 All you need to know about this issue is that the immigration deal failed.

00:41:01.040 Ted Cruz is happy about that.

00:41:02.660 Stephen Miller is happy about that.

00:41:04.940 The Wall Street Journal and Vox.com are angry.

00:41:07.500 That's a win.

00:41:08.900 That's all you need to know.

00:41:10.160 Let all the other stuff go.

00:41:11.320 The pro-immigration wing of the Republican Party is upset.

00:41:15.540 Vox.com, the most disingenuous, lying left-wing rag on the internet other than Media Matters, is upset.

00:41:22.780 And pretty rock-ripped conservatives are happy.

00:41:24.920 That's a win.

00:41:25.720 Best news of all is Jimmy Kimmel is crying again.

00:41:28.140 Jimmy Kimmel's crying again.

00:41:29.600 And, yep, there they are.

00:41:31.380 Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm.

00:41:33.040 So good, because it's also a day that ends, and why?

00:41:36.360 He's crying again.

00:41:37.320 I hope you have your tumblers ready.

00:41:38.660 Here is Jimmy Kimmel.

00:41:40.040 If one illegal immigrant causes a car accident, we've got to build a wall to keep the rest of them out. 1.00

00:41:45.820 Why are you looking for solutions to that problem and not this one?

00:41:49.040 Every reasonable American, Republican or Democrat, knows that something has to be done.

00:41:54.060 Something.

00:41:54.680 And we're not doing anything.

00:41:56.560 But go ahead.

00:41:57.260 I'll let you finish.

00:41:58.520 Let me explain it.

00:41:59.440 Why do we want to deport people who are breaking our laws is because they're breaking our laws and we're a nation of laws

00:42:04.760 and because the people of this country have a right to have their democratically enacted immigration law enforced

00:42:10.560 and the people of this country have a right to determine who gets to come in and who gets to go out

00:42:14.900 and who gets to use up their tax dollars and welfare and who gets to vote in their elections

00:42:18.820 and who gets to do all of those things.

00:42:20.380 That's why we deport some people who are here illegally. 1.00

00:42:25.740 The reason that we don't take away all of their guns is it's a civil right.

00:42:31.040 Let me try to explain it for Jimmy Kimmel.

00:42:33.260 We enforce the law and we also protect civil rights.

00:42:37.260 Maybe I'll slow it down for Jimmy Kimmel.

00:42:39.180 I know he's the great intellectual of the modern left, but we enforce the law and we protect civil rights.

00:42:46.160 I know it seems like a contradiction in terms.

00:42:48.380 It's a really perverse culture that demands comedian politicians and earnest comedians.

00:42:53.280 That's what we're getting here.

00:42:54.100 Kimmel wants something, some action.

00:42:56.900 Just give me something, something.

00:42:58.320 What? What do you want?

00:42:59.940 What? You're like a little child.

00:43:01.680 You're behaving like a little baby boy.

00:43:03.440 I want something.

00:43:04.440 I need...

00:43:05.400 What do you want?

00:43:06.220 I don't know.

00:43:06.780 I just want something.

00:43:08.080 We shouldn't let them get away with this.

00:43:09.700 We should not let the left get away with this.

00:43:11.820 Jimmy Kimmel doesn't actually care.

00:43:13.600 He does not care about this.

00:43:15.060 If he cared, he would propose a solution, but he hasn't proposed a solution because he doesn't care.

00:43:19.660 Every time Democrats demagogue this issue, we should point out what they are.

00:43:24.280 That's what they're doing.

00:43:25.940 That's what they don't care.

00:43:27.500 Worse, they're using dead kids as political props.

00:43:30.320 There's nothing nice or caring or genuine about what Jimmy Kimmel does.

00:43:33.800 He uses sick and dead kids night after night and crocodile tears as props to erode American liberty.

00:43:40.520 Night after night after night.

00:43:42.240 We shouldn't let him get away with this. 1.00

00:43:43.800 It isn't, oh, he's just a little dummy. 0.79

00:43:45.480 It's really despicable what he's doing, and we should call it out every chance we can.

00:43:49.600 Finally, I'll end on this because we're running a little late.

00:43:52.380 I should have paid more attention to my movement watch.

00:43:54.320 The New York Times conservative columnist, prominent Never Trumper, Brett Stevens, is calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment.

00:44:01.700 Brett Stevens writes, quote,

00:44:02.840 This should be a warning.

00:44:19.920 On the one hand, it shows that we should trust our gut when it comes to squishes. 1.00

00:44:24.000 Like, you know, we say, oh, well, I don't know.

00:44:25.400 Maybe he's a conservative.

00:44:26.260 Oh, he looks like a conservative.

00:44:27.420 If it looks like a squish and talks like a squish and sounds like a squish, it's probably a squish. 1.00

00:44:31.640 Treat it that way.

00:44:32.660 You know, I don't say, I'm not saying be mean to these people or, you know, run them out.

00:44:36.000 I'm happy to have a big tent party, but let's not pretend that Brett Stevens is the standard bearer of conservatism, as the New York Times, I think, would like to do.

00:44:43.280 They don't have any pro-Trump Republicans on their staff, to my knowledge.

00:44:48.640 Brett Stevens is right about gay marriage. 0.91

00:44:50.780 We've been talking about gay marriage a little bit in the last couple weeks and the redefinition and the language issue of this.

00:44:58.000 You know, obviously, I don't think this is like a cause like civil rights or the abolition of slavery, but our modern culture does.

00:45:04.160 He calls it a great cause because our culture, all our culture cares about these days is sex and assaulting language and maybe sexually assaulting language in, I don't know, in Hollywood, at least.

00:45:14.240 Who knows?

00:45:14.740 It sounds about right.

00:45:16.120 We should be careful to keep our priorities in order.

00:45:18.640 We have to keep our priorities in order when we see these things.

00:45:20.940 We see the Republican, the conservative of the New York Times, you know, say that we need to repeal the Second Amendment.

00:45:28.060 There remain conservatives today who will not vote to reelect Donald Trump because he uses naughty language and doesn't belong to the same lunch clubs that they do.

00:45:37.840 That's so, ooh, it's so uncouth.

00:45:40.160 But what about, ooh, what about the dignity of the presidency?

00:45:43.020 I don't know, I like the dignity of the presidency, too.

00:45:45.280 I long for a day when we have Abraham Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address, you know, night after night.

00:45:51.360 That would be very nice and uplifting, I suppose.

00:45:53.400 We have to protect our liberty.

00:45:55.620 We have to protect our liberty and there are people out there who, on the left and ostensibly on the right, who are trying to repeal fundamental civil rights in this country.

00:46:02.780 Hillary Clinton campaigned on it.

00:46:04.440 She campaigned especially on gutting the First Amendment and gutting the Second Amendment, repealing the Second Amendment, weakening the Second Amendment. 0.59

00:46:13.260 Don't get caught up in the lunch clubs.

00:46:15.340 Don't get caught up in, oh, but it's uncouth.

00:46:17.360 Oh, it doesn't, you know, the Donald Trump tweet, it doesn't go well with my Chardonnay.

00:46:21.940 Forget that.

00:46:22.600 Drink the leftist tears.

00:46:23.500 It's much more delicious anyway.

00:46:24.960 You've got to keep your priorities in order and you've got to make sure that our primary goal is to protect liberty here, to protect the American way and to defend it.

00:46:33.340 And don't get caught up in all of the other stuff.

00:46:35.240 That's all abstract.

00:46:36.720 That's all, we can think about it.

00:46:38.600 We can think about it some other day, maybe in a time when our liberty is less under threat or we have other options available to us.

00:46:45.660 We can prioritize that.

00:46:47.280 But today we have our priorities.

00:46:48.740 It's the protection of liberty and we've got to keep it away from crying hacks like Jimmy Kimmel.

00:46:53.160 Okay, that's our show.

00:46:54.320 It was a fun Friday show.

00:46:55.420 We should do more Friday shows.

00:46:56.740 I will be back on Monday.

00:46:58.380 I can't wait to see you then.

00:46:59.500 You can binge Andrew Klavan's Another Kingdom, which I perform.

00:47:02.860 It's wherever fine narrative fiction podcasts are downloaded.

00:47:06.160 You can do that to survive the weekend.

00:47:07.840 Until then, I'm Michael Knowles.

00:47:09.140 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:47:10.300 I'll see you Monday.

00:47:16.600 The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:47:19.920 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:47:22.340 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:47:24.240 Supervising producer, Mathis Glover.

00:47:26.420 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:47:28.720 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:47:30.460 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

00:47:32.460 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:47:34.900 Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

00:47:40.140 The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing.

The Michael Knowles Show - February 16, 2018

Ep. 106 - Mitt Romney Hasn’t Learned Anything

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript