Ep. 109 - What Do Conservatives Want In The Age Of Trump？ ft. Mike Franc
Summary
In this episode of The Michael Knowles Show, we speak with Mike Frank, Research Fellow and Director of DC Programs at the Hoover Institution, former Policy Director and Counsel for House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and from 1997 to 2013, VP of Government Relations for the Heritage Foundation, where he managed all of the think tank s outreach with Capitol Hill and the White House. Mike has also served as communications director for former House Majority leader Dick Armey, and in roles at the U.S. Department of Education and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Transcript
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What do conservatives want in the age of Trump?
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Fun as it is to talk about how Michael Moore colluded with the Russians,
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or how Joy Reid colluded with the Russians, or how Barack Obama actually colluded with the Russians.
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At some point, we should probably talk about actual public policy
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and what sort of policy conservatives should try to wring out of the Trump administration
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while we've still got control of the House and the Senate.
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We will discuss with the great Mike Frank, research fellow and director of DC programs at the Hoover Institution,
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former policy director and counsel for House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy,
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and from 1997 to 2013, VP of Government Relations for the Heritage Foundation,
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where he managed all of the think tank's outreach with Capitol Hill and the White House.
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Mike has also served as communications director for former House Majority Leader Dick Armey,
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and in roles at the U.S. Department of Education and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
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Mike's appointment by Majority Leader McCarthy was widely hailed as a win for conservatives
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and a sign that the GOP leadership would stop being so squishy,
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In other news, after we speak to Mike, we will discuss Democrats taking a page out of the Hamas handbook
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and using traumatized children as human shields to deflect criticism and smooth their paths
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A Catholic's take on Billy Graham, the late Billy Graham,
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I am Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
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We have got to get to Mike very quickly, but one thing, I will say, one thing with Mike Frank,
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Let's, speaking of Michaels, let's get to Mike Frank.
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Last time I saw you, we were in sunny Palm Beach doing a panel on the future of conservatism
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with a couple hecklers in the audience calling us weasels.
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And now we're, we are such impressive weasels, I hope, that we can now talk about the future
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of conservatism under President Trump and in this new era moving forward.
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So my first question to you, how is President Trump doing on policy in three levels compared
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to what we expected from him, compared to what we could have expected from other Republican
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presidents if somehow Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz won Michigan or Pennsylvania, and compared
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to what we expected from former future President Hillary Clinton?
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Well, in the last point, unmitigated success, if you do that comparison.
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On the second point, I think that there's sort of two tribes in Washington right now, the
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Trump sort of did a hostile takeover in some ways of the Republican tribe, and he's stuck
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In other words, there aren't a lot of people who will cross over anymore from one tribe
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to the other, as there may have been 30, 40, 50 years ago.
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And as a result, the kind of people he's been appointing to the agencies, the kind of judges
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he's nominating to the federal courts, folks who've been nominated to the independent agencies,
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all those kind of appointments have been drawn fairly, I'd say 80 to 90 percent from the same
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pool of people that any of the other, what, 15 or 16 candidates who were vying for the Republican
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nomination, who would have been drawing from them as well.
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So it's a, you know, whether it's Pruitt at EPA, whether it's the kind of cabinet officials
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he's named across the board, probably Jim Mattis, those kinds of individuals, not to
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mention Justice Gorsuch, are straight from the, you know, from the core Republican playbook
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as far as who should be running what agencies and the kind of policies they've been implementing
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and the kind of advice they've been giving to lawmakers on Capitol Hill are very much in
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line with that. And I think to the extent that he's exceeded my expectations, it's largely
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been in that area where he's deregulated quite a bit. The tax bill, about as good as one could
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expect, given the kind of political cross pressures you get on class warfare issues and so on.
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It was an extraordinarily pro-growth corporate reform in a lot of different ways. On the individual
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side, it was a mixed bag, but unbalanced. It did some pretty good things and we should,
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we can talk about. Um, so he's exceeded my expectations in, in that regard.
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Do you think, cause you bring up this great point of tribalism. One of my fears with President Trump,
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I think a lot of people's fears was that he would make a deal with Democrats. He would compromise.
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His true blue New Yorkerism would come out and he'd be wheeling and dealing with Chuck Schumer.
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Is it the case that now because he picked a team and because the other side is dug in their heels so
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much that actually partisan tribalism is, uh, preventing Donald Trump from, uh, moderating or, or, uh, losing
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his conservative credibility? Yeah. You know, that's one way to look at it. I think there've been a couple
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of instances so far where the president has offered things to, uh, Senator Schumer to, uh, uh, minority
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leader Pelosi and they just haven't been able to say yes. Even though I think privately they probably
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were inclined to want to say, Hey, we can get 30, 40 or 50% of what we're looking for here. Let's cut
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a deal. Their base is so, um, uniformly hostile toward President Trump that they have not allowed
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their leaders on Capitol Hill to cut these deals with them. So in some ways, uh, they're, uh, kind
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of unmitigated, uh, you know, hostility toward President Trump has forced the Republican tribe
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to gather together, you know, sort of circle the wagons and say, what can we get done with our own
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numbers? And one of the things, for example, that has happened is, uh, we were seeing more and more
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erosion of the super majority standards in the U S Senate in ways that will facilitate more judicial
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nominations, um, of people Trump will put forward in a couple of few years ahead. Uh, so yeah, you
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know, sometimes you have to be able to say, uh, take yes for an answer when you're, uh, demanding
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something. That's why I haven't been doing that. I figured when he offered to legalize 1.8 million
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illegal aliens that the Democrats have been harping on for years, I thought they might take yes for an
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answer, but their base won't allow them. And it is funny when people harp on about the swamp,
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in many ways, uh, the swamp, say moi, you know, people could look in the mirror and the politicians
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are just doing what their constituents demand of them. Uh, what, what do you think, uh, looking,
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looking forward, what do you think the president's policy goals from now until 2020? And, uh, perhaps
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a different question, what should be the president's policy goals from now until the reelection? What
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do you think they should be? Well, he's made a good down payment on tax reform. I would suggest that
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if there's a second phase of tax reform in a nutshell, um, it would relate to the fact that
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it's not discussed a lot, but the percentage of tax filers who currently itemize, uh, I mean,
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this will be the last year for this is something like a little over a quarter, I believe, uh, 30% range.
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Some estimates have the number of people who will itemize, meaning that they actually take deductions.
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They care about the mortgage interest deduction, the state and local deduction, charitable deductions.
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The, though that percent is likely to come in below 10% nationwide and probably below 5% in a lot of
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states. So what that really means politically is that a lot of politicians will go back home and find
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that almost nobody cares anymore about those big here to four, you know, third rail, um,
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aspects of the tax code. If that's true, then phase two of tax reform could actually be very
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ambitious and say, look, we'll, we're going to, we're going to further, uh, reduce rates. We're
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going to further broaden the base by limiting or getting rid of entirely some of these other
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deductions. We're going to increase the standard deduction even more. And we're basically,
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basically going to, um, get, you know, several steps closer to, you know, supply side flat tax
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nirvana. Okay. That's one. Two, uh, people don't really appreciate the extent to which the administrative
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state, meaning that the agencies that interpret federal law and create regulations and regulatory
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obligations on the part of individuals and businesses and all kinds of entities, uh, the extent
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to which that, that side of government has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few decades. In fact,
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we're on a trajectory where it won't be that much longer before the total estimated annual cost of
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regulations is going to be greater than how much the IRS brings in in tax revenue. So if you think of
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taxes as being an easy area to kind of quantify and think about and get angry about, well, regulations
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ought to generate some of the same, um, juices negatively speaking, uh, when people start to
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get their hands around that, it's a harder thing to illustrate because it's more hidden in a way than
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taxes are. But I think reforming the administrative state is a lot of good proposals along those lines.
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That's a, that's item number two on my agenda. And there's a lot of, um, ways in which the,
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the executive branch can give away, give back some of the authority as it's glommed onto itself.
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It's also an unnatural act for a branch of our government to willingly and voluntarily concede
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authority and power. Trump seems to be inclined to do that. A lot of his appointees are inclined to
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do that. So here's, you know, fingers crossed that this might actually be number two, a big item on
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the agenda. And the third thing, and this is on the domestic side too, really is, um, is entitlements.
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And people your age, Mike, you're, you know, you're going to be paying for my retirement. Thank you very
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much. Right. Yeah. You're welcome. I didn't volunteer to do that, but you're welcome.
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That's exactly right. But those numbers keep getting worse and worse. And basically what it
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amounts to is that the promises that the government has made to Americans of all ages, especially those
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from about age, you know, 45, 50 and older are well in excess of the ability we will have in the future
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to pay that. So that the gap measures in the tens of trillions. And it just, it's going to come home,
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those chickens will come home to roost at some point, and it's going to be sooner rather than
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later. And that's something, the sooner you address that, the better off we'll all be in the end.
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And of course, politically, it's very hard as long as there are organizations that want to run ads
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showing, you know, Paul Ryan throwing a senior citizen in a wheelchair off a cliff, right? As long
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as the politicians want to avoid those kinds of ads, they'll find excuses not to confront this, uh,
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frontally. But I think that's probably the next big thing we have to do beyond regulatory reform and tax
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further tax reform. And if that's going to be more than anything else, have to be bipartisan.
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Of course. And that, you know, on the, on the first point with the administrative state,
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I was able to meet Antonin Scalia a couple of times in college. And he, we asked him what the
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greatest threat to liberty was. And he said, the greatest threat to liberty in the United States
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is the administrative state, these unaccountable, headless, godless bureaucracies that don't have
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to be responsive to the American people. And we even asked him, we said, well, what about
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states' rights? What about federalism? What about this? He said, why are you asking me about federalism?
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I'm a fed. I have absolutely no incentive to reduce the power of the federal government. Just as you say,
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there is, I suppose, some hope with a wrecking ball like Donald Trump, that he doesn't particularly care
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about the accumulation of power in the executive, despite all of the warnings that he would be a tyrant
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or an authoritarian or something. He does seem willing to just knock it all to rubble. And that'd
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be very good on entitlement reform. This is an issue I've worried about for a long time because
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I don't want to pay for your retirement. And of course, it's been, I intend to live for a very
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long time, right? So you'll be paying for me for a long time. Decades and decades. And it's always
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seemed to me like generational theft, like the baby boomer generation spending money that they don't
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have that we were going to have to pay back. It's considered the third rail of politics.
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No one's willing to touch it. Any Republican who does try to touch it is immediately demagogued.
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Paul Ryan probably leading the way. Mitch Daniels gave a speech at CPAC a few years ago where he said,
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we're facing a new red menace. This one consisting of ink. What is the likelihood going into the campaign?
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President Trump said that he wouldn't touch social security. He wouldn't touch entitlements.
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But President Trump says a lot of things on the campaign trail. What do you think the odds are
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that in this administration or soon thereafter, we actually get entitlement reform, whether that's
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means testing, whether that's raising the age, whether that's changing the benefit in some way?
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20 years ago, the stars seem to have been in alignment to do just that. There was a
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bipartisan commission created for Medicare. There were all kinds of serious proposals on both sides of
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of the political spectrum that were trying to help design methods to solve that. And then Monica Lewinsky
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showed up on the scene and both sides went to their respective corners. And all those reform impulses
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went away in a nanosecond. So the point being that you kind of need to have the right moment arise
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and need to have a few people out there who can transcend the partisan divide and say,
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this is something we have to do as a country. And it's going to require some give and take on both
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sides. Now, the thing about entitlements, frankly, is that you can do it in a couple of different ways.
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You can reduce the benefits for the people who are eligible. You can increase the revenue that's
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supposed to come in to fund it. Or you can do some kind of combination of the two. Well, the problem
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here is that for the people on the political left, is that you can only do so much on the tax side before
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you really start to eat into the seed corn for future prosperity. Almost all of the reforms would
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have to be on reforming the amount of benefits that go out, the terms and conditions under which they
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go out, and not in creating some kind of unsustainable, debilitating increase in the tax burden.
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So in a way, if you're on the right, you're about 90% to 95% going to get reforms that will reduce
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future government outlays in ways that will hopefully protect the core purpose behind these
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entitlements, basically to prevent older folks from going into really ugly forms of poverty without
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bankrupting everybody along the way. That makes perfect sense. Do you anticipate that
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being at all likely in this administration, or do you think- Well, not in the short term at all,
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frankly. But I do think you have to be on the lookout for politicians who can speak that language and
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might show up on the scene and say, you know, I'm going to maybe offend some of my colleagues and my
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party caucuses and go out there and start forming alliances with people on the other side. And frankly,
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there aren't a lot of them. Now, the ones that have shown up that I thought might
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fit that role tend to go into a partisan quarter very quickly, given the nature of Congress these
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days. But it's going to have to happen and it's going to have to happen sooner rather than later.
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You know, it's funny on that point of throwing granny off the cliff, a friend of mine and I,
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who were on the draft Mitch Daniels campaign in 2012, we aired a TV ad shortly thereafter,
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where it was the same as the Democrats ad where Paul Ryan throws granny off a cliff,
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except it was Nancy Pelosi throwing, or Barack Obama or somebody throwing a baby in a stroller off the
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cliff. But of course, Democrats don't have a huge problem with that. So it didn't,
00:19:18.060
it didn't catch on, unfortunately. But also younger people historically have not
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been as motivated to defend their side of that argument. It's always been people, you know,
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my age and older, who the organizations out there could scare into some kind of active involvement,
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communicating to their member of Congress and, you know, keep the government's hands off my
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Medicare or social security. Right, right. And that tends to work more, much more politically
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than does the alternative of getting younger people motivated. In fact, most young people,
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when polled, don't think they're going to get anything anyway. So there's an irony,
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sort of cynical and realistic about that, right? Yeah. Now, in terms of bridging the gap and all of
00:20:00.620
this being able to really operate in this DC mode, you've been in DC for a while, you've been very
00:20:05.180
very successful in DC. You've accomplished a lot of things at all of these conservative
00:20:09.260
institutions. I've been here a long time. Let's put it that way. You've been here a long time.
00:20:12.620
Success? I don't know. You've got your finger on the pulse, at least. How is DC warming up to
00:20:17.660
President Trump? There were reports that he was having trouble staffing early on because the lifers
00:20:22.860
and the experts were wary of his administration. I know a number of people who were wary of his
00:20:27.820
administration. Is the swamp finally embracing the Donald? No, they're not. But what I do think is
00:20:36.940
that there are some alliances that are forming that are kind of unavoidable in a way. I mean,
00:20:42.860
going into an election cycle like we're about to now, members of Congress who might have had
00:20:48.700
an instinct early on to keep a distance from Trump are thinking, well, I'm going to need a united front
00:20:54.380
on this. And frankly, when you see polling numbers and approval ratings start to turn around a little
00:20:59.820
bit, that gives a lot of politicians who otherwise have weak knees a sense of, okay, maybe I can throw
00:21:05.420
my lot in with this guy and rally my base. Because really what's going to happen probably in this
00:21:11.020
election is the base that's anti-Trump will be inundated with appeals to get out to vote,
00:21:17.740
to convert their friends and neighbors and so on to vote as well.
00:21:21.020
And so it's going to become a base election in many ways. If you look at the electorate and the
00:21:26.700
way it's distributed by congressional districts and so on, if you can motivate your base and if you're
00:21:32.540
Trump, that means you can win a lot of districts across the country. I think he won about 240 or so
00:21:38.620
in the last election, lost about, I think, 23 to Secretary Clinton. And he won 12 districts that
00:21:47.500
have Democrats in them. So there were 23 currently sitting Republican districts that went for Clinton,
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13 or so that went for Trump. If you can basically rally those areas of the country together,
00:21:59.580
the Republicans can hold on to a House majority, slim as it might be. And the numbers in the Senate
00:22:05.340
side suggest there's quite a few red states that have Democratic incumbents up, as we all know.
00:22:11.180
And, you know, if these numbers start to solidify, if the tax bill law becomes much more popular than
00:22:19.340
it has been, and it's gotten more popular. It has grown in popularity, at least.
00:22:23.660
Sure. I mean, when it was passed and voted on, most people were being told,
00:22:28.300
this is a tax increase. So they said, when asked by a pollster, do you like it or not like it? Oh,
00:22:33.180
this is a tax increase. I'm against it. Now they're starting to find out that it's leading to
00:22:38.300
some reduction in their tax burden. But it's also leading their employers to say, look,
00:22:42.220
we have more revenue coming in because of lower rates on corporate profits. And we have other
00:22:46.860
kinds of immediate expenses we can do when we invest in equipment and so on. So we're going to
00:22:50.860
expand our factory floor production. We're going to hire more workers. We're going to get raises,
00:22:55.580
put more money into 401 plans and retirement accounts. Hey, this bill's pretty good. It's not
00:23:01.420
what I was told it was going to be. So I think only 24 percent of Americans on the day that it was
00:23:06.940
signed into law thought they were getting a tax cut. And we all know that number,
00:23:10.620
according to some estimates, is as high as 80 percent. So as more and more people realize
00:23:15.340
that their initial expectation was off and they're going to be pleasantly surprised,
00:23:19.260
when you create a very low bar in general for a politician, it's easy to exceed it than if the bar
00:23:25.260
is very high. By the way, that's, I think, a theme for the Democrats and Trump. They define him to be
00:23:32.220
basically a fascist racist who has all these horrible, you know, personal character traits.
00:23:37.420
And an idiot. So not just a fascist and a racist, but also completely incompetent.
00:23:41.340
And mentally unstable. So all the, if he exceeds any of those or some of those,
00:23:46.540
he's already exceeded expectations. So it's a very easy bar to surmount.
00:23:50.300
I'm not sure why they're doing it that way, but that's their chosen path.
00:23:53.100
Well, it's funny. I remember Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both did a forum and they talked about
00:23:58.780
one of the political advantages they had is that they both played a little bit dumber than their
00:24:03.420
mark. And Bill Clinton played like a real nice guy. Hey, I feel your pain. And George Bush,
00:24:08.140
he played a little dumber than his mark and it helped them. And clearly in the eyes of the
00:24:12.060
mainstream media and the democratic party, Donald Trump has raised this to a high art form.
00:24:17.180
Oh yeah. I mean, so he's, if he continues where he is, I think the last, I saw a poll,
00:24:22.620
the Rasmussen 48% approval, you know, that's, he, Rasmussen's generally in the general ballpark
00:24:29.900
of the other polls. So if Trump maintains a high forties even for approval rating, that's about
00:24:36.460
where Obama was for a long part of his eight years. You never know. I mean, if you, if you,
00:24:40.540
if they're concentrated in certain 48% nationwide might translate into 55 or 60% in certain key
00:24:47.420
competitive congressional seats, well, if you have a pretty good approval rating above water
00:24:52.860
in those places, you might, he might sustain, you know, and retain a lot of seats for his,
00:24:57.580
his party base. Now, how do you think looking at these first 13 months, because something that has
00:25:03.020
bothered me a little bit about the Trump critics on the right is that I think they're missing the
00:25:08.300
forest for the trees and they're focused on how he sips his Chardonnay rather than tax reform or
00:25:14.140
rather than regulatory reform or whatever. In these first 13 months, how do you think
00:25:18.860
Donald Trump's administration compares with past Republican administrations, Eisenhower, Nixon,
00:25:24.300
Reagan, the Bushes, part of Clinton, I guess, depending on how you look at it.
00:25:29.420
There is one thing I'll say that I don't like about the way the president operates, which is
00:25:35.740
a lot of Americans, and I'll give you some examples of, you know, my mom happens to be in a nursing
00:25:40.620
home. And most of the people who work there are these wonderful, hardworking folks from
00:25:44.940
Sierra Leone and Ghana and Ethiopia and countries like that. And they're very polite. But when they,
00:25:50.860
when we talk about this and President Trump in particular, they say, you know, I wanted,
00:25:55.580
I want a president who's more presidential. I want someone I can look up to and admire and be inspired by,
00:26:01.100
and they're not getting that out of President Trump. And I think that's, that's a problem in a lot
00:26:06.860
of ways, because there is a kind of psychological side to what a president is supposed to do that
00:26:14.540
can inspire and elevate and, and make people, you know, better and more hardworking and more proud
00:26:21.180
of their country. In some ways, all this discord, I think it's in the way of that. And I wish,
00:26:26.140
like a lot of other people, he would turn off the Twitter account and focus on, on being more inspiring
00:26:32.940
and being a leader in a more traditional sense. And that just may be, you know, my age speaking here,
00:26:38.700
but it kind of wonder, like, how, how can you ultimately, you know, can convert people to the
00:26:46.380
things that I think are better policies and better outcomes for Americans? If, if your style is getting
00:26:53.740
in the way of, of having that conversation with somebody and opening up their eyes and their hearts
00:26:58.700
and their souls to a better, a better path forward to prosperity, uh, elevating your family and your,
00:27:04.780
your kids and giving them a shot at a good future, all those things sometimes require the, the non,
00:27:10.220
you know, policy stuff that the, the, the, the evangelical inspirational side of being a president.
00:27:17.260
So that's my big complaint. I, I, I totally see that complaint. I, I'm a big defender of the Twitter.
00:27:23.260
I love the Twitter, not because I like the style per se, I'm not defending that, but I think that
00:27:29.500
the mainstream media have become so viciously corrupt in a way that we didn't even see during
00:27:35.820
the Bush years or even during the Clinton years, they become so viciously partisan, particularly the
00:27:41.020
Washington Post and CNN and the New York times that I, I wonder if we just need this wrecking ball.
00:27:47.020
And I, I long for the days of Ronald Reagan and morning in America and this genteel, more dignified
00:27:54.300
conservatism. But I wonder if before we can get that again, we need this bulldog who speaks like
00:28:00.380
he's from a construction site to go in and smack CNN around. Maybe I'm putting lipstick on a pig,
00:28:06.140
but I, I get a real, uh, a joy out of it because Barack Obama in so many ways looked like a president.
00:28:12.300
He in so many ways sounded like one. He went on TV with Chris Wallace. He said, Chris,
00:28:16.860
we, we are not abusing our powers. Chris, full stop. I assure you. And he really, you really,
00:28:23.020
I even have to question myself because now we know for a fact he was lying through his teeth,
00:28:27.660
but he was such a good actor that I still, I don't know whether to trust, uh, you know,
00:28:32.700
the reality, you know, my, my lion eyes or what he's telling me. And I wonder if there's something
00:28:37.740
about the, the, just the fact of what Donald Trump is doing. This gets to my, my real question
00:28:44.140
here, which is, is it fair to call Donald Trump, uh, a man who speaks brashly and he's from New
00:28:50.700
York and he's donated to Nancy Pelosi and he, you know, uh, didn't come up through the
00:28:56.940
Bill Buckley school of conservative education. Is it fair to call him a conservative?
00:29:00.700
I wouldn't call him a conservative. Uh, I think, I think a lot of what he's doing is situational
00:29:07.500
ethics in the sense that he is, uh, aligning with his, his tribe, as we talked about at the
00:29:12.620
beginning of this. And I think if he had sensed that there was an opening in the democratic field,
00:29:17.740
when he came down that escalator that day, he might've been announcing that he'd run as a Democrat. I,
00:29:22.460
I don't get the sense that he's had this, uh, any firm ideological, uh, you know, groundings for,
00:29:29.580
uh, for his life. I grew up in New York city and Donald Trump's always been background noise in my
00:29:35.180
life ever since he fixed the Ingalls rink in central park when I was thinking high school,
00:29:39.420
you know? And, um, so he's done some effective things and so on, but, um, I would not call him
00:29:46.380
a principal conservative. And my earlier point, Mike, is I think that we need, someone needs to do
00:29:52.220
the, the, uh, inspirational side of things. And, you know, maybe it's not the president,
00:29:56.380
maybe it's someone else, but, but I don't think you can leave that vacuum out there and expect that
00:30:01.420
young people who are just coming in and being exposed to politics for the first time are going
00:30:07.100
to be able to kind of latch onto, uh, an idea and a way of, of expressing it the way I did.
00:30:13.980
And when I was coming into, to this part of my life, it was late 1970s, New York city was really
00:30:20.540
failing. And I started reading and learning about alternatives to the kind of policies that we
00:30:26.380
were being told were just the new normal and you had to get used to crime. It was okay that the
00:30:31.660
Bronx was burning because that's the way things are. Yeah. And, and people started offering different
00:30:39.260
ideas. And this guy named Ronald Reagan came along and a lot of people inspired by him like a Jack Kemp
00:30:44.300
and so on were out there offering an alternative vision that to me was very inspiring. And I know to a
00:30:49.740
lot of my peers, same way who's doing that right now with, um, you know, for younger people and who
00:30:56.460
were thinking or people who just become citizens who are open to these ideas and can be really, um,
00:31:02.140
easily, uh, converted into being, uh, principled and lifelong conservatives. Uh, I, I think that's
00:31:08.380
missing. And I, I kind of, I wish it weren't the case. I do see that because when I go to the Reagan
00:31:13.180
library, which I do frequently, I cannot get through that library without shedding a tear.
00:31:19.100
I can't get, it's so unbelievably inspiring to do that. And I, I wonder about the Trump library,
00:31:25.420
what that experience will be like. And the one thing that gives me great comfort is I know that
00:31:29.580
Democrats won't be able to get through it without shedding a tear. And those are different kinds of
00:31:33.340
tears, but it does give me, it is a, I suppose it's a pleasure for, uh, 2018 because this Twitter
00:31:40.300
aspect, I think the reason Donald Trump has been so effective on Twitter is that he's so authentic
00:31:45.660
on Twitter. You get this feeling that you are getting this guy's gut reaction. And I actually
00:31:50.540
know it's fairly authentic because when he tweeted my blank book, when he endorsed my blank book,
00:31:55.740
it wasn't some grand plan by the white house. He tweeted it as I was on television. He saw it
00:32:00.940
happening on television, tweeted a couple of things from it. I know it was happening in real time.
00:32:04.860
That's why it's so nice. And you even see this with movie stars. Now movie stars used to be so removed
00:32:10.140
from the public, but now the movie stars, they're in your face, they're yelling at you on Instagram
00:32:15.500
and doing all this political stuff. And it is a little more shallow. It is a little too tangible,
00:32:22.460
a little too real. There's nothing where you're really looking up at the big screen anymore. I
00:32:27.020
wonder if this is just a fact of the culture in 2018. I wonder if Donald Trump in this way.
00:32:32.540
I don't doubt that. I've wondered too, I like to read a lot of history, you know, and
00:32:35.900
I'm wondering when the histories of Donald J. Trump are being written in the future and they're
00:32:42.300
being sourced by some renowned historian at a major university, are they going to be all
00:32:48.060
citing to Twitter? There's not going to be citing to diaries or letters written, you know,
00:32:53.340
formal documents, whatever. None of that's going to be available. It's going to all be
00:32:57.500
whatever the Twitter feed generated. And I imagine someone somewhere is capturing and
00:33:02.620
saving all the official presidential documents when it's a private Twitter account. I don't know.
00:33:07.340
I don't know what the legalities are of this, but someone's collecting it.
00:33:10.380
And that's what the historians will be working off of it. 3.23 in the morning,
00:33:14.700
February 21st, 2018. Here's what the president tweeted. You know, it's, it's going to be a different
00:33:19.980
kind of history. That's for sure. You know, Ronald Reagan had all of those great love letters
00:33:23.660
that have been uncovered that he wrote to Nancy. Could you imagine we were just,
00:33:27.020
hey, Nancy, you up? Question mark. Smiley emoji. That basically is going to be, well,
00:33:32.620
that says a lot about the culture now, but you know, we only get one day at a time. And if,
00:33:36.300
if we've gotten this first good year out of Trump, even as a matter of situation,
00:33:39.980
I suppose hope springs eternal in the human breast. And maybe we can wring a little bit more liberty out
00:33:44.860
of this great nation before it finally smolders into eternity. Well, if you think about it, contrast
00:33:51.100
Trump to Reagan in a way, Trump's coming in as president with an infrastructure of like-minded
00:33:57.660
and generally meaning party, Republican right of center thinking, ensconced at the state level,
00:34:04.140
all the governors in the state legislative chambers, majorities in the House and Senate.
00:34:07.900
When Ronald Reagan came in, the conservative movement was very much a, a new and developing
00:34:14.060
thing. And there was some converts to it who may not have really understood the details,
00:34:19.020
but the president, President Reagan was pretty much leading a parade that was forming behind him
00:34:24.940
anew, whereas Trump's coming in and inheriting a very well-developed and deep movement.
00:34:31.260
But what it lacks right now, I think it, like I said earlier, is the inspiration and the kind of
00:34:37.820
appeal to people that will cause realignments and conversions to occur.
00:34:42.940
Sure. I see that. And well, you know, listen, we're only in the first year. Maybe we'll get a little
00:34:46.700
more out of it. At least, at least I'm grateful for what we've gotten so far. And maybe we can,
00:34:51.180
maybe we can hope that during the Trump presidential library, by the end of it,
00:34:55.900
we'll get two kinds of tears. I think that's what we're all hoping for.
00:34:58.540
Where, where, where will the Trump presidential library be located?
00:35:01.980
That's Mar-a-Lago, baby. We're going to fly back down to Palm Beach to go visit.
00:35:06.220
Mike, thank you so much for being here. We got, we got to hop out. Mike Frank, we got to bring you
00:35:12.140
back because you are the expert on all of these things. Thank you very much. Now we have got to
00:35:16.380
get onto the news, but before we do that, I got to tell you about a couple of things.
00:35:19.500
Now, look, you might be looking at me and say, Michael, you got these horrible bags under your
00:35:23.740
eyes. Why is that? Well, it's because I didn't get my requisite 20 hours of sleep last night.
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You know how I could have gotten my requisite 20 hours of sleep if I had left the cigar bar a little
00:35:32.860
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Don't say I never did anything for you. HelixSleep.com slash Knowles. Okay. We got to say
00:37:36.300
goodbye to Facebook and YouTube. I said goodbye to YouTube a long time ago, but I'll say goodbye
00:37:39.980
to Facebook. If you are on the dailywire.com right now, thank you. You help keep the lights
00:37:45.900
on and covfefe in my mug. If you are not, please go there. It is $10 a month or $100 for an annual
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membership. What do you get? Me, The Andrew Klavan Show, The Ben Shapiro Show, The Conversation,
00:37:56.220
next time starring the big boss, Ben Shapiro himself. You get no ads on the website. All
00:38:01.220
that's great. Blah, blah, blah. They're going to start construction of the Donald Trump presidential
00:38:05.840
library very soon. When you go, you will not be, you will drown by the final exhibit unless you have
00:38:12.600
the leftist tears tumbler. This is the only way that you're going to be able to see it. It is going
00:38:16.420
to be huge. It is going to be beautiful. It is going to be a big, beautiful presidential library,
00:38:20.800
but unfortunately it will flood and all be for naught. If you don't have your leftist tears
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tumbler, the only FDA approved vessel to carry salty, delicious leftist tears. So go to dailywire.com.
00:38:30.900
We have so much more to talk about the Florida kids who are being pimped out by the left-wing
00:38:34.900
press and the democratic party, the great Billy Graham and, uh, and more, but be sure to come
00:38:41.220
back and visit us. Go to dailywire.com. We'll be right back.
00:38:50.800
This is really despicable is what's being done with these Florida students. It is so awful.
00:38:59.860
These Florida students are being manipulated by the mainstream media and Democrat activists to
00:39:05.080
push a gun control agenda, a completely nonsensical gun control agenda that would not have prevented this
00:39:11.080
shooting or others. There are now walkouts that are being staged. These kids are being thrown on TV
00:39:16.320
constantly and, and by TV, I mean CNN. I'm not talking about actual news channels. I'm talking
00:39:21.540
about CNN. Uh, I have tried to avoid talking about this and writing about these kids because I feel
00:39:27.060
very bad for them. I feel bad obviously because they've had this trauma and also because they're
00:39:31.480
being used in the same way that Hamas uses kids as a human shield so that any criticism you could make
00:39:37.060
of Democrats, it nonsensical proposals, uh, is considered hateful and it looks like you're attacking
00:39:43.100
kids. It's so despicable and disgusting what the Democrats are doing here. Um, but look,
00:39:49.000
if someone's going to enter the public sphere and inject himself into a public conversation,
00:39:54.340
we have to grapple with that. We have to respond to that. We have to talk about that.
00:39:57.400
Even if he's a high school senior, even if he's being exploited by adults around him,
00:40:01.880
like his parents and like the politicians who are pimping him out, who should know a lot better
00:40:05.880
without any further ado. Here is Marjorie Stoneman, Douglas high school senior, David Hogg.
00:40:10.120
People are going to keep saying, Oh, this is just another shooting. It's never going to happen
00:40:14.040
to me. But what happens is when you don't take action, things like this eventually will happen
00:40:18.960
to you. And that's not acceptable. And that's why I call on people to stand up, talk to the
00:40:22.800
congressman, talk to people and don't stop fighting because children will continue to die. If we don't
00:40:28.540
take a stand now, what we really need is action because we can say, yes, we're going to do all these
00:40:32.600
things, thoughts and prayers. What we need more than that is action. Please. This is the 18th one this year.
00:40:38.940
That isn't true. This isn't the 18th one this year. This isn't even the fifth. And even if you're
00:40:43.720
just judging by a gun accidentally going off near a school, I don't even think it's the fifth.
00:40:50.820
They're pretending now that the United States has the, it's the only Western country with mass
00:40:55.080
shootings. It has the most mass shootings in any Western country. The United States isn't even in
00:40:59.120
the top 10 of Western countries with mass shootings. So everything this kid is saying just isn't true.
00:41:05.540
And, but then the political implications of what he's saying, that we need to do something. And if
00:41:10.500
you're not doing something, then you're somehow endangering the lives of children or endangering
00:41:16.100
American lives is a lie. And it's a calumny. It's just not, it's so awful to even say that because
00:41:22.160
Oprah tweeted this out today. She said, we have to do something enough. The implication being, if you
00:41:26.960
oppose whatever gun grabbing laws, they want to pass, you're, you're a monster or you don't care about
00:41:32.400
human suffering. What law, what law do you want? I asked Oprah this. I would ask this kid this,
00:41:38.620
but I just feel so bad that he's being pimped out by the irresponsible adults around him,
00:41:42.960
that there is, there isn't a law that could be passed short of banning guns, I suppose.
00:41:49.380
And even then that wouldn't work. There isn't a law that could be passed that would prevent this
00:41:53.620
shooting or shootings like it. There just isn't one. There were more guns than people in this country.
00:41:58.060
So even repealing the second amendment isn't practical. Even repealing the second amendment,
00:42:03.180
repealing the right to keep guns like they did in Australia, didn't result in all the guns going
00:42:07.760
away. Only a third of people surrendered their guns. Not even most people surrendered their guns.
00:42:12.600
In this country, there were more guns than people. That wouldn't happen. What about any of the slew
00:42:17.000
of gun control laws proposed by Democrats in 10 years? Even the left-wing Washington Post admits
00:42:21.620
they wouldn't have prevented these shootings. It is, it's really disingenuous. And we shouldn't say,
00:42:26.880
oh, that's nice. Oh, you mean well. They don't mean well. They don't mean well. They're, they're
00:42:31.880
pushing lie after lie on television. They're exploiting children on television and they're
00:42:38.100
impugning the character and the motives of half of their countrymen. And they're trying to remove a
00:42:42.820
civil right that is basic to the American country, that is basic to our constitution. That was,
00:42:49.300
there was a great debate over whether it should even be included in the Bill of Rights because it
00:42:54.560
should be taken for granted. It was so obvious that people in this country, in a free country,
00:42:59.320
have the right to defend themselves, have the right to arm themselves. Really, really despicable. And
00:43:04.120
all of the adults around these kids should feel deep, deep shame and, and reconsider what they're
00:43:09.420
doing because this isn't going to age well. This is not going to age well in 10 years or 20 years.
00:43:14.400
It's really awful. I can't, I'm surprised even by Democrats at how low they've fallen with this
00:43:20.860
regard. Uh, okay. Now we've got to get to a much happier story. The greatest Olympian since
00:43:25.780
Orsippus is upon us. The single greatest Olympian. I don't like the Olympics. I don't watch them. I
00:43:30.940
don't care about them. I think usually it's just an excuse for NBC to say mean things about the
00:43:35.140
country. But one woman is making the Olympic games great again. Here she is.
00:43:40.020
Dropping in, trying to get into this right wall for a nice, just kind of up to the top of the wall,
00:43:46.800
going for these grabs, the safety grab you'll see there, and opting for another, just cruising up to
00:43:53.100
the top of the wall, showing the judges she can make it down this half by the queen. With the alley-oop
00:43:59.940
spin down at the bottom, to the left, and then a nice...
00:44:03.820
If you weren't watching because you don't subscribe, that was, uh, Elizabeth Sweeney,
00:44:09.560
who's a 33-year-old Harvard graduate, uh, not doing any tricks, just kind of going back and
00:44:16.220
forth on her skis, uh, not doing anything. She made it to the Olympics by exploiting a loophole in
00:44:21.440
Hungary. She's an American, but her grandfather was Hungarian or something. So she registered in
00:44:27.280
Hungary, competed in World Cup events, which were the qualifying events for the Olympics,
00:44:32.080
and she regularly finished in the top 30 in Hungary, but only because there weren't 30 competitors
00:44:37.920
or because a couple of girls would crash along the way. So if she just didn't crash,
00:44:42.920
she would not end up dead last and she would make it. I love this. I also love the commentators
00:44:48.660
trying to take this seriously, where it's like a child just going up and down, you know,
00:44:53.400
but not falling over. This is American ingenuity at its finest. This is trolling at its finest.
00:44:58.100
I really, really appreciate it. Uh, you know, she actually, this Sweeney gave an interview
00:45:04.060
on NBC in which she seemed to take her mediocre athleticism quite seriously, which I was shocked
00:45:10.440
to see. That's not a good look. She sounded maybe a little bit entitled, like an entitled
00:45:14.620
oblivious millennial from Harvard, but I repeat myself. So I don't know how seriously she takes
00:45:20.200
herself, but then I thought, well, maybe she's just doing a perfect troll. You know, like when I did the
00:45:27.100
blank book, I went on TV and kept a straight face, but I, I, that was like an amateur hour
00:45:32.340
compared to this woman because she's going on into the news and saying, I am, I am a real athlete.
00:45:37.480
I'm a great athlete. So I'm going to choose to view the situation that way. Great troll, great stuff
00:45:42.900
and a, and a wonderful way to mock the Olympic games and show the rest of the world that even
00:45:46.940
our most mediocre countrymen still contribute more to the international community than the entire
00:45:51.500
rest of the world. Great stuff. Okay. And then in sadder news, but hopefully he's up in heaven,
00:45:56.840
Billy Graham is dead at age 99. Uh, if somehow you don't know who Billy Graham is, here is a Billy
00:46:02.980
preaching to 120,000 people at Wembley stadium in the UK in 1954. I believe that we stand on the verge
00:46:10.320
of a historic moment that could have an unparalleled and unprecedented impact in a world that is
00:46:17.180
confused, perplexed, and frustrated at this hour. And I'm convinced of one thing that during the past
00:46:26.260
few weeks, we have seen an easing of world tension. And I believe that one of the contributing factors
00:46:34.980
to the easing of world tension and the prospects of an era of peace is the great spiritual awakening
00:46:43.680
that we believe is taking place in many parts of the world. Billy Graham. So some people wrongly
00:46:51.380
believe that Billy was the first televangelist and there are a million that follow. Now there's the
00:46:56.300
guy who smiles all the time and you know, people are on TV all the time, but he was one of the first,
00:47:01.760
but he wasn't the first televangelist. Uh, the first televangelist was this guy, a Catholic by the name
00:47:06.980
of Fulton Sheen. So we say to them, listen to this statement. I will tell you later who said it,
00:47:13.920
but we address it to the Soviets. If any nation whatsoever is detained by force within the boundaries
00:47:20.920
of a certain state, and if that nation, contrary to its expressed desire, is not given the right to
00:47:29.920
determine the form of its state life by free voting and completely free from the presence of troops
00:47:37.260
of the annexing or stronger state, and without any pressure, then the incorporation of that nation
00:47:44.920
by the stronger state is annexation. It is seizure by force. It is violence. Who said this?
00:47:54.000
Nikolai Lenin. Then Soviets under God follow it.
00:48:04.100
Free these people. That's the first thing that we have to solve in the world.
00:48:09.580
Then our other problems will be solved. No other problem will be solved until we liberate them.
00:48:14.880
Fulton Sheen. That's a little bit more my speed because it's, it's, uh, this, uh, Catholic clergyman,
00:48:20.220
uh, giving the tear down this wall speech decades before Ronald Reagan did. I really like that just
00:48:26.040
railing against the Soviets, but I like Billy Graham too. So I was trying to think of, uh,
00:48:30.600
what Catholics should think about Billy Graham because obviously his theology was a little bit
00:48:34.760
wonky, not quite there from our perspective. Uh, but I do generally like the guy. He was a fairly
00:48:40.660
anti-Catholic and a Democrat until the, the Richard Nixon presidency. But eventually he came
00:48:46.280
around on both points. As St. John Vianney said, not all the saints started well, but they all ended
00:48:50.380
well. And you, you can see that in, uh, Billy Graham's evolution on those issues. Uh, upon Pope
00:48:56.340
John Paul II's death, uh, St. John Paul II's death, Billy Graham, uh, called, uh, John Paul the most
00:49:04.360
influential voice for morality and peace in a hundred years. He said, quote, I have a very strange
00:49:09.360
feeling of loss. I almost feel as though one of my family members is gone. I loved him very much
00:49:13.820
and had the opportunity of discussing so many things with him. And we wrote each other several
00:49:17.280
times during the years. He was impossible not to like Billy Graham. Uh, a lot of my Catholic
00:49:23.400
friends really liked him. An old family friend of mine, truly a saint, more Catholic than the Pope,
00:49:28.140
uh, would go to confession about 150 times a day and very Catholic, all of Catholic schooling.
00:49:34.260
Um, he, he loved watching Billy Graham. And this is true of a lot of Catholics that I know.
00:49:38.420
He loved seeing him on television. Every, everyone agreed that his, uh, his belief was sincere. He was
00:49:44.280
a sincere man. Billy Graham was cautious of politics, saying of political involvement from
00:49:48.580
the pulpit quote, you know, I think in a way that has to be up to the individual as he feels led of
00:49:53.740
the Lord. A lot of things that I commented on years ago would not have been of the Lord, I'm sure.
00:49:59.280
But I think you have some like communism or segregation on which I think you have a responsibility to speak
00:50:04.780
out. Billy Graham was wonderful on these issues. He personally desegregated audiences. He said,
00:50:10.640
there is no room for segregation at the foot of the cross. An incredible line. It's ultimately where
00:50:16.260
all the, the, the handful of racists on the right or the alt-right types go so wrong because, uh,
00:50:23.060
they seem blissfully ignorant that the animating force of the civilization they pretend to defend
00:50:27.760
is one in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek nor slave nor free, neither male nor female,
00:50:32.860
but all are one in Christ Jesus. So what do we make of Billy Graham? Especially if you're a Catholic
00:50:38.680
or, or Eastern Orthodox or something. Uh, Protestants can lead people to, to higher grounds. They can lead
00:50:45.120
people to the Lord and they can lead people to what I think is a more grounded theology and a more
00:50:50.040
sober theology because it happened for me. I was an atheist for a long time. And, and many of the
00:50:54.940
people, almost uniformly, the people who led me back to the church were Protestants. And some of
00:50:59.580
those people now are also Catholic, but it was a lot of Protestants. I think there, especially in
00:51:03.620
America, there, they can be a little bit of a gateway drug. And so I think it would be very
00:51:07.680
uncharitable for Catholics to say mean things about Billy Graham. Uh, uh, you know, the Lord uses people
00:51:14.900
in a lot of ways. And he, you know, to the extent that Billy Graham did that, to the extent that he
00:51:19.440
led people back to God or led people back to the church. Uh, and he no doubt did that for a lot,
00:51:24.560
a lot of people. That contribution is an incalculable, incalculable worth. That is an
00:51:30.080
incalculably valuable contribution to the world. And, uh, and I, I hope that, uh, Billy Graham is
00:51:37.560
resting in peace. Okay. That's our show. Uh, make sure to get your mailbag questions in. We have a lot
00:51:41.700
to talk about tomorrow. Get them all in until then. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles
00:51:51.520
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production. Executive producer,
00:51:57.160
Jeremy Boring. Senior producer, Jonathan Hay. Supervising producer, Mathis Glover. Our technical
00:52:02.720
producer is Austin Stevens. Edited by Alex Zingaro. Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina. Hair and makeup is
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produced by Jesua Olvera. Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.