Ep. 1127 - TrumpĀ Is Back!
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Summary
Trump announces his intention to run for president in 2024, and the reaction to the speech is mixed, but from the perspective of strategy and rhetoric, it might be the most interesting speech Trump has ever given. Michael Kinsley explains why.
Transcript
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I've said for over a week that the 2024 presidential primary has unofficially begun.
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Now it has officially begun. Donald Trump announced last night that he will indeed
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seek the presidency in 2024 to make America great again. Again. The speech is getting mixed reviews.
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I love the guy. It was not my favorite speech that he has ever given. And yet,
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from the perspective of strategy and rhetoric, it might be the most interesting speech he's ever
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given. Lots of people noticed that Trump never once mentioned his potential rivals in the race.
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He never once mentioned Ron DeSantis. No one seems to be noticing that the entire speech
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was essentially about those rivals, guys like Ron DeSantis. People seemed somewhat confused as he
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was giving the speech last night that virtually the whole thing was about foreign policy. China,
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Russia, North Korea, as well as parts that weren't about foreign policy that were mostly about foreign
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policy related issues, drugs, immigration. Even Trump's take on election fraud was framed through
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the lens of foreign policy, was framed through Chinese interference. Why would Trump focus his
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whole speech on foreign policy on foreign policy, which most people don't even really care that much
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about? It doesn't make sense until you remember that foreign policy is the one area of politics in which
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governors, people like his top rivals, have no experience. Trump's speech was pretty toned down,
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very few zingers, no encouragement of chanting, no Mexican rapists or lock her up or anything like that.
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In some ways, the speech even veered into the realm of the boring, something that Trump,
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for all his faults, has never been accused of being. The guy is not boring, okay? So why? Why did
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he do it? Doesn't make sense until you remember that Trump's chief rival is being pitched as Trump
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without the downsides. All the great policy, none of the wild and unseemly digressions. So Trump chose to
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present himself in those highly prepared remarks last night as Trump without the downsides. The whole
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event was planned to a T. It was clearly strategic. It may work, it may fail, but there can be no
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question about one thing. This is no lark. This is not Trump shooting from the hip. If last night's launch
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was meant to set the tone for the campaign, Trump intends to run a disciplined race because that
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man intends to win again. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.
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Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday is from Henry Knox, who says,
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Ron DeSantis did not show us how Republicans can win with message and rhetoric in Florida.
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He showed us if we can clean voter rolls, limit mail-in voting, vote and count votes on election
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day, Republicans can win big. A lot of truth to that. I mean, I think it's a little bit of both.
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I think DeSantis has done a very, very good job on messaging, but it's true. You look at what
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happened in Florida. It wasn't just in Florida. Texas did very well for Republicans. Ohio did very
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well for Republicans. What's the unifying factor? Is it soaring political rhetoric? Is it really keen
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messaging? No. The common factor there is the Republicans cleaned up the election issues and
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insisted upon election integrity, and Republicans around the country would do well to take note and
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implement the same sorts of things, okay? The speech last night was paradoxically the least
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interesting and most interesting speech Trump has ever given. Most interesting because it was
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intentionally the least interesting. We knew from the top, we knew from the very top of the speech,
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Trump was going to announce. How did we know? Because they announced it before he got on stage.
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Gentlemen, please welcome the next president and first lady of the United States of America,
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President Donald J. Trump, accompanied by Mrs. Melania Trump.
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So there you have it, right there from the open. It's not the former president. It's not the Donald.
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It's this is the future president and the future first lady. Okay. So he comes on, he milks the Lee
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Greenwood song, you know, proud to be an American. Trump's just there. Totally was, he seemed energetic.
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He seemed ready to go, nice and bronzed, vigorous, full of life. The guy does not really seem to age.
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It's amazing to think he came down that golden escalator 2015. That's seven years ago. It's a
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long time, especially when you're up there in your seventies. Trump seemed basically as young and
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vigorous as he ever did. Maybe it's the aspartame and the Diet Coke has just sort of pickled him and
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he doesn't age. But either way, this was not a Joe Biden scenario. He came up, he looked pretty strong.
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He looked pretty vigorous. But this was not a 2015 speech. This was not the Mexican rapists
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are killing everybody and we need to deport them and we got to get tough on crime.
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This was an elegant speech, as he put it. In fact, he didn't even really focus on the 2020 election
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was stolen kind of line that Trump has been harping on for the past two years. He touched on it,
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but only a little bit briefly and only with a little bit of a wink.
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For the first time in memory, China was reeling and back on its heels. You've never seen that before
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because the United States was outdoing them on every single front and China was paying billions
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and billions of dollars in taxes and tariffs. The farmers know that because they got 28 billion of
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it, no president had ever sought or received $1 for our country from China until I came along
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and we were getting hundreds of billions of dollars. Many people think that because of this,
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China played a very active role in the 2020 election. Just saying, just saying.
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So this was an important piece of rhetoric here because it shows you, one, Trump was not
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going to focus on 2020 was stolen. We see that he didn't touch at all on the questions about voting
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machines and the recounts and the dragging on the count until a week later. He didn't focus on that
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at all. He did focus on some interference from China, but he did so in a lighthearted way.
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This wasn't a madman driven crazy by having the election stolen from him and pulling his hair
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out. It was with a little bit of a wink and a nod. Listen, I'm just saying, okay, we would never talk
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about that, but look, China, maybe they did. I mean, moves on. I suspect was in that speech to signal
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he's not going to give up on the issue of election integrity, but he's not going to let it dominate his
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thinking. This is a man, as he presents himself, who is in control of his emotions and can even
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sort of make a joke about something really awful that he believes happened. Then he focused the
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whole thing on the future. For a while, he used this phrase, and I couldn't quite figure out what
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the phrase meant, but it's a really brilliant little piece of political rhetoric. See if you
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can figure out what the phrase means. In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight
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announcing my candidacy for president of the United States. Together, we will be taking on the most
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corrupt forces and entrenched interests imaginable. Our country is in a horrible state. We're in grave
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trouble. This is not a task for a politician or a conventional candidate. This is a task for a great
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movement that embodies the courage, confidence, and the spirit of the American people. This is a
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movement. This is not for any one individual. This will not be my campaign. This will be our campaign
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altogether. So I got those moments wrong in the speech. The piece of rhetoric there that's really,
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really important is Trump answering his critics who say, you're a narcissist and everything's about
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you. And Trump is saying, it's not about me. This is about you and it's about us together.
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It harkens back to that really brilliant moment of rhetoric in the 2016 campaign when Hillary had
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unveiled her motto, I'm with her. And he said, I'm with her. Uh-uh, that's not my motto. I'm with you.
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That's my motto. Totally changes the subject even of that motto. For Hillary, the subject was all
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these little peasants are just, you know, paying obeisance and pledging fealty to her, her majesty,
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Hillary. And with Trump, he says, no, no, no. It's my campaign. And I'm saying, look, I am with you.
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And the campaign, even though I'm the one running it, it's really all about you. And Trump finally got
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back to that. And I think it answers the narcissism charge. Then there was a really curious piece of
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rhetoric in there that did leave me scratching my head a little bit. Figure out if you can get what
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it means. One of the beautiful things of the pause, if there is such a thing as a beautiful thing,
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but one of the important factors of the pause is that we see how bad they've done. So we will be able
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to do it properly. And it will be much easier. Everybody will agree with us because everybody
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sees what a bad job has been done during this two year period. And it will be a four year period.
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Everybody sees that it will be much easier for us to do what has to be done.
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The pause, the pause, what is the pause? Oh, the pause is the Biden administration,
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which is not the movement that came in to defeat Trump and MAGA. It's just this little pause between
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the inevitable first and second administration for Donald Trump. It's a smart piece of rhetoric,
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and it's the sort of thing we've seen from him before. Trump always pushes you past the sale.
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But this is a point that Scott Adams made very clear in 2016. That Trump, he goes so, so far,
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he says, listen, we're going to round up every single illegal in this country and deport every
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single one of them because they're all rapists and murderers. And you say, what? What are you
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talking about? And he says, no, okay, we'll just deport some of them. And you've already accepted
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the premise that we're going to deport anybody at all. And so he kind of brings you along. He just
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plants these seeds in your mind. So by saying this was the pause, already in your mind, you've got this
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idea, oh, of course there's going to be a second Trump administration. Yeah, I don't really like this
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Biden administration pause, but I'm looking forward to the inevitable second Trump term.
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to helixsleep.com slash Knowles. Trump then came back to a theme that he did it in a subtle way,
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but he also came back to a theme that made clear that he is not going to just be running some squishy
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cut your taxes, GOP establishment kind of campaign. He talked about the center of American life.
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We will defend the rights of parents, and we will defend the family as the center of American life.
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But who would think, standing up here 10 years ago, 15 years ago, that a politician, and I don't like
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to think of myself as a politician, but I guess that's what I am. I hate that thought. But that
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a politician would be up saying, we will defend parental rights. Of course you're going to defend
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it. Who would think that we even have to mention this? Who would think it even should be a subject
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to be talked about? We have to defend parental rights. Can you believe this?
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Now, you love that bit. You love to hear that from Trump, even beyond the point on family,
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which we'll get to in a second, when he says, listen, I come up here, I'm a politician. Do I
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have to say that? I hate the idea that I'm a politician, but I guess I am. The disingenuous,
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oily, slick career politician, he would say, oh, I'm not a politician. Maybe I'm a public servant,
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but I'm not a politician. No, no, it's about something greater than me. Trump comes up,
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and he actually is not a career politician. He's only been a politician for about six, seven years.
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But he says, I guess I am a politician. Okay, I hate that idea because I don't like politicians,
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but I guess I am one. It's that honesty that I think people found refreshing. Even if some people
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felt the speech should have been more fiery, I kind of was hoping that it would be more fiery.
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There is a common theme that I saw cropping up on social media, even from some of Trump's critics,
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which is people saying, you know, I just, I like the guy. One of the great listeners to this show,
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Britta, who we've, you know, there's some people who are, you know, they're really in the inner circle
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of the DW crew. And I saw her pop up on Twitter. She says, oh, I just like the guy. You just can't
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convince me not to like the guy. I kind of, I was talking to friends of mine. They said, you know,
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yeah, just made me kind of miss him. Made me think, oh, you know, I remember that. That was nice.
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I miss that guy. When he says that the family is the center of American life, this is an important
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statement about political philosophy. Because there are two views on the subject. There is the
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view that the family is the center of American life. And there's the view that the individual
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is the center of American political life. And the Libs believe that it's the individual.
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They want to destroy the family and they want to first break society down into atomized individuals.
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Then they want to gather them up into this sort of homogenous, ugly collective.
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The libertarians also tend to view the individual as the center of American life because they think
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that our politics essentially come down to natural rights and entitlements that we get
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as individuals. Conservatives don't think that. The traditional conservative perspective is,
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no, individuals have their place, but the fundamental building block of society is not the atomized
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individual. It is the family. That's the fundamental political unit. Trump is siding with that
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traditional point of view. That's not exactly the libertarian point of view. That's not the
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neoconservative point of view. That's not the liberal point of view. That's not the leftist
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point of view. That is the traditional conservative point of view. And that is the lane that Trump had
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success in in 2016. And if he's going to have success in 2024, that will have to be his lane as well.
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Then he got a little zestier. Then he made some tangible promises. I thought the best promise of the
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night had to do with a sort of oblique acknowledgement that things went wrong during COVID.
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As commander in chief, I will get Biden's radical left ideology out of our military. And I did.
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I did. And in the first day, they put it back. They signed an executive order and they put it back.
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It was gone. We will abolish every Biden COVID mandate and rehire every patriot who was fired from
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our military with an apology and full back pay. So Trump did not acknowledge that he made any
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mistakes during COVID. And this was not the speech to do that. You know, just like in a eulogy,
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you're not going to talk about how terrible a person is. Well, actually, these days people do
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that. There's a horrible case of that going viral right now. We'll get to that a little bit later.
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But there's a time and a place for everything. In a campaign launch speech, you're not going to
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acknowledge that you did things wrong. But here he's saying, look, what happened during COVID is awful.
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I am promising. We will rehire those patriots who got booted from the military over not taking
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the experimental Fauci-ouchie drug. So it's also a kind of implicit acknowledgement that that vaccine
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that he's been pushing for two years actually is not all that great. It's not as great as it had
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been sold to be. That's why the soldiers didn't want it. And that's why he's going to not only give
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them their jobs back, give them an apology and full back pay. So Trump is very good at painting
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these images with words. It's not just, they'll be reinstated to their posts. It's no, no. We're
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going to give them an apology. You can picture this, an envelope. Sorry, we shouldn't have done
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that. Envelope full of cash, full back pay. It's just much more evocative. Then he gets to the issue
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of voter integrity in a more tangible way. What are you going to do, Trump? If you say the 2020 election
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was stolen and the libs basically rigged it and took it from you, well, who's to say that they're
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not going to take it from you in 2024? What are you going to do that's going to stop that sort of
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thing from happening? To eliminate cheating, I will immediately demand voter ID, same day voting,
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and only paper ballots. Paper ballots, same day voting, voter ID. So simple. And, and we want all
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votes counted by election night. Great. This is the right answer. Three simple things,
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voter ID, same day voting, only paper ballots. Simple. I can remember that. This is very,
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very popular, especially obviously with Republicans, but with moderates, centrists,
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even center left as well. Easy to remember. Very, very tangible. And then he, the most zesty,
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the most flavorful, spicy kind of moment in the speech was Trump decided to take on the issue of
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drugs. We're going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs to receive the death
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penalty for their heinous acts, because it's the only way. We don't need any more blue ribbon
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committees. We don't need, I don't like to say this, and I don't even know if the American public
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is ready for it. And a lot of my people say, please don't say that, sir. That's not nice. They kill 500
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people each on average. And if you don't do this, in China, when I was with President Xi, I said,
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President, do you have a drug problem? No, no, no, no, we don't. He looked at me like I didn't know
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what I was doing. No, no, we don't, because we're very tough on these guys. So this is great. I loved
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it. I mean, I, I myself wished we got more of that. We're going to kill all the drug dealers.
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Bah! You know, that's kind of what I wanted from the speech. Trump obviously took a different
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strategic tack, but I'm glad we got this in here. It raises a question though. Okay, now Trump is
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promising he's going to give the death penalty to drug dealers. But Trump's signature domestic
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legislative achievement was something called the First Step Act, which led a bunch of drug dealers
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out of prison. That was the whole point of the First Step Act, was to let drug dealers out of prison.
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So it's a, it's a total 180 on his previous position here. How's he going to back it up? I mean,
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how's he, how's he going to justify that? What is his rationale for that complete reversal might
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just be, Hey, I thought about it or Hey, I fired some stupid advisors or whatever. He, I think he
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does have to answer for that though. If he wants that promise to carry any weight. And then finally,
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he ended on a note of humility and, and this note of humility I found quite refreshing.
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I am asking for your vote. I am asking for your support and I am asking for your friendship and
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your prayers. This very incredible, but dangerous journey. If our movement remains united and confident,
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then we will shatter the forces of tyranny and we will unleash the glories of liberty for ourselves
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and for our children and for generations yet to come. America's golden age is just ahead
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and together we will make America great again. Okay. There you have it. And he says, I'm asking
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for your prayers. I really liked this moment because there is a misperception among Trump's critics
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that the man, he's just a narcissist and all he thinks about is himself. And he's just
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the most egomaniacal person in the whole country. I don't think that's true. I think Donald Trump has
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far greater humility than the vast majority of people in politics. He jokes about it. He jokes
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it. He puts his big name in letters and he talks about Trump, Trump, Trump, but he, he will give you
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little hints that he's actually got a much deeper sort of humility. You remember one time he was asked
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about having a drink and he said, you know, I've never had a beer. I'm probably the only president in
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history who can say, uh, that I've never had a beer. It's the, it's the best thing you can say
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about me. It's the only good thing you can say about me. And he's kind of jokey. He's like, yeah,
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I know people criticize me. I've got all these problems, but look, I've never had a beer. Actually,
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I just don't, I don't like to drink. Trump is the guy who leans down. He just picks up the Marine's
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hat when it falls off his head. It wasn't a big photo op. He, I don't think he was conscious of it at
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all. It's just the sort of thing to do. But he says, Hey, can you pray for me, please? Hey guys,
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this isn't about, this isn't just about me. I, I, you know, I think this whole system is terrible.
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I I'm not running to get all sorts of plaudits at the fancy parties. They don't invite me to the
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fancy parties. The people who run the real sophisticate set, they've, they don't like me
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and they've never liked me. So I'm just here to get some stuff done. Okay. I'm here to fix the ice
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rink. I'm here to fix the economy. I'm here to fix our trade deals, fix our foreign policy. So I
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thought it was a great dose of humility. Uh, if this is the tone of his campaign,
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he'll, he'll be answering his critics. He will be the, the arguments against him, uh, will,
00:23:23.460
will fall apart, particularly that he's a loose cannon and he can't control himself and he's
00:23:27.580
undisciplined. That was a disciplined speech last night. Is it enough to overcome his younger rivals
00:23:33.200
who are more in the political spotlight right now? That remains to be seen. Now, where can you arm
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smartest person in the room. Download the PragerU app today. Before that extremely disciplined speech
00:24:57.400
last night, Trump had been lobbying some attacks at his potential rivals, specifically Glenn Youngkin
00:25:03.900
in Virginia, who could run for president, could make a pretty good run at it, and Ron DeSantis,
00:25:10.380
who is Trump's chief rival right now down in Florida. And DeSantis finally responded to these
00:25:18.360
attacks, Trump calling him de-sanctimonious. Trump directly and indirectly going after the governor,
00:25:26.160
trying to discourage him from running in 2024. Here is DeSantis' response.
00:25:30.660
One of the things I've learned, like, learned in this job is when you're leading, when you're
00:25:36.820
getting things done, yeah, you take incoming fire. That's just the nature of it. I roll out of bed in
00:25:43.100
the morning. I've got corporate media outlets that have a spasm, just the fact that I'm getting up in
00:25:47.580
the morning. And it's constantly attacking. And this is just what's happened. I don't think any
00:25:52.380
governor got attacked more, particularly by corporate media, than me over my four-year term.
00:25:59.120
And yet, I think what you learn is all that's just noise. And really what matters is, are you
00:26:05.620
leading? Are you getting in front of issues? Are you delivering results for people? And are you
00:26:11.100
standing up for folks? And if you do that, then none of that stuff matters. And that's what we've
00:26:16.780
done. We focused on results and leadership. And at the end of the day, I would just tell people to
00:26:24.160
go check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night. It's a good answer. I'm not knocking the
00:26:30.100
answer. But it's a B minus. That's not. It was a mistake to take the bait. I think that DeSantis could
00:26:41.380
have totally gotten away with 90% of his answer. It was that last little bit where he goes, and by the
00:26:45.420
way, check the scoreboard, right? I beat Trump. Trump's candidates didn't do as well as my
00:26:50.700
candidates, is at least what he's insinuating. Or his candidates didn't do as well as I did here in
00:26:56.460
Florida. Why would you take the bait? Why would you take the bait? Trump's attacks on DeSantis have
00:27:03.880
not been playing very well. And there's a rule in politics, when your opponent is hurting himself,
00:27:09.940
don't get in the way of it. What Trump is attempting to do right now, when he's looking at his potential
00:27:17.360
rivals and attacking them, as is perfectly normal. I know everyone's very upset at Trump for going
00:27:22.120
after Youngkin and going after DeSantis. That's just called politics, okay? When you're running in a
00:27:26.100
primary, you attack the people who are posing the greatest threat to you. Right now, that is DeSantis
00:27:30.220
and people like Youngkin as well, though, further back. All Trump is trying to do is elicit a
00:27:37.720
response. If DeSantis would just ignore the attacks, he's the one with political power right
00:27:44.680
now. He's the one in office. He can make himself seem like a real leader. He's just doing things,
00:27:50.280
and there's Trump who's just criticizing him. As DeSantis responds, and this happens in politics,
00:27:57.120
you can't help. Sometimes you just get baited into it, but it's a political mistake. I don't
00:28:02.080
think he should respond if he wants to give himself the best chance in 2024. I think he'd
00:28:06.860
be better served to ignore the attacks entirely. Trump is doing what he has to do to bring DeSantis
00:28:14.020
down a couple pegs. DeSantis doesn't need to help him do that, though. Now, how are the
00:28:19.560
establishment media responding to this announcement?
00:28:22.260
I think that the way that the Washington Post and the New York Times and NBC and all the rest of them
00:28:29.220
cover Trump is going to play a pretty big role in how Republicans shake out Trump versus DeSantis
00:28:38.540
versus maybe somebody else. They're going to do it because here's a lot of people watch that speech
00:28:45.340
and they said, okay, I like Trump. I'm for Trump. And a lot of people watch that speech and said,
00:28:49.040
oh, I like Trump and he did great stuff, but I'm for DeSantis. And a lot of people watch that
00:28:52.560
speech and say, oh, you know, okay, whatever. And then here's how WAPO covered the speech.
00:28:59.520
The twice impeached former President Donald Trump, 76, who refused to concede the 2020 election
00:29:04.980
and is the subject of multiple criminal investigations, is running again in 2024,
00:29:09.580
increasing the likelihood of a potential rematch with President Biden.
00:29:12.340
That was their tweet. Headline. Now, this is the headline of the actual article.
00:29:18.680
Trump, who as president fomented an insurrection, says he's running again.
00:29:24.620
Sub-headline. The twice impeached former president has been eager to declare his candidacy,
00:29:28.860
hoping to get ahead of likely rivals and potential criminal charges. I hate him. I hate him so much.
00:29:34.720
I hate him. Why is he doing it? Orange man back. Orange man is back. I hate him.
00:29:39.800
So that's what the Washington Post is saying. And I'll tell you what.
00:29:46.460
I generally don't make primary endorsements. I love Donald Trump. There are other good
00:29:51.240
candidates too. I'm pro-primary. I want them to duke it out. We'll see how it shakes out.
00:29:55.340
But reading that Washington Post headline makes me much more inclined to support Trump
00:30:02.220
than before I read the Post headline. Because the libs hate Trump the most.
00:30:08.900
They hate him. They hate him more than they hate any other Republican.
00:30:15.140
And the media and the whole liberal establishment, we know, is very, very corrupt and wrong about
00:30:21.140
pretty much everything. So the fact that they hate Trump the most is a big mark in Trump's favor.
00:30:29.880
It's not DeSantis' fault that they hate Trump the most. It's not Hawley's fault or Cruz's fault or
00:30:36.860
Nikki Haley's fault or Tim Scott or Yunkin or whoever's going to run. It's just a fact.
00:30:42.460
They hate Trump more. They hate Republicans generally, but they just, they really hate Trump.
00:30:47.500
And that is a big mark in Trump's favor. I mean, this is, this is psychotic stuff from the Washington
00:30:56.700
Post. This, you know, three, four line headline. Trump, who did this and I hate him? And look at
00:31:03.200
this, this is a five, five line headline on this tweet. Trump, he did all these terrible things
00:31:07.380
and he wouldn't concede and he's old and I hate him and he's ugly and I hate him so much.
00:31:10.000
Ah, ah. Okay. I get, when I read that, every time I read one of those tweets, it makes me at least
00:31:16.380
half a percent more likely to support the Donald. Other people can run too though. Everyone's only
00:31:21.640
talking about Trump DeSantis right now. What about Greg Abbott? Greg Abbott right now in Texas is
00:31:26.780
setting himself up to run for president in 2024 and he's doing a pretty good job. Greg Abbott just
00:31:32.180
announced on this important issue of immigration that he has invoked the invasion clauses of the U.S.
00:31:39.560
and Texas constitutions to fully authorize Texas to fight back against the influx of illegal aliens.
00:31:48.460
This is a good idea. I'm glad that, that Abbott is using this kind of language. It is an invasion.
00:31:54.600
That is what is happening. That is what illegal immigration is. We're talking about not just a
00:31:59.280
million legal immigrants a year, which is a lot of people, but two million illegal immigrants. If you,
00:32:03.800
if you don't call that an invasion, I don't know what the word invasion means. And Greg Abbott is now
00:32:07.840
legally calling it that. So what does it mean in practice? He says he's going to deploy the National
00:32:13.440
Guard to safeguard the border and repel and turn back immigrants trying to cross the border.
00:32:18.400
He'll deploy the Texas Department of Public Safety to arrest and return the border immigrants
00:32:22.260
who crossed illegally, return them to the border. He'll build a border wall in multiple counties on
00:32:28.340
the border, deploy gunboats to secure the border, designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist
00:32:33.580
organizations, enter into a compact with other states to secure the border, enter into agreements
00:32:38.780
with foreign powers to enhance border security. That's not, he's not going to be able to do that.
00:32:43.220
The governor of Texas doesn't conduct American foreign policy. This is why Trump focused on
00:32:48.740
foreign policy in his speech last night is because the governors don't really have a say. So that one's
00:32:52.380
pretty empty and provide resources for border counties to increase their efforts to respond to
00:32:56.780
the border invasion. Okay. So that all sounds good, but where's the teeth? Where's the teeth of this?
00:33:02.760
Ken Cuccinelli, who's a great, great conservative leader, and he was at DHS during the Trump
00:33:09.240
administration. He points out that Governor Abbott has not, in fact, invoked the full authority of an
00:33:15.660
invasion declaration. He said that he's being invaded, but he's not blocking the invaders from coming.
00:33:23.140
And Cuccinelli points out, until Abbott removes the illegals back across the border and out of the
00:33:28.480
country, this will just be a PR stunt. And I tend to agree. I mean, this is something that Trump is
00:33:35.460
going to have to prove, that DeSantis is going to have to prove, that Greg Abbott is having to prove
00:33:40.920
right now. Enough of the words. I like the feisty, zesty rhetoric. Okay. I like clarity in rhetoric too.
00:33:52.140
That can serve a political purpose, but we need action. Okay. All the invasion declarations in
00:33:58.520
the world in a buck 50 will get you a cup of coffee if you're not actually taking the foreign nationals
00:34:03.020
entering your country, invading your country, and sending them back to their countries. If you're
00:34:08.040
not doing that, then you're not really doing much of anything at all. And I suspect this is also why
00:34:13.540
Trump kind of toned down his announcement last night, is he didn't want to be accused of just
00:34:18.580
bluster. Okay. You can bluster your way through a first campaign, but then you've got to get a
00:34:25.100
little bit more serious. And Trump put a lot of wins on the scoreboard. All right, let's not downplay
00:34:28.480
that. Trump got Roe v. Wade overruled. Okay. This is the biggest conservative win of my lifetime,
00:34:33.520
maybe of the century. And he got a lot of other wins too. But that zesty rhetoric is only going to
00:34:41.540
play for so long. Then you need results. Okay. Because the libs, the libs are getting results.
00:34:48.920
At the G20 summit, Klaus Schwab, for some reason, the head of the World Economic Forum, for some
00:34:53.120
reason is speaking alongside the world leaders of the 20 most powerful nations on earth. Klaus Schwab
00:34:58.800
came out. He said, we are going to transform the world. If we look at all the challenges, we can speak
00:35:05.760
about a multi-crisis, an economic, a political, a social, an ecological, an institutional crisis.
00:35:16.340
But actually, what we have to confront is a deep, systemic, and structural restructuring of our world.
00:35:28.140
And this will take some time. And the world will look differently after we have gone through this
00:35:38.380
transition process. Politically, the driving forces for this political transformation,
00:35:46.620
of course, is the transition into a multi-polar world, which has a tendency to make our world much
00:36:01.640
more fragmented. There you have it. The transition into a multi-polar world. When they talk about the
00:36:09.880
Great Reset, when they talk about the World Economic Forum's agenda, what they are talking about in the
00:36:15.940
bluntest terms, is the end of American hegemony. The fact that he's even standing up there, I love
00:36:22.140
the way. And what we will do in the future is we will get rid of all of your food, and you will eat
00:36:27.780
all of the bugs, and you will live in your little pods, and you will not have your countries anymore.
00:36:33.320
Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, Mr. Schwab, who are you? Who, like, why are you there? Who elected you?
00:36:40.200
What I am the ruler of the World Economic Forum, and you will eat the bugs. You will.
00:36:48.460
Sir, I just want, who are you? Why are you doing this? But he is right. Listen, just because the guy
00:36:55.580
has bad ideas, just because the guy is prescribing bad things for the world doesn't mean that what he
00:37:04.100
is describing is inaccurate. Very often, people who have terrible ideas about how to move forward
00:37:09.760
to the future are pretty perceptive about describing the present. Karl Marx, for that matter, was pretty
00:37:15.860
good about his perception of the flaws of the capitalism of his age. His prescriptions were
00:37:23.120
horrible, but Klaus Schwab is recognizing this, that there is a movement away from American hegemony
00:37:29.840
into a multipolar world. That is, in many ways, what the MAGA movement is about. MAGA means make
00:37:34.980
America great again. It's not reduce taxes again, or make us totally free individuals again, or do
00:37:40.920
whatever you want again, or whatever. It's not. It's make America great, national greatness, which is a push
00:37:47.080
against this multipolar world where America does not have any power anymore. You know, that's, that's the
00:37:54.560
big fight here, okay? And Trump, channeling Ronald Reagan's campaign line, has, has really
00:38:03.040
repopularized this idea of American greatness. Now, do Americans really want to be the global
00:38:08.260
hegemon anymore? That remains to be seen on the left and the right. But that is what the battle is
00:38:14.100
going to be about, and we're up against some pretty serious people. You know, I talk a lot on my show
00:38:19.560
about the squishes, the sort of spineless jellyfish, Adam Kinzinger, former Congress lady, future
00:38:26.720
president in her own mind, Liz Cheney. It's the kind of behavior you would never dream of engaging
00:38:31.620
in or modeling to your son or daughter, and yet the numbers are in. Most of you squished this very
00:38:36.960
morning. Did you know, you probably didn't even know you were doing it. You might be squishing right
00:38:40.240
now. If you are still not shaving with a Jeremy's razor, if you're still using one made by a company
00:38:45.600
that has explicitly said that you are toxic, you are one, you are one, shaming yourself. You are two,
00:38:52.340
funding those radical gender ideologues who wish that you would just disappear down a drain with
00:38:58.860
your unwanted stubble. Don't squish on the truth. Switch to Jeremy's Razors and get your Founders
00:39:04.960
Series Shave Kit today. Go to jeremysrazors.com. Make the switch.
00:39:08.920
Speaking of an absolutely incoherent and sort of absurd worldview, moving beyond the World Economic
00:39:20.340
Forum for a moment, the libs are just shameless. On this issue of transgenderism now in particular,
00:39:32.300
the libs are just freaking shameless. They've been pushing the transing of a lot of people and of the
00:39:41.320
kids specifically. So they say, yeah, we're going to pump you full of cross-sex hormones and chop off
00:39:46.260
your genitals and that'll be really, really good. And it's actually a human right to get your genitals
00:39:49.680
chopped off by some quack doctor. And the conservatives are the ones who say, no, no, no, don't do that.
00:39:54.080
That's bad. That's harmful. That violates the Hippocratic oath. That is just absolutely evil.
00:40:00.040
You should never mutilate somebody like that. That's really harmful to them. They say, how dare
00:40:04.920
you? How dare you say that? This is a human right to have your genitals lopped off and have you be
00:40:11.320
pumped full of chemicals that give you osteoporosis and sterilize you. That's a human right. And it's
00:40:15.980
good gender-affirming healthcare. Until now they're making the opposite argument. Because now some people
00:40:24.180
are saying, okay, look, fine, if we have to go along with the transgender madness and we have to let the
00:40:29.480
boys into the girls' room and have the boys compete on the girls' swim team, okay, well,
00:40:34.140
if you're forcing transgenderism on us, then at the very least you have to say that the boys who
00:40:41.020
compete on the girls' swim team, in order to not have a completely unfair advantage,
00:40:45.800
they at least need to go through the transition surgery, right? They at least need to take all
00:40:50.500
those hormones you're telling us that they need. And they at least need to chop off their genitals or
00:40:55.100
they at least need to, they can't, if they're going to do it, and again, I'm not saying that
00:40:58.980
they should do it, but if they're going to do it, then they at least have to actually do it,
00:41:03.080
right? And now the libs are coming back and they're saying, no, how dare you? That gender
00:41:07.580
surgery, that's akin to torture. You can't force anyone to have that gender surgery. That gender
00:41:12.320
surgery is horrible because they're lopping off your genitals and pumping you full of chemicals and
00:41:15.780
sterilizing you and giving you osteoporosis and stuff. Wait, wait, wait. That was the argument I was
00:41:20.860
just making. You're just, and when I was just making that argument against transgenderism broadly,
00:41:26.880
you told me to shut up and I was evil and that I was violating human rights. But now that it's
00:41:32.040
convenient for you, now that we're saying, okay, if you're going to do it, at least you got to go the
00:41:36.100
whole way. Now that it's convenient for you, you're acknowledging that I was right in the first place.
00:41:39.160
This is what the Associated Press has done. AP has said, in scores of countries, including parts of
00:41:43.180
the US, transgender people must undergo painful, complex surgeries that often render them sterile
00:41:49.620
before their genders are legally recognized, a practice human rights groups have condemned as
00:41:54.100
torture. Dubbed torture, ID policies leave transgender people sterile. This is a very long
00:42:06.840
article in the Associated Press about how the transgender surgery is so awful, and that's why
00:42:10.280
we shouldn't make transgender people do it. If the transgender surgery is torture, if it is
00:42:24.380
disordered, if it is unhealthy, if it causes undue pain, then all of those things would be true
00:42:34.780
whenever someone has the surgery. It cannot be the case that the surgery is good, wonderful, necessary
00:42:46.340
health care when someone wants it and evil, torture, painful, scary, disordered, torturous
00:42:58.200
when someone doesn't totally want it. The surgery itself has to be one thing or the other. It cannot
00:43:08.420
simultaneously be contradictory things. That would violate the law of non-contradiction.
00:43:15.300
But this is, in some ways, the logic of transgenderism just applied broadly to the very
00:43:21.920
nature of reality. You're saying, no, everything only is whatever I identify it to be, whenever I
00:43:33.260
identify it to be that thing. And when the way I identify it changes, then the reality changes as
00:43:38.320
well. It's a way of saying that there is no such thing as objective reality. Every single thing,
00:43:46.240
not just my own subjective self-perception, but everything out there in the whole world,
00:43:51.040
including the surgery itself, is just whatever I say that it is, which is a kind of solipsism
00:43:57.000
that creates a hell for people. It puts people in their own hell and it throws society into hell.
00:44:05.400
And it just reminds you, too, these people are completely disingenuous, okay? We can make
00:44:12.060
logical arguments until we're blue in the face. They don't care. They are immune to logic because
00:44:16.500
they're saying that reality is not reality. Reality is just whatever I want it to be.
00:44:21.040
That the exact same surgery can be necessary medical care and torture, depending on what I say,
00:44:30.480
depending on when it is convenient for my argument, which is why we should not accept any of it.
00:44:34.120
Don't try to find a middle ground. Don't say, well, okay, maybe, listen, we can trans,
00:44:38.460
people should be able to transgender themselves after the age of 18, but not before the age of 18.
00:44:42.680
Or maybe after the age of 12, but not before the age of 12. Or now it's like the age of eight
00:44:46.940
or something. No, there's no middle ground. Just say no. No. And it also reminds us that politics that
00:44:55.580
only is about consent is preposterous. Can't just be, well, it's torture or it's affirming good,
00:45:05.580
healthy medical care based on your consent. No, no, no. Your consent has nothing to do with it.
00:45:11.300
Consent is an important category on its own, but it has nothing to do with the nature of that thing.
00:45:14.660
It's the same argument that when a mother wants a baby, it's a beautiful baby. When a mother doesn't
00:45:19.480
want a baby, it's a stupid clump of cells that doesn't mean anything. No, your desires do not
00:45:28.040
dictate reality. Okay. Your desires have a relationship with reality and your desires should
00:45:35.440
actually be molded by reality. Okay. Not the other way around. Speaking of children,
00:45:41.560
a woman just went viral on TikTok. This is so sad. This is so, so sad. It's a woman went viral on
00:45:49.800
TikTok giving a eulogy for her recently deceased father. Here's what she had to say about her dad.
00:45:58.380
But dad, please know that while I am grateful and highly aware of all that you've given this family,
00:46:02.960
I still don't miss you. When you died, I felt like there was a hole. I missed something,
00:46:07.900
but it wasn't you. It was the idea of what you could become. I missed being able to hope and wish
00:46:13.760
that one day you turn a corner and see the world from my perspective. I missed the idea that one
00:46:17.740
day you might help me fight for the things that matter. I missed my fantasy of you. Because when
00:46:23.040
you died, it solidified the fact that you'll never be what you could have been, but only what you are.
00:46:28.340
And what you are is a racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, Trump-loving, cis-straight, white man.
00:46:33.240
That is all you will ever be to me. And dad, before you tell me to respect the dead, please
00:46:37.900
remember that you disrespected and disregarded the lives and deaths of entire communities of
00:46:41.300
people with your ideology. You told me to never back down, so I won't. You know for a fact that
00:46:45.720
even against you, I'm not afraid to share my peace. You are everything I aspire not to be,
00:46:50.460
and I refuse to stand up here and sing the praises of a man who is the paradigm of white supremacy.
00:46:54.840
So I'll take your racist mindset, I'll take your money, and I'll take your advice. And I swear to God,
00:46:59.160
God, I will make this world a better place, not at all because of you, but in exact opposition to you.
00:47:06.120
Shocking, of course, but it really shouldn't be shocking. This is what happens in totalitarian
00:47:10.980
regimes, in the total state. This is what happens, that children are turned against their parents.
00:47:19.040
This is one of the final stages of family breakdown, when the regime, when the ruling ideology is able
00:47:25.680
really to crack that family in half. And there has been a very concerted effort for at least 60 years
00:47:30.180
now to destroy the American family by a strategic political left that has succeeded every single
00:47:36.560
step of the way, because it met with feckless resistance from the right, the right which also
00:47:41.900
retreated from defense of the family as the fundamental political unit, and embraced a bunch
00:47:45.980
of platitudes about how society is really just about the individual, and do whatever you want,
00:47:49.540
just don't make me pay for it. And so they conceded the whole culture, and they conceded that
00:47:54.080
fundamental unit, and now you've got whiny kids attacking their fathers, which is nothing new.
00:47:58.740
But to do so during a eulogy, after the fathers died, that really would be unusual. And it's going
00:48:06.700
to become more and more usual, unfortunately. And this is the kind of stuff that we are fighting right
00:48:12.100
now. And so when candidates come up in 2024, I suspect that the lesson that the establishment media
00:48:20.320
wants us to take from the midterms, even in those states where the vote count was kind of weird,
00:48:24.660
you know, and dragged on for a long time, and the results are somewhat dubious, they,
00:48:27.540
the, clearly the conclusion they want us to take is, conservatives just need to be a little bit more
00:48:32.600
conciliatory, and a little bit more moderate, meet in the middle, and stop being so extreme, okay,
00:48:36.340
stop talking about things. I want, the other day, I said on this show that a marriage is between a
00:48:41.060
man and a woman, you know, I said on this show that Republicans who vote for the radical redefinition of
00:48:46.740
marriage to something other than what it has been for all of human history until five minutes ago
00:48:50.440
should not be in the Republican Party, because they obviously don't want to conserve anything.
00:48:54.340
And I had these people post about me on social media, they said, this is an extreme, radical,
00:48:58.820
far-right, fascistic, absolute maniac who says this. Why? Because I expressed the view that Barack
00:49:07.980
Obama held in 2011. I expressed the view that the current Democrat president held 11 years ago,
00:49:13.960
Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, same thing. That's how fast this is moving, okay?
00:49:21.620
And the, the candidates who just say, well, we're going to all come together in Kumbaya,
00:49:25.420
that's not going to do it, man. People are looking around, they're saying, our country is being
00:49:28.840
invaded. That's what Greg Abbott's saying. Our country doesn't have borders anymore. You've got
00:49:33.040
Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum saying, we will destroy your hegemony and your culture and
00:49:37.760
you will eat the bugs. You've got the, the, the educators saying family is evil and we're going to
00:49:43.400
redefine the family and don't listen to your awful parents. We've got political leftists talking
00:49:47.860
about taking kids away from parents if the parents won't transgender the kids and mutilate them and
00:49:52.320
sterilize them. And now they're admitting that these procedures that they previously defended
00:49:55.820
do sterilize people and they are akin to torture. They're absolutely right about that.
00:49:59.860
That, those are the stakes in this election, okay? And we need a big candidate with a big vision
00:50:05.580
who is not just going to focus on one little issue or this little issue or even just domestic or just
00:50:10.120
foreign policy. We need a candidate who's going to take on the whole kit and caboodle. Who is
00:50:15.320
capable of that? We will find out during a primary process. You know, the rest of the show is going
00:50:19.900
to continue now. We'll be talking about a story that really has fascinated me, the FTX collapse.
00:50:26.040
This is the second largest crypto exchange in the world. It was run by the second largest donor
00:50:30.080
to the Democrat party during the midterm elections. And it's this guy who prattles on and on and on about
00:50:34.520
what a wonderful guy he is, Sam Bankman-Fried. And he's this sort of holier-than-thou lib,
00:50:43.100
this preening virtue signaler. And it turns out he's one of the biggest scam artists of the century.
00:50:47.280
The whole thing collapsed. I don't know anything about crypto. So I'm interviewing Eric Voorhees,
00:50:51.480
who is one of the OGs, truly one of the experts and leaders in the whole space. We've got that coming
00:50:57.300
up on the member block. If you're not a member, click the link in the description and join us.