The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1127 - Trump Is Back!

00:00:00.000 I've said for over a week that the 2024 presidential primary has unofficially begun.

00:00:06.060 Now it has officially begun. Donald Trump announced last night that he will indeed

00:00:12.900 seek the presidency in 2024 to make America great again. Again. The speech is getting mixed reviews.

00:00:22.960 I love the guy. It was not my favorite speech that he has ever given. And yet,

00:00:27.840 from the perspective of strategy and rhetoric, it might be the most interesting speech he's ever

00:00:35.320 given. Lots of people noticed that Trump never once mentioned his potential rivals in the race.

00:00:43.020 He never once mentioned Ron DeSantis. No one seems to be noticing that the entire speech

00:00:49.460 was essentially about those rivals, guys like Ron DeSantis. People seemed somewhat confused as he

00:00:57.420 was giving the speech last night that virtually the whole thing was about foreign policy. China,

00:01:02.840 Russia, North Korea, as well as parts that weren't about foreign policy that were mostly about foreign

00:01:10.440 policy related issues, drugs, immigration. Even Trump's take on election fraud was framed through

00:01:16.580 the lens of foreign policy, was framed through Chinese interference. Why would Trump focus his

00:01:22.060 whole speech on foreign policy on foreign policy, which most people don't even really care that much

00:01:26.880 about? It doesn't make sense until you remember that foreign policy is the one area of politics in which

00:01:35.500 governors, people like his top rivals, have no experience. Trump's speech was pretty toned down,

00:01:43.440 very few zingers, no encouragement of chanting, no Mexican rapists or lock her up or anything like that. 0.95

00:01:50.980 In some ways, the speech even veered into the realm of the boring, something that Trump,

00:01:56.440 for all his faults, has never been accused of being. The guy is not boring, okay? So why? Why did

00:02:01.140 he do it? Doesn't make sense until you remember that Trump's chief rival is being pitched as Trump

00:02:09.560 without the downsides. All the great policy, none of the wild and unseemly digressions. So Trump chose to

00:02:18.740 present himself in those highly prepared remarks last night as Trump without the downsides. The whole

00:02:27.220 event was planned to a T. It was clearly strategic. It may work, it may fail, but there can be no

00:02:35.040 question about one thing. This is no lark. This is not Trump shooting from the hip. If last night's launch

00:02:43.940 was meant to set the tone for the campaign, Trump intends to run a disciplined race because that

00:02:51.440 man intends to win again. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:03:02.780 Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment yesterday is from Henry Knox, who says,

00:03:06.560 Ron DeSantis did not show us how Republicans can win with message and rhetoric in Florida.

00:03:11.500 He showed us if we can clean voter rolls, limit mail-in voting, vote and count votes on election

00:03:18.260 day, Republicans can win big. A lot of truth to that. I mean, I think it's a little bit of both.

00:03:22.720 I think DeSantis has done a very, very good job on messaging, but it's true. You look at what

00:03:27.900 happened in Florida. It wasn't just in Florida. Texas did very well for Republicans. Ohio did very

00:03:32.340 well for Republicans. What's the unifying factor? Is it soaring political rhetoric? Is it really keen

00:03:37.400 messaging? No. The common factor there is the Republicans cleaned up the election issues and

00:03:45.620 insisted upon election integrity, and Republicans around the country would do well to take note and

00:03:51.000 implement the same sorts of things, okay? The speech last night was paradoxically the least

00:03:59.440 interesting and most interesting speech Trump has ever given. Most interesting because it was

00:04:05.160 intentionally the least interesting. We knew from the top, we knew from the very top of the speech,

00:04:10.900 Trump was going to announce. How did we know? Because they announced it before he got on stage.

00:04:17.280 Gentlemen, please welcome the next president and first lady of the United States of America,

00:04:23.020 President Donald J. Trump, accompanied by Mrs. Melania Trump.

00:04:27.640 So there you have it, right there from the open. It's not the former president. It's not the Donald.

00:04:34.020 It's this is the future president and the future first lady. Okay. So he comes on, he milks the Lee

00:04:39.800 Greenwood song, you know, proud to be an American. Trump's just there. Totally was, he seemed energetic.

00:04:44.960 He seemed ready to go, nice and bronzed, vigorous, full of life. The guy does not really seem to age.

00:04:53.000 It's amazing to think he came down that golden escalator 2015. That's seven years ago. It's a

00:05:00.000 long time, especially when you're up there in your seventies. Trump seemed basically as young and

00:05:06.480 vigorous as he ever did. Maybe it's the aspartame and the Diet Coke has just sort of pickled him and

00:05:11.440 he doesn't age. But either way, this was not a Joe Biden scenario. He came up, he looked pretty strong.

00:05:17.280 He looked pretty vigorous. But this was not a 2015 speech. This was not the Mexican rapists 0.99

00:05:24.360 are killing everybody and we need to deport them and we got to get tough on crime. 0.98

00:05:29.640 This was an elegant speech, as he put it. In fact, he didn't even really focus on the 2020 election

00:05:37.520 was stolen kind of line that Trump has been harping on for the past two years. He touched on it,

00:05:42.840 but only a little bit briefly and only with a little bit of a wink.

00:05:46.000 For the first time in memory, China was reeling and back on its heels. You've never seen that before

00:05:53.220 because the United States was outdoing them on every single front and China was paying billions

00:05:59.000 and billions of dollars in taxes and tariffs. The farmers know that because they got 28 billion of

00:06:06.560 it, no president had ever sought or received $1 for our country from China until I came along

00:06:14.440 and we were getting hundreds of billions of dollars. Many people think that because of this,

00:06:21.560 China played a very active role in the 2020 election. Just saying, just saying.

00:06:28.940 Sure, that didn't happen.

00:06:30.280 So this was an important piece of rhetoric here because it shows you, one, Trump was not

00:06:39.900 going to focus on 2020 was stolen. We see that he didn't touch at all on the questions about voting

00:06:46.280 machines and the recounts and the dragging on the count until a week later. He didn't focus on that

00:06:52.220 at all. He did focus on some interference from China, but he did so in a lighthearted way.

00:06:59.440 This wasn't a madman driven crazy by having the election stolen from him and pulling his hair

00:07:05.940 out. It was with a little bit of a wink and a nod. Listen, I'm just saying, okay, we would never talk

00:07:11.440 about that, but look, China, maybe they did. I mean, moves on. I suspect was in that speech to signal

00:07:18.580 he's not going to give up on the issue of election integrity, but he's not going to let it dominate his

00:07:24.780 thinking. This is a man, as he presents himself, who is in control of his emotions and can even

00:07:31.800 sort of make a joke about something really awful that he believes happened. Then he focused the

00:07:38.120 whole thing on the future. For a while, he used this phrase, and I couldn't quite figure out what

00:07:44.940 the phrase meant, but it's a really brilliant little piece of political rhetoric. See if you

00:07:49.700 can figure out what the phrase means. In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight

00:07:55.300 announcing my candidacy for president of the United States. Together, we will be taking on the most

00:08:02.140 corrupt forces and entrenched interests imaginable. Our country is in a horrible state. We're in grave

00:08:10.320 trouble. This is not a task for a politician or a conventional candidate. This is a task for a great

00:08:16.680 movement that embodies the courage, confidence, and the spirit of the American people. This is a

00:08:23.120 movement. This is not for any one individual. This will not be my campaign. This will be our campaign

00:08:32.020 altogether. So I got those moments wrong in the speech. The piece of rhetoric there that's really,

00:08:41.020 really important is Trump answering his critics who say, you're a narcissist and everything's about

00:08:47.000 you. And Trump is saying, it's not about me. This is about you and it's about us together.

00:08:53.160 It harkens back to that really brilliant moment of rhetoric in the 2016 campaign when Hillary had

00:08:59.780 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.

00:09:06.280 That's my motto. Totally changes the subject even of that motto. For Hillary, the subject was all

00:09:14.600 these little peasants are just, you know, paying obeisance and pledging fealty to her, her majesty,

00:09:21.820 Hillary. And with Trump, he says, no, no, no. It's my campaign. And I'm saying, look, I am with you.

00:09:26.700 And the campaign, even though I'm the one running it, it's really all about you. And Trump finally got

00:09:31.660 back to that. And I think it answers the narcissism charge. Then there was a really curious piece of

00:09:36.680 rhetoric in there that did leave me scratching my head a little bit. Figure out if you can get what

00:09:42.360 it means. One of the beautiful things of the pause, if there is such a thing as a beautiful thing,

00:09:49.740 but one of the important factors of the pause is that we see how bad they've done. So we will be able

00:09:58.860 to do it properly. And it will be much easier. Everybody will agree with us because everybody

00:10:04.260 sees what a bad job has been done during this two year period. And it will be a four year period.

00:10:10.480 Everybody sees that it will be much easier for us to do what has to be done.

00:10:15.880 The pause, the pause, what is the pause? Oh, the pause is the Biden administration,

00:10:21.940 which is not the movement that came in to defeat Trump and MAGA. It's just this little pause between

00:10:28.040 the inevitable first and second administration for Donald Trump. It's a smart piece of rhetoric,

00:10:35.840 and it's the sort of thing we've seen from him before. Trump always pushes you past the sale.

00:10:41.380 But this is a point that Scott Adams made very clear in 2016. That Trump, he goes so, so far,

00:10:47.560 he says, listen, we're going to round up every single illegal in this country and deport every 1.00

00:10:51.760 single one of them because they're all rapists and murderers. And you say, what? What are you 1.00

00:10:55.880 talking about? And he says, no, okay, we'll just deport some of them. And you've already accepted

00:10:59.340 the premise that we're going to deport anybody at all. And so he kind of brings you along. He just

00:11:05.060 plants these seeds in your mind. So by saying this was the pause, already in your mind, you've got this

00:11:09.680 idea, oh, of course there's going to be a second Trump administration. Yeah, I don't really like this

00:11:13.520 Biden administration pause, but I'm looking forward to the inevitable second Trump term.

00:11:20.100 He lulls you into this kind of, almost hypnotically, to accepting his vision of the future.

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00:12:43.740 to helixsleep.com slash Knowles. Trump then came back to a theme that he did it in a subtle way,

00:12:53.240 but he also came back to a theme that made clear that he is not going to just be running some squishy

00:12:58.880 cut your taxes, GOP establishment kind of campaign. He talked about the center of American life.

00:13:04.840 We will defend the rights of parents, and we will defend the family as the center of American life.

00:13:16.080 But who would think, standing up here 10 years ago, 15 years ago, that a politician, and I don't like

00:13:24.240 to think of myself as a politician, but I guess that's what I am. I hate that thought. But that

00:13:30.540 a politician would be up saying, we will defend parental rights. Of course you're going to defend

00:13:36.080 it. Who would think that we even have to mention this? Who would think it even should be a subject

00:13:40.100 to be talked about? We have to defend parental rights. Can you believe this?

00:13:45.900 Now, you love that bit. You love to hear that from Trump, even beyond the point on family,

00:13:50.820 which we'll get to in a second, when he says, listen, I come up here, I'm a politician. Do I

00:13:54.720 have to say that? I hate the idea that I'm a politician, but I guess I am. The disingenuous,

00:14:01.220 oily, slick career politician, he would say, oh, I'm not a politician. Maybe I'm a public servant, 0.56

00:14:08.360 but I'm not a politician. No, no, it's about something greater than me. Trump comes up,

00:14:13.940 and he actually is not a career politician. He's only been a politician for about six, seven years.

00:14:18.160 But he says, I guess I am a politician. Okay, I hate that idea because I don't like politicians,

00:14:23.320 but I guess I am one. It's that honesty that I think people found refreshing. Even if some people

00:14:28.960 felt the speech should have been more fiery, I kind of was hoping that it would be more fiery.

00:14:33.200 There is a common theme that I saw cropping up on social media, even from some of Trump's critics,

00:14:39.940 which is people saying, you know, I just, I like the guy. One of the great listeners to this show,

00:14:44.840 Britta, who we've, you know, there's some people who are, you know, they're really in the inner circle

00:14:49.160 of the DW crew. And I saw her pop up on Twitter. She says, oh, I just like the guy. You just can't

00:14:55.440 convince me not to like the guy. I kind of, I was talking to friends of mine. They said, you know,

00:14:58.960 yeah, just made me kind of miss him. Made me think, oh, you know, I remember that. That was nice.

00:15:02.780 I miss that guy. When he says that the family is the center of American life, this is an important

00:15:08.140 statement about political philosophy. Because there are two views on the subject. There is the

00:15:15.660 view that the family is the center of American life. And there's the view that the individual

00:15:19.680 is the center of American political life. And the Libs believe that it's the individual.

00:15:25.700 They want to destroy the family and they want to first break society down into atomized individuals. 0.52

00:15:30.420 Then they want to gather them up into this sort of homogenous, ugly collective.

00:15:33.980 The libertarians also tend to view the individual as the center of American life because they think

00:15:42.620 that our politics essentially come down to natural rights and entitlements that we get

00:15:46.520 as individuals. Conservatives don't think that. The traditional conservative perspective is,

00:15:52.300 no, individuals have their place, but the fundamental building block of society is not the atomized

00:15:57.900 individual. It is the family. That's the fundamental political unit. Trump is siding with that

00:16:03.640 traditional point of view. That's not exactly the libertarian point of view. That's not the

00:16:08.500 neoconservative point of view. That's not the liberal point of view. That's not the leftist

00:16:11.680 point of view. That is the traditional conservative point of view. And that is the lane that Trump had

00:16:15.600 success in in 2016. And if he's going to have success in 2024, that will have to be his lane as well.

00:16:23.220 Then he got a little zestier. Then he made some tangible promises. I thought the best promise of the

00:16:28.580 night had to do with a sort of oblique acknowledgement that things went wrong during COVID.

00:16:36.640 As commander in chief, I will get Biden's radical left ideology out of our military. And I did.

00:16:44.540 I did. And in the first day, they put it back. They signed an executive order and they put it back.

00:16:49.640 It was gone. We will abolish every Biden COVID mandate and rehire every patriot who was fired from

00:16:56.740 our military with an apology and full back pay. So Trump did not acknowledge that he made any

00:17:04.800 mistakes during COVID. And this was not the speech to do that. You know, just like in a eulogy,

00:17:10.380 you're not going to talk about how terrible a person is. Well, actually, these days people do

00:17:14.000 that. There's a horrible case of that going viral right now. We'll get to that a little bit later.

00:17:17.520 But there's a time and a place for everything. In a campaign launch speech, you're not going to

00:17:20.540 acknowledge that you did things wrong. But here he's saying, look, what happened during COVID is awful.

00:17:24.880 I am promising. We will rehire those patriots who got booted from the military over not taking

00:17:31.220 the experimental Fauci-ouchie drug. So it's also a kind of implicit acknowledgement that that vaccine

00:17:36.000 that he's been pushing for two years actually is not all that great. It's not as great as it had

00:17:41.680 been sold to be. That's why the soldiers didn't want it. And that's why he's going to not only give

00:17:46.280 them their jobs back, give them an apology and full back pay. So Trump is very good at painting

00:17:51.580 these images with words. It's not just, they'll be reinstated to their posts. It's no, no. We're

00:17:56.560 going to give them an apology. You can picture this, an envelope. Sorry, we shouldn't have done

00:18:01.240 that. Envelope full of cash, full back pay. It's just much more evocative. Then he gets to the issue

00:18:07.760 of voter integrity in a more tangible way. What are you going to do, Trump? If you say the 2020 election

00:18:13.800 was stolen and the libs basically rigged it and took it from you, well, who's to say that they're

00:18:20.220 not going to take it from you in 2024? What are you going to do that's going to stop that sort of

00:18:24.540 thing from happening? To eliminate cheating, I will immediately demand voter ID, same day voting,

00:18:33.000 and only paper ballots. Paper ballots, same day voting, voter ID. So simple. And, and we want all

00:18:43.920 votes counted by election night. Great. This is the right answer. Three simple things,

00:18:52.900 voter ID, same day voting, only paper ballots. Simple. I can remember that. This is very,

00:18:58.800 very popular, especially obviously with Republicans, but with moderates, centrists,

00:19:03.580 even center left as well. Easy to remember. Very, very tangible. And then he, the most zesty,

00:19:09.860 the most flavorful, spicy kind of moment in the speech was Trump decided to take on the issue of

00:19:15.060 drugs. We're going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs to receive the death

00:19:22.920 penalty for their heinous acts, because it's the only way. We don't need any more blue ribbon

00:19:32.660 committees. We don't need, I don't like to say this, and I don't even know if the American public

00:19:38.200 is ready for it. And a lot of my people say, please don't say that, sir. That's not nice. They kill 500

00:19:43.980 people each on average. And if you don't do this, in China, when I was with President Xi, I said,

00:19:52.600 President, do you have a drug problem? No, no, no, no, we don't. He looked at me like I didn't know

00:19:57.660 what I was doing. No, no, we don't, because we're very tough on these guys. So this is great. I loved

00:20:02.240 it. I mean, I, I myself wished we got more of that. We're going to kill all the drug dealers. 0.55

00:20:07.400 Bah! You know, that's kind of what I wanted from the speech. Trump obviously took a different 1.00

00:20:11.300 strategic tack, but I'm glad we got this in here. It raises a question though. Okay, now Trump is

00:20:16.580 promising he's going to give the death penalty to drug dealers. But Trump's signature domestic

00:20:22.020 legislative achievement was something called the First Step Act, which led a bunch of drug dealers

00:20:27.340 out of prison. That was the whole point of the First Step Act, was to let drug dealers out of prison.

00:20:31.520 So it's a, it's a total 180 on his previous position here. How's he going to back it up? I mean,

00:20:38.280 how's he, how's he going to justify that? What is his rationale for that complete reversal might

00:20:43.560 just be, Hey, I thought about it or Hey, I fired some stupid advisors or whatever. He, I think he 1.00

00:20:48.220 does have to answer for that though. If he wants that promise to carry any weight. And then finally,

00:20:53.480 he ended on a note of humility and, and this note of humility I found quite refreshing.

00:20:59.900 I am asking for your vote. I am asking for your support and I am asking for your friendship and

00:21:06.980 your prayers. This very incredible, but dangerous journey. If our movement remains united and confident,

00:21:15.680 then we will shatter the forces of tyranny and we will unleash the glories of liberty for ourselves

00:21:22.260 and for our children and for generations yet to come. America's golden age is just ahead

00:21:29.840 and together we will make America great again. Okay. There you have it. And he says, I'm asking

00:21:39.100 for your prayers. I really liked this moment because there is a misperception among Trump's critics

00:21:45.820 that the man, he's just a narcissist and all he thinks about is himself. And he's just

00:21:50.280 the most egomaniacal person in the whole country. I don't think that's true. I think Donald Trump has 0.71

00:21:56.700 far greater humility than the vast majority of people in politics. He jokes about it. He jokes

00:22:02.940 it. He puts his big name in letters and he talks about Trump, Trump, Trump, but he, he will give you

00:22:07.500 little hints that he's actually got a much deeper sort of humility. You remember one time he was asked

00:22:12.680 about having a drink and he said, you know, I've never had a beer. I'm probably the only president in

00:22:17.380 history who can say, uh, that I've never had a beer. It's the, it's the best thing you can say

00:22:22.120 about me. It's the only good thing you can say about me. And he's kind of jokey. He's like, yeah,

00:22:26.000 I know people criticize me. I've got all these problems, but look, I've never had a beer. Actually,

00:22:29.600 I just don't, I don't like to drink. Trump is the guy who leans down. He just picks up the Marine's

00:22:33.700 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

00:22:37.580 all. It's just the sort of thing to do. But he says, Hey, can you pray for me, please? Hey guys,

00:22:41.480 this isn't about, this isn't just about me. I, I, you know, I think this whole system is terrible.

00:22:46.920 I I'm not running to get all sorts of plaudits at the fancy parties. They don't invite me to the

00:22:51.500 fancy parties. The people who run the real sophisticate set, they've, they don't like me

00:22:56.300 and they've never liked me. So I'm just here to get some stuff done. Okay. I'm here to fix the ice

00:23:00.420 rink. I'm here to fix the economy. I'm here to fix our trade deals, fix our foreign policy. So I

00:23:07.200 thought it was a great dose of humility. Uh, if this is the tone of his campaign,

00:23:14.360 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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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. 0.95

00:29:34.720 I hate him. Why is he doing it? Orange man back. Orange man is back. I hate him. 0.96

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. 0.91

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. 1.00

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 1.00

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. 0.99

00:32:18.400 He'll deploy the Texas Department of Public Safety to arrest and return the border immigrants 1.00

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 1.00

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 1.00

00:34:03.020 entering your country, invading your country, and sending them back to their countries. If you're 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.95

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 0.99

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, 0.94

00:39:32.300 the libs are just freaking shameless. They've been pushing the transing of a lot of people and of the 1.00

00:39:41.320 kids specifically. So they say, yeah, we're going to pump you full of cross-sex hormones and chop off 1.00

00:39:46.260 your genitals and that'll be really, really good. And it's actually a human right to get your genitals 1.00

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. 0.99

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 1.00

00:40:11.320 pumped full of chemicals that give you osteoporosis and sterilize you. That's a human right. And it's 0.99

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.99

00:40:50.500 those hormones you're telling us that they need. And they at least need to chop off their genitals or 1.00

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 0.98

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 1.00

00:41:07.580 surgery, that's akin to torture. You can't force anyone to have that gender surgery. That gender 1.00

00:41:12.320 surgery is horrible because they're lopping off your genitals and pumping you full of chemicals and 0.94

00:41:15.780 sterilizing you and giving you osteoporosis and stuff. Wait, wait, wait. That was the argument I was 0.72

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 1.00

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 1.00

00:42:10.280 we shouldn't make transgender people do it. If the transgender surgery is torture, if it is 1.00

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 0.93

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. 0.77

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 1.00

00:45:19.480 want a baby, it's a stupid clump of cells that doesn't mean anything. No, your desires do not 1.00

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. 1.00

00:46:28.340 And what you are is a racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, Trump-loving, cis-straight, white man. 1.00

00:46:33.240 That is all you will ever be to me. And dad, before you tell me to respect the dead, please 1.00

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. 0.95

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, 0.80

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, 0.87

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 1.00

00:49:47.860 about taking kids away from parents if the parents won't transgender the kids and mutilate them and 1.00

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. 0.99

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.

00:51:04.520 Bye.

00:51:06.160 Bye.

00:51:18.160 Bye.

00:51:19.080 Bye.

The Michael Knowles Show - November 16, 2022

Ep. 1127 - Trump Is Back!

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Transcript