Ep. 158 - Which Is Worse: MS-13 Or MSM?
Summary
Trump has gone too far. Trump is now criticizing murderous, psychopathic gangsters. Which is worse, MS-13 or the mainstream media? Then Lord Conrad Black joins the show to discuss his new book, "Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other." And we round out the news with my least popular opinion of all time.
Transcript
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In its most bizarre electoral strategy since nominating a desiccated old crone for president
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in 2016, Democrats have now taken to defending face-tattooed, child-slaughtering, illegal alien
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psychopath gangsters. I'm sure that one's going to work out great in November, guys. We will
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analyze which is worse, MS-13 or the MSM. Then Lord Conrad Black joins to discuss his new book,
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Donald J. Trump, a president like no other. You can say that again. And we will round out the news
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with my least popular opinion of all time. I will finally alienate my entire audience by explaining
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why Starbucks is terrific. Finally, the mailbag. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles
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Show. Trump has gone too far this time because he's criticizing criminals. Speaking of criminals,
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What is it? Ring.com slash Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S. Trump has gone too far this time, guys.
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He's just gone, he's gone too far. It was bad enough when he slaughtered half of the country
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with net neutrality. You know, when they repealed net neutrality and everybody literally died.
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And then, then he reformed our tax code. He lowered people's taxes, lowered the corporate
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rate. I don't, I don't know how many people died in that, but now he's gone too far. Donald Trump is
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now criticizing murderous psychopath gangsters. It's too far. Here are Donald Trump's comments.
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Be an MS-13 gang member I know about. If they don't reach a certain threshold, I cannot tell ICE about
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them. We have people coming into the country who are trying to come in. We're stopping
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a lot of them. But we're taking people out of the country. You wouldn't believe how bad
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these people are. These aren't people. These are animals. And we're taking them out of the
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country at a level and at a rate that's never happened before. And because of the weak laws,
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they come in fast. We get them. We release them. We get them again. We bring them out. It's crazy.
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The mainstream media are furious that Donald Trump would say such a thing,
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that violent, terrible criminals are animals. So we'll get to the headlines in a second. We'll
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get to the mainstream media and the Democrat response in a second. First, just a little bit
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of context. Here's a quick rundown of some of MS-13's gang crimes from just this year and last year.
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Last November, Donald Trump's administration arrested 200 members of this gang in America.
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America. This year, we've arrested 100. We don't know how many gang members are in this country.
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It's a violent gang, primarily from El Salvador, MS-13. Here's a quick rundown. Let's just look at
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this week. On Tuesday, a man's body was discovered in a shallow grave dug in a park in Washington,
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D.C. MS-13 gang members dug that grave before they stabbed the man more than 100 times, cut off
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his head, and ripped out his heart. And then, so Donald Trump called those guys animals. The
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mainstream media, they're furious. They're furious. Here are some other MS-13 gang crimes just from last
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year. MS-13 affiliate Venus Romero tortured, stabbed, and killed a 15-year-old girl for dating her
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boyfriend in January of last year. Another MS-13 gang member murdered 15-year-old Damaris Alexandra
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Reyes Rivas. And by the way, just notice something here. A lot of these victims are Hispanic. A lot
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of these victims actually are immigrants from the same places that this gang comes from. So they say,
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oh, it's racist when you're talking about these animals accusing these people of the crimes that
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they have obviously committed. A lot of the victims are from those same areas. They're from the same
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immigrant groups. Another crime. Miguel Alvarez Flores and Diego Hernandez Rivera kidnapped, sexually
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tortured, and murdered a teenage girl. That was last February. Three MS-13 gang members stabbed
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and mutilated 17-year-old Raymond Wood before running him over with their car, cutting off his
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hands, and leaving him for dead. That was in March. Also in March, Hector Lazo and Pedro Rivera shot 37-year-old
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Nelson Rodriguez in the back of the head. He was just walking down the street. In April, two documented
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MS-13 gang members shot an 11-year-old girl and two teenage boys in Houston. Documented meaning we
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knew who they were. We knew they were here illegally. We knew that they were members of this gang, but
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well, we couldn't do anything. It's really hard to do anything about that. We wouldn't want people to
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think that we think of them as animals. That would be racist for some reason or whatever the mainstream
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media says. In April of last year, MS-13 gangsters wielding machetes mutilated and murdered four
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victims between 16 and 20, around the same time as they murdered seven others in the same
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neighborhoods. Alexi Sainz murdered three Long Island high school students last year, MS-13 gang
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member. He attacked two young girls at the same time while they were walking through their suburban
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neighborhood. Three MS-13 gangsters were arrested last May after they slashed a 19-year-old with a
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machete and shot him point blank. MS-13 gang member Carlos Gonzalez murdered his girlfriend,
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Marisa Lopez, last year. That guy is still at large. I could go on for the
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whole rest of the show with these people's crimes. They are face tattooed demons from hell. Only God
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can judge people, but the Donald Trump administration can arrange the meeting. There's nothing wrong with
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that. And actually, the more you read about these crimes, you realize that what Donald Trump said is
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not true. These people are not animals. They are much, much worse than animals. Because animals aren't
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morally culpable for what they do. When the tiger eats the little animal in the jungle, it's not like the
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tiger is sinning. It's not like the tiger has committed some immoral act. It's just in the tiger's
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nature to eat other animals. But when human beings who have a moral conscience, when they mutilate
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people, kill teenage girls, maim, cut off body parts, cut off heads, when they do that, they are committing
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evil. They are pervaded by evil when they should know better. When they do know better, but they choose
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to do evil things. It's much worse than animals. We should all be able to agree that these guys are
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pretty bad, right? I think, you know, I know we're in a time of political disagreement, political
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rancor. I think we can all agree that face tattooed gangsters who decapitate little teenage girls, probably
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those guys are not good people, right? That's what you would think. How did the Democrats and the mainstream
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media react? They defended the psychopath gangsters. This is so some of the, some of the headlines we
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have here. Trump lashed out at undocumented immigrants during a white house meeting, calling
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those trying to breach the country's borders animals. You saw this in the New York times, but he
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wasn't lashing out at undocumented immigrants. He wasn't lashing out at illegal aliens. He was lashing
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out at violent criminals. And this actually gets to an incredible point of the mainstream media and
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the Democrat party's bigotry, which is that they're conflating violent psychopath gangsters with all
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illegal aliens. Donald Trump didn't do that. He made a, he was very specific. He said, these people
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are animals. These people are sick monsters and we got to get them out. And the mainstream media said,
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you're calling all illegal aliens, all immigrants, animals, all immigrants are less than human. He said,
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what are you talking about? I never said that the illegal aliens are all psychopath criminals. You said that.
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It goes on. Jennifer Rubin said, she writes for the Washington post. She pretends to be a
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Republican. She's one of the biggest Democrat shills in the entire country. She tweeted, quote,
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this is disgusting. And Trump's evangelical sycophants will applaud his utter dehumanization
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of men, women, and children. I don't know how many little girls are members of MS-13. I suspect
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zero. None of them are. But this actually, this really lowers my estimation of Jennifer Rubin.
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I always thought she was just one of those fake Republicans that the mainstream media hires so that
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they can pretend that they have a Republican opinion and they just use that person constantly
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to criticize Republicans. But here she's just flat out lying. I don't think she's stupid enough
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to actually think that Donald Trump is, is saying something that he obviously didn't say.
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So here we just have a flat out liar in Jennifer Rubin. It's really pathetic from Andrea Mitchell
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at NBC. But by the way, just a point on Andrea Mitchell. It took me approximately 24 years of my
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life on this earth to realize that Andrea Mitchell and Mika Brzezinski are not the same person.
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Did you know that, that they're not the same person? I don't know. It's just to say,
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maybe other people realized it. This was news to me. So she tweets out, quote,
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a tough takedown by the California governor after real Donald Trump calls people trying to get into
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the country, animals, not people. Again, he didn't call people trying to get it. Well,
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he called some people trying to get into the country, animals, not people like the vicious
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gangsters. And this gets to an important point of illegal immigration. Some of the people trying to
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get into our country are vicious gangster criminals who should not be allowed in. She's,
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she's actually unwittingly tried to, she's unwittingly made our point, right? Which is
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that it's not all just really nice, polite workers coming in who are the people entering our country.
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Some of them are criminals. Some are those bad people that Trump talked about when he launched
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his campaign. From Benji Sarlin, a political reporter at NBC, quote, one of Trump's most consistent
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rhetorical moves is comparing large classes of human beings to animals, a political tactic with a long
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deadly history. I think he's making the argumentum ad Hitlerum at this point. You know, anybody who
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disagrees with me is Hitler. That's what he's saying about Trump. Christian Farias from New York
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magazine, never, ever forget this fact. Donald Trump reserves the word animals only for brown
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people. So what you are saying, buddy, is that all brown people are criminals. That's what you're
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saying. You're saying that they're animals and they're criminals, but that's not what Donald Trump
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is saying. He's saying some people are criminals and those people are animals. You're conflating
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race and crime. It's not the Republicans doing it. It's not Donald Trump doing it. It's you,
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mainstream media. And to round it all out, Tyler Hansen from the D-Trip, the Democratic Congressional
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Campaign Committee, he sends out these pictures of these little immigrant kids, these like sweet
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little kids and crying parents. It says, Trump, we're taking people out of the country. You wouldn't
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believe how bad these people are. These aren't people. These are animals. So that's just a lie,
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right? He's not talking about those people. He's talking about gangsters. The mainstream media,
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the Democrats, they're now defending MS-13. The strategy that they have undertaken is to oppose
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anything that Trump does. The trouble for them is that Trump is doing successful and popular things
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on the economy, on foreign affairs, on domestic affairs, on immigration. So they're opposing that,
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but that leads them into these absurd positions like defending MS-13. They say, okay, Trump likes
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kicking out gangsters. So we need to bring them into the country. We'll just do the opposite.
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Keep it up, guys. Keep it up, Democrats. Good work. Yeah. Can't wait for November.
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Okay. Let's bring on our guest, Lord Conrad Black. Conrad Black is a member of the British
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House of Lords. He's a financier, a newspaper tycoon, historian, biographer, excellent columnist.
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I suggest you read his writings. He has a new book out. I really, really like this book. I highly
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recommend it. Donald J. Trump, A President Like No Other. This book has just come out this week.
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You have to read it. Lord Black, thank you for being here.
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Thank you for having me, Michael. And I want to say I agreed with everything you've said in the
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part that I've seen, especially that beastly woman, Jennifer Rubin. It's high time she was unmasked.
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It is. It is so frustrating because so many times with these Republicans who all they ever do is try
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to get Democrats to like them, I say, okay, you're opportunistic. That's fine. But this is outright
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lies. And there are a lot of lies about President Donald Trump. You have written the best coverage of
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Donald Trump that I have read. This book is so, so good. And it gives a perspective that people are
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just not getting in the media. I want to delve into that. Some of the lies, some of the distortions
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that we have. Let's begin with a sort of obvious one. A lot of people are telling us here that Donald
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Trump is secretly an idiot. He's just a dummy. He doesn't know anything. And he's just made it to
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the highest points of real estate and casinos and politics and television just by luck or by whatever.
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What is it? You write about how Donald Trump has a real genius for real estate.
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How did he manage to make it to the top of that industry and every other?
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Well, in the case of real estate, he had an absolutely tireless devotion, as he has said at
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times, to putting the deal together. And it means going to a bankrupt organization,
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persuading claimants and suitors to hand over for some sort of consideration, but not tangible and
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not upfront, their claims in respect to real estate assets. And then shopping this around
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through proper financial circles to get building loans and municipal approvals and approval of
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creditors. And it is an unbelievably exacting process. But his first big deal, the old Commodore
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Hotel between the Chrysler Building and Grand Central Station in New York, that's what he did.
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And he didn't have anything. He said, I have your assigned contract. He held press conferences every
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day. And he was just a very young man. And he did have a signed contract. It was signed by him,
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but not by the other party. He didn't say that. So it always puts you into the position of being a bit
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of a huckster and a peddler and a slightly shabby middleman. But if you stay at it hard enough and
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are as ingenious at it as he was, without putting up a cent, you make a fortune. And that's what he did.
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And now he got carried away. And he ended up for a time with a negative net worth. But he convened the
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bankers himself. And he knew the last thing in the world they wanted to do was call the loans.
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They'd have to acknowledge the assets were going to be severely devalued. And the last thing in the
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world a banker wants to do was try and run a real estate business. And all he had to do was say,
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look, just sit tight. I'll give you all the, pledge you all the collateral I can. And this is my
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plan of action to work my way out of this. And that's what happened. And going back to what you said
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about this allegation against him of being essentially deep down he shallow. The fact
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is, as I pointed out towards the end of the book, and thank you for your kind words about it,
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he achieved more, objectively speaking, he achieved more before he was inaugurated president
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than any previous holder of that office except Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Grant, and Eisenhower.
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And I'm not denigrating the others. Most of the others had serious careers, some of them very
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substantial, like Woodrow Wilson at Princeton University and so forth. But not like that,
00:17:20.920
not where you make billions of dollars. You decide to become a television performer from day one and
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for 15 years without one single interruption. You're pulling over 25 million viewers. Top slot
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every week for 15 years, except two nights opposite American Idol. Now, I never watched that kind of
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television. I never watched one of Donald's programs, but that's not the point. He was a great success.
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And to take over the Republican Party, either party, but the only other person who did this was
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Wendell Wilkie, where you have never sought or held a public office, elected or non-elected,
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or a military command, and you take over the party. Wilkie did it for the great honor of running
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against Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was invincible. Nobody could ever defeat him.
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And, and, and Donald Trump did it. And, and then, and then he actually won this election. It was an
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astonishing feat. And how anyone, I mean, I understand why people don't like him. I understand
00:18:17.740
why they feel threatened by him. I understand how they find him distasteful. All of that I understand.
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But to say that he is not an accomplished and capable man is an outrage.
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And I love that the book is actually rather even handed. There's, there's no hiding. I think you
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admire Donald Trump. I admire Donald Trump, but the account is...
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Yeah, but he's an annoying public personality at times.
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That's right. Well, the, the fact of the biography is that it is honest about his, some of his flaws.
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As you, you mentioned the hucksterism. You're, you're quite open about that. Even some of his
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business failings, some of his untruths that he's told along the way.
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Trump University was a bit much, Michael. I mean, I mean, in one sense, it's magnificent. If you
00:19:00.280
can actually, in that PT Barnum way, if you'd ever go bankrupt on, you know, exaggerating the
00:19:06.880
intelligence of the public. But I mean, it's, it's outrageous and it's, but it's amusing, but it is
00:19:13.760
It is. I've actually only been referring to Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania as Trump
00:19:18.300
University these days, because I know it bothers the students there. But, but you write early on in the
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book, you say, it is also Trump's nature honed by the rough and tumble of his career, including
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observing his father's business, uh, to believe that no competitive activity beyond the playing
00:19:35.080
field, if that is quite as pristine as represented. He's not so much a cynic as a methodological
00:19:41.300
agnostic, not a liar as much as a disbeliever in absolute secular truths. And there is a lot in that
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sentence. What do you mean by it? And what is Donald Trump's relationship to the truth?
00:19:54.740
Just, uh, I'll take the last part first, if I may. Um, you have to examine his relationship
00:20:03.620
to the truth in, in, in looking upon him as we are, as a public figure, and indeed as the holder
00:20:09.660
of the great office of president of the U S. Um, you have to examine it, I think at two levels. At
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one level, he has the habits of his career and engages in what he calls truthful hyperbole.
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Now how truthful it is sometimes is open to legitimate question, although often it's partly
00:20:27.580
truthful. Uh, and, and he believes in exaggerating in a manner that is somewhat self-serving. And
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he's only slowly, I think, but definitely gradually recognizing that if he scales that back, he'll,
00:20:40.220
he'll gain by doing so that he's got, he's got people watching and listening so carefully,
00:20:44.740
many of them hostile to him, that he's giving ammunition to his enemies. If he doesn't,
00:20:48.820
if he doesn't reel it back a bit, but on the other level, in terms of addressing the country,
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promising the country, what he will do if they elevate him to this Supreme office,
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it must be said that in doing precisely what he promised to do, his record is absolutely
00:21:05.260
historically outstanding and not surpassed by anyone else. I mean, he said he would pull out of
00:21:10.420
the Paris accord. It shocked people when he did it, but he did it and he was right to do it.
00:21:13.960
It's a ridiculous accord. He said he'd move the embassy in Israel. He did it and he was right to
00:21:18.140
do it. He, he, he said he'd walk out of the Iran agreement and even highly serious foreign policy.
00:21:24.460
People said, well, there's no point doing that. We've already given them the money. It was a terrible
00:21:27.700
agreement, but why walk out now? But he's, he's walking out in order to Koreanize the issue
00:21:34.180
and really put the heat on Iran to make a permanent renunciation of nuclear weapons.
00:21:39.160
He's absolutely right. He said he would do it. It was controversial. And then in the case of course,
00:21:43.600
of the Israeli embassy, that has been promised by several of his predecessors who then didn't do
00:21:48.080
anything. He said he would eliminate oil imports and he's doing it. Every president since Eisenhower
00:21:52.320
said that. And some of them were very good presidents, but they didn't do that. And he's doing
00:21:55.900
it. So at that level, he absolutely is truthful. And so I think you, you have, you examine it on
00:22:05.760
two planes. One is the traditional Donald Trump who made, who made his way in, in, in various,
00:22:12.340
um, entertainment related or, or highly financially speculative occupations where a, a, a liberality
00:22:21.960
with the truth was customary and profitable and was not looked upon as obscenely unethical
00:22:30.100
because it was customer. Uh, and on the other hand, as Donald Trump, the relatively new Donald
00:22:35.280
Trump as, uh, as a leader of the nation and particularly the head of a vast faction of voters
00:22:41.520
adequate in their size to put them in the white house, uh, he is absolutely truthful. So it depends
00:22:48.940
which angle you take the subject. And I think when his critics say that he's a liar, because that's
00:22:53.580
all they say now, he's a liar. He's this first of all from the Democrats, Michael, it's a bit
00:22:58.440
rich coming from holders of the highest offices of national security who lied repeatedly under oath
00:23:04.520
and should be, and soon will be in front of the grand jury, which in your country means they're off
00:23:09.020
to jail. That's right. That's, that's absolutely right. You have people on television and not,
00:23:14.080
not even just, uh, the Susan Rice's of the world who lied to us, not even just the secretary
00:23:18.720
of state Hillary Clinton, but even up to Barack Obama lied right to our face. And we can, we can
00:23:23.040
check so many of those lies. In fairness, the president lied, but I, I don't believe he lied
00:23:28.660
under oath. In fairness, all presidents lie, even Mr. Lincoln engaged in truthful hyperbole at times,
00:23:34.260
but, uh, but yeah, I'm talking about lying under oath, which is a crime. And in my opinion,
00:23:39.360
there's not the slightest doubt that Hillary Clinton, most of that entourage of hers, uh,
00:23:43.960
James Clapper, uh, John Brennan, James Comey, Andrew McCabe. They all did that. And, and it is a bit
00:23:53.940
rich taking it from the Democrats complaining about Mr. Trump being a liar when they are all
00:23:58.680
basically just waiting for indictment. Right. That's right. They're just sitting there
00:24:02.420
checking their iPhones, you know, as I hope it's not today. And the distinction that they,
00:24:06.740
they seem not to make is the difference between a lie and unsubtlety. So if Trump in this extreme
00:24:13.560
political way is able to, uh, uh, stretch the truth, let's say he's very unsubtle about it.
00:24:20.600
This is always the case. It's, it's always hyperbole. So one of Donald Trump's first acts
00:24:24.960
when he became president of the Trump organization, when he entered into business as a young man
00:24:29.440
was to hire Roy Cohn, the former counsel to commie slamming Senator Joe McCarthy and unsubtle man
00:24:36.640
himself, uh, to defend the Trump organization against a great many, a great many other people,
00:24:41.780
including Rupert Murdoch. And, uh, I mean, a lot of very respectable, very successful people.
00:24:46.720
Of course. And I'm a defender of Joe McCarthy for that matter. So I, I don't even consider him
00:24:50.540
disreputable, but he got a little carried away. Fair enough. Okay. Yeah.
00:24:57.400
Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower commies was going to.
00:25:00.000
That's it. Well, it was, uh, it was a useful hyperbole. So yeah. But, uh, what does that tell
00:25:06.880
us? The choice of Roy Cohn, uh, relying on Roy Cohn, this hard charging guy, never, never give up,
00:25:13.100
never defend. And what effect do you think if any Roy Cohn had on, uh, Donald Trump?
00:25:19.940
Uh, we're all unlicensed psychiatrists, but as a historian, I'm always careful about mind reading.
00:25:25.260
Um, I, in my conversations with them, mentioned him now, there was no particular reason why he
00:25:31.400
would, but, but, uh, I don't have the impression he was an immense formative influence. I think
00:25:35.960
when he, I mean, it's from the spacious, uh, areas of Southern California, it may not seem like a great
00:25:43.200
thing, but as you would know, and many of your viewers, what, what, when you move from, from Z street
00:25:48.640
in Brooklyn, uh, to Manhattan, it is a trend. It's not far in miles, but it's a tremendous cultural
00:25:55.080
and sociological change. And, and Donald Trump felt he needed a rough, tough lawyer. The last
00:26:02.300
thing he wanted is a sort of person that many of us, including me have a lot of unpleasant
00:26:07.320
experience with, which are ambiguous, uh, mealy mouthed counsel who only reach a point of, of
00:26:15.500
general MacArthur, like executive decision-making at sending out their invoices. The rest of the
00:26:21.420
time, all they do is waffle. And that is not what Donald wanted. He wanted a fighter and he wanted
00:26:25.920
someone who would get in the face of his opponents and drive them crazy. And Roy Cohn, by all accounts,
00:26:31.440
whether from people who disliked him to people who liked him and everyone in between agreed that he
00:26:36.180
was very effective. Absolutely. So he was a guy to go to. And he also helped introduce him to a lot
00:26:41.940
of people too. That's right. You, you write about how Donald Trump was very quick to make good
00:26:46.560
political connections. He just clearly seems like an operator. And this gets to the last point. I
00:26:51.320
won't ask you to predict the future, but I will ask you to observe the character of Donald Trump,
00:26:55.800
which is that Donald Trump appears to be a survivor by your account. And by all that we know of the
00:27:01.020
man, he, he just survives. He makes it out of bankruptcies. He makes it out of a difficult
00:27:05.820
situations all the time. Uh, you open the account talking about the political assassination of Richard
00:27:12.200
Nixon. And it looks like there's deja vu all over again, but Trump is a survivor. Uh, do you think
00:27:18.180
that the bureaucracy, the Democrats, the media, the political establishment are, are enough and have
00:27:23.180
enough to succeed in ousting him? Or do you think that Trump, uh, has the character to withstand that
00:27:28.240
assault? I am very, very completely satisfied that this is a terrible mismatch and Donald Trump is
00:27:37.220
going to wipe the floor with them. They had no idea. He is, he is a fanatically determined man.
00:27:45.240
And, um, and he has in the comparison with Mr. Nixon, he has the advantage of this criminalization
00:27:52.780
of policy differences in this attempt to harass and tear down presidents having gone on for nearly
00:27:58.220
50 years prior to Trump being inaugurated. So, so he, he, he knows how it's worked. Uh, I mean,
00:28:04.480
Mr. Nixon, uh, who, who was a great president and what happened to him was a disgrace, a terrible
00:28:10.920
thing. But to some degree, he cooperated inadvertently with his enemies, uh, because
00:28:15.900
he didn't handle it properly, didn't handle the issue properly. But, uh, I, there's still not a
00:28:21.000
serious case. In my opinion, he committed any crimes, but he did squander his political cabin.
00:28:25.660
But, uh, there had not been discussion of the impeachment of a president for more than a
00:28:30.140
century prior to Watergate. And Nixon had no idea how to deal with it. Then after that, you know,
00:28:35.420
Bill Clinton fought it out. And, and, uh, and, uh, and, and in between you had the Iran-Contra
00:28:41.860
business where they never really got that close to the president because Admiral Poindexter said the
00:28:46.280
bull, you know, the buck stops here. And that was the end of it. And, and it was near the end of
00:28:50.080
his term and he was a popular president, but the, the, the impeachers, if you will, jumped Mr. Nixon
00:28:57.240
and there was, and there was no relevant recent history. Trump had all of this past to go by for
00:29:03.160
tactical planning purposes. And, and he has a particularly strong and powerful nature of
00:29:09.580
self-defense. And, and, uh, uh, these, these people, if they had just given him a reasonable
00:29:16.460
honeymoon, like most incoming presidents get, he would never bottle all the stuff about Hillary
00:29:21.860
will be in jail. He wouldn't have done a thing. Uh, but when they attacked him, they invented this
00:29:26.480
spurious nonsense about the collusion with a foreign power, which no one ever nominated by a
00:29:32.960
major party to, to the office of president in the U S would ever have done, not Aaron Burr, not
00:29:37.480
anybody. And, and, and, and, and that was a declaration of war and, and it became a fight
00:29:45.320
to the death and he's going to kill them. I mean, he is going, and I don't mean physically, of course,
00:29:49.240
but politically he's going to kill them. And this is by far the greatest scandal in the history of the
00:29:54.460
United States. Watergate was nonsense. It was confected nonsense. It was a forced entry. There
00:29:59.900
was no injury. There was no vandalism. There was no economic damage. It was a bungled investigation
00:30:05.060
that was allowed to hemorrhage and was, and, and was a sort of primal scream therapy for the left
00:30:10.760
wing press of the United States who then, who then spawned generations of people who fancied themselves
00:30:17.200
to be investigative journalists. This, this is the, the, it's all the shoe was in the other foot
00:30:22.920
and you see the balance tipping. Uh, these accusers of his are all going to prison and that's where
00:30:28.720
they belong. I agree entirely. I agree with that account of Watergate entirely because one point in
00:30:35.760
support of something you said, uh, just about how asinine his accusers are. The, the, the righteousness
00:30:41.700
on this business of he lies, um, is at some point during the campaign, well on in the campaign, he said
00:30:48.340
that Obama was the founder of ISIS. So the fact checking department of CNN, which has got to be the
00:30:56.160
most underworked organization. They're all in Cabo somewhere. It's the Chicago department of sanitation
00:31:04.940
under Mir Daly looked like an efficient operation, but the, the, uh, uh, they laboriously went through
00:31:11.620
this process and put up both blitzer darting around the studio. They're saying, no, ISIS was founded by
00:31:18.920
al-Baghdadi and named another bunch of other Iraqis. And, and, and as if Trump meant that Obama
00:31:26.220
had gone over there and sat there and raised the black flag. I mean, it is so, it is so utterly
00:31:31.580
imbecilic. I can hardly imagine it's happening at the time. It is. That's a wonderful way to put it
00:31:35.860
is imbecilic. And you just look and you see, I can't tell if these people are being absurdly obtuse
00:31:41.520
or if they're really as dumb as they appear to be. And you have such a good point. So many of the
00:31:46.060
political problems we're dealing with is because this country took all of the wrong lessons from
00:31:51.200
Watergate, from that awful miscarriage of justice around Watergate, but we've got a different guy in
00:31:56.340
office now. And, uh, I, I agree with your estimation of it. I also have to recommend to everybody,
00:32:01.280
Lord Black, I will let you go. Finally, you've been very generous with your time.
00:32:04.960
Everybody has to go out and read this book. It is really, really enjoyable. It is, uh, it's a fair
00:32:10.080
take on Donald Trump. It's not fawning. It's not attacking him. It gives a really fair look at it.
00:32:15.400
And it tells you so much that, uh, our mainstream media won't tell us because all of the fact checkers
00:32:20.680
are in Cabo sipping pina coladas. Lord Black, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.
00:32:26.060
Thank you, Michael. Can I just leave you one phrase from Sebastian Gorky,
00:32:29.740
he accused somebody who was on a panel with them of being obnoxiously obtuse. That's a wonderful
00:32:34.820
expression. I'm going to have to start using that. I'm going to start, I'm going to tweet
00:32:39.000
that at Gorky now, I think. Obnoxiously obtuse. Tune into the Michael Knowles show, obnoxiously
00:32:43.680
obtuse. Uh, thank you, Lord Black. Thank you, Michael. All right. Before we cut, we've got a lot of mailbag
00:32:48.840
to go to. Uh, before we get to this point, I do want to make my most unpopular opinion. I'm going
00:32:56.200
to alienate the, all of the rest of my audience. A note on Starbucks. A man, so there's been a lot
00:33:03.260
of talk in Starbucks. There was that, uh, black man who was arrested or the cops were called on him
00:33:09.060
because he refused to purchase anything and sat in a Starbucks for a long time. And it was all kind
00:33:13.280
of a strange situation. And now a man in La Cañada in California says that he, he was a Hispanic man
00:33:19.860
and he received a cup of coffee with a racial slur on it. I'll just say it because you need to hear
00:33:25.140
the slur for the pun. And it's not, it's sort of a silly slur. It's the beaner is the name of the,
00:33:30.680
that was on the cup. So how do we know this? Only his friend, the man's friend, uh, has been
00:33:36.240
interviewed about this and the friend doesn't speak any English. So he's just talking in Spanish.
00:33:40.220
English. And, uh, what he would explain though through a translator is that apparently the guy's
00:33:44.680
name is Peter. So he said Peter, but I don't know if the guy can speak English. His friend
00:33:50.400
certainly can't speak English. So I, so they wrote down beaner to Peter, right? Uh, who knows what
00:33:56.080
happened? I don't know what happened. It could have been three options, right? It could have been an
00:34:00.600
honest mistake, uh, like a pretty stupid mistake, but it could have been an honest one. Never,
00:34:05.040
uh, never underestimate the stupidity of, uh, of people when you encounter them.
00:34:09.720
So it could have been an honest mistake. It could have been an insult. There could have been some
00:34:14.480
hateful racist employee who said, I'm going to show this guy who doesn't possibly speak English
00:34:19.760
anyway, but I'll show him. I'll get a kick out of it. Okay. Could have been that. Or it could have
00:34:23.620
been a hoax. It could have just been a hoax. I hate to, everyone's going to call me a bigot now for
00:34:29.520
saying it could be a hoax. We've seen a ton of these hoaxes all over the place. We've seen it on the
00:34:33.620
issue of gay cakes. You remember there was a, a gay guy said that someone wrote a derogatory slur
00:34:39.600
on his cake that he bought at a bakery. They found that he wrote it himself. We've seen racial hoaxes
00:34:44.260
around the country. We've seen a lot of these sort of hoaxes. I suppose it could have been that
00:34:48.740
the question you have to ask yourself is, is what is the point here? Is the, is the allegation that
00:34:52.540
Starbucks is racist? Starbucks, which makes a point to, uh, be as progressive on questions of race
00:35:01.740
as possible as Starbucks, which is so overwhelmingly pushing all of those progressive narratives that
00:35:07.500
really secretly it's this Confederate holdout that hates racial minorities. Is that what they're
00:35:12.200
saying? Nobody believes that everybody is just pretending. It's a, I kind of like it on the left
00:35:17.260
because it's a circular firing squad. They all just keep killing each other, rhetorically killing
00:35:22.920
each other. I don't want that to be misinterpreted too. Now that's going to be the next boycott.
00:35:25.940
They're going to boycott the whole show, you know, obnoxiously obtuse. But the, but the question
00:35:31.440
with Starbucks is what do people really think? Nobody really believes that Starbucks is racist
00:35:35.900
on the point of Starbucks. I love Starbucks. I think it's just terrific. I love Starbucks. I don't,
00:35:43.080
oh, it's overpriced. It's not overpriced. Dunkin' Donuts is more expensive per ounce of coffee than
00:35:47.660
Starbucks. Dunkin' Donuts is dirty. Dunkin' Donuts, you know, has that awful fluorescent lighting.
00:35:52.340
Most of the people there don't speak English at the ones that I've gone to. Uh, they give you
00:35:55.940
way too much milk when you ask for just a drop of milk. I go to my beautiful Starbucks. It smells
00:36:00.160
great. The baristas are smiling. They have silly purple hair and weird piercings. I don't care.
00:36:04.740
I find it sort of charming in my barista. I go in, I can plug in my computer. I can sit,
00:36:09.140
I can use a clean bathroom. I can do work for hours and hours. I just have to buy a $2 cup of coffee.
00:36:13.780
I get unlimited refills. I love Starbucks. Starbucks has done more for cities in this country
00:36:19.760
and around the world than any other organization in history because it is the best public bathroom in
00:36:25.480
any, uh, any city in the history of the world. I love Starbucks. The lefties now don't like it
00:36:31.380
because it's allegedly racist. Conservatives don't like it because it's so just obnoxiously liberal.
00:36:36.600
I don't care. It's a good company. It grew very big because it offered a good product
00:36:39.940
enough. I will defend Starbucks, even poor Starbucks whom nobody likes anymore. We have
00:36:45.640
a lot in the mailbag to get to, but you've got to go to dailywire.com. You have to, I'm sorry,
00:36:50.360
but we have a really good mailbag today. We're going to have to burn through it in like six
00:36:53.020
minutes. So go to dailywire.com right now. What do you get? You get me, you get the Andrew
00:36:56.660
Clavin show, you get the Ben Shapiro show. You have to ask questions in the mailbag, like the one
00:36:59.760
that we're just about to go to. You get to ask questions in the conversation. The next one up
00:37:03.000
is the big boss, Ben Shapiro. None of that matters. So these are the leftist tears. This is coming out of
00:37:13.720
the leftist tears Tumblr. Lord Conrad Black has just suggested that members of Hillary Clinton's
00:37:19.320
cabal could go to jail because they lied under oath. We've seen the mainstream media and the
00:37:24.980
Democrats defending violent psychopath gang members who behead little children. Probably
00:37:29.180
won't look that good in November. Get this before it's too late because otherwise you're going to
00:37:32.380
drown and that'll be no good. Go to dailywire.com. We'll be right back with the mailbag.
00:37:35.240
We're going to burn through these questions because I want to spread all of the covfefe to
00:37:49.720
all of the people who've asked. First from Amy. Hi, Michael. How would you solve the homelessness
00:37:54.900
problem in LA? A bulldozer probably, or maybe a steamroller in the Knowles mayorship in LA.
00:38:02.880
I, I, I'm only slightly kidding. The answer is police though, because this has worked in other
00:38:09.100
cities. It would work in LA, but we have a terrible mayor in Eric Garcetti. We have an awful
00:38:13.020
administration. They're destroying this city. Huge surges in, uh, uh, people sleeping on the street
00:38:18.720
and committing crimes on the street. And it's just awful because this mayor is terrible. The police
00:38:22.640
should approach homeless people every time they see them and offer three choices, shelters,
00:38:28.080
shelters, psych wards, or jail. Those are, those are the three choices, shelters, psych wards,
00:38:34.640
or jail. So just to begin, I would stop subsidizing homelessness, which the city of LA does. You can get
00:38:41.740
a ton of benefits. You can get all of these really nice things. The police don't bother you. They
00:38:45.760
construct whole cities, terrible crime ridden little tent cities under bridges in otherwise nice
00:38:51.240
neighborhoods. They've destroyed downtown LA. I would stop subsidizing homelessness and I would start
00:38:56.240
arresting people if they refused shelter. I forget who said this. I think Giuliani said this a few
00:39:01.180
years ago. Sleeping on the street is a dysfunctional act, which harms the individual who does it and
00:39:06.880
society at large. People have no right to do it. They have no right to sleep on the streets. That is
00:39:12.120
public property. They have no right to do it. Giuliani did this in the nineties. He sent the cops and
00:39:16.840
said, you either go to that shelter, you get arrested, you go. And it worked. It worked because nobody
00:39:21.400
benefits. There's nothing compassionate about letting these people sleep on the street. Nothing
00:39:25.340
compassionate at all. It's cruel to let people do it. The compassionate solution is to give these
00:39:30.500
people help and get them off the street. Nobody benefits from letting vagabonds and psychotics and
00:39:35.960
drug addicts sleep there, least of all them. There are ample homeless shelters in LA. It creates a lot
00:39:42.140
of dangerous situations. Excuse me. I saw this in New Haven when I lived there. There was a tent city
00:39:49.840
that sprung up and everyone said, oh, that's so nice. Let's all be compassionate. Cool, man. I was
00:39:54.900
one of the few people on campus who said, this is really a terrible idea. They said, how cruel of you
00:39:59.920
to say that. How awful. And sure enough, within a matter of days, a woman was raped in that camp.
00:40:04.300
The bad things happen when you let people sleep on the street, wouldn't tolerate it. And a compassionate
00:40:08.880
and serious administration wouldn't tolerate it. From James James. Hey, Michael.
00:40:13.440
I'm sure you have recently seen the video where the Pope answered the question of a dead atheist's
00:40:18.480
son. If not, I have seen it, but I'll read this for everyone else. If not, the boy said his dad was
00:40:23.980
an atheist, but still baptized his four children. He asked if his dad was going to heaven. The Pope
00:40:30.280
replied something to the effect of, this was a father who loved his kids. He got them all baptized.
00:40:35.520
What do you think? Do you think God would keep this man out of heaven? Of course not.
00:40:38.200
In other words, the Pope answered that even though the dad thought Jesus was as fake as the tooth
00:40:43.720
fairy, this guy would still make it into heaven because he baptized his four kids. What do you
00:40:48.400
make of this? Thanks, James. Well, I would say, first of all, I can't blame Pope Francis for some
00:40:55.280
poor little boy comes up and says, my daddy's dead. Is he roasting in hell for eternity? Was Pope
00:41:00.720
Francis supposed to say, yeah, he is. You bet, kid. And you better watch out or you'll end up there too.
00:41:04.840
No, but again, we're talking about the truth, not just comfort. And even on the question of truth,
00:41:11.260
I will point out the father baptized his four kids. Why did he do that? If he thinks Jesus is
00:41:16.840
just as fake as the tooth fairy, why did he baptize his four kids? I don't know. Our faculties of reason
00:41:23.460
are quite limited. Very frequently, we convince ourselves of things that we know really aren't true.
00:41:28.920
I'm sort of convinced that there aren't really atheists at all. Norm MacDonald has a bit on this.
00:41:33.900
He says, you know, the reason there can't be atheists is if you don't believe in something,
00:41:39.900
you usually don't spend all of your time thinking about it. You know, like atheists do. It's that
00:41:44.620
line, an atheist, a vegan, and a crossfitter walk into a bar. How do I know? They told me within two
00:41:49.400
seconds. The atheists, they're always talking about God. They're always grappling with God. So I don't
00:41:53.420
really buy it. And moreover, I can't say who's in heaven and who's in hell. I really can't do that.
00:41:58.360
I do not even know definitively if Judas Iscariot is in hell. I have my suspicions,
00:42:03.780
you know, but you can't say that indefinitely. He could have had a conversion and repentance at the
00:42:08.840
very end as he's hanging on that noose. Who knows? So I really, I think there is a lot to question
00:42:14.980
in this pontificate. I'll put that very diplomatically, but I actually don't think his
00:42:20.440
interaction with that kid is one of them. I think the answer was perfectly fine. From Dylan.
00:42:24.260
Dylan. Hello, King of Trolls. Can I get a happy birthday? Thanks. Dylan. No. From Andy. No,
00:42:29.480
I'm kidding. Okay. Happy birthday, Dylan. From Andy. Hey, Michael, do you foresee a breaking point
00:42:34.080
for the left? It seems they've pinned themselves into identity politics, which almost forces them
00:42:38.440
to continue becoming more and more extreme, or I suppose always forces them. As a college student,
00:42:44.600
I was surprised to see that a lot of my classmates and friends find this way of thinking useless and
00:42:48.400
counterproductive. Contrary to popular belief, there are a lot of us that actually crave genuine debate and
00:42:53.960
exchange of ideas, and it seems to me that this postmodern way of thinking makes honest conversation
00:42:58.720
impossible. Could we see a reduction in this way of thinking in the Democrat Party? I do not see them
00:43:04.160
being able to win elections with this message or lack thereof. Thanks. Yeah, they're going to have to
00:43:08.400
change or they're going to die as a political party. Again, I'm speaking rhetorically. I just want
00:43:12.580
to be very clear. The Democratic Party has moved in this way really since the ascendance of Barack Obama
00:43:18.640
into this very vicious, divisive, angry identity politics, which says we don't like America. We
00:43:25.340
want to fundamentally transform America. We don't like our countrymen. You have privilege. You have
00:43:29.280
this. You have that. And it's very mean. During that period of time, they lost a thousand seats across
00:43:33.420
the country. During the presidency of Barack Obama, they lost a thousand seats across the country.
00:43:38.600
They lost the House. They lost the Senate. They ultimately lost the presidency. To Donald Trump,
00:43:42.880
a lot of people think Donald Trump wasn't a great candidate for president. I won't go into that
00:43:48.400
here. But if you think that, the fact that even that candidate was able to win tells you something
00:43:53.600
about the state of the Democrats. So I hope they don't change. I hope they keep it up. Keep it right
00:43:57.940
up. And the Republicans are going to rule for the next century. From James. We'll get a couple more.
00:44:03.380
Good sir, Michael Canolis. According to the political spectrum, is Islam considered extreme
00:44:08.720
right-wing religious conservative or has it been co-opted by the leftists in America and Europe?
00:44:12.880
For identity politics and is now a far-left ideology similar to fascism, particularly national
00:44:18.560
socialism. Side note, thank you for keeping the cigar industry alive as well. I'm also an enthusiast,
00:44:24.780
particularly of the Maduro variety. Great commentary as always, Jim. A very good question. The left
00:44:30.220
certainly has embraced Islam. They've invented that word Islamophobia to smear people who don't want to
00:44:36.100
get their heads chopped off or something. I don't know exactly what the word means. But with regard to
00:44:42.020
the left-right spectrum here, I don't think you can fit everything neatly into those categories.
00:44:48.020
And frankly, even using those terms sometimes plays into the modernist hand. It doesn't really get to
00:44:55.480
what you're talking about. The terms right and left, they come from the French Revolution in 1789,
00:45:00.800
relatively recently in historical terms. Supporters of the king and religion at the National Assembly
00:45:06.760
were seated on the president's right and supporters of the French Revolution were seated on his left.
00:45:12.300
That's where we get it from. That's the whole place, left and right in the French Revolution.
00:45:16.180
It referred to seating, not necessarily ideology. So, and actually at the time, the right sort of
00:45:22.600
opposed this breakdown because they opposed shallow factions and political parties. But because the left-right
00:45:28.420
spectrum originates in this radical modernity in the French Revolution, it doesn't really capture the
00:45:33.960
variety of political views. Conservatives, just to use one of the examples you give, conservatives always
00:45:38.320
quibble over whether fascism is on the left or the right. In some ways, it seems like it's right-wing
00:45:43.640
because there's a great love of country, you could say, in fascism. But in some ways, it's obviously
00:45:48.300
left-wing. It's atheistic, usually hostile to religion, hostile to many traditions, collectivist.
00:45:54.280
So it seems rather left-wing there too. Really what you could say is it's just modern.
00:45:58.620
Fascism and communism, they're two sides of the same coin. Now, this doesn't work when you try to
00:46:04.640
apply it to older ideas. What would you call the Aristotelian system of ethics? Would you call
00:46:10.480
that left or right? I don't know. It predates left and right by thousands of years. Islam also
00:46:14.740
predates left and right by a thousand years. Islam is not modern. What is Islam? Islam is a religion
00:46:21.800
that grew out of a Christian heresy in the seventh century and involved aspects of Arab nationalism,
00:46:27.700
pan-Arab nationalism, and came as a strange new twist on the Abrahamic faiths. So I don't
00:46:35.980
really think it's a question of right or left. I think you should expand the thought there and
00:46:40.420
make it a question of right or wrong. On that point, I'll say Islam crucially denies the crucifixion
00:46:45.220
of Christ, the conquest of death. So when you're trying to answer that question, it's a good one to
00:46:49.820
ask. Can I do one more? Will you let me do one more? I can do one. I can only do one more. Let's make
00:46:55.900
it a good one. Let's make sure that we can do a really good one. Okay. All right. We'll just do
00:47:01.840
the next one and then we'll just have to get to the rest of the next week. From Emily. Hey, Michael,
00:47:06.060
I've been reading a hagiography about the life of St. Catherine of Siena. It's been a great read,
00:47:10.260
but it leaves me with a nagging question. St. Catherine had a vision of God at the age of seven.
00:47:15.060
She was extremely aware from a young age of the presence of God and his importance in her life.
00:47:19.660
Why is it that God would give her major confirmation that he exists,
00:47:22.820
but others languish in a sea of uncertainty their entire lives? Her life, thanks to her visions,
00:47:27.980
was certainly not an easy one, but it does seem like a life of virtue would be so much easier if
00:47:31.700
you have zero doubts about God's existence. Thanks, Emily. I love St. Catherine of Siena,
00:47:37.660
but I don't think a life of virtue is necessarily easier if you have more evidence than others of God's
00:47:46.040
existence. Just take St. Peter and Judas. Let's take Judas first. Judas spends Christ's ministry
00:47:54.620
with Christ. He sees Christ raise dead people to make them living again. He sees Christ multiply
00:48:02.220
fishes and to feed thousands of people and bread to feed thousands of people. He sees him heal the
00:48:07.500
lame and the blind and the sick and walk on water, and then he betrays him. But he saw it. He sees
00:48:15.540
Christ as who he is. He sees the incarnation of God. He betrays him anyway. St. Peter. St. Peter
00:48:21.560
sees the transfiguration of Christ on the mountain. He sees this unbelievable vision. He knows for certain
00:48:28.580
the Father reveals to Peter that Christ is the Christ. And what does he do? He denies him three times.
00:48:33.140
What does he do? He denies him three times. So I don't know that that's necessarily the case.
00:48:40.140
Just in one's own experience, if you've ever had a numinous experience or religious experience of God,
00:48:46.240
it's unmistakable when it happens. It's unmistakable. It's also ineffable, so it's not much use
00:48:51.060
trying to explain it. But it's unmistakable when it happens. And you're shocked by this. You're in awe,
00:48:55.900
holy fear. And then like five minutes later, you just start sinning again. You know, it's not funny.
00:49:03.040
It's kind of sad. But just, you have this experience. And then regardless, you fall away
00:49:09.040
because it's a fallen world. And that's an aspect of human nature. So I don't know about that. The
00:49:13.600
evidence for God is ample. And there were no good arguments for atheism. They're just temptations,
00:49:18.440
basically. They're just temptations. And all of us have temptations. St. Catherine of Siena as well.
00:49:24.320
Okay, I hope that helps. There are, ah, there's so many other good questions. We'll just,
00:49:27.860
we'll bring them back next week. Have a good weekend. I'll see you on Monday. I'm Michael Knowles.
00:49:32.640
This is The Michael Knowles Show. I will see you Monday.
00:49:34.900
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Senia Villareal. Executive producer, Jeremy Borey.
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00:50:04.900
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