Ep. 1589 - Trump & Elon Musk Rally Reaction
Episode Stats
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Summary
Trump returns to the site of his near assassination. Senator Ron Johnson wonders about a second shooter at the assassination attempt. And now the American Dream costs a whopping $4.4 million. We will get into all of it on The Michael Knowles Show.
Transcript
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President Trump makes his triumphant return to the site of his near assassination.
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Senator Ron Johnson wonders about a potential second shooter at the aforementioned assassination
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attempt. And now, the American dream costs a whopping $4.4 million. We will get into all of
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it. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.
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Welcome back to the show. The collection of white dudes for Kamala is leaving a lot of people
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Go text Knowles to 989898 today. Trump returns to the site of his near assassination, Butler,
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Pennsylvania, where he came within a hair's breadth, a 20-degree turn at the very last minute
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of having the back of his skull blown off by a shooter. This time, he brought some friends. Well,
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I guess he brought friends the first time, all of those great Trump supporters who showed up
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to what is now an increasingly dangerous event, a Trump rally. He brought some friends on stage too,
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including one of the wealthiest, and I suppose you would say now one of the most powerful men in
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the world ever since he owned, ever since he bought X and now has part of the public square,
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American astronauts into space. Come here. Take over, Elon. Yes, take over.
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You know, the true test of someone's character is how they behave under fire.
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And we had one president who couldn't climb a flight of stairs,
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and another who was fist pumping after getting shot. This one request is very important. Register
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to vote. Okay. And get everyone you know and everyone you don't know, drag them to register to vote.
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There's only two days left to register to vote in Georgia and Arizona. 48 hours.
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Like, text people now. Now. And then make sure they actually do vote.
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If they don't, this will be the last election. That's my prediction.
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He said a lot more. He did a lot more. But this arc shows you, I think, why people really like Elon,
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why Elon has a lot of credibility, why Elon has many hundreds of billions of dollars, and why Elon
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would endorse Trump. Because Elon and Trump have something in common besides being billionaires.
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Elon and Trump are both totally confident being themselves. Elon and Trump are both
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completely authentic, love them, hate them, think they're weird, think they're eccentric. They don't
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care. They are themselves. Elon Musk comes on stage, jumping up and flailing and dancing around
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in exuberance. Kamala Harris pretends that her campaign is all about joy. They tried this obviously
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focus-tested, contrived slogan for the campaign. Joy! Elon actually demonstrated joy yesterday.
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That's what joy looks like. Joy looks kind of weird sometimes. I don't want to take this too far.
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But when I picture King David dancing before the Lord, that's kind of what I picture. I picture it
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being a little bit weird and people being embarrassed for him or having secondhand shame for this
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exuberant display. But Elon don't care. Other billionaires, other very serious businessmen who own
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corporations and they wear neckties and things, they would have walked on stage and said, listen,
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here are the stakes and I support Trump because we need to reduce our regulations and increase
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America's competitiveness for businesses like mine. Elon doesn't do that. He just jumps up and down.
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He walks on stage. He's wearing the dark MAGA hat. It fits in with his aesthetic, the black clothes and
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the black cyber truck. But then, he's not a clown. Far from it. Elon gets on stage and he explains
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clearly and soberly why he's supporting Trump. He says, this man showed courage under literal fire.
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That is an important quality for a president. And he goes on in his speech to say he supports X, Y,
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and Z issues. And then he makes this grand point that people are going to mock him for. He says,
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there won't be elections if Trump loses. What does Elon mean by this? Well, he's explained
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elsewhere what he means by this. He means the Democrats are importing enough foreign nationals
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into the country. And they've been doing so for many years, but they've really ramped it up in
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recent years. They're importing so many foreigners into the country that the votes of Americans will
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not matter if Democrats win this election, especially because Kamala Harris is running on not only
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importing more foreigners into the country, not only are they currently giving these foreigners
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voter registration forms, and many of them have been caught on undercover videotapes from the
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Heritage Foundation and elsewhere saying that they will go out there and they will vote.
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But Kamala Harris is saying, we're going to give these people amnesty. We're going to put them on a
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pathway to citizenship so they'll be able to vote legally. Some of these states are decided by 10,000
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votes. Arizona was decided by 10,500 votes in 2020. Right now, there are over 200,000 voters in Arizona
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who might be ineligible to vote at the state and local level because they haven't provided proof of
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citizenship. Okay, the razor thin margins that decide these elections compared to the millions and
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millions of foreigners that the Democrats are importing into the country, it's not even close.
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So when Elon says, look, it's game over for American sovereignty, when Donald Trump says
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there is no greater act of disloyalty to your country than to undermine its sovereignty, which
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is what Kamala Harris has done as the vice president, as the borders are, this is what they're talking
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about. So then after Elon's excellent speech, I suppose before Elon comes on stage, President Trump
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walks out. He opens up, he used that line that he said he was going to use, which is, as I was saying,
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and then he turns and there's that graph on the screen, the graph that was the immediate cause of
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saving his life because back in July, Trump pulled up a graph about immigration. And it was just at that
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very last minute when he goes to look at the numbers on the graph, on the chart, that his head turns and
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the bullet misses him. It doesn't quite miss him, but it only hits his ear. So Trump begins, as I was
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saying, he goes on and on. But then, timed perfectly, at exactly the moment that the shots rang out,
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President Trump has a moment of silence for Corey Comparator, the Trump supporter who died
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heroically shielding his wife and kids from the assassin's bullets. And he has a moment of silence for
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Corey, followed by one of the most remarkable moments in not just modern American presidential
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politics, but in American politics, period. It is 6-11, 12 weeks to the minute that the shooting began.
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I would like to ask everyone to join me in a moment of silence.
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So there are no cuts in here. There was that moment of silence. The bell rings out. But this is what is
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really remarkable. You're hearing the beginning of what sounds like Ave Maria. And then a singer walks on stage.
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There are so many people here. I don't know, what is it, 100,000 people or something. I mean, you can look at the aerial views.
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Well, there's a lot of red MAGA hats. And they're all here, some heads bound, listening to the Ave Maria. It was just the Hail Mary in Latin.
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I would sit here and listen to all of the Ave Maria, but we can get to the significance of it.
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What is going on here? Is this the first time that the Ave Maria has been sung at an American political rally,
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at a presidential rally? I can't think of any other example.
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There isn't often a lot of Latin that is spoken or sung at these, much less Latin in a traditional hymn,
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a prayer, actually, the Hail Mary, and specifically a prayer associated with Catholics.
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There's so much more to say. First, though, go to SupremeCoup.com slash Knowles.
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K-N-W-L-E-S, today. A lot of people are going to be scratching their heads as to how an apparently
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lapsed Presbyterian, whose supporters are largely non-denominational Protestants, would wind up in
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a field in Pennsylvania with about 100,000 other supporters listening to, in some cases singing,
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the Ave Maria, a prayer for all Christians, a very ancient prayer, but that is specifically
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associated with Catholics. Add on to that President Trump's recent social media posts. He posted on the
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Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady on Mary's birthday. And he posted on Truth Social. He said,
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happy birthday, Mary. And he posted an icon, or he posted the image from the tilma of Our Lady of
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Guadalupe, which is this image that converted millions and millions of people in the Western
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Hemisphere. A miraculous image venerated in the Catholic Church. So it's specifically associated
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with Catholics. Then he posted later the St. Michael prayer on the Feast of St. Michael,
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Michaelmas, which is an ancient Christian feast celebrated not only by Catholics, also by the
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Eastern Orthodox and also by some Protestants, Anglicans, and Lutherans. But he posted a prayer
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written by Pope Leo XIII. What's going on here? Why is it the case that there seems to be such a
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Catholic influence, not just on the Trump campaign, but on the whole MAGA movement? Not just on the
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whole MAGA movement, but on conservatism broadly. I mean, J.D. Vance obviously is Catholic. Someone on
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the social media team would appear to be Catholic. Melania was raised Catholic. The conservative
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intellectual movement has been Catholic for a long time. William F. Buckley Jr., Russell Kirk,
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Phyllis Schlafly. I'm just naming a handful. A lot of the present people in D.C. are Catholic.
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A lot of grassroots. What is going on? I'll tell you what's going on. This is not surprising,
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at least should not be surprising, if you've read your Alexei de Tocqueville, Democracy in America.
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This is probably the greatest read on American politics, on early American politics, written all
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the way back in the early 19th century. In book one, chapter six of Democracy in America,
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Alexei de Tocqueville writes, I am inclined to believe that our posterity will tend more and more
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to a single division into two parts. A single division, religiously, into two parts. Some
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relinquishing Christianity entirely, and others returning to the bosom of the Church of Rome.
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So Tocqueville famously, he's a Frenchman, he comes to America, he tours around all these small
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little towns in New England, he travels all around America, and he writes his take on American
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democracy, which has been lauded ever since as one of the most insightful analyses of the American
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Republic. And yet, there's this little part in here, book one, chapter six, where he says,
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yeah, I think Americans are going to end up either Catholic or atheist. I think those are the two
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divisions they're going to tend toward. And as we live and breathe, we are seeing those two divisions
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expand. What is his reasoning? Why is it that America is going to end up Catholic or atheist?
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Well, his reasoning, he writes, is that men living in democratic ages are therefore very prone to shake
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off all religious authority. But if they consent to subject themselves to any authority of this kind,
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they choose at least that it should be single and uniform. Religious powers not radiating from a
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common center are naturally repugnant to their minds. And they almost as readily conceive that
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there should be no religion as that there should be several. That's his reasoning. You can take it or
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leave it. But that is why Tocqueville predicted that this Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania would
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sound and look like this. Now, you might say, well, there are a lot of Catholics in Pennsylvania.
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Sure, there are Catholics in Pennsylvania. There are a lot of Catholics in a lot of different parts of
00:17:10.540
America. I don't think there being some Catholics in Pennsylvania would explain this. You don't see
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this kind of thing from the Mitt Romney campaign or the John McCain campaign or the Bush campaign or
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the other Bush campaign. This is increasing. The Catholicity of conservatism and MAGA and Trump
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is at least aesthetically and at least rhetorically is increasing. And it isn't just Trump. And it isn't
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just the handful of people around Trump. I'm inclined to believe that Tocqueville was right
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about a lot of things. And this seed was planted long ago. And history has been moving in this
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direction. Now, speaking of the shooting, Republican Senator Ron Johnson has questions about the
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shooting. And he is entertaining the theory that perhaps Trump was not almost murdered in that
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field in Pennsylvania, merely by some weird 20-year-old who was registered as a Republican,
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but who voted for Democrats and I guess supported Joe Biden and who we don't really know anything about
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and who had no social media footprint. And then the whole thing is just a little strange.
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We interviewed one of the snipers on Hercules 2. That was the team that was obstructed by a tree,
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couldn't see crooks. In the testimony, and we haven't interviewed the other guy, but that sniper
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said he thought, when he started hearing shots fired, he thought his partner was hit because he
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heard the zip crack of a bullet fly to his left. Looks over, he wasn't. He said, how far do you think
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that bullet was to our left? And his partner goes, I thought it was to the right. They're six feet
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apart. So as it stands right now, the testimony is a bullet flew between Hercules 2, the second
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sniper team. They couldn't see crooks. Crooks couldn't see them, which puts pressure on the
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FBI. And I just put it on today. When are we going to get your ballistics report, your bullet
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trajectory report, the audio report from, you know, where's your analysis?
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So Senator Johnson is not exactly the most tinfoil hat eccentric member of the upper chamber. Okay.
00:19:28.780
He's a pretty reserved guy, a pretty staid guy, put together, not one taken to flights of fancy.
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And he's saying, look, I've listened to the testimony. And the testimony right now is that
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there is a bullet that flew between these two sniper teams. So maybe they just misheard or I
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don't know, but these are pretty highly trained guys. So anyway, we have to at least entertain the
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possibility that there was a different trajectory for at least one of the bullets than we've been
00:19:56.060
told. And if that is the case, then it might change our understanding of what happened in that
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field in Pennsylvania, just two days before the Republican National Convention that would have
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nominated Trump or might not have nominated Trump, I guess, had he been dead. And that occurred just
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eight days before Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. It raises questions,
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not just for the crazy internet people, but even for people as reserved and moderate as Senator Johnson.
00:20:25.180
So then what are we supposed to conclude? Especially that they don't have the ballistics report. We don't
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know. I mean, this happened a little while ago now, guys. How come the FBI is not getting the US
00:20:36.480
Senate the kind of information that it's requesting? It raises questions, especially because palace
00:20:44.400
coups occur throughout history. It isn't that unusual for a big political leader to be assassinated
00:20:53.040
or for someone to try to assassinate him or for powerful people within the society to try to
00:20:58.080
assassinate him. That isn't unusual at all. It's not unusual. I mean, a disproportionate number of
00:21:05.260
American presidents have been assassinated or have had attempts on their life. And palace coups happen.
00:21:10.980
A soft palace coup happened just eight days after the near assassination of Trump in the Biden
00:21:17.000
campaign. When the Biden campaign locked him up in his house in Delaware and then posted something to
00:21:21.040
social media saying, I'm dropping out of the race. Forced him out. These things happen all the time.
00:21:26.400
Add to all of that, this talk about Trump posing an existential threat to the republic,
00:21:33.360
Hitler 2.0, it's at least possible. It's at least possible that something else happened
00:21:40.900
in Pennsylvania than we have been officially told, especially as so much information has been withheld,
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especially as one of the explanations as to why law enforcement or secret service didn't make it up
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onto the roof where the shooter was positioned was because the roof was sloped. Well, you know,
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we had agents up there yesterday. So I guess they figured out how to get over the very slight slope
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on the roof. It just, there were just a lot of holes in the story. And so I think Senator Johnson is
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totally right to keep pressing on this. And I think every day that the federal government doesn't
00:22:14.420
get the Republican senators information, it raises even more questions. There's so much more to say.
00:22:20.820
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And I, oh boy, I got to bring my blood pressure down when I tell you this news. This was going
00:23:54.380
viral on the internet yesterday. You boys been ripped off, okay? Your favorite author of blank books,
00:24:04.400
yours truly, has been ripped off. There is a new book that has hit the shelves. I take it from this
00:24:12.320
video in Walmart. The Achievements of Kamala Harris by Jason Duda, maybe. I can't quite tell the name
00:24:21.420
of the author because just the way that it's filmed. A book filled with blank pages. And then I think it's
00:24:30.180
on Amazon too. The description of the book actually mimics some of our language. In my magnum opus,
00:24:41.180
number one bestseller on all of Amazon and still selling well today, Reasons to Vote for Democrats,
00:24:47.480
a comprehensive guide, also filled with blank pages. Now, if I sue this man, his legal defense,
00:24:54.440
of course, could be that he stole nothing. And I don't know the case law on this. So I don't know
00:25:00.540
if I'm really, he better lawyer up. But I don't know if I could really bring suit. Of course,
00:25:05.940
there have been blank books before mine. There was Everything Men Know About Women. That's a good one.
00:25:12.160
The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro T. Agnew. That was another one. It actually goes back to 1880. So
00:25:16.500
maybe I don't have much of a case. And good on this guy,
00:25:19.380
because it made me realize when this joke came out, I'm sure it's a good, it's obviously his thesis
00:25:25.160
is totally correct. It made me think, wow, man, it's been seven, almost eight years since my blank
00:25:33.920
book. That's a long time. Seven, almost eight years since I had my blank magnum opus out there.
00:25:43.080
And yet nothing about politics has changed. And I don't mean that in the sense that,
00:25:48.120
ah, well, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, you know. This is how politics, this is
00:25:51.940
life. It's a turn. No, I mean, I mean it much more practically and literally. We have the same
00:25:56.780
candidates. I mean, Trump, eight years later, Trump is still the candidate. He's still the Republican
00:26:04.820
nominee. And you might say, well, Kamala wasn't the nominee in 2016. Sure, but Kamala was the VP for
00:26:14.040
Joe Biden. Joe Biden was the VP for Barack Obama, who Trump was following. And more broadly,
00:26:22.340
Hillary was the candidate. And more broadly, Kamala, Biden, Hillary are all the exact same
00:26:28.520
kind of candidate. They're just avatars of the liberal establishment. There's nothing particularly
00:26:36.040
novel or individual about them. Hillary Clinton just is. She has formed so much of the Democrat
00:26:44.180
establishment. Joe Biden is just a total empty suit. And then Kamala Harris was the empty pantsuit
00:26:49.820
for the empty suit in office. So it's all just the same kind of thing. They basically keep the
00:26:57.000
same suit and they just replace the person who's in it. And then you have Trump there, who's the
00:26:59.900
same candidate. Furthermore, not only do we have the same candidates that we had, or the same types of
00:27:04.680
candidates we had in 2016, they're running on the same issues. The weird trans stuff and migration
00:27:11.720
and free speech to a lesser degree. And then not only do we have the same candidates and the same
00:27:19.360
issues, but we even have the same jokes. Because in 2016, you had my book, Reasons to Vote for
00:27:24.980
Democrats, and now you have the achievements of Kamala Harris. And so it just feels like we are stuck
00:27:29.960
in this morass of the status quo. Fashions don't change as much anymore. Candidates don't change.
00:27:38.840
Issues don't change. I don't know what it is. Is this a technological fact that as technology has
00:27:45.200
advanced, we're all just locked in exactly the same place? We're in the eternal present? Is this
00:27:50.260
an ideological fact that as the ideology of presentism has advanced, the notion that the past
00:27:56.340
was totally terrible and we should just remain in a perpetual present and ignore the wisdom of our
00:28:02.240
ancestors and our own history? I don't know what it is, but it's like Groundhog Day. This is the
00:28:09.760
Groundhog Day campaign, and who knows? We might be in just a Groundhog Day of politics. There is one
00:28:15.420
thing that has changed, specifically over the past four years, and that is the cost of everything.
00:28:22.100
There's a new report out. This is from Investopedia. The cost of the American dream, as many people
00:28:32.100
understand it today, the lifetime cost. Take a guess. I told you at the top of the show, but if you
00:28:38.140
weren't paying attention or you were just tuning in now, $4.4 million. If you want to have the American
00:28:48.420
dream as it is presently understood over the course of your life, that will require $4.4 million.
00:28:58.980
That's a lot of scratch. How? What's the breakdown? According to Investopedia, you need $1.6 million for
00:29:05.920
retirement. You need $930,000 for home ownership. And you might say, well, I don't need to live in a
00:29:11.640
million-dollar house. It's $930,000 because you'll have a mortgage, presumably, and right now our
00:29:19.680
interest rates are a little bit high. And maybe you'll have multiple homes over the course of your
00:29:22.980
life, but even if you just have one, it adds up. All that interest adds up. Raising two kids, the cost
00:29:29.080
is $832,000 right now. Owning new cars, if you want to own new cars, $811,000 over the course of your
00:29:36.740
life. Annual vacations, $179,000. Wedding, $44,000 is the cost they expect. Pets, this one's shocking,
00:29:45.540
$37,000 to have a pet. And then your funeral will cost $8,000, probably more by the time we die.
00:29:53.880
What does this mean? If Trump and Vance are running on restoring the American dream,
00:29:59.700
Kamala and Joe Biden and Tim Walls now are running me. They don't talk about the American dream as much.
00:30:05.120
They don't like America and their policies are nightmares. So the only dreams they talk about
00:30:10.200
are the dreamers, which is like the 50-year-old gangsters who come over with MS-13 and assault
00:30:17.260
your family and kill people. But we pretend that it's like doughy-eyed eight-year-olds who are just
00:30:23.620
trying to have a break in school. In any case, they don't really talk about that. It's Trump and
00:30:28.080
Vance. How are they going to restore the American dream? Well, we need one thing that Republicans are
00:30:33.160
offering that the Democrats are not. That's pro-growth policies. It means you really do need
00:30:37.480
to grow the economy. There's no substitute for winning. You have to expand the pie. You need to
00:30:44.020
get America growing again. But even then, even if you do have some, I don't know, some regulatory
00:30:52.460
policies that will be beneficial to the American worker, the American family, and can, it's still not
00:30:58.420
going to bring you all the way to $4.4 million. What else do you need? Well, I think you need a
00:31:03.060
reshaping of priorities. Because what the most glaring aspect of this analysis to me is the raising
00:31:10.540
two kids part. That's it. That's all we're aiming at now in America, raising two kids. That's below
00:31:17.740
replacement. Replacement has to be a little bit higher than two kids because people die and because
00:31:25.660
accidents happen. And so really it's what, 2.1 or 2.3 kids is replacement. That's what we're aiming
00:31:31.940
at in America? Just two kids? That's like a big family now. How crazy is that? What if you want,
00:31:38.980
how about three kids? How about four kids? How about we get back to the days when it was normal
00:31:43.580
for Americans to have five or six kids? How about we get back to the days when it was normal, at least
00:31:47.900
for certain religious groups, the Catholics, the Mormons, and the Orthodox Jews, to have eight,
00:31:53.640
nine, or ten kids? How about that, huh? Wow, boy, or more. Then it's going to cost even more. So what
00:32:01.200
does that mean? All right, well, you got to retire. So the $1.6 million seems pretty firm there. Maybe
00:32:08.660
you could live with your kids. Intergenerational housing, that's something that we used to have.
00:32:11.960
We don't really have any more. That'd be, okay. Home ownership, maybe. We used to have,
00:32:16.600
when we talk about how your grandparents were able to get a home for significantly less money,
00:32:20.540
well, in part, it's because their homes were just less nice than the homes we build today. Maybe
00:32:24.160
you need a smaller kind of home. Those homes don't really exist anymore. Maybe we need to start
00:32:27.360
building them. Raising two kids, that's going to cost a lot to raise kids. Maybe you don't send
00:32:33.240
your kid to the private school. Maybe you don't buy your kid the nicest new electronics or the nicest
00:32:37.100
new clothing. But maybe you don't have to buy all the nicest food, but you just, you buy the normal
00:32:42.460
food and you buy the less expensive clothing. You don't have all the electronics. Owning new cars,
00:32:47.400
how about you drive an old car? You don't need to drive a new car.
00:32:49.440
used cars are expensive now, but you could just drive the same car that you have.
00:32:55.480
Annual vacations, maybe you don't take a vacation every single year. Maybe you downscale your
00:32:59.100
vacations. The wedding, maybe you don't need to spend 44 grand on that. Pets, good grief.
00:33:04.040
You know, I hate to say that the Haitians have a point here, but, and the Haitians take it too far.
00:33:09.140
But we don't need to treat our pets like their children. We used to treat our pets like pets.
00:33:14.000
You shouldn't treat your pets like a rotisserie chicken on the one hand, but you also shouldn't
00:33:18.240
treat your pets like a baby and put them in a little stroller and, you know, send them off to
00:33:21.740
college. They're pets. You should treat them like little pets. We need pro-growth policies,
00:33:27.200
but we need a reshaping of priorities, a return to the priorities that we had that prioritized
00:33:34.200
family over stuff and that prioritized human beings over dogs and cars. We need to return to
00:33:41.040
the priorities that we had when our country was growing. That's a big part of making America
00:33:51.560
President Trump has just defended a controversial policy to our friend Dave Ramsey. Trump defended
00:33:57.820
tariffs. The word tariff to me is a very beautiful word because it can save our country, truly. And yet,
00:34:06.060
I think because of graft, because of a lot of consulting payments and other things that given
00:34:11.420
by other countries, we have so much fighting with politicians on using it. I saved our steel
00:34:18.800
industries by putting tariffs on steel that China came in and dumped. And you know what they do?
00:34:24.320
They dump and dump and dump. Everybody goes out of business. Then they buy those businesses very cheap
00:34:28.740
and then they raise the prices to higher than they ever were. That's one of the many benefits that
00:34:33.980
they have if they want to do it. But by putting tariffs on, as an example, in the furniture business
00:34:39.260
in North Carolina, it was so vibrant and they stole our business. And they charge us, if you wanted to
00:34:46.700
build a furniture place, if you want to sell your furniture in China, they won't take it. But if you
00:34:52.620
want to build a plant in China to make furniture in China, using their labor, they open it. We're doing
00:35:00.060
the same thing. So what you were probably taught in school, if you're of a certain age, these days,
00:35:06.700
you know, if you're under 20, say you were probably just taught to go do a bunch of weird sex stuff
00:35:10.700
and do, and that America's evil and that God doesn't exist. And that's for, but if you're a
00:35:17.360
little older than that, and maybe even if you're still younger, you're probably taught tariffs don't
00:35:21.340
work. We were told tariffs don't work, trade, free trade works and tariffs are bad. That was,
00:35:28.520
that was how I was taught 19th and 20th century history. Trump here is giving very practical
00:35:33.600
examples. He says, and he said this in 2016, he said, if tariffs don't work, how come every other
00:35:37.760
country uses them? You know, it seems like they all think it works. China thinks it works. So he says,
00:35:45.600
I don't know, I think a tariff can work. And he explains practical scenarios in which a tariff
00:35:50.040
might work in the present because he's a business guy. He's a pretty practical guy.
00:35:54.020
But then already you're thinking, well, Trump is digging in a little bit more on this issue.
00:35:58.640
Maybe he's not a total idiot like the economists of a certain breed would say that he is. Then he
00:36:05.040
goes on and gives the historical understanding of tariffs. But a lot of people like, oh, well,
00:36:11.540
we don't want to have tariffs. The country was at the richest point in its history in the 1890s. It was
00:36:18.300
all tariffs. If you looked at William McKinley as an example, he was a big tariff president.
00:36:24.040
They had committees that were put in charge of what to do with the money. We were taking in so much
00:36:30.280
money. And McKinley would say, why should we let other people come in and steal our factories and
00:36:35.560
steal our workers and steal our jobs? And why shouldn't we benefit? And he tariffed the other
00:36:42.440
countries. And we made so much. And then they went to the income tax system later on. But they would
00:36:47.640
actually have, they had a blue ribbon committee. Our country was so rich, they didn't know what to
00:36:53.340
do with the money. And this blue ribbon committee was set up to determine how can we spend all of
00:36:59.740
this money? And they took it in through tariffs. But we can turn our country around, make it strong,
00:37:08.560
So President Trump goes back to President McKinley, who was a big tariff guy. He could go back even
00:37:12.860
further to President Abraham Lincoln, who said, give us a tariff and we'll have the greatest nation
00:37:17.900
on earth. So there is a case. I'm not saying tariffs are a cure-all to economic problems.
00:37:24.940
I'm not saying free trade is a terrible thing. What I'm saying is there is a case for tariffs.
00:37:31.200
There is a case for economic protection. The case for free trade, which leads inevitably to
00:37:39.280
globalized markets, which leads, when other countries don't institute their tariffs and
00:37:44.560
just game the system. Globalized markets lead inevitably to global political institutions
00:37:51.400
to govern those international markets, which leads inevitably to globalism.
00:37:58.240
I'm saying free trade isn't perfect. There is a case, a political and economic case,
00:38:05.000
against total free trade. And I know this is going to rankle the feathers of certain Republicans and
00:38:11.200
conservatives. But conservatives especially should know, of course there have to be problems with
00:38:18.340
free trade. No political solution to anything is perfect in this fallen world. There are always
00:38:24.480
going to be trade-offs. There are always going to be costs and there are going to be benefits.
00:38:28.540
That's what Trump is pointing out, which means that Trump is demonstrating greater economic and
00:38:32.900
political insight than basically our entire political and economic elite class for the
00:38:38.600
past quarter century, at least. You know, today is your final chance to join Daily Wire Plus at 47%
00:38:44.020
off. Use code FIGHT at dailywire.com slash subscribe before midnight. Do not miss out on unlimited access
00:38:51.560
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00:38:55.240
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00:38:59.500
investigative journalism that the libs don't want you to see at this incredible discount.
00:39:04.180
Time is running out. Join the fight now before this 47% off deal expires at midnight tonight. Go to
00:39:10.300
dailywire.com slash subscribe. Use code FIGHT for your exclusive discount. That is dailywire.com
00:39:15.980
slash subscribe. Code FIGHT for 47% off new Daily Wire Plus memberships. My favorite comment on Friday
00:39:23.660
is from phoenixrising1675, who says, I've had an abortion, and I'm here to say you never get over
00:39:30.040
it ever, even after 30 years. It's not my favorite comment because of what you went through. I'm very
00:39:37.200
sorry for you and for your baby and for the regret that you feel, of course, or at least the shame and
00:39:43.280
the guilt. The regret, though, of course, is natural. And it's, as I say, I know a number of women who've
00:39:49.920
had abortions, they all regret it. Most of them, I would say, admit that they regret it. Some of them,
00:39:58.700
they just demonstrate that they regret it. But it's a little bit more implicit or it only comes
00:40:04.340
out every so often. But they all regret it. They all do. This is the biggest lie. I was at the Live
00:40:10.280
Action Gala. I love Live Action. Fabulous pro-life organization that specifically educates about pro-life
00:40:16.620
and changes minds on abortion. And the biggest lie, I think, that the abortion industry tells women
00:40:24.720
is not that the baby's not a baby or whatever, because I think most women deep down know that
00:40:31.680
the baby is a baby. It's very hard to have a baby growing inside you and you don't know. I think a
00:40:35.560
lot of women just gaslight themselves and a lot of the men just ignore it. It's a baby. But the biggest
00:40:40.880
lie that the pro-abortion movement tells you is, hey, if you commit this action that you know is
00:40:46.200
wrong, if you kill your baby, you'll be free. You'll be happy. You have to do this. Your life
00:40:55.160
will be terrible if you don't kill your baby. This will be liberating. And it's not. This is
00:41:01.380
what the devil does. The devil whispers in your ear and says, that sin that you're thinking about
00:41:06.960
committing, that sin, it's no big deal. It's no big deal at all. Just do it. It's no big deal. And
00:41:13.180
then the minute you do it, he says, that's the biggest deal in the world. You're totally unlovable.
00:41:17.280
You can never be forgiven. You're irredeemable. You might as well keep sinning because what you
00:41:22.000
just did is the worst. Hey, devil, you just told me that that wasn't a big deal. Huh? What are you
00:41:26.000
talking about? It's the biggest deal ever. That's what the devil does. He says, at first he says you
00:41:31.820
won't be punished. Then he says you won't be forgiven. Both of which are lies.
00:41:35.500
Speaking of tariffs, Peter Navarro, who is a senior White House advisor to President Trump and
00:41:43.500
probably the most prominent pro-tariff voice in the Trump administration. He was just on a panel on
00:41:53.200
MSNBC with a guy, Gordon Sondland, who testified at the impeachment trial, testified against President
00:42:01.040
Trump. And Sondland is coming out on MSNBC and saying, yeah, I can't vote for Kamala. I'm with
00:42:09.920
Trump. A no for you after that. Why was it important for you to say no more Trump because of his January
00:42:15.560
6th conduct? And do you stand by that? No, I don't stand by it. And I'll tell you why.
00:42:20.240
I've now lived four years under the Biden-Harris policies. And I have to say that those policies
00:42:28.160
are not only becoming an existential threat to our country's way of life, but to our allies as
00:42:36.400
well. So when it has to, this is, no, no, I'll let you finish, but this is so striking. You said it
00:42:42.280
was a no for me after that. I did. I did. And here we are right now. I did. And you're saying it's a yes
00:42:48.140
for you. It is a yes for me. It is an absolute yes for me. That is how badly the Biden-Harris team
00:42:55.540
have prosecuted their job. But the whole point you seem to be making was that January 6th and that
00:43:02.240
kind of attack on democracy is bigger than any policy. I am seeing so many attacks on democracy
00:43:08.400
that eclipse January 6th. So I want to ask Sarah, if you want to ask me what those are.
00:43:14.560
My favorite part of this whole clip, you see that right there at the end, that little smile from
00:43:20.820
Peter Navarro, as he hears the line, the most important line from Sondland, who says, yeah,
00:43:26.940
yeah, I know, I know threats on democracy. I know that's why I ditched Trump. We have seen far
00:43:33.660
greater threats to democracy under Biden and Harris. And why is there that little smirk from Peter
00:43:43.160
Navarro? Because Peter Navarro just got out of jail after the Democrats jailed him.
00:43:47.540
Peter Navarro, unprecedented, to jail a senior White House advisor for defying a congressional
00:43:56.020
subpoena. And Navarro is not the only one. They did the same thing to Steve Bannon.
00:44:02.440
That's a threat on democracy. That's a threat on the separation of powers. Congress really has no
00:44:07.480
right to do that. If Congress has ever, in principle, had such a right, they've not exercised it.
00:44:12.600
It disturbs the balance of powers in the country. To imprison one's political opponents
00:44:19.560
simply for holding different political views, obviously is an undermining of American democracy,
00:44:28.200
of the republic. Peter Navarro knows that very well. Gordon Sondland knows that very well.
00:44:34.160
He opens up, he says, this administration has been absolutely terrible. The policies have been
00:44:37.940
absolutely terrible. But then he says, it's not just the economy and it's not just even immigration.
00:44:42.540
It's a fundamental undermining of the American country. Now, some anti-Trump Republicans are
00:44:52.980
sticking with it, such as Adam Kinzinger. Remember him? He was sort of the Ethel to Liz Cheney's Lucy.
00:45:01.040
Adam Kinzinger, he would cry during congressional testimony. He's an interesting one. Adam Kinzinger
00:45:11.360
has launched not just an anti-Trump group, but now an anti-Ted Cruz group, a group that is supporting
00:45:21.160
Colin Allred, the Democrat who's running against Senator Cruz, down in Texas. Allred just announced
00:45:28.680
this in local news down there, Houston Chronicle and ABC 13, and said that the Republicans for All
00:45:35.520
Red coalition will feature former Republicans, and it's a bunch of two-bit players who no one's ever
00:45:40.600
heard of, state rep Jason Vallalba, and a handful of people, and their big superstar, former Republican
00:45:50.020
congressman, Adam Kinzinger. Now, every campaign does this. Every campaign has Republicans for
00:45:56.320
this Democrat, or Democrats for this Republican, or it happens in every campaign, local, all the way up
00:46:02.860
to presidential. In principle, it's no surprise. The Kinzinger of it all shows you the game, though,
00:46:11.560
because Kinzinger said, look, I'm a Republican. I'm a principled Republican. It's not just that I'm a
00:46:18.500
squishy Republican, and that's why I want to support a Democrat, which is usually the case in these Democrats
00:46:24.440
for Republican or Republicans for a Democrat. It's usually these squishy, liberal, moderate, centrist types
00:46:30.040
who go, they flip sides in plenty of elections. Kinzinger, he said, no, I'm so conservative. This is the whole
00:46:37.560
Never Trump movement. I'm so supremely conservative and principled and right wing that I could never vote for
00:46:45.200
this Republican. I'm so principled, I'm going to vote for the Democrat. Okay, all right, maybe there's
00:46:54.280
just something about Trump that really got to the guy, really broke the guy. But what about Cruz?
00:47:02.900
Hold on here. Seems to me that your problem is not really just with Trump, that your problem
00:47:09.020
is with Trump and Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon and the, I don't know, the whole, all the people
00:47:18.520
around Trump. And it's not just the people around Trump. It's also the senators and congressmen who
00:47:24.560
are really close to Trump. But it's not even just the senators and congressmen who are really close to
00:47:28.280
Trump. It's also the chief rival to Trump in 2016. Don't forget, when the election came down to it,
00:47:34.420
it was Trump versus Cruz. So now, oh, so now it just seems like you have a problem with Republicans,
00:47:41.040
which I think is basically what this has always been about. In the very early days,
00:47:45.860
Never Trump might have had some real fears about Trump. But today, first of all, by 2017,
00:47:52.300
anyone who was still saying they were Never Trump was just a Democrat. But certainly by 2020,
00:47:57.480
by 2024, it was never just about Trump. It was about you. And that's what Trump has said for some
00:48:09.200
years now. It's probably the most famous meme of his campaign. They're not coming after me,
00:48:14.100
they're coming after you and I'm in the way. I'm a conservative. I'm a Republican. I don't like
00:48:21.980
the uniparty Democrat establishment, where the Democrats play the leading role and then the
00:48:29.020
Republicans play the supporting role. And they exist to be court jesters in the kingdom of liberalism
00:48:34.200
and to justify the liberal regime. And they'll put up some opposition. But on the crucial issues,
00:48:39.040
when it comes down to it, on migration, on foreign policy, even on economic policy, they'll cave.
00:48:45.480
Certainly on our civil liberties and on the structure of our government, they'll cave.
00:48:49.460
And Trump said, no, what if we don't do that? What if we do something at least a little bit
00:48:55.360
different? That's what this is about. It was never just about Trump. Today is Music Monday, baby. The
00:49:02.940
rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code Knowles at
00:49:06.540
checkout for two months free on all annual plans.