Ep. 1846 - 10,000 Attend JD Vance & Erika Kirk’s Viral Campus Speech
Episode Stats
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Summary
J.D. Vance's appearance at an audience of over 10,000 was remarkable for a number of reasons: 1) it carried on Charlie Chaplin's legacy, 2) it showed leadership and coalition building, and 3) it rewrote GOP orthodoxy to bring it more in line with classical conservatism, with Gen Z conservatism, and also coincidentally with the truth.
Transcript
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Vice President J.D. Vance showed up to speak with Erica Kirk last night at Ole Miss to an audience
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of over 10,000. The event was remarkable for a number of reasons. One, it carried on Charlie's
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legacy. Two, it showed leadership and coalition building. But three, the most notable part came
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in the Q&A. When the vice president rewrote GOP orthodoxy to bring it more in line with classical
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conservatism, with Gen Z conservatism in particular, and also coincidentally with the truth.
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I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.
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As the government shutdown carries on, there's some threats to the SNAP program, EBT, food stamps.
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There's a video gone viral of an Iraqi refugee. Put refugee in quotes because he's a guy. He's a
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grown man. He seems to be totally able-bodied. Looks like he could work and support himself.
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And he's gone viral for saying that he won't be able to stay in this country if the government
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doesn't pay for his food. Raises a lot of questions, actually. This shutdown has exposed
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a lot, I think. But one thing it's exposed is all of the abuses to our entitlement programs,
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how they manipulate the rest of the economy. So we will get to that momentarily. We have an expert,
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someone very close to the situation coming on. First, though, we have a comment for the day.
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And we're going to get to it in the member room segmentum with a great panel. But please let me
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Before we get into the vice president's excellent event last night with Erica Kirk at Ole Miss,
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before we get into the Iraqi refugees, quote unquote, who apparently can't live without
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government subsidized food. Before we get into unbelievable CNN polls on issues ranging from
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the shutdown to the environment, I want to bring on Senator Rand Paul. I can't say he's my senator.
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He is like the top hat to my state. He is the senator from Kentucky and obviously a stalwart,
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especially on matters of government spending, who's going to give us a little update on this
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never-ending government shutdown. Senator, thank you for coming on the show.
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So, Senator, I was at your place of work two days ago, and it was very weird because there were many
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fewer people in the Capitol than there usually are. Traffic in D.C. was great. I could get from
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Reagan Airport to the Capitol in no time. I don't know. To me, this government shutdown seemed
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pretty good. There's some polling that suggests that the shutdown really hasn't worked for Democrats
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in the way they thought that it would. And so, as a result, there seems to be no impetus to actually
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reopen the government. I mean, from the legislature, where does it stand?
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You know, there's always the danger that government closes down and no one notices.
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And that's a little bit of why typically people will play it up. You know, you remember when one
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of the shutdowns, I think this was under Obama, he closed down the overlook on the side of the road
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to see Mount Rushmore. They actually sent people out there with pylons and tape and roped it off.
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It actually involved effort because no one is usually there. You just pull over and it's a viewpoint.
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But, you know, I think that what hasn't been discussed enough of is the Democrats' objections.
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People gloss over it. They say, well, they're objecting because they want these Obamacare
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subsidies. Well, someone should discuss what they are. If you make $225,000 a year,
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the Obamacare subsidy gives you $1,500. If you make $100,000 a year, you get $13,000.
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So the Democrats are refusing to go along with the spending level that they voted for
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last year. Essentially, these are the Biden spending levels. They're refusing to vote again
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for them because unless they get subsidies for rich people. I mean, really? So food stamps are
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going to end, you know, in a couple of days, but they're doing this because they want to make sure
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somebody making $100,000 a year gets a $13,000 healthcare premium subsidy. So I think it's a
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ridiculous notion and ultimately the Democrats will have to come back to the table. Now, from my
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point of view, both the plans are terrible. I mean, the Republican plan will add $2 trillion in debt,
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the Democrat, the Democrat, the Democrat, the Democrat. I would prefer something that I've
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presented, which is called the penny plan, which would actually balance the budget over about a
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five-year period. Well, I love that point, actually, because when I looked at the proposal,
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you know, the continuing resolution and then looking ahead to some of the budgetary fights, I thought
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this doesn't change all that much. I mean, the CR is literally, as you say, just giving Democrats
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the opportunity to go along with something they already voted for under Biden. So then what changes
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do they want? I suspect they honed in on this healthcare issue because it's one of the few issues
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that they still seem to be above water on. There was a poll came out, I forget who put it out about a
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month ago, showed Democrats are on the wrong side of basically every major political issue
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other than women's issues, which are not a high priority for most voters. It really just means
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abortion. Environmentalism, not a high priority for most voters. And healthcare. So they said,
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okay, we'll double down on healthcare. But when you dig into the reality of it, there was this problem
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of subsidizing healthcare for illegal aliens. And then, as you point out, subsidies for rich people.
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So then my question is, if the shutdown isn't hurting Republicans and the Democrats maybe launched
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it as a Hail Mary, it's not really working for them either. What's going to actually reopen the
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government? Is it going to be the end of the SNAP program? Is it going to be flights being delayed
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or canceled? When do we think it'll reopen? I think it's going to happen soon because I think the Democrats,
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their whole history has been criticizing Republicans for shutting down the government. Now that they're
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on the side of not continuing their current spending levels, I think really they're beginning
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to break. I think that within a week, the government will reopen again. And I think it happens quicker
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the more of the public understands that they're shutting it down in order to preserve subsidies for rich
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people. I mean, this has not been discussed in the mainstream media. Very few people have dug into
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the details. We're not talking about healthcare for people making $25,000 or $5,000 or $5,000 or $5,000.
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We're talking about subsidies for people making $200,000 a year. It's completely insane. And I think
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if you polled the issue, are you with Democrats on healthcare if it means they're closing the
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government down to preserve subsidies for people making $200,000 a year? It's a loser. But the only reason
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they're winning on is because nobody has any idea what they're actually advocating.
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It's a great point, Senator Paul. I think you've thrown it into stark relief that early on we said,
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look, we all agree this shutdown is about Democrats trying to make some move on healthcare. But then
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when you dig into the details, okay, how many Americans really want to subsidize healthcare
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for illegal aliens? How many Americans think that rich people don't get enough? We need to really
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focus on the, won't somebody please think about the rich people? So a great point. I'm seeing some
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reporting now coming out of the Hill that says that Democrats are starting to get a little weak in the
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knee. Amazing. I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime that a government shutdown would not be
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blamed on Republicans and that the Democrats would have to buckle. Senator Paul, please enjoy the light
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traffic in DC while you still can. And thanks for everything you do.
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exclusions apply. I talked about it a little bit with Senator Paul. Even CNN has to admit
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this shutdown is not working for Democrats. Starting with Republicans, how has the shutdown
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seemed to have affected their political standing? Yeah, you might think, given that the Republicans
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are in charge of both the House and the Senate, that a government shutdown might actually hurt
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the Republican brand. But in fact, it hasn't. If anything, it's been helped a little bit.
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Take a look here, the shift in net popularity versus pre-shutdown. When we're looking at the
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Republican Party overall, that brand actually up two points. That's within the margin of error,
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but clearly it hasn't dropped. Come over to this side of the screen. Look at the net approval
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ratings for Republicans in Congress. It's actually up five points since pre-shutdown. So what we're
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seeing here is the Republican brand in Congress has actually improved somewhat compared to where we
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were pre-shutdown, despite the fact that Republicans control. And that's the math that John Thune
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and Mike Johnson are looking at is, hey, why should we give, and electorally speaking,
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when our brand has actually improved a little bit?
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This is not even just with the Republican base. Because you could say, okay, well,
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the reason why the popularity has gone up over all three points is because the Republican base just
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really, really loves this. So even if the Democrats and Independents hate it, it just balances out and
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actually adds a few points anyway. No, they're up eight points even with Independents.
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And the reason for this is Democrats thought that this was all politics as usual and nothing's
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changed in the last five or 10 years. And so the Republicans are always going to be blamed for a
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shutdown, even if it's the Democrats who shut it down. And I guess the point, and we'll really get
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to this with J.D. Vance and Erica Kirk at Ole Miss last night. The point is, no, politics has changed
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radically, seismically. And Democrats are playing the old songbook. It's not working anymore.
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It doesn't work on the audience. So Democrats shut the government down because nothing was
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working for them and they were on the wrong side of virtually every 80-20 issue. They thought they
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had a chance to push this on healthcare using a tactic that always worked for them, that always
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redounded to the detriment of Republicans. And none of that worked. None of that worked.
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And now you're seeing, Senator Paul thinks it'll be within a week, you are seeing
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the Democrats even have to backtrack on that. In other words, we are in uncharted waters.
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Now, the CNN pollster, I don't know, I got to start watching CNN. When they talk about the polls,
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the hard data that are a little more difficult to manipulate than the opinion programming,
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all the news is great for Republicans, including something we talked about yesterday.
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I said yesterday that Bill Gates has come out. He's one of the greatest climate alarmists in the
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country, in the world. And he's come out and said, actually, climate change isn't going to kill us
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all. And I said, don't be fooled. This is not Bill Gates having some change of heart that just he
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followed the science and the science led him on. This is a realization that climate change as a
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political issue is not working anymore because they promised the apocalypse. The apocalypse didn't come.
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Now they have to recalibrate. They're following political metrics, not scientific metrics. CNN
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backing that up because right now, when you hear the Democrats tune changing on climate change,
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I think a lot of people will agree with Bill Gates that maybe this wouldn't be the end of humanity.
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And I think, you know, we've been talking about climate change now for decades upon decades upon
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decades. And the worry in terms of climate change, simply put, hasn't shifted. It has not reached the
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majority of Americans. What are we talking about? Greatly worried about climate change. You go all
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the way back to 1989, it was 35 percent, 2000, 40 percent, 2020, 46 percent. And in 2025, look at that,
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it's 40 percent, the same number as we had 25 years ago back in 2000, and then only just five points
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higher than we had back in 1989. Really, we've just seen consistency on this issue. The bottom line is that
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the climate change message that folks who, of course, believe that climate change is real and
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is quite worrisome, simply put, has not really worked with the American people.
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So greatly worried. You say greatly worried. I mean, so people say they're greatly worried,
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40 percent. But how worried, really? Is it the biggest thing they're worried about?
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Yeah, it is not anywhere close to being the biggest thing that people are worried about.
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What are we talking about here? Well, why don't we just talk about top issue facing the U.S.,
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climate change? Well, I got some numbers for you on the screen right here.
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These two guys are great. It almost is like an onion or a Babylon bee sketch. Well,
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things look really, really terrible for Democrats, but how terrible are they?
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They're totally freaking terrible, man. It just couldn't possibly be any worse.
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That's good. And why? Why? Because it used to be the case back in the heyday of wokeism,
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you had 3 percent of people say, oh, climate change is really a top priority. And now it's down to 2 percent.
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But you saw those numbers remain pretty stable going back to 1989. And the libs have been pushing
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the climate change stuff since the 70s. The numbers don't really change. It got up in the 2000s.
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That was kind of peak climate change hysteria. And then it just dropped back down again. And it's
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always 35 to 45 percent somewhere in there. At the one place I would disagree with those CNN
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pollsters, though, is they say clearly this the climate change messaging hasn't worked.
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And I don't think that's fair to say because you did have the numbers increase
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into the 2000s and 20 teens. I remember it. I was there. I remember when people sincerely
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believed that the sun monster was going to kill us all. I remember when people would not have
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children. They would decide not to have children because they didn't want to bring them into a world
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of climate apocalypse. I remember when Greta Thunberg dropped out of school to sail a boat around the
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ocean because she thought that was going to forestall the sun monster. It was a kind of inverse rain dance
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or something. I remember that. I was there. The messaging did work. It stopped working because the
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climate apocalypse never materialized. It was not a rhetorical problem. It was not a communications
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problem. It was a fact problem. It was a science problem. The thing they said wasn't true.
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So that's so don't don't let him get away with this. Don't let him say we just need to find better
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ways to message around climate change. No, no, no. You lied. In some cases, you were honestly
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mistaken, I guess. Some of you were just dupes. But in some cases, you lied because climate change
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was always primarily a political issue, not some kind of scientific issue. And one of the pieces of
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evidence for that is that it was always so perfectly calculated that that disaster was just on the
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horizon. You could see it. You could get worried. You could be manipulated. It wasn't too far into
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the future that you put it off for another day. And it generally wasn't so close that there was
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nothing to do and we could just live it up. It was always perfectly politically calibrated. You're in
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the midst of a political recalibration. It's not because it's not because the Democrats just need
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to figure out a better way to get their message out there. It's that people don't want what they're
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selling. Now you're seeing a shift on the right as well. This was just magnificently embodied last
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night by J.D. Vance and Erica Kirk at the Turning Point stop in Ole Miss. Really, really pleased to see
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the vice president joining Charlie's widow here because I think J.D. Vance is probably the one figure on the
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right with the stature and the temperament and the platform to really keep this whole coalition
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together, which was something that Charlie singularly was able to do. And so I'm really
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pleased to see him taking time out of his busy schedule to do this. He also did the Q&A. At these
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kinds of events, you go, you give a speech or you have a conversation. Charlie and I was supposed to be
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12 days after he was murdered. We were going to do a little conversation at a campus back and forth.
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But then, of course, the key to these events is the Q&A. And for someone like Charlie, a civil
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debater and an activist, for a communicator to go out there and do the Q&A is one thing.
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For the sitting vice president to just open himself up to anybody, come with any of your questions,
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any of your comments, any of your complaints, is politically a very courageous thing to do.
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He did not disappoint in his answers. Right off the top, very fitting for the
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occasion and for our moment in history. He was asked about God in the public square.
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Do not. You do not have to completely kick God out of the public square, which is what we've done
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in modern America. It's not what the founders wanted. It's not good for the United States of
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America. And anybody who tells you it's required by the Constitution is lying to you.
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100% correct. J.D. Vance is a graduate of what I think is still considered the most
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prestigious law school in the country, even though it produces a lot of crazy people.
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His whole answer was even better. We don't have time to get to it. But he explained how
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when the First Amendment was ratified, it does not establish a firm separation of church and state.
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It says that there will be no religious establishment at the federal level because there were state
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establishments. There were churches established at the state level.
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I mean, this is the kind of stuff that serious conservatives, avant-garde conservatives and
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so more classical conservatives, those seem like opposites, but they actually kind of go together
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because everything that was old is new again. We've been talking about this stuff for years.
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We have basically never seen this articulated by a national politician at the level of a J.D.
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Vance, and he articulates it perfectly. Okay, this is really, really exciting stuff.
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And he doesn't just stop with Christianity there. He makes a point about liberalism that is so
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precise and so necessary for understanding how to combat it.
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I'm thrilled to hear you articulate Christian values on a stage like this and to remind us
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that things we take for granted and things we value so much have a Christian origin. So thank you for
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So much of liberalism, by the way, so much of the far left is a sort of, if you really pay attention
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to it, it's a kind of perverted version of Christianity. Like there's nothing wrong,
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of course, with focusing on people who are disenfranchised, for example, that's the focus
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of liberalism. But if you completely separate it from any religious duty, any civic virtue,
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then that can actually become, for example, an inducement to lawlessness.
00:22:24.640
Yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Love it. When was the last time you heard a national politician
00:22:31.800
at this level speaking in this way? In a way that, by the way, is very gracious to the left.
00:22:37.340
Because what J.D. is saying here is not just, those liberals are crazy, aren't they? Or those liberals are
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dumb. And we all want the same ends, but we have different ways of getting there or something.
00:22:47.340
Look at the wacky left. No. He's saying the left is seeking a kind of a good. It's just that the
00:22:54.680
good is perverse because it's this kind of er version of the true religion. It's actually tracing
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the genealogy of liberalism. He's saying it comes from Christendom. And in that way, he's chasing
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the genealogy of our civilization. He says our civilization is Christendom, okay? And the true
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faith is Christianity. And the moral order derives from the Christian religion because
00:23:19.880
it's all true. And then liberalism deviates from that. And that's true. I mean, just as
00:23:24.260
a matter of history, the Enlightenment Project was a way to preserve Christendom. It was supposed
00:23:28.980
to be a way to preserve Christendom without all that pesky Christianity, to establish a moral
00:23:34.040
order without necessarily having any firm convictions. And it's because the Enlightenment Project
00:23:39.940
follows the wars of religion that occurred after the 16th century. And it just tried to create this
00:23:48.340
secular, rational basis for things that didn't work. And J.D. is saying that. He's just saying,
00:23:53.320
look, the liberal ideology, as well as its descendant ideologies like communism or fascism,
00:24:01.760
all these things, they're just perversions of the truth because they go wrong in the first principles.
00:24:07.840
And so people might earnestly be seeking the good with these ideologies. It's just not going to work
00:24:12.360
because they're getting the first things wrong. That is so accurate. It actually advances the
00:24:17.720
conversation. It moves the ball down the field and it regrounds our civilization where it has to be.
00:24:22.360
And the only thing that really works, which is the truth at all levels, not just economic and social
00:24:27.480
and cultural, but even religious first principles. Cardinal Manning, all human conflict ultimately is
00:24:33.420
theological. Now, speaking of religion, I want to tell you about Ave Maria Mutual Funds. Go to
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Fund Distributors, LLC. Folks, I want to hear your mellifluous voices, but in order to do so,
00:26:03.160
you have to go to dailywire.com. Then you go to the watch page. Then you go to the Michael
00:26:07.220
Knowles Show page. This should be bookmarked. This should be your homepage anyway. Then you click on
00:26:11.200
submit a mailbag question, and then you can either type it out. If you're a little more digital,
00:26:16.820
digital with your fingers, or you can record it. Please keep it to 30 seconds. I implore you. I
00:26:21.940
beg you. I'd love to listen to your memoir, your audio book memoir, but we don't have time on the
00:26:26.860
show. So certainly under a minute, keep it to 30 seconds, attach that file, and then I'll hear
00:26:30.880
your beautiful voices on Friday. Okay. Moving on from the religious questions. JD is asked about
00:26:37.240
immigration. He offers a major upending of GOP orthodoxy.
00:26:44.860
My question to you is, what is your view on legal immigration? Personally, I have a girlfriend
00:26:50.260
who's studying in America off a visa. Our hope is eventually getting a green card. So what is your
00:26:55.600
view on legal immigration? Should we reduce it? Also, what is your plan for a merit-based system?
00:27:00.820
Yes, sir. Well, I appreciate the question. And look, my honest view is that right now,
00:27:07.120
America, thanks in part to the Biden border invasion, but also thanks in part to a lot of
00:27:11.680
bad immigration policy, right now, we have let in too many immigrants into the United States of
00:27:16.760
America. That is just a fundamental reality. Now, look, legal immigration is complicated because
00:27:24.860
we let in about a million legal immigrants into the United States of America every single year.
00:27:29.400
And I think the evidence is pretty clear that a lot of those immigrants are actually undercutting
00:27:33.520
the wages of American workers. For most of my life, there have been two positions you can have
00:27:39.900
on immigration. The Democrat position, especially recently, was legal immigration is good and illegal
00:27:46.620
immigration is good too. The Republican position has been legal immigration is good, illegal immigration
00:27:53.260
is bad. What J.D. Vance is saying here is, we've just taken in too many immigrants. The movement of
00:28:01.060
people into the United States over the last 60 years is the largest movement of people in recorded
00:28:05.000
history. And it's creating social problems and their problems of assimilation and social
00:28:10.760
solidarity is breaking down, their economic problems, problems to workers. And so we have too many
00:28:15.340
right now. This is, I say it's an upending of GOP orthodoxy. It's really a return to classical
00:28:21.880
conservative orthodoxy, not just conservative in the American context, conservative going all the way
00:28:28.760
back to Aristotle. Yeah, you can't just flood your country with foreigners. That's going to create
00:28:33.200
problems. And even the way J.D. is talking about it, he doesn't say immigration is always terrible.
00:28:38.320
We need to completely close the border and we need to isolate. He's not saying that. He's saying,
00:28:41.420
yeah, right now we've just taken in too many, which means he recognizes prudence as the paramount
00:28:46.840
political virtue. He's recognizing that at some periods you might call for some immigration,
00:28:51.240
at other periods you're going to want to restrict immigration. And he's calling for a reduction in
00:28:56.120
immigration overall, not just illegal, but legal too. This is precisely my position. This is precisely
00:29:03.120
the correct position. I think this is certainly where Gen Z conservatives are. I think this is where the
00:29:09.140
GOP base is and has been for a very long time, even though the politicians haven't reflected it.
00:29:14.960
Brilliant answer from J.D. I'll just get to one or two more. I'll keep them pretty quick.
00:29:19.000
Here's one. Here is an answer on the question of values. How are we supposed to think about
00:29:24.600
values in America? That to me, I want this answer to be condensed into a liquid form and injected
00:29:31.160
straight into my veins. I actually, I think the premise of your question, I don't totally share it
00:29:37.940
because I don't think perfect neutrality is possible. What is it? You talk about history.
00:29:43.320
Was Christopher Columbus a great explorer or was he a guy who committed genocide against the native
00:29:48.440
populations? These debates, I'm happy to have them, but I reject the idea that there are truly
00:29:54.880
neutral debates. Anybody who's telling you their view is neutral likely has an agenda to sell you.
00:30:01.960
And I'm at least honest about the fact that I think the Christian foundation of this country is a good
00:30:06.800
thing. Straight into my veins, straight, this is it. This is abolish term limits.
00:30:14.020
Thank you. Thank you. It's obviously true. Serious political thinkers have known this since time
00:30:21.960
immemorial, but there is a lie that goes along with liberalism that says that liberalism is neutral.
00:30:29.500
It's just neutral. That says that, for instance, secularism or atheism in public is just neutral.
00:30:37.300
This view would have been abhorrent to our founding fathers, the framers of our constitution,
00:30:42.500
even the early liberals like John Locke and John Milton, but liberalism pretends anyway.
00:30:47.980
And in some ways, this is a consequence of liberal political philosophy, but they say,
00:30:51.280
oh, it's just neutral. Look, I don't have a partisan view. I don't have invective. I don't
00:30:56.860
have a polemical view. No, no, no. My view is the neutral view, but there is no neutral view because
00:31:01.880
all views come from some premises, axioms, first principles. And what the liberals try to do with
00:31:10.640
their neutral nonsense is they try to smuggle in their false premises. Their false premise that,
00:31:18.900
for instance, we can't know the difference between a man and a woman. I mean, that's why they say,
00:31:23.080
look, our view on transgender, ours is the neutral view. We're not picking sides. Well, you are. By
00:31:28.260
not allowing people to believe what humans have always believed everywhere and what their own eyes
00:31:35.920
tell them about the difference between a man and a woman, that is not neutral. You're forcing a certain
00:31:41.660
view on, by forcing Christianity to the public square, by arresting pro-lifers, praying in an abortion
00:31:47.280
clinic, by persecuting nuns as the Obama-Biden administration did. But these are not neutral
00:31:52.860
things. By exalting all sorts of perverse ideology, that's not neutral. And JD says, look, here are my
00:32:01.180
premises. Here's where I'm coming from. I'm basically coming from the same place that the
00:32:04.540
wise statesmen in our civilization have always come from. But yeah, I think there's a Christian
00:32:08.240
religious foundation. Those other guys, they're not going to tell you where they're coming from.
00:32:11.980
They pretend it's neutral, but where they're coming from is much more dubious.
00:32:20.340
Okay, so here's something that I want conservatives, I want every conservative to remember. It's an
00:32:27.680
important part of my entire political philosophy is we cannot be afraid to do something because the
00:32:34.140
left might do it in the future. The left is already going to do it regardless of whether we do it.
00:32:39.040
There it is. There it is. The takeover is complete of the GOP by the conservatives from
00:32:45.420
the squishes. I love this because for years, and I find it nauseating, the squishes have said, well,
00:32:53.360
we can't. We can't wield political power because if we wield political power, can you imagine in
00:32:59.540
the future when the Democrats get the power back, would they want to use power on us?
00:33:02.300
This after the Democrats have justified the murder of our president, have tried to imprison him four
00:33:13.020
times, kick him off the ballot, imprisoned relatively peaceful protesters, infiltrated Catholic churches
00:33:21.120
under the Biden DOJ, let their violent criminals off the hook, in some cases encouraged political
00:33:27.440
violence against us, this after this. But we can't justly wield the law because then the Democrats in the future
00:33:37.140
might unjustly wield the law, which they're already doing. Vance saying we got to have courage and we got to be
00:33:43.620
able to do things and not just be cowards and squishes and exalt procedural norms, dubious procedural norms
00:33:51.720
at that over substantive goods. Not going to do it anymore. This is really good stuff. As you know,
00:33:57.720
I'm an admirer of the vice president. He's impressed me before, never more so than last night at Ole Miss.
00:34:03.800
And he did it to honor his very close friend, Charlie, on stage with Charlie's widow at this major event for
00:34:12.500
the preeminent young conservative organization in American politics. It's just real encouraging.
00:34:21.420
I guess that's how I would have to put it. It's just real, real encouraging. This is a guy who knows
00:34:26.200
what time it is. And he's actually has the position and the stature to do something about it. Great
00:34:31.440
stuff. Now, meanwhile, the left, which has just tried to tell me on Capitol Hill that they don't
00:34:36.680
support political violence. They don't condone any of that. A left-wing podcaster has gone viral for her
00:34:42.340
hideous comments celebrating the murder of Charlie. Since the Daily Wire launched 10 years ago,
00:34:47.820
everything we've accomplished has been because of our members. Every fight we've taken on, every piece
00:34:52.140
of truth we've exposed, all of it made possible by their support. Today, we are releasing Hiding
00:34:57.020
in Plain Sight, a documentary so critical we're making it free for everyone on Daily Wire Plus.
00:35:01.880
Because this is a threat every parent needs to understand. Hiding in Plain Sight is a warning to
00:35:06.520
all of us about the online dangers kids are trying to navigate. Dangers that did not exist when we were
00:35:11.760
growing up and that many parents did not even realize are out there. Well, we'd all like to
00:35:17.000
believe that bad things could never reach our families. Truth is, digital sex trafficking and
00:35:20.860
sextortion scams are happening right now in our communities and potentially inside our homes.
00:35:26.860
Again, the only reason we can make this film free for everyone is because of our Daily Wire Plus
00:35:31.340
members. So go to dailywire.com and watch it for free right now. Share it, sit down with your family,
00:35:36.880
your school, your kids, and talk about it. If you're not a member yet, join us. Step into the
00:35:41.100
fight and help us keep delivering this type of crucial content to the world. My favorite comment
00:35:46.540
yesterday is from Moggy's 10. This refers to Zoran Mamdani's aunt gate. Remember he said his aunt,
00:35:53.440
you know, after 9-11 was the real victim because she felt nervous wearing a hijab on the subway.
00:35:57.880
Then he found out that actually she didn't wear a hijab and she didn't live in New York.
00:36:01.040
And he said, oh, well, no, it's actually my dad's cousin, my aunt, you know. Well, anyway,
00:36:04.180
this comment says, maybe his cousin really is his aunt. You aren't accounting for intermarriage.
00:36:11.840
That's a good point. Certain cultures have very, very high rates of cousin marriage. That's true.
00:36:19.760
That's true. Certain cultures do. Not our culture, but other cultures do. You're seeing 30%, 40%,
00:36:26.380
maybe higher. So anyway, I don't know. Maybe Zoran can clarify. Okay.
00:36:32.160
After Charlie was murdered, the left minimized, excused, and in some cases celebrated at all
00:36:39.180
levels. At all levels. From the fringe people to the mainstream people, from the normies to
00:36:45.380
the famous people. At all levels, you saw this. And then they tried to deny it.
00:36:51.680
And we saw this on Capitol Hill because there was this Senate hearing on political violence
00:36:55.360
that half the Democrats didn't even show up to. And the ones who did show up shed crocodile tears.
00:36:59.640
They said, we all condemn political violence. We would never encourage this sort of thing.
00:37:03.180
As they say this, a left-wing podcaster, Jennifer Welch, goes viral for saying this.
00:37:21.360
He was horrible on the campuses, the college campuses.
00:37:35.120
Your friend just said she'd be happy if I died.
00:37:46.020
You can either jump on board with this, or we're coming after you in the same way that we come after MAGA.
00:37:52.500
That woman out in somewhere middle America saying,
00:37:56.820
Charlie Kirk, he was a racist. He was a piece of shit.
00:38:00.540
There are so many more of us than there are of them.
00:38:09.000
Because of what I saw from the prominent streamers, from what I saw from the legacy news outlets,
00:38:19.280
You had a Democrat analyst on MSNBC blaming him for it.
00:38:26.700
I think there are a lot more people in left-wing activism
00:38:31.080
who were minimizing and celebrating Charlie's murder than there were people condemning political violence.
00:38:36.400
And lest I be accused of pointing to some random woman, because I didn't know really who that woman was, Jennifer Welch.
00:38:48.620
Well, here's a little clip of Jennifer Welch sitting down with the Democratic leader from the House of Representatives,
00:38:58.860
We've had a lot of them on, and we really like them as well.
00:39:06.420
And we're in this fight until we win this fight and end this national nightmare and get America back on track.
00:39:15.020
I, the most prominent Democrat in the country, just about, I would like to thank you.
00:39:19.160
Oh, that's so nice of you, Hakeem, because we've had a bunch of your colleagues on, too.
00:39:29.320
But this is a real person who really represents a lot of Democrats, as we've seen from survey after survey,
00:39:37.540
as we've seen from the comments of the Democrats after Charlie's murder, as we saw two days ago on Capitol Hill,
00:39:44.880
when the Democrats, by and large, boycotted a Senate hearing on political violence.
00:39:56.280
We're supposed to sit back and be afraid of wielding political power in a just way,
00:40:00.500
because, by golly, the Democrats, we might make the Democrats angry.
00:40:09.040
We can either lash out in a vigilante sort of way, which I would strongly discourage,
00:40:15.820
Or we can get rid of one of the old slogans of the right,
00:40:21.600
which is that, you know, government can't really do anything,
00:40:25.240
We can recognize some ancient classical conservative wisdom that the law is a teacher,
00:40:28.580
and we can wield the law in a just way, not only to protect innocent people,
00:40:32.940
but also to help educate these leftists who are engaged in behaviors that are disordered for society,
00:40:40.980
contrary to the common good, but also bad for them individually.
00:40:47.200
the ones who are out shrieking and screaming and calling for the murder of their countrymen.
00:40:53.920
We have not only the right to wield the law in a way that helps to protect us and innocent people and America.
00:41:02.300
We have the responsibility to wield the law in such a way that helps to educate these people
00:41:06.880
and pulls them back from the brink of madness or past the brink of madness, which is where they are.
00:41:12.280
But we need a little more uniformity in America, I think.
00:41:17.840
I know, you know, the left always prattles on about diversity, you know, diversity is our strength.
00:41:23.220
But even America, sorry, the left and Americans.
00:41:30.940
But even on the right, even on the right, you'll have people exalt diversity of thought on college campuses,
00:41:40.580
We like it as a particular kind of good on a college campus because it's uniformly left-wing.
00:41:46.860
So diversity of thought is good in as much as it introduces more conservative thought on campus.
00:41:51.160
But diversity of thought is not a good in and of itself.
00:41:55.080
You have on the left and the right, this exaltation of diversity is some kind of great strength.
00:41:59.600
Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War, shows up, speaks to some of our soldiers, and explains the reality.
00:42:05.660
In previous administration, iterations of administrations, there was a phrase, it's the dumbest phrase in military history.
00:42:15.720
And that phrase is, our diversity is our strength.
00:42:17.880
You see, I look out at this crowd and I see a lot of diverse faces.
00:42:23.160
A lot of faces, black, brown, white, and otherwise.
00:42:33.800
But I don't look at you and see who you are based on the color of your skin.
00:42:37.060
Again, I look at you as a fellow American who bleeds red.
00:42:51.320
Our strength is our oath to the Constitution that we will defend each other.
00:43:03.680
Okay, this is a great moment in the evolution of American conservatism, I think.
00:43:21.620
I'm sure the left is going to try to call it racist or whatever.
00:43:25.960
This is as moderate as it gets in any reasonable amount of thinking.
00:43:29.920
He's saying, as a matter of principle, diversity does not conduce to strength.
00:43:42.180
You want uniformity, not just like random stuff hodgepodge together.
00:43:45.420
So he says, in principle, uniformity, not diversity, is our strength.
00:43:49.120
And we have a colorblind meritocracy in the military.
00:43:52.480
And what is your strength is not your race or whatever.
00:44:06.900
Because we have heard this diversity is our strength stuff for over 30 years.
00:44:10.780
And it was actually a Republican who coined that phrase.
00:44:13.160
I think it was Dan Quayle when he was vice president to George H.W. Bush coined that phrase,
00:44:17.060
diversity is our strength, during a press gaggle in Japan.
00:44:20.040
Okay, so you can't even just blame the left for it.
00:44:26.780
It's led to a total breakdown in social solidarity.
00:44:33.940
I mean, this is why I think it's so important that it's Pete Hegseth saying this.
00:44:37.100
And that he's saying this in such a moderate way.
00:44:42.240
This is not a fringe figure or a radical figure in any way whatsoever.
00:44:46.840
And he's coming out and saying diversity is our strength.
00:44:55.100
There has been a major change in American politics.
00:44:57.660
The Democrats clearly have not caught up with that.
00:45:01.560
That's why they lost the popular vote for the first time in 20 years in November.
00:45:04.840
That's why they're losing the shutdown fight for the first time in my lifetime.
00:45:09.760
They haven't figured out that shift has happened.
00:45:13.260
J.D. Vance is, I think, a little bit more on the bleeding edge of that.
00:45:23.900
And the way Pete put it, no one would, no serious person would dispute that.
00:45:30.880
That's yet another 80-20 issue that this administration is on the right side of.
00:45:37.320
This one really, as we hear all the fear-mongering about the end of the SNAP program
00:45:42.240
and the ongoing shutdown, here's one of the people who's really upset about problems with
00:45:48.760
This is an Iraqi refugee whining because the government's taken away his cheese.
00:45:57.100
Without the government support, I cannot stay maybe a month or two months.
00:46:06.280
Pima County Chairman Rex Scott told News for Tucson he's deeply concerned about the impact
00:46:15.740
How can he stay if he doesn't get, if you don't pay for his food?
00:46:20.480
Now, remember, we're talking about shifts to the Republican coalition and political vision.
00:46:28.800
For a long time, it was this hardcore libertarian, exalting the free market, Ayn Rand kind of
00:46:34.540
vision that was very opposed in principle even to welfare programs.
00:46:42.180
My view is more infused with classical conservative concepts, Catholic social teaching.
00:46:48.500
I have no problem in principle with a social welfare system.
00:46:54.140
The way our market is set up, there will always be some degree of unemployment.
00:46:56.980
So actually, just as a pure matter of justice, you need to have some kind of unemployment insurance.
00:47:00.800
And we have a responsibility to take care of the poor.
00:47:08.320
That's one of the primary precepts of the natural law.
00:47:11.140
There are all sorts of reasons that in principle, it's good to take care of the poor.
00:47:15.720
Oppression of the poor is one of the sins that cries out to God.
00:47:18.500
Now, there are questions about how best to do that, what's most efficient, and what actually
00:47:24.920
seems like it's helping people, but it might hurt people.
00:47:27.200
But I think we would all say, someone severely disabled and elderly and mentally handicapped
00:47:32.880
and has all, probably they should be entitled to some kind of social program, right?
00:47:37.620
Maybe, so long as it doesn't crowd out the church and the family.
00:47:40.560
What about this able-bodied Iraqi who's in America for some reason?
00:47:58.560
How many other people who won't work are here who otherwise could?
00:48:02.760
How much of the exploding cost of groceries is due to the fact that we pay for a lot of
00:48:15.260
And not just the people who really need it, who can't fend for themselves, but for that
00:48:21.380
guy, an entitled, able-bodied foreigner who's in America taking your money and whining when
00:48:27.120
the government is shut down and he can't get the government cheese.
00:48:31.960
This shutdown is really redounding to the detriment of Democrats in multiple ways.
00:48:38.820
Shows they're on the wrong side of a ton of issues.
00:48:45.460
And I think it's revealing a lot of the problems with the programs that are already in place,
00:48:54.560
He can't stay in the country if we don't keep paying for his stuff.
00:49:05.300
We will have a very, very important Halloween panel.
00:49:11.380
Use code NOLS, Canada, WLAS, and check out for two months free on all annual plans.