Ep. 1973 - Helen of Troy Is Black, & Achilles Is A Transvestite In Nolan’s Odyssey
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
16
sentences flagged
Toxicity
26
sentences flagged
Hate speech
34
sentences flagged
Summary
When you travel well, your KLM Royal Dutch Airlines ticket takes you to more than just your destination. It s a front row seat to front row views, voices lost in the music, and new shared memories. And when the last song fades, the crew is here to ensure your journey home hits all the right notes.
Transcript
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When you travel well, your KLM Royal Dutch Airlines ticket takes you to more than just your destination.
00:00:06.880
It takes you to front row views, voices lost in the music, and new shared memories.
00:00:17.900
The KLM Royal Dutch Airlines crew is here to ensure your journey home hits all the right notes.
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KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. When you travel, travel well.
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Lupita Nyong'o is the most beautiful woman in the world, and a five-foot female transvestite
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is the strongest warrior ever to live. That is Christopher Nolan's story in The Odyssey.
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And everyone expressing their shock and outrage seems to be missing two key facts about The
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Odyssey in Hollywood, which we will delve into. Then LA Mayor Karen Bass responds to the rise of
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common sense conservative candidate Spencer Pratt by promising free prosthetic teeth for
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homeless meth heads. That's an interesting electoral strategy. It might actually pay off
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in LA. And Gavin Newsom loses his top spot in the 2028 Democrat presidential primary
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to a bartendress from Westchester. Get ready for President AOC. I'm Michael Knowles. This
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welcome back to the show did the vatican just give its highest honor to an iranian diplomat
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Spencer Pratt, the Pratt Daddy leader, rising up like a phoenix out of the ashes,
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out of the literal ashes of the L.A. fires as a Republican, shaking up the L.A. mayor race.
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He has come out throwing such haymakers that not only did the socialist candidate from the
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city council drop out of the next debate, but so did the current mayor, Karen Bass.
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So now there won't be another debate for mayor because everyone's so afraid of Spencer Pratt.
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So the odds that Spencer Pratt actually becomes mayor of L.A. are still pretty slim.
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He's totally destroyed the socialist candidate on the city council,
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It's pretty hard for any Republican, no matter how common sense,
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to beat any Democrat, no matter how communist.
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However, Karen Bass doesn't seem to be helping herself.
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He says, all your experience has burned down this city.
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He comes out and says, you call me the reality star candidate.
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Yeah, I'm the only candidate living in reality.
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He says, we're going to clean up the criminals and the drug addicts.
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We're going to stop blowing money on a bunch of stupid nonsense.
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And we're going to prevent our city from being burnt to the ground.
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And in response, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass promises artificial teeth to homeless meth heads.
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How many people who are unhoused that you meet have no teeth at all?
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So there needs to be comprehensive health care provided to people.
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Perfect example of the left's totally wrong approach to political problems.
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The problem is that there are schizophrenic criminals terrorizing people on the streets
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of Los Angeles who are addicted to drugs, killing themselves on the street, dying of exposure.
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And when they're not doing that, they're committing violent crimes against ordinary
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law-abiding taxpaying citizens. And what Karen Bass focuses on is the fact that the schizophrenic,
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drug-addled criminals violating the law living as vagrants on the street
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have some cosmetic problems. They don't have teeth. Think about how far down the line of
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causation. You've got mental illness, crime, lack of discipline, failing political order,
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drug addiction. Did I say drug addiction yet? Yes. Drug addiction leads to a whole host of
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problems, heart problems, vascular problems, brain problems, skin problems, and also teeth
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problems. Therefore, the way to fix the problem is to give them fake teeth. Not to address the
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50 things that caused the superficial cosmetic issue of missing some teeth. No, no, no. We're
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just gonna this is putting lipstick on a pig this is almost literally putting lipstick on a pig
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and that's her solution but no one out there is saying that the the problem plaguing skid row in
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la is that some of the some of the guys are missing their molars it's all of the other problems and
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of course you're not going to fix the problem so even the way she uses this word unhoused even that
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is such a lie. Unhoused, which is the new politically correct euphemism for homeless.
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Homeless, which was the politically correct euphemism for bums, junkies, vagrants, tramps.
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Those words are so misleading. They subvert any attempt to fix the problem because they make it
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seem like the issue facing these people and the city is a lack of a house. But that's not the
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problem. Because you can give these people a house. The government does. Liberal politicians
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do give these people a house a lot. And when you give them a house, you can give them the nicest
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house in the world. Within approximately four and a half seconds, that house is going to become a
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very not nice house. That neighborhood is going to become a very degraded place. You're going to
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have all of the problems there. There's going to be filth. There's going to be crime. There's going
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to be drugs. There's going to be violence. There's going to be all of that. Because the problem for
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these people is not that they don't have a house. It's all of the things that led them not to have
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a house in the first place. And so Karen Bass is taking that even further. She goes, no, no,
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the problem isn't even that they don't have a house. The problem is that they're missing a
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tooth. Give them a tooth and that's going to fix all the problems in the back. I don't think so.
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Spencer Pratt could not have wished for a better campaign ad. His opponents keep making attack ads
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against him that actually help his campaign. And this one is perfect. Karen Bass, vote for me and
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I'll give more of your money to get plastic surgery for meth heads who are terrorizing you
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on La Brea. Okay. All right. That's fine. No wonder the debate is off. So all Karen Bass is
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hoping for now is, all right, I'm not going to engage with Spencer Pratt anymore. That other
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chick is gone. So I guess that's helpful to Karen Bass actually, because the other left-wing
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candidates at effectively out of the race. And so it's her versus Spencer Pratt and Pratt's going
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to keep campaigning, but he's only going to campaign really on social media because the TV
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isn't really going to give him the time of day. And she's not going to give him the opportunity
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to clobber her in a public debate. So she's just hoping that she can hold on to her whatever,
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55% of the vote. As long as she's got 50% plus one by election day, she's fine.
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But she has concluded there is no way for her to campaign against him.
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So she's just going to hold on and hope people ignore the race.
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Now, speaking of the future of the Democrat Party and future elections,
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there's a new front runner for the Democrats. That would be AOC. Yes, she is the front runner
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right now. New poll just came out. The Independent is reporting on it. Where is it?
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Bunch of people are reporting on it. AOC right now has 26% of the Democrat primary support,
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followed by Pete Buttigieg, 22.4, followed by the man that we were all told was the front
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runner in the race, Gavin Newsom at 21.2, followed by Kamala at 12.9. So AOC, that's it.
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It's AOC's race to lose, right? No, I don't think so. What this tells you is something that I've
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pointed out for six months now, at least, which is that the Democrat party is really in disarray
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because they have no clear front runner. Even, I think it was six months ago I said this,
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you had never, you had not in, I think it was 20 years or more, had a situation where there was not
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at that point in the election cycle, a candidate, a Democrat candidate with at least 25% of the vote.
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So the support was all totally diffused and Gavin Newsom was sort of the front runner for a while,
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but now I guess it's AOC. So does this mean that AOC is going to be the nominee?
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I don't think so. And I'll give you an example on the Republican side. According to reporting here,
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bad news for the vice president. According to the reporting, bad news for the vice president
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because J.D. Vance had been the clear far and away front runner for the presidential nomination in
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2028. Now, according to some new poll that came out, Atlas Intel, Marco Rubio has taken that spot
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as the leading candidate for the Republicans. According to Atlas Intel, 45 plus percent of
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GOP respondents would back Rubio. That's over Vance, who gets about 30 percent. Followed by
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Ron DeSantis, who gets about 11 percent. Followed by Vivek, he gets about 1.5 percent. Followed by
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Greg Abbott, gets 0.7 percent. So this is really bad news, right, for J.D. Vance? This is really
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bad news when we look at the Democrats for Gavin Newsom, right? I don't think so. I don't think
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it's that. I think that we are in silly season right now. So to explain what's going on on the
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Republican side is simple enough. Rubio's getting all the attention because the issues that Rubio
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is involved in are the issues that are front of news. The operation in Venezuela, obviously the
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war in Iran. Geopolitics is really dominating the headlines right now. What is J.D. Vance focusing
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on? The vice president's focusing on things like fraud. He's focusing on domestic issues. Indeed,
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he has made domestic issues the central point of his political program. That's why he was selected
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to be vice president. And crucial to remember, domestic issues are what people vote on.
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people don't really vote on foreign policy. And when they do, it can often really harm the
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Republicans because a lot of Republicans have war fatigue and they have Middle East fatigue.
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So why is Rubio rising up right now? Well, he's rising up. He's doing very well because he's
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getting a lot of good plaudits in the press and because he's doing a very good job. There's no
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question that he's doing a very good job. But the problem for one, I don't even think Rubio
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is necessarily going to run. I think Rubio and Vance really do seem to be quite close.
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They do seem to be working together very much in lockstep in the admin. And Rubio's already
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said that if Vance runs, he's not going to run. And Trump just two days ago came out and said
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that he wants the ticket to be J.D. Vance president, Marco Rubio vice president.
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Elsewhere, he said he hopes Rubio just sort of remains the secretary of state forever,
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because he's doing such a good job at it. But if Rubio did want to run,
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If AOC does want to run, as she obviously does, the problem for both of them right now is
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it's just too early. This is silly season. I remember early on in the 2016 race,
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Governor Scott Walker was the leading candidate, not even close. He was attracting the donors.
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He had a good chunk of the base. I love Scott Walker. I think Scott Walker is great. I think
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he's one of the best governors in my lifetime. I think he's truly, he's one of my favorite
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Republican politicians. The problem for Governor Walker at that time was he peaked too early.
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And this is much earlier even than that. We are in the middle, not even quite in the middle of
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2026. We're talking about the 2028 presidential election. The candidates who are peaking now
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are peaking not because people are seriously considering the presidential election,
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not because of the real underlying factors that are going to decide the nominee,
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me, but just because of the news cycles. Because in primaries, every candidate kind of pops and
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then falls and pops and falls, and you go through five or six of them. So if I were a Republican,
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I would just observe. The 2028 presidential nomination is almost certainly going to be
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decided by Donald Trump. If the Trump administration remains successful, if, for instance,
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the Iran war doesn't take the whole thing off the rails, then Trump is going to pick the nominee.
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That's basically how it's going to work. And that's usually how it works with Republican
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presidents who are coming to the end of their time in office. And it is especially how it
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works with Donald Trump, who took over the Republican Party and really refashioned it
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after his own image. So that's going to come down to Trump. And right now, Trump is saying,
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I want it to be J.D. and Rubio as a ticket. Now, if the Trump administration does go off the rails,
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the only person it's going to be is someone who's outside of the administration.
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So in that case, it's much more likely to be someone like a Ron DeSantis who's polling at 11%
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than it is to be someone from within the administration. So those are the underlying
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structural factors for the GOP. What about for the Dems? If I'm Gavin Newsom reading this poll,
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I'm happy. If I'm Gavin Newsom, I don't want to be leading in the polls right now.
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I want to be leading in the polls a year from now. I want to be leading in the polls more than
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a year from now. Yeah, let AOC rise to the top right now. Then she gets all of the scrutiny.
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she gets all of the attacks, all of the dirt comes out. She drops down. If I'm Newsom,
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then I want it to be Buttigieg. Let Buttigieg have it again for a little bit. Let him have
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a three or four month run. Then it's not going to be Harris. Harris is toast.
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If I'm Newsom, the person I'm afraid of is not AOC or Buttigieg who are both ahead of him in
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the polls right now. The person I'm afraid of is Josh Shapiro, Whitmer, Pritzker, any of these
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people who haven't really yet declared, who haven't really yet come up to the fore.
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Same thing if I'm the vice president. If I'm the vice president, I do not mind right now
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if Rubio is getting a lot of the attention, a lot of the presidential buzz. It doesn't
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really matter. It's too early to matter. And just structurally, the way the party is set up
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with the president being in office and being so powerful, that's not even going to be the
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determining factor. It's kind of fun because people like politics for a horse race and we
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love making jokes about AOC. And, you know, hey, look, maybe another Westchester person will make
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good. You know, it's a hometown girl from the place that we grew up. I mean, that's good for
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her. But really, it is just horse race betting right now. It's not real yet. Okay. Now, speaking
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of casting roles, something that is much more real is this Hollywood movie, Christopher Nolan's
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Odyssey, which has made some controversial casting choices. Lupita Nyong'o is Helen of
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Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world, certainly in the Greek world, but in the whole
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world. And then Ellen Page, who now calls herself Elliot, who's a five-foot-one female transvestite,
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is apparently the strongest warrior in the world ever. We will examine the controversy because I
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think people are missing a big point here. First, though, I want to tell you about Cardiff. Go to
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That is the problem Cardiff is trying to solve. I love a lot of local businesses. I love a lot
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Has Christopher Nolan totally lost it? Is this crazy? Someone posted to Twitter,
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there are all these funny memes going around. If the Odyssey marketing were honest,
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and this is the Odyssey, and the three characters at the top are Ellen Page,
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Lupita Nyong'o, and Travis Scott, the rapper who apparently plays like a Roman poet or something.
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let's just focus in on the most controversial choices here Ellen Page and Lupita Nyong'o
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people are saying this is crazy Lupita Nyong'o is not the most beautiful woman in the world
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Lupita Nyong'o very very nice looking lady very good actress she's not Helen of Troy right she's
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not that's not close your eyes hey quick test close your eyes think of Helen of Troy did you
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think of Lupita Nyong'o probably not uh Ellen Page even more ridiculous Ellen Page playing the
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greatest warrior ever to live, Achilles, the son of a god, who is dipped in the river to make him
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effectively invincible, except for the little part where he's being held at his heel.
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And the greatest warrior ever to live is now this tiny transvestite lady. Hold on,
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that doesn't make sense, right? There are two parts that people are missing.
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The first part that people are missing is they don't seem to remember what the Odyssey is.
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They hear Achilles, they hear Helen of Troy, and they rightly think of two of the most prominent
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characters in the entire Western imagination. But I think they're confusing the Odyssey with
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the Iliad. The Iliad, which is that first great poem from which Western art descends,
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in which Achilles and Helen of Troy are major, major characters. But in the Odyssey,
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they're not major characters. In the Odyssey, they're very minor characters. Helen of Troy
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appears in book four when Telemachus goes to ask about where his father went. And then Achilles
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appears in book 11 as a ghost, as a shade, when Odysseus is speaking to him in the underworld.
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And he's the shade because he's already dead because he dies in the Iliad.
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So what is Christopher Nolan thinking here? Because Christopher Nolan, he made The Dark
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Knight. He made good movies and kind of conservative movies. What is he doing? Is
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this all DEI? I have a little conspiracy theory, and it goes to the Academy Awards. The Academy
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Awards, in 2024, implemented DEI rules for what can win best picture, and it instituted a mandatory
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diversity requirement. So the mandatory diversity requirement says there are four standards.
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Any movie that does not meet these standards, at least two of the four, is not eligible to be
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best picture. One is on-screen representation. At least one lead or significant supporting actor
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is from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group. Or at least 30% of all actors in minor
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roles are from underrepresented groups. Or the main story revolves around one of these groups.
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So the main story does not revolve around an underrepresented group when we're talking about
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one of the two great works of Western civilization. What's interesting here is when we're talking
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about the supporting roles, not only is Lupita Nyong'o playing Helen of Troy, she's also playing
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Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon. So there, you get two black characters for the price of one,
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same actress playing both of them. Forget about these other sort of minor roles here.
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So it looks like for a relatively small concession in terms of actual screen time and significance
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to the story, you check off that DEI requirement. How about creative leadership and project team?
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The film has diverse representation among key creative roles. I don't know that that's true.
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Christopher Nolan obviously is not like a black pygmy Muslim transsexual. So industry access and
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opportunities. The film's studio or production company offers paid apprenticeships, internships,
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or training opportunities to underrepresented groups. Yeah, they probably could fulfill that.
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And then audience development. The studio has diverse teams in marketing, publicity,
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or distribution. So it does seem to me that if the Odyssey, if Christopher Nolan is making a play
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for best picture, which he obviously is, then there's just no way. Maybe there is by the letter
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of the rules, but by the spirit of the rules, there's no way that he's going to do it if he
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has an all white cast, an all Greek cast. Or an all straight cast or an all not tranny cast or
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00:23:15.100
whatever. So look, if he had Ellen Page playing Odysseus, that would be pretty shocking. But if
0.67
00:23:20.560
he's got Ellen Page playing the shade of Achilles, that's different. Also worth pointing out,
00:23:25.180
I don't want to stretch this too far, but there might be a kind of esoteric reading here of Ellen
00:23:30.200
Page's The Shade of Achilles. Because in the ancient Greek world, death is an unadulterated
00:23:34.860
bad. There's no caveat. There's no hope. There's no nothing. It just sucks to die. It's a degraded
00:23:41.960
and lamentable place to be. The Christian understanding of death is that death is either
00:23:47.580
really, really, really bad because you're being eternally tormented, or death is no problem at
00:23:54.820
all. It has no sting because we can be with God forever. We were promised eternal life, a life
00:23:59.080
even fuller and more beautiful than the life we have in this world. That is not the ancient Greek
00:24:03.520
understanding. In the ancient Greek understanding, there is Tartarus, the really, really,
00:24:09.320
really bad part of Hades. But most of Hades, where you go and you die, is just kind of bad.
00:24:16.340
And so it is interesting that having the greatest warrior ever to live be played by this person
00:24:23.740
whose body has just been so degraded by chemicals, by this living contrary to reality. This person
00:24:30.480
is really short. This person doesn't look like a man, you know, doesn't look like the sex that
0.99
00:24:36.260
she claims to be. It doesn't look physically strong at all. There actually is a reading of
00:24:40.220
that which says, yes, it would be inappropriate for Achilles to be played by the big giga chat
0.95
00:24:44.100
in hell because in Hades, everything just kind of sucks and you are degraded and you're not,
0.96
00:24:50.120
it's not really, you're not really even yourself. You're a shade of yourself. So anyway, that's my
0.99
00:24:54.720
artistic read of why they might have made that choice. But my main read is probably he's just
00:25:03.480
checking some DEI rules. Now, the big worry to me about the Odyssey is that Christopher Nolan's
00:25:08.440
movie is using a bad translation, is using a new translation of the Odyssey by Emily Wilson.
00:25:13.560
Emily Wilson, who is this feminist who published a new translation of the Odyssey in 2017. The
00:25:19.940
great translations of the Odyssey that we think of, maybe if you had a classics education,
00:25:24.080
you would have read in school, are the Fagel's translation, maybe the Lattimore translation.
00:25:28.080
But here, I texted my expert on all things classics earlier. And that would, of course,
00:25:34.860
be the great Spencer Clavin. I said, hey, before I wade into the Nolan Wars, how bad is Emily
00:25:40.920
Wilson's Odyssey? Because I haven't read her translation. I don't want to read her translation.
00:25:45.280
But Spencer did. And he wrote a good review of it. Well, it was a bad review. It was a negative
00:25:49.620
review, but it was a good review in the Claremont Review books. And he said, too long didn't read
00:25:52.860
is, her translation is bad. Not as bad as the hysterics on X, who have truly lost their minds
00:25:58.680
will tell you, but bad in all the ways and along all the lines they're screeching about.
00:26:03.840
And ultimately, she is an evil influence upon the world. So this is a concern of mine. Now,
00:26:09.400
again, maybe Nolan using that translation checks another diversity box for the Oscars here,
00:26:14.320
because it means that part of the creative leadership team comes from an underrepresented
00:26:17.840
group, you know, this kind of feminist, radical woman, lady, whatever. But in any case, I am much
00:26:23.180
more concerned about the translation on which all of this is based. Because Emily Wilson's
00:26:31.060
translation, yeah, sure, it's like kind of feminist, or she brings all her ideological priors.
00:26:36.100
But the bigger issue with her translation, as I understand it from the little bit of it I've read,
0.79
00:26:39.820
is that it just disenchants everything. It makes everything prosaic and flat.
00:26:46.140
It denies that the Greeks were really kings and princes.
00:26:57.500
It makes everything so prosaic and yucky and small and flat and clinical and not as evocative.
00:27:09.000
So again, I'm not saying I have high hopes for Nolan's Odyssey.
00:27:15.740
He's made films that are not only good, but actually rather conservative.
00:27:19.700
And so I'm willing to give him a little bit of the benefit of the doubt here
00:27:22.760
that this is not going to be as bad as everyone is pretending.
00:27:28.960
And if you have a problem with that, maybe the issue isn't Christopher Nolan.
00:27:32.880
Maybe the issue is the entire apparatus of Hollywood.
00:27:37.120
Now, speaking of awards and honors, did the Vatican just give its highest honor
00:27:44.020
I'm seeing that news go all over the world today.
00:27:48.080
And whenever I see shocking news about the church,
00:27:54.180
I say, this is fake news from people with an ax to grind.
00:27:57.560
And there are a lot of people with an ax to grind against it.
00:28:11.180
First, though, I want to tell you about Preborn.
0.95
00:28:12.320
Go to preborn.com slash Knowles, K-N-A-W-L-E-S.
00:28:15.000
There are some moments in life that cut through all the noise and remind you what actually
00:28:19.960
One of those is when you see your kid's heartbeat for the first time.
00:28:24.400
Now, I have three and a half children, which is great.
00:28:27.540
You know, three out in the world, one cooking on the way.
00:28:32.720
And for a lot of women who are facing unplanned pregnancies, that moment is a lot scarier,
00:28:42.320
because when a woman sees her baby on ultrasound, when a woman hears that heartbeat for the first
00:28:46.680
time, that can transform decision-making. It more than doubles the likelihood that the mother will
00:28:52.100
choose life. That is why pre-born exists. Pre-born helps provide ultrasounds to women who might
0.99
00:28:56.860
otherwise never get the chance to see their child for the first time. And the support doesn't stop
00:29:01.240
there. Sometimes the left says, well, you're not really pro-life. You only care about the baby when
00:29:05.000
it's in the womb. That's obviously not true. Pre-born gives mothers help with counseling,
00:29:09.820
maternity care, baby clothes, diapers, other critical resources so they can move forward
00:29:13.340
with confidence and support. $28 provides one ultrasound. $140 helps reach five mothers.
00:29:18.160
I personally love this organization. I support it myself. I encourage you to give whatever you can.
00:29:22.220
To get involved, dial pound 250, say keyword baby. Pound 250, keyword baby.
00:29:26.180
Go to preborn.com slash Knowles, preborn.com slash K-N-O-W-L-E-S.
00:29:31.700
Hossein Muhtari, the Iranian ambassador to the Holy See,
00:29:37.280
has just received an honor. What some people are saying is the highest pontifical honor,
00:29:43.320
which is the order of Pius IX. This was given to him by the Pope.
00:29:51.020
What is the Vatican doing here? Are they pro-Iran? Are they Islamophilic?
00:29:57.460
Are they fighting against Israel and America and the West? No, no. First of all,
00:30:07.120
they're calling this the highest honor that the Vatican can bestow. That's not even true. The
00:30:10.020
highest honor that the Vatican can bestow is the order of Christ. There are a number of papal orders.
00:30:14.080
There are chivalric orders like the Knights of Malta or the order of the Holy Sepulchre.
00:30:17.560
There are other orders, including the order of Pius IX. There are a number of these orders,
00:30:21.260
the order of Christ. There are a number of orders that the Pope can bestow.
00:30:26.180
One of them is the order of Pius IX, which is just given to all the ambassadors
00:30:31.360
after a couple years of service. That's all it is. This is a normal procedure. Iran is not being
00:30:39.620
specially singled out for any particularly special honor. This is just something that
00:30:44.300
the Pope gives to diplomats. It's a nice thing that the Pope gives to diplomats.
00:30:49.480
And why does this matter? That's kind of interesting if you care about the church
00:30:54.500
or if you care about geopolitics. But the reason that this really matters for people who pay
00:30:58.700
attention to politics broadly, is it's a reminder about the ubiquity and power of propaganda,
00:31:06.260
especially when we're talking about the Iran war. When we're talking about the Iran war,
00:31:11.380
when we're talking about the Middle East generally, issues that touch on religion,
00:31:15.720
interest, Christians, Jews, Muslims, major world powers, the American alliances, the Russian axis,
0.78
00:31:24.860
the Iranian, the Chinese axis, it's all propaganda. This is something I have noticed
00:31:29.740
personally. Whenever I weigh in on the Iran war, on an issue facing the Middle East,
00:31:37.760
Israel, the Palestinians, the war in Gaza, whenever I weigh in, in any way,
00:31:44.500
I see on all the social media platforms, a deluge of propaganda, of these accounts,
00:31:52.320
alternately calling me a slavishly pro-Israel or a neo-Nazi, alternately calling me, I don't know,
0.88
00:32:03.740
a Christian supremacist, fascist, or calling me a traitor to the church.
0.94
00:32:10.080
Alternately, all of these things. And I'll look at the accounts, especially you see this on X,
00:32:14.940
but you can see this on YouTube, you can see this throughout social media. You look at the
00:32:17.820
accounts and you realize these accounts were created three days ago. They're based in Pakistan
00:32:21.480
or something. It's a propaganda. And the propaganda is coming from everywhere.
1.00
00:32:26.640
It's coming from, in this case, it's obviously coming from Iran. Iran is trying to make a big
0.83
00:32:30.820
to-do about this rote honor that the Pope bestows upon diplomats, trying to make it seem as if the
00:32:36.380
Iranian government has Vatican sanction. But it comes from Iran. It comes from Russia. It comes
00:32:42.440
from China. It comes from Israel. It comes from the United States. It comes from the Gulf States.
0.73
00:32:45.560
it comes from everywhere. And it's just an important thing to remember when you are trying
00:32:51.880
to examine these issues. It's a little different for domestic issues because the only parties there,
00:32:56.440
there's a lot of propaganda there too, but it's the sort of domestic left and the domestic right.
00:33:01.720
And sometimes a little foreign influence trying to create divisions. But when we're talking about
00:33:05.440
geopolitics, especially a place as hot as the Middle East, especially the Iran war,
00:33:09.800
which involves every major power. 99.7% of what you're seeing is propaganda. And I'm in a very
00:33:18.440
privileged position to observe this because my views on these issues are fairly moderate
00:33:24.560
and down the middle. And I try to be as objective as possible. And so when you have that position,
00:33:31.980
it's the least popular position with the propagandists. So then you get it from both
00:33:36.360
sides, from all sides. But that's very helpful, actually, in a way, because you can see how the
00:33:41.000
information warfare works. And we know for a fact these major governments. I think Netanyahu said
00:33:46.140
this the other day on the 60 Minutes interview. He said, yes, we consider the propaganda war to be
00:33:52.080
the eighth front in this war. But it's obviously not just Israel. It's every country involved in
00:33:56.960
this. And this is the latest example of this. The Iranians are clearly making hay out of this
00:34:03.280
rote procedure that the Vatican presented. But if you seriously believe that the Pope
1.00
00:34:09.680
is a supporter of the Iranian regime or something like that, I don't know, you're not going to make
00:34:14.660
it. I got a bridge in Brooklyn to say, you got to have a little more cleverness. We need to listen
00:34:19.160
to the words of our Lord who says we need to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
00:34:24.620
Now, speaking of the Iran war, President Trump just got in real hot water because he was asked
00:34:35.160
if he was concerned about Americans' financial situation.
00:34:37.320
And the big headline you're seeing go everywhere,
00:34:50.040
I will be at the Zeal for America 250 rally this June 13th.
00:34:53.800
I will be there with his eminence, Raymond Cardinal Burke,
00:35:03.020
If you are within driving distance of La Crosse, Wisconsin,
00:35:05.980
I strongly encourage you to be there in person.
00:35:20.700
I did not pick my favorite comment from yesterday.
00:35:26.100
I gave this honor as the pope will give to diplomats. I gave this honor
00:35:29.880
To the producers to mr. Davies. Let's see what they picked
00:35:32.840
From jason allen 5760 says the sexual deviant being charged for sex crimes. Who would have thought?
00:35:40.840
Yeah, okay, that's fine. That's an observation. I make a lot which is it's always the ones you most expect
00:35:44.620
That's in reference to the first gay surrogate parent in the uk
00:35:48.360
He became a gay surrogate parent in 1999 first one ever to do it. He just got charged with sex crimes
00:36:00.080
First, though, President Trump on the Iran war,
00:36:10.360
When you're negotiating with Iran, Mr. President,
00:36:13.100
to what extent are American financial situations
00:36:22.420
they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about American's financial situation. I don't
00:36:28.320
think about anybody. I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all.
00:36:35.420
I don't think about American's financial situation. I think about one thing. Iran
00:36:39.860
cannot have a nuclear weapon. So if you took that totally out of context, you'd say, wow,
00:36:45.300
Trump's really lost it. You know, he got elected to make this economy better, which he's done.
00:36:49.300
he got elected to focus on American domestic issues, America first. What are you talking
00:36:53.900
about? Now he's saying all he cares about is the Iran war. Listen to the context of the clip.
00:36:57.700
Play it again. Just play it again so you can hear it from the very beginning.
00:37:01.720
When you're negotiating with Iran, Mr. President, to what extent are American
00:37:05.820
financial situations motivating you to make a deal? Not even a little bit. The only thing that
00:37:11.880
matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about
00:37:16.360
American financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing.
00:37:22.140
We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all.
00:37:25.580
Did you hear the question? The question is the key here. She goes, when you are negotiating with
00:37:31.100
Iran, to what degree is the American financial situation pressuring you to make a deal?
00:37:40.440
So Trump comes out and the question is essentially, hey, how weak are you right now?
00:37:45.680
How much pressure are you feeling? How much heat do you feel? How much leverage does Iran have over
00:37:51.340
you in this negotiation? And his answer is none. Iran has no leverage over me. You want to talk
0.63
00:37:59.480
about the pressure from the American financial situation? You want to see if that's going to
00:38:02.140
pressure me into making some deal that I don't want to make? No, ain't going to happen. I'm
00:38:06.240
crazy. I'll do anything. I'm unpredictable. Iran's got no pressure on me. I'll let every single
00:38:12.820
American go broke. I'll give away my entire fortune. We will eat mud cakes before I give
00:38:17.200
those jerks that I'm presently negotiating with what they want. That's just negotiation.
1.00
00:38:23.080
The context of that comment is entirely with regard to negotiating with Iran. We know from
00:38:31.340
Trump's negotiating style and just common sense negotiating style, you never want to admit that
00:38:36.440
any adversary has any leverage over you at all. You never want to admit that you're feeling any
00:38:41.980
pressure whatsoever. You never want to let your adversary see you sweat. So of course he's going
00:38:46.520
to answer this way. What did you want him to say? Did you want him to say, yeah, I'm actually pretty
00:38:50.240
concerned? I actually think, yeah. I mean, if Iran keeps blockading the Strait of Hormuz and that
00:38:54.560
causes a global recession, then it's going to wipe Republicans out in the midterms and I'm going to
00:38:58.680
be impeached. I'm going to be removed from office. And then my successor, be it J.D. Vance or Marco
00:39:02.760
Rubio, or in my preference, President Vance with Vice President Rubio, won't be elected. And then
00:39:06.900
Democrats will rule for a thousand years. So yeah, I'm really scared. I'm really worried. I'm really
00:39:10.320
sweating. Do you like my sweat? He's not going to say that. He's going to come out and say,
00:39:14.800
oh, I don't care at all. You could put a gun to my head. You could rip the suit off my back.
1.00
00:39:20.180
I'm not giving one inch to these people. Of course, that's the position he's going to be
00:39:25.560
negotiating from. So there are plenty of criticisms of the Iran war. There are plenty of reasons to
00:39:30.820
say that we shouldn't have gone in or we should have handled it differently or this, that, or the
00:39:33.880
other. Obviously, we've talked about that for weeks and weeks and weeks. But that is not the
00:39:38.920
issue that we're talking about here. The issue we're talking about here is, given that Trump
00:39:42.800
is negotiating with the Iranians, what would you have him say? And if you're being honest with
00:39:46.480
yourself, if you are focused primarily on domestic issues, as I am, if you are skeptical of the war
00:39:52.240
in Iran, as I am, if you are concerned about America's financial situation, as I am, and as
00:39:59.440
the president obviously is too, even if you're all of those things, if you're being totally honest
00:40:04.860
with yourself, you would have given exactly the same answer to that reporter.
00:40:13.280
It's one thing to say, well, we should have done this.
00:40:19.340
The headlines that say Trump doesn't care about the American financial situation,
0.96
00:40:24.160
Nobody, no honest person really believes that.
0.89
00:40:28.200
Now, speaking of the White House and domestic issues,
00:40:34.040
beautiful post from the White House just this morning.
00:40:38.880
It has the phrase replacement migration crossed out.
00:40:46.540
Replacement migration crossed out, re-migration, bigger font in its place.
00:40:51.320
Under President Trump, replacement migration will never be the standard.
00:40:53.700
The United States objects to the Global Compact on Migration and UN efforts to facilitate replacement migration.
00:41:00.340
Not illegal immigration, not mass migration.
0.67
00:41:05.980
And the State Department follows it up. Last week, the United States refused to participate
00:41:10.820
in the UN's review of the Global Compact on Migration. The United States objects to the
00:41:14.840
Global Compact on Migration and UN efforts to facilitate replacement migration to the United
00:41:18.340
States and our Western allies. Replacement, replacement, replacement. The reason this matters
00:41:24.240
is some people are going to say, well, I don't want all these tweets. I don't want all these
00:41:29.660
posts from the State Department and the president. I want deportations. First of all, you've gotten
00:41:34.180
a lot of deportations. The first year, we had over 700,000 formal deportations with well over a
00:41:38.700
million informal deportations, self-deportations, pressured deportations. So you did have a net
00:41:44.480
loss of 2 million illegal aliens last year or thereabouts, plus the 3 million who did not cross
00:41:49.300
the border illegally. So you did have a net reduction of what would have been 5 million
00:41:53.120
illegal aliens. The problem is that the Democrats and the business Republicans let the problem get
00:41:56.880
so bad for so many years that now we have something like 20 million illegals. So obviously,
0.53
00:42:00.360
there's a lot of work to do a lot more sure we want all of that this matters though and the
00:42:04.740
reason this matters is the last administration called the great replacement capital g capital
00:42:11.180
r a racist conspiracy theory a racist nazi bigoted conspiracy theory the great replacement the idea
00:42:21.540
that political actors that the democrats as the political party want to radically change the
00:42:28.400
demographics of the United States by bringing in lots and lots of new people such that they can
00:42:34.160
have an electoral advantage forever. The last admin called that a racist, evil, Nazi conspiracy
00:42:39.500
theory. Wikipedia calls that a racist, evil, Nazi conspiracy theory. The current administration
00:42:46.580
recognizes that the Great Replacement is the official policy of the United Nations,
00:42:50.820
that the Great Replacement is the official policy of the Democrat Party, that the Great
00:42:54.760
replacement is a reality. We're getting that from the State Department now. We're getting that from
00:43:00.680
the White House now. And it's obviously a fact. Michael Anton from the Claremont Institute and
00:43:05.760
from the Trump White House, by the way, Michael Anton famously described this as the celebration
00:43:10.740
parallax. That when the left comes out and they say, hey, we're going to bring in millions and
00:43:15.720
millions of foreigners to radically change the demographics of this country, and you celebrate,
0.99
00:43:20.080
right, then that's the truth. That's wonderful. That's a good thing that's happening.
0.98
00:43:24.440
But when you angrily say, hey, the Democrats are bringing in millions of foreigners to radically
00:43:28.720
change the demographics of this country, and that's a bad thing. When you lament that fact,
00:43:32.400
then it's not happening. It's not true. It's a racist, terrible Nazi conspiracy theory.
00:43:37.500
But the Democrats have copped to this. They've explicitly owned up to this for many, many years.
00:43:41.120
And they just tried to stigmatize the phrase great replacement. The Trump administration is now
00:43:46.680
not only calling out that fact, calling out that lie, they're using the word.
00:43:53.140
The Trump administration has just declared that the great replacement is no longer a racist Nazi
00:43:57.780
conspiracy theory. It's the official policy of the global left. And that's very important because
00:44:04.240
the first step in solving a problem is admitting that the problem is happening. Okay. Speaking of
00:44:09.900
this White House versus previous administrations, President Trump just also posted a really telling
00:44:15.260
juxtaposition of Vice President J.D. Vance and Michelle Obama
00:44:20.020
describing what it's like to have kids in the White House.
00:44:29.620
There were moments when I didn't feel like I got enough attention.
00:44:33.440
We live in this beautiful, very protected mansion
00:44:44.620
Um, so we don't have to worry as much about cooking.
00:44:47.120
You're paying for every food, every bit of food that you eat.
00:44:50.420
There are a lot of things that in some ways make having a baby easier.
00:44:53.720
How do you raise kids in the White House? Um, it's dangerous.
00:44:57.920
You don't have to worry about TSA lines when you're the vice president.
00:45:00.220
Air Force Two makes transportation pretty easy.
00:45:02.220
We had to pay for their travel to be on the plane.
00:45:08.020
What the hell have we gotten ourselves into? No more kids.
00:45:14.180
And now both of us are just like, what's one more?
00:45:21.500
And what I love about this is the juxtaposition of Vance and Michelle Obama describing the same thing, which is raising kids in the White House.
00:45:31.260
They're not talking about any policy or ideology or manifesto or whatever.
00:45:37.040
You're just seeing the juxtaposition of two attitudes.
00:45:39.680
And these attitudes, man, it's so important. A point I've tried to make over the years,
00:45:47.080
contrary to many of my friends on the right, is that conservatism, in my mind, is not really an
00:45:55.080
ideology. It doesn't really boil down to ideology. Conservatives disagree on basically every issue,
00:46:00.560
on tariffs versus free trade, on foreign policy intervention versus foreign policy
00:46:05.020
restrained. On migration, the degree to which we should have migration, on the role of religion
00:46:11.660
in government, on and on and on. Conservatives all disagree. So the left doesn't really disagree.
00:46:17.580
The left is all progressive. They all agree on, they basically all agree on the economy,
00:46:23.380
varying degrees of socialism, on migration. They all basically want more of it,
00:47:02.260
And, you know, people prepare our meals for us.
00:47:05.480
She goes, yeah, we got to pay for those meals.
0.98
00:47:10.100
Yeah, and, you know, it's the kids are a lot of work and everything.
00:47:14.840
Love it that the vice president is having a fourth kid.
00:47:16.680
That's actually politically important because people need more kids.
00:47:24.720
it's all so done all the criticism and it's so terrible and it's so it's awful it's all a burden
00:47:28.900
it's all and this is i mean you know people like this you know people i remember one time i was on
00:47:34.700
a beach i was on a beach with some some friends and i'm lying back in the i'm in the caribbean
00:47:40.680
i'm lying back in the sun someone turns to me says michael something i like about you you could
00:47:45.320
be happy anywhere it's like i'd be happy anywhere i'm in paradise i'm not like in downtown detroit
00:47:50.260
right now? How could you not be happy here? But that's the thing. If you have a spirit of
00:47:56.140
gratitude, if you have a spirit of humility, and if you, I don't know if you recognize that
00:48:03.520
our very life is a gift and we need to be happy for it and grateful for it, then even the worst
00:48:09.060
of circumstances are bearable. Even suffering itself is a sanctifying thing. But if you have
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an attitude of pride, of entitlement, of contempt, then even the most glorious of circumstances,
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living in the freaking White House, flying around on your own 747, wherever you want,
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whenever you want, even that is a burden. That's it. To me, this is really crucial. And
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it is one of the reasons, even beyond a lot of the policies, migration, whatever,
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this is one of the reasons that having a left-wing government is so deleterious. It's one of the
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reason it's like an acid corroding the body politic, is it just fills the society with pride,
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with contempt, ultimately with a kind of self-hatred. You cannot have a happy society
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in which every person who constitutes it and the people who are leading it are so deeply unhappy
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all the time. Okay, so much more to get to, but we don't have time because today is Work From Home
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Wednesday and I didn't even assign a work this week. The rest of the show continues now. You
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do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code Knowles, Canada, W-L-E-S at checkout for
00:49:25.420
widely considered one of the greatest Americans who ever lived.
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A man who had a vision for a colorblind society,
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Were his true aims a colorblind society or something far more radical?
00:49:44.380
What unfolded behind the scenes in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963?
00:49:52.820
We wanted to show you a clip of the I Have a Dream speech, but according to our lawyers, we can't.
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In fact, King's family has made a lot of money suing media outlets.
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What they're doing makes it very difficult to judge Martin Luther King Jr. not by the
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color of his skin, but by the content of his character.
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Is America today stronger, more unified, and racially equal than before King's rise?
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These questions demand answers, and as Americans we are entitled to a full accounting of the
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King's Movement fundamentally transformed our country and our system of government.
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Each day the war goes on, the hatred increases, though the cause of evil prosper.
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The first part of our two-part special on the Civil Rights Movement, a new constitution,