Ep. 248 - The Great Purple Puddle
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Summary
The blue wave ebbs to a purple puddle as Democrats take control of the House, Republicans increase their majority in the Senate, and Republicans edge out Democrats on key governorships. Then, Beto O Rourke uses his concession speech to audition for a spot on Pod Save America. Most important of all, President Trump gives a Broadway-caliber press conference, and the show goes on as AG Jeff Sessions resigns.
Transcript
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The blue wave ebbs to a purple puddle as Democrats take control of the House,
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Republicans increase their majority in the Senate, and Republicans edge out Democrats
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on key governorships. We will analyze why House Republicans' loss may be President Trump's gain.
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Then, Beto gets Beto and uses his concession speech to audition for a spot on Pod Save America.
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Most important of all, President Trump gives a Broadway-caliber press conference,
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and the show goes on as Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigns.
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I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
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You know, I was pretty nervous last night. We were on camera doing election coverage for about
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six hours or something. I felt like we were on forever. And I thought, you know,
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there's going to be nothing in the news tomorrow. We've covered everything right now,
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but leave it to President Show Business, President Covfefe, to give us some incredible
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news just breaking now. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, embattled for many months now in a
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feud with President Trump, has officially resigned at the request of Donald Trump. We will get into
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I'm a little bit hungover today. Not because we drank so much, but we were just talking for
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hours and hours with all that smoke, with all that, we weren't eating very much, and all of
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that covfefe. There was initially a flood of leftist tears that affected the Senate. Then we were,
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I wouldn't call it right-wing tears because actually the Democrats won a relatively modest
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number of seats. It wasn't the blue wave. Even Democrats are admitting it wasn't a blue wave. But
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still, they got back control of the House. So there was all of these emotions all over the place.
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And the real question is, how should conservatives feel about all of this? It wasn't, we didn't get
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to guzzle those leftist tears. I'd be much more hungover if we guzzled those leftist tears last
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night. But how do we feel? I think, one, the turnout was insane last night. The turnout was record high.
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I was hearing it from people all day long, and the numbers seemed to back it up. So you had a record
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high turnout. I mean, tens of millions of more voters than were expected from previous midterm
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elections. That is a big win for Republicans. That owes to Republican candidates and to President
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Trump, who in many ways nationalized the election. In the off year, when your party is in the White
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House, your turnout is generally relatively low because you're happy things are going fine. It's the other
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side which is motivated to turnout. So we expected very high Democrat turnout. And we saw Tea Party
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levels of enthusiasm among Democrats. We also saw very high enthusiasm among Republicans. That's a big
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win for Republicans, that we could motivate the Republican base in and off your election. That
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was a big win. The Democrats took the House. They didn't take it by a lot. A blue wave would have been
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if they took it by 50 seats, even maybe 45 seats or 55 or 60 or 63. Barack Obama lost 63 seats in his
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first midterm election. Bill Clinton lost 54 seats in his first midterm election. The Democrats, it looks
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like they picked up anywhere from 28. 28 is what's, I think, been officially called right now. But it looks
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like they picked up about 34 seats somewhere around there. Okay. How disheartened should we be about the
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Democrats taking the House? I don't really care. I don't really care. I would have loved it if
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Republicans had held the House because it would have shown, it would have bucked the historical trend
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so much. It would have been such a mandate for this administration to govern that it would have been
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irresistible. We would have loved it. But practically speaking, because the Democrats took the House,
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who cares? Who cares? What were Republicans doing with the House anyway? What were they, I mean,
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we got tax reform. That's good. What else? Anything else did we get? We didn't get entitlement reform.
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We didn't really get a spending decrease. What did we really get out of it? What were they doing?
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You know, in part, Jeremy Boring, the God King, was talking about this last night. In part, this is
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because for the last 10 years, we've been running against earmarks, pork barrel spending, the kind of
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spending where one congressman says, all right, I'll vote for the spending in your district if you vote
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for a bill that has spending in my district. And then we both get to bring home the bacon for our
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constituents and we'll get reelected. And this was the way that politics worked in this country for a long
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time. And it incentivized legislators to vote on legislation. So Jeremy Boring now is saying, we bring back
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the bacon, bring back the earmarks. And he makes a very good case for it, which is that if you don't
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have pork barrel spending, nobody has any incentive to vote on anything. So you're just, all you can do
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is grandstand and then go back and obstruct and then go raise money in your district. And you're not
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actually legislating. That's what we've seen. You know, the Republicans won the House of Representatives
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in 2010. There was this amazing Tea Party election, took back the House. What did we get for it? Because
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then Republicans took back the Senate in 2014. As a matter of legislative accomplishments, what did we
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get? We were told when we took back the House that we had to take back the Senate to get anything. When we
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took back the Senate, we were told we had to win the White House to get anything. When we took the White
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House, what did we get? We got tax reform. That was great. We almost got Obamacare repeal, except John
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McCain voted it down. John McCain ruined our chances of that. May he rest in peace. So what did
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we really get? We were promised as early as 2010 that we're going to reform entitlements, the biggest
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driver of our debt and deficit, the young guns, Paul Ryan's going to do it. Did we get that? No,
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we didn't. Not for lack of trying on Paul Ryan's part, but we didn't. So now that we've lost the House,
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what's the legislative loss? They won't make the tax cuts permanent, but nothing is permanent in
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politics. And we won't get entitlement reform, which we weren't going to get anyway. Okay.
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We kept the Senate. We actually gained seats in the Senate. What does that mean? It means that the
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judges are going to keep rolling in. President Trump has done a great job and Cocaine Mitch has
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done a great job of getting judges appointed, federal judges and obviously on the Supreme Court.
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That means we'll get more of that. That is probably going to be the legacy of this first term.
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You know, if, and if that is the legacy, that's pretty good. If the legacy is executive orders,
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deregulation out of the White House and all of these federal judges, that's a win. Great. I'll take
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it. The, the big question by losing the House that is now going to be asked is can President Trump still
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win if he loses? That sounds like a contradiction in terms, but he's just lost some. He'd lost the
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House. Historically, it seems inevitable that he lost the House. In many ways, they lost it by less
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than they should have. Okay. Blah, blah, blah, whatever. They lost the House. President Trump's
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charm, so much of his charm is that he wins. He wins, wins, wins all the time. He never loses.
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And that's held true. This guy has been talking about running for president since the eighties,
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but he never did. He didn't quite do it until he knew he could win, until he saw his opening.
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He took it and he won. He beat out a, an extraordinarily qualified Republican field.
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Donald knocked him down one by one, 16, 17 candidates. Then he took down the House of
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Clinton. So he's got all this win, win, win. Now that he's lost a little something, can he
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maintain that charm? Can he maintain that air of invincibility, the Teflon Don? I suspect he can.
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I suspect he can because of how he handled himself in this press conference. And frankly, I think that
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losing the House will give great political benefit to Donald Trump. Holding the House would have given
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great political benefit in the sense that it would have been such a mandate to govern. But now
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President Trump has an adversary. And we'll get to why that matters in a second. So what's the good
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news? GOP extends its Senate majority. And the GOP picked up key governorships. So this means, look,
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the map in 2018 was pretty good for Republicans in the Senate. It's not going to be so good for
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Republicans in 2020. The Republicans are going to have a lot more seats that they have to defend,
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unlike this time when Democrats had a lot of seats that they have to defend. But now that we're looking
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at a gain of three, maybe four seats in the Senate, it's going to be a lot harder for Democrats to take
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back the Senate in 2020, which means that if House Democrats want to impeach President Trump, like
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they've been yammering on about for the last three months, they can impeach him. That's fine. But there
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is statistically a 0% chance that they convict him and remove him from office. We also picked up some
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key governorships, some really big ones in states that we were told we're going to flip and we're
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going to go for Democrats. The reason that this matters is one, because of redistricting. It means
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that Republicans will have at least a seat at the table in redistricting when that comes up and make
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sure that Democrats don't gerrymander things out of control, gerrymander themselves into a House
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majority. But the big pickup was in Florida. So just some of the major upsets, some of the key GOP wins
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here. Mike Braun beats Joe Donnelly in Indiana. Polling told us Donnelly was going to win.
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What happened? Major upset. Mike Braun beats Democrat Joe Donnelly. In Missouri, Democrat Claire
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McCaskill lost to Republican Josh Hawley. I always suspected that Hawley was going to beat McCaskill,
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and I actually thought that Braun was going to beat Donnelly too. But really nice to see that
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confirmed. And then we get to Florida, the big win of the night, the guzzling of leftist tears.
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We'll talk about that in one second. But first, let's have a little gratitude. Let's talk about
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covfefe, C-O-V-F-E-F-E. Happy Veterans Day and God bless America. So the big, big upset was in Florida.
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Ron DeSantis, Republican Ron DeSantis, beats Democrat socialist crony crook Andrew Gillum. Democrats
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were already talking about Gillum as a possible 2020 presidential candidate and a real crook and a
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cynical, awful politician who baselessly smeared his Republican opponent as a racist, played the
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race card constantly. Just an awful fella and he got beat. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Delicious. Also in Florida,
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another big win. Looks like a big win. The race has been called for Republican Rick Scott,
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the former governor of Florida. It looks as though Republican Rick Scott beat Democrat Bill
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Nelson. Nelson is calling for a recount. Why? Because Democrats cannot concede races ever. They
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just can't do it. Al Gore can't do it. Hillary Clinton can't do it. Bill Nelson can't do it. They
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just whine and moan and complain and they're going to keep digging and recounting those ballots until
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they find enough dead and illegal voters to force them into office because they're sore losers and they
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don't treat politics with any dignity whatsoever. Now, just north of Florida in Georgia, you had the
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race between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams. Stacey Abrams, another awful candidate,
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empty headed candidate who said that her coalition was going to be made up in part of illegal aliens,
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that her voting coalition was going to be people who should not vote, for whom it is a crime to vote.
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And you had Oprah go down there and campaign on behalf of Stacey Abrams. So we're, you know,
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that was the final couple of weeks push. You've got to get Stacey Abrams through. What happens?
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Brian Kemp wins. Brian Kemp beats Stacey Abrams. And guess what happens? Stacey Abrams won't concede.
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Why? Because Democrats are sore losers. So they're going to dig up some more dead and illegal votes.
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Stacey Abrams already promised that. She already said, my coalition includes illegal voters. So maybe
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they'll try to find some more illegal voters to push Stacey Abrams through. What she's really hoping for
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is a runoff. So because it was so close and because there are other candidates on the ballot,
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she's going to hope for a runoff election. We'll see if it gets to that. There's been no,
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because we don't have a final vote count, we cannot call that yet. And if there is, I hope Brian
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Kemp beats her again. I hope we go right through. And I hope that ballot security measures are in place
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because you've got a whole Democrat party and especially Stacey Abrams openly talking about
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illegal aliens voting. So those are, I think, the most important races. Why do those races matter?
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There were other great wins in Ohio for Republicans. Unfortunately, Wisconsin governor fell to Democrats.
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Scott Walker, I think, has just been in there too long. He's fought very hard. He's been a very good
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governor, excellent governor in Wisconsin. But eventually people get sick of you and they throw you
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out. And that's what happened to Scott Walker and the big win in Florida. Why do these matter?
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Because these are very important states for the presidential election. You know, Florida,
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Florida is constantly having votes decided by about 200 votes or 50 votes. It's even between great
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candidates like Ron DeSantis and just awful, terrible people like Andrew Gillum. It's still,
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you know, a question of a thousand votes or 5,000 votes or 200 votes. I mean, this has just been the
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case since the 2000 presidential election, at least. So to win those swing states looking forward at
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2020, that's really important. One, because it shows us the direction of how people are voting
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and because, you know, by nationalizing this, President Trump made it about him. So it's not
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just about the Republican and Democrat parties, which is important. We want to see how people break down
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there, but he made it about him so that we see what happens when he is on the ballot next time.
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I think those are all great signs. Then I, I mean, those are the most important races. My favorite
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race, you know, my favorite, it wasn't in Florida. It wasn't in Ohio or Indiana. It was in the great
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state of Texas where Senator Ted Cruz beat out Mr. Beta Male himself, Beta Beto, Francis, Robert Francis,
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Bobby Frank O'Rourke. Uh, he beat him out and I'll, I'll let Beto, uh, speak for himself in his
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concession speech. He turned the left wing white guy up to like 12. He turned it, it was already at
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about nine and a half and he just turned it all the way up to 12 by whining profanities. Beto, take it away.
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In every single part of Texas, all of you show in the country, how you do this.
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I'm so, I'm so effing proud. I'm so you guys, you guys, seriously, you guys, I'm a, I'm a serious
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person. I'm a really serious person and a statesman. I'm so, I'm such a effing statesman.
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I'm such a effing, he's just doing that thing that the Pod Save America guys do. He's just the
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grownup Pod Save America guy and admittedly fairly attractive, very effeminate man who uses vulgarity
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and profanity to substitute in for coherent points that he's incapable of making. He is Pod Save
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America with about 15 years on. He's probably auditioning for a spot on Pod Save America now
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because he's unemployed. Although he really swindled national Democrats. How many millions
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of dollars did this guy raise? Even as of a month ago, he'd raised 40 million. I think the total was
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something like 70 million dollars and he barely spent any of it. And he wasn't giving it to other
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candidates either. So he's probably looking forward to running for president in 2020. And in the meantime,
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maybe he'll go on Pod Save America and whine and use profanity and not make any, any decent
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arguments. Um, they're, they're calling this a moral victory. The Democrats, you knew they were
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going to do this because Beto, he's not just, he's not just the Pod Save America guys in the future.
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He's also what John Ossoff was, uh, a few years ago. Do you remember John Ossoff? He was that Democrat
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who was running in, what was it in Georgia? And they poured money into his race. They said,
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we're going to flip this seat. We're going to John Ossoff. He looked like Beto. He was just like a
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skinny, whiny, effeminate white male. And they said, well, he's the one we's going to win. And
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then he loses. And they say, well, you know, sometimes losing is really winning. No, it's not.
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It's losing. It's always losing. Losing is losing. The winners go and legislate and the losers go home
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to quote cocaine Mitch McConnell. That's exactly what happened here. Um, that said, this doesn't bode well
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for Texas. He only lost by three or four points. I think in Texas, this guy's a whiny left wing,
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just awful, unspeakably repulsive candidate to me, but he's, he's apparently very attractive to
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Democrats and there are a lot more Democrats in Texas. Uh, every single day this is happening
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because California is emptying out and because our border is not secure. So people are flooding in
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there who, uh, statistically are much more likely to vote for Democrats. Now let's temper our fears a
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little bit here. Ted Cruz is a flawed candidate. I like Ted Cruz a lot. I've done TV commercials for
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Ted Cruz. I voted for Ted Cruz. He's a flawed candidate. He's flawed because he got really
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bruised in the presidential primary with Donald Trump. He then didn't support the Republican, uh,
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nominee at the convention, which really turned off a lot of people. He then did support the
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Republican nominee. So it turned off all the people who were happy that he didn't support him at the
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convention. He is just in a tough spot and he's an extraordinarily intelligent guy. He's maybe the
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most intelligent person in the U S Senate, but he's not as good at that pavement retail politics
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as Beto O'Rourke is. So Beto had an advantage there and a big money advantage. Beto obviously
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had a lot of money from national Democrats coming in. So, okay, that's fine. If this were,
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uh, let's say though, that Cruz only, instead of beating him by three or four points, let's say he
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beat him by 10 points. That's in Texas, that's still pretty scary. And, uh, uh, I don't, I think
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perhaps they should, uh, stop building the wall along the Southern border and just build a wall
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completely around the state of Texas so that it stops getting infiltrated by Democrats. Cause that,
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that is a little bit of a worrying trend, but look guys to quote the economist, John Maynard Keynes
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in the long run, we're all dead. So we can always worry about things tomorrow. This is, I think a lot
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of when Ben and I disagree on politics, it's, it's mostly attitudinal, which is, Hey, we won.
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We're here today. Come on. That's pretty good. And Ben will say, yeah, but in 50 years, the sun is
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going to explode and we'll all die. Okay. All right. Yeah, I guess that's true. But today is a
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good day. Um, the other thing I want to point out with Beto is they, they made this such a national
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point for Democrats is imagine if he went by his actual name. Imagine if Beto O'Rourke didn't
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pretend to be a Mexican. He's not Mexican. He's not even one 1,024th Mexican. He's a white guy.
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His name is Bob. His name is Robert Francis O'Rourke. And I know we've been joking about Beto
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and Beto and Beta and Robert Francis, you know, imagine if he actually had to go by
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his name, Robert O'Rourke, Ted Cruz versus Robert O'Rourke. Would any Democrat care about
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him? Even though I know he's like a little cutie pie and he wore dresses in his prog rock
00:22:34.800
band in the nineties or whatever, but I know I get that. But would they actually care about
00:22:40.080
him? No, they wouldn't. It shows that racial obsession of Democrats that a 100% whitest guy
0.96
00:22:48.620
on the face of the earth can just pretend to be a Mexican and he will get national Democrat
0.91
00:22:54.160
support. That is pretty bizarre. He'll get tens of millions of dollars from out of state
00:22:59.260
Democrats. That is pretty bizarre. And when we pointed it out that he's a fake Mexican,
1.00
00:23:04.740
that he's lying about his race by using that name, they didn't seem to care. They didn't
0.76
00:23:09.580
care. One, because I think Democrats are shallow thinkers when it comes to this, these races and
00:23:16.580
they're shallow when it comes to race. It doesn't matter. It's just the appearance of
00:23:20.420
the thing. If you're a man who then wears a dress and says, you're a woman, they say
00:23:24.740
you're a woman. If you're a white guy who slaps on the name Beto, next time he's going
1.00
00:23:30.240
to go by like Juan Lopez, Juan Lopez O'Rourke, you slap on a Mexican name, then you're a Mexican.
00:23:37.060
And this actually does have a philosophical grounding to it. It actually comes from the flaws
00:23:44.000
of feminism, leftism, intersectionality, intersectionalism. There actually are
00:23:50.280
philosophical, just a rotten core to this. We're going to get to that a little bit later
00:23:54.860
when we talk about the Girl Scouts suing the Boy Scouts. But that is the rotten philosophical
00:23:59.560
foundation of the modern left that this guy, I mean, he's actually a good example because
00:24:03.900
he used to wear dresses back when he was a young man playing in prog rock bands. But talk
00:24:09.580
about shallowness. So I think in the future, whenever I run for, for Senate from the state
00:24:14.860
of Texas, I want it to be on the record right now. I am going to go as Miguel Juan Lopez
00:24:20.840
Francisco Knowles. So get that. And I want you to start calling me that because then when
00:24:27.420
I run, I'll say, oh, my friends have been calling me that for years. What a cynical jerk.
1.00
00:24:32.920
He lost. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Delicious. Now, we have to talk about Jeff Sessions. This is breaking
1.00
00:24:42.880
news. Jeff Sessions has resigned. They didn't wait very long on that one. We've been wondering if he
00:24:49.120
was going to resign for months and months. President Trump has been really hard on him
00:24:52.240
ever since AG Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation. He said, it's improper for me
00:24:59.720
to be the point person on the Russia investigation because I was on the campaign. And so there is a
00:25:07.820
special counsel appointed. He reports to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. And Donald Trump
00:25:14.500
has been hammering Jeff Sessions for this. I had always hoped that it was just a show. I had always
00:25:20.100
hoped that they were just putting on a show. Oh, yeah, Trump hates Jeff Sessions and they're going to
00:25:24.180
fight it out. But they really liked each other because Jeff Sessions is a great guy. He's done a very
00:25:28.460
good job at other aspects as Attorney General at the DOJ. And he was one of Trump's earliest
00:25:34.340
supporters. I think he was the earliest major supporter for Donald Trump. And it just seems
00:25:39.460
that actually it was a pretty bad relationship. Trump was pretty mean to the guy. In his resignation
00:25:47.040
letter, he said that he was resigning at the request of the president. So he's out. Now they're
00:25:54.380
going to fill that and Democrats are going to crow about how President Trump is obstructing justice
00:25:59.760
with the Mueller investigation. It remains to be seen what happens with regard to Mueller. This
00:26:04.900
doesn't directly affect that at all. However, Jeff Sessions is out. We should point out he's done a very
00:26:10.940
good job in many other ways. He's gotten very tough on drugs amidst this awful opioid crisis, one of the
00:26:16.800
worst epidemics in American history. And he's gotten really tough on drugs, reversed a lot of stupid
1.00
00:26:22.380
Obama era policies. He's gotten a lot tougher on illegal immigration. He's actually enforcing laws
0.99
00:26:28.940
now, laws that have not been enforced since the 1990s. He's getting back there and enforcing the
00:26:35.480
law. That's really important. You know, he's just tightened up the ship. He's made what was a very
00:26:42.660
lawless DOJ under Barack Obama, a corrupt, a crooked, lawless DOJ. He's made it much more law and order
00:26:50.300
centric. And actually his recusal, as frustrating as it is for Republicans and conservatives,
00:26:57.600
does show that change. Because Loretta Lynch wouldn't have recused herself from nothing.
1.00
00:27:02.340
The Obama DOJ, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch was so corrupt, so targeted President Obama's political
0.99
00:27:11.400
opponents. And Jeff Sessions came in and he said, we're not going to do that. We are going to hold
00:27:16.560
ourselves to a higher standard. I give him credit for it. I think he did a really good job in many
00:27:21.040
areas and I'm sorry to see him go. And hopefully, you know, President Trump has replaced bad appointees
00:27:26.260
with good appointees and good appointees with better appointees. And I hope that that is the case here,
00:27:31.960
but we'll just have to see what happens moving forward. What we do know is that the show must go
00:27:37.700
on. And that's what this is all about. I think that's why the Sessions resignation came today.
00:27:41.560
I think that's why Trump had this wild press conference today. The show must go on and it is
00:27:47.640
going on. The best news that comes out of these midterm elections, the absolute best news, and the
00:27:53.380
reason why losing the House is actually probably a benefit to Trump, might hurt the Republicans broadly,
00:27:59.900
but it's probably a benefit to Trump, is that Trump now gets an adversary. He's got someone to fight
00:28:06.140
against. When Donald Trump doesn't have an adversary, he's fine. He treads water. He's okay.
00:28:12.280
But when he's got an adversary, that's when he shines. When he's got a Jeb Bush to go after,
00:28:16.920
or a crooked Hillary, or now a Nancy Pelosi, that is when he shines. And, you know, President Trump
00:28:23.900
learns a lot from Reagan and from Obama. Don't forget, Barack Obama lost 63 seats in the House in
00:28:30.460
the 2010 midterms, and he got re-elected in 2012. The Democrats aren't talking about that very much
00:28:36.460
right now. So what does it mean? It means that Democrats are going to investigate everything.
00:28:40.040
They're going to investigate security clearances, conflicts of interest, the Trump organization,
00:28:44.000
porn stars, all that stuff. They're saying now that they're going after tax returns. They're going to
00:28:49.220
get Trump's tax returns. They're going to see it. They are falling into a trap. I'm glad they're
00:28:53.240
falling into this trap. They set the trap for themselves a year or so ago. Now that the Democrats
00:28:58.480
have the House, they can request Trump's tax returns from the Treasury Department,
00:29:02.440
and they almost certainly will get them, but they can't release them. So they can't have their tax
00:29:11.200
returns and eat them too. They can have their tax returns, or they can pressure Trump to release
00:29:16.040
his own tax returns, but they can't get the tax returns and then release them. That would be a
00:29:19.980
violation of the law. So I just think they don't learn anything. You know, this election should have
00:29:26.860
been a blue wave. It really should have, historically speaking, and it wasn't. It wasn't
00:29:31.100
even close to a blue wave. They took the House, but no wave at all. And they're focusing on things
00:29:37.400
that people don't care about. They don't care about the tax returns. No American cares about
00:29:41.440
Trump's tax returns. Nobody is going to win an election on Donald Trump's tax returns. It ain't
00:29:47.540
going to happen. But President Trump is playing along. He is the troll in chief, and he's got great
00:29:52.140
words for Nancy Pelosi. Plus, we will get to this unbelievable press conference today,
00:29:58.680
an epic smackdown of Jim Acosta. But first, I've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
00:30:03.460
If you're on Facebook and YouTube, I'm amazed you're still there. Go to dailywire.com.
00:30:07.420
If you are already on Daily Wire, thank you. You help us keep the lights on. If you're not,
00:30:11.620
it's $10 a month, $100 for an annual membership. You get me. You get the Andrew Klavan show. You get
00:30:15.460
the Ben Shapiro show. You get to ask questions in the mailbag. You get all that stuff. By the way,
00:30:18.880
if you happen to be in Los Angeles tonight and you're thirsty for some sweet, sweet leftist tears
00:30:23.220
and salty, come out to Loyola Marymount University at 7 p.m. I will be joined by the supreme lord of
00:30:30.360
the multiverse himself, Andrew Klavan, to entertain and enlighten both friends and snowflakes. Hope to
00:30:36.180
see you there at Loyola Marymount University, 7 p.m. Pacific time. It's going to be a lot of fun.
00:30:41.860
You'll need the Leftist Tears Tumblr. You're going to need it because the Trump agenda,
00:30:46.040
with the exception of tax reform, has been all through the Senate, not through the House.
00:30:51.360
We've made gains in the Senate. We're going to get more judges through. We're going to get more
00:30:55.060
Brett Kavanaugh's. I hope you like beer. I like beer. I still like beer, and I still like Leftist
00:30:59.420
Tears. Go get your Tumblr. We'll be right back with a lot more.
00:31:01.920
So we elected a showman. We're getting a show. President Trump tweets at this out today. He
00:31:17.380
says, quote, in all fairness, Nancy Pelosi deserves to be chosen speaker of the House by the Democrats.
00:31:22.100
If they give her a hard time, perhaps we'll add some Republican votes. She has earned this great
00:31:26.920
honor. So he's saying Democrats are threatening not to make Pelosi their speaker because she's 155
00:31:34.640
years old, and she's not a terribly competent person. Though she is a shrewd politician in many
00:31:40.480
ways, and we'll get to that. So President Trump is saying, that's fine. If your Democrats won't
00:31:44.880
make you speaker, maybe we'll send you some Republican votes so that you can become speaker.
0.95
00:31:48.720
You deserve it, Nancy. Of course he wants Nancy Pelosi. She's one of the most detested people in
0.78
00:31:53.240
the entire country. She's a perfect adversary for him, and he'll win every time that he goes up
00:31:57.920
against her. So we hope, we're supporting Nancy for speaker, Pelosi for speaker, 2018. Let's do it.
00:32:05.080
I hope we all unify here at the Daily Wire. So he sends that out. She's also a shrewd politician,
00:32:13.180
by the way, because she's already saying impeachment is probably not going to be pursued.
00:32:16.920
Of course not. I mean, they would be so stupid. Both Pelosi and Trump learned the lesson of the
1.00
00:32:24.500
Clinton impeachment, which is that when an overzealous house overreaches, you get political
00:32:30.280
gains for the incumbent president. That's exactly what would happen. No hope of conviction in the
00:32:36.260
Senate. No hope now or in 2020, probably. So it would be a huge waste of time, a huge distraction,
00:32:41.980
and Trump could continue to get his agenda through executive orders and through the judges. So she's
00:32:48.540
taking that off the table. She also said they're not going to try to impeach Kavanaugh. I think
00:32:51.960
they've learned from the Kavanaugh effect, which is that the senators who voted against Brett Kavanaugh
00:32:58.240
basically all got routed last night. Okay, that's fine. That's the Pelosi side of it. Now President
00:33:04.800
Trump gets up there, and he puts on a show. He starts with the incredibly satisfying smackdown
00:33:10.300
of Jim Acosta. There are hundreds of miles away, though. There are hundreds and hundreds
00:33:14.760
of miles away. That's not an invasion. Honestly, I think you should let me run the country. You run
00:33:19.880
CNN. All right. And if you did it well, your ratings will be much better. If I may ask one other
00:33:24.340
question, Mr. President, if I may ask one other question, are you worried? That's enough. That's
00:33:28.180
enough. That's enough. That's enough. Pardon me, ma'am. I'm, Mr. President. That's enough.
00:33:33.620
Mr. President, I'd want to tell you what. CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working
00:33:38.220
for them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn't be working for CNN. Go ahead.
1.00
00:33:45.020
I think that's unfair. You're a very rude person. The way you treat Sarah Huckabee
0.96
00:33:48.480
is horrible, and the way you treat other people are horrible. You shouldn't treat people that
00:33:53.320
way. Go ahead. Go ahead, Peter. Go ahead. In Jim's defense, I've traveled with him and
00:33:57.140
watched him. He's a diligent reporter. Well, I'm not a big fan of yours either, so to be honest.
00:34:01.180
Show me the lie. Show me the lie. Fact check true on all of that. By the way, that was after
00:34:08.580
Jim Acosta asked about 100,000 questions. He wouldn't shut up. They weren't questions. He's
00:34:14.060
just arguing with Trump. He says that the caravan isn't invading the country. The illegal alien
1.00
00:34:18.840
caravan isn't invading the country. They are. They're not American citizens. They're foreign
1.00
00:34:23.940
nationals, and they're forcing themselves into the country. By definition, that's an invasion.
0.99
00:34:27.420
So Trump says basically that. And Jim says, no, they're not invading. They're just coming into
00:34:33.420
the country illegally. He says, yeah, okay, we have a difference of opinion, but they're invading.
0.51
00:34:37.200
And he just goes on and on, and he keeps badgering. And there are other reporters there,
00:34:41.200
presumably, who want to ask questions. And so finally he says, all right, that's enough from you.
00:34:44.880
And he smacks him down. And he's right. Jim Acosta does treat people wrong. What you didn't see in
00:34:49.080
that clip is that a White House aide, this young woman, goes up to get the microphone from Acosta
00:34:55.140
because he keeps demagoguing and won't let anyone ask another question. And Acosta shoves her. He
00:34:59.960
shoves her away, pulls the microphone back, and he shoves her away. And yet we're told that
00:35:06.140
President Trump is this awful bully, and he's a misogynist. He's all, look at Jim Acosta,
1.00
00:35:12.020
shoving a woman who's trying to do her job away from him and refusing to give up the microphone and let
00:35:16.960
anybody else speak. It is awful. And I love that President Trump, probably alone among possible
00:35:23.500
Republican presidents right now, is able to call that out. It was absolutely right. He also,
00:35:29.020
but I'm actually, by the way, trying to draft Jim Acosta to be the 2020 Democrat nominee. I think
00:35:34.460
that's the showdown we're all waiting for. That's the, if you're watching, if you're watching the
00:35:40.220
heads of the Democrat Party, Maxine Waters, Hillary Clinton, Michael Abinati, I want you all to nominate
00:35:46.880
Jim Acosta. President Trump, during this great press conference, also fired back at some of his
00:35:57.980
You said that many of the retirements that happened in the House made it very difficult-
00:36:02.540
That made it very difficult for you in this election cycle, and that it was because they
00:36:06.960
were chairmans, that were chairmanships that were vacated. But Jeff Flake wasn't a chairman of
00:36:11.040
a committee, and Paul Ryan also retired the cycle. So why do you think that is? Whose fault is it that
00:36:16.140
In Jeff Flake's case, it's me, pure and simple. I retired him. I'm very proud of it. I did the
00:36:22.140
country a great service. Go ahead. Give him that. Give him that. He is retired. I'd like to call it
00:36:27.660
another word, but we're going to treat him with great respect. Go ahead.
00:36:33.980
Go ahead. But we're going to treat him with great respect. That Flake, what a beaut, what a beaut he
00:36:39.260
is. Absolutely right, too. And a worthwhile point on this is that the GOP got blown out in the suburbs,
00:36:47.100
in the House races here. They got really damaged in the suburbs, which only makes sense. The rural
00:36:53.820
areas generally vote for Republicans. Urban areas generally vote for Democrats. And the suburbs are
00:36:59.820
where they battle it out. But for years and years now, the suburbs have been moving bluer and bluer.
00:37:05.420
And in a swing year, in a year that should favor Democrats, it's no surprise that the Democrats took
00:37:11.020
the suburbs. That's the easiest place for them to take. But, you know, Jeff Flake is the kind of
00:37:16.300
Republican who talks to the suburbs. Guess what? Even Republicans who talk to the suburbs lose. If you
00:37:21.100
stand in the middle of the road, you're going to get hit by a truck. And there are few words that
00:37:27.740
I have for Jeff Flake that I haven't already said on this show. So we can leave it there. But he's
00:37:33.180
just awful. He's just the worst kind of preening narcissist. And I'm very happy that he's no longer
1.00
00:37:38.860
in the Senate. And we all should be. And Trump did do a national service in doing that. It's also nice
00:37:44.060
because it shows a certain independence from Trump, which is that he's not simply a partisan guy.
00:37:51.500
I mean, he hasn't been a partisan for much of his life. He's been a Democrat. He's been a Republican.
00:37:55.260
He's been a Reform Party guy. And this helps him in many ways because it's frustrating when he's
00:38:02.300
fighting with Paul Ryan. It's frustrating when he's fighting with members of his own party. But
00:38:05.660
I think it gives him a lot of credibility for American voters who are not hardcore Republicans
00:38:11.660
or hardcore Democrats. It shows an independent streak. It's frustrating for those of us who are
00:38:16.820
more partisan. But, you know, I think actually in the long run, it probably helps. Then he also showed
00:38:24.200
us in this press conference that the media are not getting any fairer to the GOP. This was an
00:38:28.840
amazing exchange with a woman, I believe, from PBS talking to Donald Trump. It's not even a question.
00:38:35.560
It's just an accusation. Here she is. On the campaign trail, you called yourself a nationalist.
00:38:40.280
Some people saw that as emboldening white nationalists. Now people are also saying that the press-
00:38:44.120
I don't know why you'd say that. It's such a racist question.
00:38:45.960
There are some people that say that now the Republican Party is seen as supporting white
00:38:50.200
nationalists because of your rhetoric. What do you make of that?
00:38:52.600
I don't believe that. Well, I don't know. Why do I have my highest poll numbers ever with African
1.00
00:38:56.920
Americans? Why do I have among the highest poll numbers with African Americans? I mean,
00:39:02.280
why do I have my highest poll numbers? That's such a racist question. Honestly, I mean, I know you have
00:39:07.880
it written down and you're going to tell me. Let me tell you, it's a racist question.
00:39:11.400
I love it. You know what the word is? I love our country. I do. You have nationalists. You have
00:39:18.920
globalists. I also love the world. And I don't mind helping the world. But we have to straighten
00:39:23.800
out our country first. We have a lot of problems. Excuse me. But to say that what you said is so
00:39:29.400
insulting to me. It's a very terrible thing that you said. I'm so pleased that he said this to her and
00:39:35.000
that he took it the way that it is. Because one, it's a very racist question. What he said is,
00:39:39.480
I'm an American nationalist. I'm for the American nation. The American nation is not an ethno state.
00:39:45.560
It's not, there is no race called the Americans. There are many races who have come to America.
00:39:51.960
It was founded by people who were English and people who were Dutch and people who were black,
00:39:59.160
who were brought over as slaves and people who later were Irish. And then some Italians when the
0.97
00:40:05.480
Sicilian sardine boat came over and met up with the Mayflower boat and produced little
00:40:09.400
old me and other people too. And obviously, every race under the sun has come to America over time.
00:40:15.720
To say that you are an American nationalist is to make a statement that is absent of race.
00:40:24.920
And she says, if you support America, you are a racist. That's what she's saying. That's why her
00:40:31.080
comment is racist, is she's saying America is a white country. Saying America is a white country,
0.99
00:40:35.880
or an English country, or an Irish country, or whatever. And then she says that you said you're
00:40:41.160
a nationalist. And some people have said that means white nationalists. Some people. You're some people.
00:40:46.760
You're the some people who said it. Admit it. At least have some courage and say, I'm criticizing you
00:40:51.720
for this and I'm equating American nationalism with white nationalism. This doesn't make any sense.
00:40:57.240
When Trump says he's a nationalist, he's spoken with stunning clarity on this. He is saying that he
00:41:02.360
supports the Westphalian system, the system of nation states that we've had for about 400 years
00:41:07.480
in this world to preserve the world order. And that independent nations are the best units of
00:41:15.400
the global order to preserve liberty for its people. That's what he's saying. He juxtaposes it with
00:41:21.720
globalism, which refers to transnational, supranational empires like the European Union,
00:41:28.040
or the United Nations, or any, any other. Okay. So he says this and she says, well, what about,
00:41:35.640
oh, isn't that just like white nationalism? White nationalism is actually the opposite of nationalism
0.51
00:41:41.320
because there is no white nation. There's never been a nation of the whites. In fact, actually,
00:41:46.680
the only sound argument against nationalism is Europe, is the white continent, because there are,
0.61
00:41:52.600
there isn't just one white nation, which is called Europe. There are many of little nations,
0.87
00:41:56.680
the French nation, the Italian nation, the English nation, the Spanish nation, and all of those
00:42:02.280
nations would fight with one another. The argument against nationalism is that all of those independent
00:42:06.920
nations having too much sovereignty will get all of the various white people to kill each other in
1.00
00:42:11.480
Europe. There is no nation of the whites that there are, there can be white empires. Plenty of
0.99
00:42:17.160
people have tried to create empires such as that, but it is not nationalism. So it's both a
00:42:23.160
misunderstanding what, what she's talking about, but it's also an awful calumny. It's an awful slander.
00:42:28.280
And so he says, your question is racist, which is true. And then he said, your accusation against me
00:42:33.560
is so horribly insulting. And I'm glad he said that because they get away with this. They've gotten away
00:42:38.120
with this for decades. They call you a racist and we're supposed to take it. We're just supposed to
00:42:42.360
take it. I've had people in ostensibly polite conversations call me a racist flat out or imply that I'm
00:42:48.600
racist or bigoted, or I don't like people of other races. And that's so, you know, I got two words for
0.99
00:42:53.240
those people, though. I try to be polite in conversation, so I don't say them very much,
00:42:57.240
but it's awful. And the people who do it should be ashamed of themselves.
00:43:00.760
They behave like children, like little angry, hysterical, mean-spirited children. And that's
0.78
00:43:06.120
how she was behaving. And she should sit down. And I'm glad that President Trump called her out for
00:43:11.320
it. The press conference only got better from there, of course, because it's not just that reporters are
00:43:17.000
unfair when it comes to racial insinuations. It's that they're unfair on questions of basic history.
00:43:22.520
They're actually trying to rewrite history to make Barack Obama look better and to make Trump look
00:43:27.560
worse. Look at this stunning exchange, which for some reason the left is spreading all around Twitter
00:43:32.360
right now. President Obama allowed a very large part of Ukraine to be taken. And right now you have
00:43:38.520
submarines off that particular parcel that we're talking about. That was President Putin who annexed
00:43:45.000
Crimea, sir. That was President Obama's regime. That was during President Obama.
00:43:50.520
Right? That was not during me. But it was President Putin, sir, who did the annexation.
00:43:54.920
No, no. It was President Obama that allowed it to happen. Had nothing to do with me. Okay, go ahead.
00:44:01.640
That's exactly right. I suppose technically both of the people in here are right, except the reporter is
00:44:06.760
wrong because he's trying to pretend that his point contradicts Trump's point. It doesn't.
00:44:11.800
Trump said Barack Obama allowed Crimea to be annexed by Russia. That is true.
1.00
00:44:18.920
Crimea was annexed by Vladimir Putin and Russia in 2014. Barack Obama let that happen. Barack Obama,
00:44:25.960
he's supposed to be the leader of the world. He's supposed to go in there and kick the bad guys
0.79
00:44:29.080
and draw red lines. And he let it happen. George Bush, by the way, routed Vladimir Putin out of
0.89
00:44:36.280
most of Georgia when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia. And Barack Obama failed to do that
00:44:40.840
in Crimea. So Trump makes that point. And then the reporter says, well, no, Vladimir Putin annexed
00:44:47.800
Crimea. Like, yeah, right, dummy. That's not the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that Barack
0.98
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Obama allowed him to do it. And they're sending this around on Twitter now. Prominent blue checkmark
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dummies, you know, probably the Pod Save America people. I'm not, I don't know for sure, but if I had to
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bet, I would bet that those, those kinds of guys are tweeting it around too. Trump is right. And
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they're trying to rewrite that because they don't want to admit Barack Obama's weakness and failure
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as president, but he failed. And I like that Trump is doubling down on it too. They're trying to rewrite
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history, not just, not just read your mind, impugn your motives. They're trying to rewrite history and we
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shouldn't let them do it. They also have no idea how the government works, but we're going to have to
0.80
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save that for tomorrow because we're out of time right now. Uh, you should check out the speech
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tonight. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I suppose it'll be more of a conversation than a speech with
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me and the supreme leader of the multiverse, Andrew Klavan. So check that out. I hope we're
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going to live stream it. Hopefully we'll record it too. But if you're in town, check it out at Loyola,
00:45:44.040
Marymount University, 7 PM Pacific. And otherwise I'll see you tomorrow. In the meantime,
00:45:49.320
I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. See you then.
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The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Senia Villareal. Executive producer, Jeremy Borey.
00:46:03.160
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay. Our supervising producer, Mathis Glover. And our technical producer
00:46:08.600
is Austin Stevens. Edited by Jim Nickel. Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina. Hair and makeup is by
00:46:15.200
Jesua Olvera. The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.