The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 271 - Build The Slats! Build The Slats!

00:00:00.000 Oh, happy day. President Trump announces that he will not fund the government unless he gets

00:00:06.600 funding for his wall, or actually, as he is now putting it, his artistically designed steel slats.

00:00:12.940 We will examine whether a wall by any other name is just as big and beautiful. Then President

00:00:19.200 Trump announces he will withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, a move that has drawn deep division

00:00:24.680 between conservatives. And a military veteran in the U.S. has started a GoFundMe page to build the

00:00:31.200 wall ourselves. And this thing is increasing by millions of dollars every hour. We will monitor

00:00:36.040 it. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:46.480 Oh, oh, you thought that we're only a few days until Christmas. You thought it was all over.

00:00:52.820 No way, Jose. President Trump, the king of reality TV, had a few more tricks up his sleeve.

00:00:58.840 There is a major shutdown fight brewing. The headline from CNN right now is,

00:01:04.260 are you ruining my life, Republican senators in disbelief over Trump shutdown threat? But I'm

00:01:12.060 not in disbelief. I was a little worried there for a second. You know, yesterday I was a little

00:01:16.600 worried that President Trump was going to cave in, but he apparently has not. So we'll be monitoring

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00:02:41.920 Candidco.com slash cofefe. Oh, happy days. So I'll just want to rewind for a second. You

00:02:49.440 remember yesterday we were talking about how President Trump, he was going to cave. He

00:02:53.240 wasn't going to shut down the government. He was missing his only opportunity to get the border wall

00:02:58.160 through. Democrats were so happy. They were, they were so happy that Nancy Pelosi went to a bar last

00:03:04.240 night with all of her Democrat friends and danced along. You just have to see the clip to believe

00:03:10.080 it.

00:03:10.180 Hey, Mr. Dave, my tire. To the night, to the light. The sack broke. You're sure to write a song.

00:03:18.340 Say it's a laughing with your life. Baby, the music guy. Baby, we're singing right by Mr. Mary.

00:03:30.020 I drove a Chevy to the levee, but the levee won't stop. The good old boys are drinking whiskey and

00:03:36.440 five. The singers listen to me, baby, da-da. Listen to me, baby, da-da.

00:03:44.600 So for those of you who are only listening, you can see Nancy Pelosi right there staring

00:03:50.440 up at these aging white liberals singing off key and playing acoustic guitar, surrounded

00:03:56.200 by other aging white liberals swaying and dancing back and forth. She's at a bar. She's

00:04:01.560 dancing. By the way, if I made a computer robot watch a thousand hours of aging white liberals

00:04:08.600 just being themselves, that is what it would come up with as the platonic perfect version

00:04:15.420 of aging white liberals being themselves. Just playing kind of schlocky 60s, 70s music on acoustic

00:04:22.640 guitar, singing out of tune. Everyone's kind of out of shape. They all still think they're cool.

00:04:26.840 They're trying desperately to be cool. That's the definition of white liberal baby boomers,

00:04:31.700 is they just can never not be the cool guys. So it's, oh man, she thought she had it. She was

00:04:37.740 so excited. President Trump, he was just going to have this perfunctory meeting today with House

00:04:42.340 Republicans at the White House. Then they're going to get the continuing resolution. They're going to

00:04:46.680 keep funding the government until February 8th, right? Is that what happened, Paul Ryan?

00:04:50.540 We just had a very long productive meeting with the president. The president informed

00:04:55.720 us that he will not sign the bill that came over from the Senate last evening because of

00:05:00.660 his legitimate concerns for border security. So what we're going to do is go back to the

00:05:05.000 House and work with our members. We want to keep the government open, but we also want

00:05:08.680 to see an agreement that protects the border. We have very serious concerns about securing our

00:05:13.780 border. So the president said he will not sign this bill. So we're going to go back and

00:05:18.000 work on adding border security to this. Also keeping the government open because we do want

00:05:22.100 to see an agreement. Oh, don't tell me Christmas came early. It's only the 20th. Christmas isn't

00:05:29.720 supposed to happen for five days. I told you all I want for Christmas is $5 billion and a big,

00:05:34.740 big, beautiful wall. And Paul Ryan is announcing this, that President Trump is delivering. We should

00:05:40.100 have seen it coming because yesterday, you know, I'm broadly quite supportive of the administration.

00:05:44.520 I think they've done excellent work. They've been so much better than a lot of people expected

00:05:49.040 they would. I was really upset yesterday and I was not alone in this. Ann Coulter tweeted out,

00:05:55.420 or she was, she was talking, she was on a podcast at the Daily Caller and she said that President

00:05:59.780 Trump, if he didn't get the wall, his presidency would be a joke. There would be no reason to

00:06:04.360 support him. She was pretty brutal toward him. She was so brutal that President Trump actually

00:06:08.960 unfollowed her on Twitter. Apparently there's a Twitter bot that monitors the Trump family accounts

00:06:14.180 and who they're following. He actually unfollowed Ann. And I wrote, you know, Ann Coulter has been

00:06:19.360 pretty tough on Trump the whole time. And she's been tough on him in a way to push him to do better,

00:06:25.800 to push him to not alienate his base, to push him so that he doesn't lose in 2020. And I think she's

00:06:31.280 tried to maintain this tension where she wants to really, really push him, but not so much that he'll

00:06:35.280 unfollow her. So he did unfollow her, but then he listened to her as well. I mean, you know,

00:06:40.440 we were pretty tough on him in this show yesterday. At the same time that the signature campaign promise

00:06:45.800 you're basically caving in and not delivering on, you choose instead to free thousands of prisoners

00:06:51.100 from the clink through this first step act prison reform bill. It's just a horrible moment. I mean,

00:06:58.880 just a really low point for the Trump presidency, especially as the economy starts tanking. So I don't

00:07:04.620 know what it was exactly who was whispering in his ear, but today he totally turns around and he says that

00:07:09.460 we are going to do it. And he says, he's going to build the wall in a very specific way. He sent

00:07:13.220 out this tweet and wrote the Democrats who know steel slats, parentheses wall are necessary for

00:07:20.060 border security are putting politics over country. What they are just beginning to realize is that I

00:07:25.320 will not sign any of their legislation, including infrastructure, unless it has perfect border

00:07:30.320 security. USA wins. Now you'll notice in that tweet, the wall is in parentheses and the new phrase is

00:07:37.780 steel slats, steel slats. Okay. So what, what do we mean by steel slats? Well, you've probably seen

00:07:44.080 a number of prototypes of this wall. One of them is that it's slats up and down and conservatives are

00:07:49.260 a little upset about this. I think the left is actually trying to pretend conservatives are more

00:07:54.440 upset about the steel slats versus the wall than they really are. Because what do I, I don't care what

00:08:00.280 the wall looks like. I don't care if it's got graffiti all over it. I don't care if it's made of

00:08:04.180 steel or marble or concrete or whatever. I just want the thing to be built. President Trump also

00:08:10.480 went on, he tweeted, quote, when I begrudgingly signed the omnibus bill, I was promised the wall

00:08:17.180 and border security by leadership would be done by the end of year. Now it didn't happen. We foolishly

00:08:22.800 fight for border security for other countries, but not for our beloved USA. Not good. Absolutely right.

00:08:29.320 This is totally right. And so the left is trying to still portray this as a retreat. They're saying,

00:08:36.340 well, okay, he's going to shut down the government. They're furious about that. They thought they had

00:08:39.300 him beat on that. So they say, well, he's going to shut down the government, but he's not even going

00:08:42.440 to deliver the wall. He's foolishly, recklessly trying to rebrand it as steel slats. Who wants

00:08:48.160 steel slats? Maggie Haberman, who was a total in the tank for Hillary Clinton. The Clinton campaign

00:08:53.280 sent emails about how they could rely on Maggie Haberman of the New York Times to give them good

00:08:58.120 coverage. Here she is on CNN trying to portray this as some, uh, Republican loss.

00:09:03.580 The goalposts have moved, right? I mean, he, he realizes there is not going to be a concrete wall.

00:09:07.860 So he has to start rebranding it for his followers to look as if he is the one who created this and

00:09:12.640 this was not foisted upon him. And again, that will work with, um, some, some of his supporters.

00:09:18.120 It will work with some of his base. The problem is, is that you can't constantly try to wave away your

00:09:23.840 previous statements and assume that nobody is watching. Um, there is a, a weight to these.

00:09:28.920 There is a certain collection of them over time. Uh, again, his, his supporters, Mark Meadows and

00:09:34.860 Coulter didn't do him any favors, but they didn't do him any favors because they know where his voters

00:09:39.960 are, but they are reminding people that this really was the last chance. If he was serious about getting

00:09:44.560 this wall, you don't sign, um, this continuing resolution to keep the government funded through

00:09:48.820 February 8th. So Maggie Haberman's right about a couple of things here. She, she made those comments

00:09:54.080 in fairness to her before it became clear that president Trump was willing to shut down this

00:09:59.220 government to get his border funding at the very last minute. And, uh, so I think she would probably

00:10:05.440 modify her comments now. So she, she's right that this is the last chance. And, uh, Ann Coulter was

00:10:10.760 right about that. Mark Meadows and president Trump realizes that what she's wrong about is she says

00:10:16.260 that president Trump keeps changing his language. It's going to be a big wall. It's going to be 10

00:10:20.440 feet higher. Mexico is going to pay for it. We're only get Mexico is going to pay for it indirectly

00:10:23.920 because of a new trade deal because of increased this or that or the other thing. It's going to be

00:10:28.240 a wall. Now it's going to be steel slats. And so she's, she's trying to say that when you make a

00:10:34.040 promise, it is stuck in time. You can't change. You can't negotiate. It has weight, which is true,

00:10:41.060 except for this administration. It doesn't. President Trump openly says this. He says,

00:10:46.020 I am having the art of the deal. I am always negotiating. I'm going to ask for five times

00:10:52.260 more than what I really want so that I can will whittle it down and just get what I actually am

00:10:57.560 aiming for. So no, if he says, I want a big, beautiful concrete wall, and then he says, okay,

00:11:03.100 okay, I'll settle for steel slats. Steel slats is the wall. I really see no difference here. Um,

00:11:09.880 and I think this may actually be a sort of clumsy, uh, strategy from president Trump

00:11:15.400 so that it actually gives Democrats a little bit of an opening if they want to vote for it,

00:11:20.300 because Democrats should vote for border security. Democrats want to get reelected just as much as

00:11:25.360 anybody. And the majority of Americans want, uh, uh, a structure along our Southern border,

00:11:31.120 not just Republicans, not just independents. Democrats too. They want the wall.

00:11:35.980 The majority of Americans want the wall. So Democrats are answerable to that.

00:11:41.140 They were all for border security, at least in their rhetoric until a few years ago when they

00:11:46.620 became beholden to the far left of their party. Okay. So he says, well, you don't need to vote for

00:11:52.480 the wall. You can vote for steel slats. I'm kind of into the steel slats. Am I the only conservative

00:11:58.640 who sort of prefers artistically designed steel slats to a big concrete wall? You know, it,

00:12:04.620 I do have to remind myself sometimes conservatives, you know, we're Philistines. We don't like

00:12:09.540 artistic things. We don't like aesthetics. We don't, don't take any of that into account. We

00:12:13.700 disregard the culture, but the founder of modern conservative philosophy, Edmund Burke was actually

00:12:19.360 an aesthetic philosopher. He wrote a famous inquiry into the origins of the sublime and the beautiful

00:12:25.100 33 years before he wrote the founding tract of, uh, conservative political thought, modern

00:12:31.660 conservative political thought. So I actually kind of like the idea, you know, the slats,

00:12:35.580 I don't know, they let in more light. They're probably a little more pleasing on the eyes that

00:12:39.700 I like the idea of the steel rather than the concrete. The concrete has a little bit of a

00:12:42.960 Berlin wall-ish vibe. It probably won't age very well. Uh, one nice thing about the steel slats is

00:12:48.040 they can extend all the way into the ocean. Um, but actually our own Cassie Dillon went down to the

00:12:52.960 border and she interviewed a border patrol agent down there. And the border patrol agent made a good

00:12:57.160 case for the steel slats over the concrete wall. In 2017, six companies were given 30 days to build

00:13:04.500 prototypes for president Trump's proposed 30 foot tall border wall, which would replace the steel

00:13:09.480 mesh barrier. Each prototype cost $450,000, but a finalist has still not been chosen. Um, you can see

00:13:17.520 they're all different. We did a testing and an evaluation process, which took about 60 days. What did the

00:13:22.980 testing include? The testing included, um, anti-scaling, anti-climbing. I can't imagine

00:13:28.280 scaling this. You can see it's 30 feet tall, very intimidating. Yeah.

00:13:34.100 In 2017, funding was secured to replace the Vietnam-era barrier with an 18-foot tall see-through

00:13:40.660 fence made of steel posts and anti-climbing plates. This modern fencing extends all the way into the

00:13:46.640 ocean. And so what's the benefit to the new see-through border compared to this one? We have no idea what's

00:13:52.860 on the South Side. If I'm being assaulted, if I am, you know, patrolling an area and there's a group

00:13:59.180 forming eight to 10 people, I want to know and I want to be able to see what's going on.

00:14:04.300 This, I think, is the best argument for the steel slats over the wall. Because, look, this, this isn't,

00:14:10.180 it isn't like President Trump said, okay, well, it's politically impossible to get a giant concrete

00:14:15.020 wall, so I'm going to get a giant steel wall with some spaces in the, every so often. And that's much

00:14:21.940 more politically feasible to get or less expensive or something. That's not how it works. They're both

00:14:26.400 difficult to get politically. It's difficult to wrangle Democrats. It's, there's not much of a

00:14:30.740 difference between the two. I think the best argument is that people are going to continue

00:14:34.480 to try to come into our country illegally. That's not going to stop. And so they can either try to

00:14:39.460 hurl things over a big concrete wall, or they're going to try to hurl things over the steel,

00:14:44.360 the steel slats. And also, just as a matter of being intimidating, those slats kind of seem a

00:14:51.500 little scarier to me because they're kind of like spiky. You can imagine trying to scale the slats and

00:14:56.240 like impaling yourself. I don't know. I'm having very dark visions about the whole thing. But it's

00:15:00.580 really for the protection of our border security. We're still going to need a lot of agents down

00:15:04.160 there on the border monitoring this. There are going to be a lot of people trying to get guns and

00:15:07.840 drugs through. And so it's probably, as that Border Patrol agent says, to their benefit to be able to at

00:15:13.720 least see what's coming, to see how many people are on the other side, to see what kind of danger

00:15:17.820 is being presented. And also it allows it to extend into the ocean. I suppose they could extend

00:15:23.320 it into the ocean anyway, just using the slats that way. And then they could have concrete for

00:15:28.400 the rest of it. Though the one worry with the slats is that people would be able to pass things through

00:15:33.560 it. So drugs or guns or whatever. Again, probably that wouldn't be very effective because we can still

00:15:40.320 monitor via drones. We can still monitor via video cameras. So we could probably apprehend

00:15:45.800 people. One way to do it though, is to just have two sets of steel slats. So you're building

00:15:50.000 two structures, but pretty close to one another. Maybe fill it with a moat and some alligators

00:15:54.940 in the middle, such that you wouldn't be able to pass things through. That's easily solved though.

00:16:00.540 So I'm all for it. I say, build the slats, build the slats. That's going to be our new chant.

00:16:05.260 And I've just anecdotally, I've talked to conservatives about this and say, do you really,

00:16:12.240 do you prefer the wall to the slats or the slats to the wall? They don't care. Just build it,

00:16:16.100 protect the border, get it through. This is the time to do it. I'm glad that President Trump

00:16:20.980 is doubling down. I mean, tactically speaking, now he actually has some leverage because he let

00:16:26.880 them think that they were going to get it through and they all made their plans for how to start the

00:16:30.760 new year, their Christmas plans, whatever. He's actually in a better position now. So it's

00:16:35.000 entirely possible that he was letting this fester the whole time, that he was sort of leading them

00:16:41.440 on and lulling them into a state of complacency. And now he's doubling down. It's also plausible

00:16:46.580 that he saw the reaction from his followers and from his voters and his supporters. And he said,

00:16:52.580 yikes, if I'm losing Ann Coulter, if I'm losing the Michael Knowles show, which is like named after

00:16:58.480 a typo that President Trump made. You know, I mean, the covfefe thing is the title of my yaftor.

00:17:04.920 I'm pretty supportive of this guy. If he loses me on an issue like that, then maybe they've got to

00:17:09.760 double down. And I'm just so thrilled. I'm actually, you'll notice I'm not in the studio today. I'm

00:17:14.240 down in Palm Beach. I'm down the road from the Winter White House. I'm actually going to an event

00:17:18.520 at Mar-a-Lago tonight. So I'm sure there will be lots of good gossip. Maybe I'll be able to bring

00:17:23.740 some to you tomorrow. But this is great. I mean, this is what we came for. Russell Crowe in the

00:17:29.940 Gladiator. Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here? This is the stuff. We should never

00:17:36.500 have doubted that the reality TV guy would give us a great season-ending cliffhanger to go into 2019.

00:17:44.740 Really, really good stuff. And again, this is such a winning issue for Republicans. There is actually a

00:17:50.080 GoFundMe now that was started by an American military veteran who said, we're just, if you're

00:17:55.960 not going to fund the wall, Democrats, we're going to fund the wall ourselves. And this, let me just

00:18:00.460 check what it's up to right now. When I checked this this morning, I don't know, it was up to $4

00:18:04.760 million or something. It's now at $7.3 million that's been raised by 120,000 people over the course of

00:18:14.560 three days. The idea being, if all the people who voted for Donald Trump contributed, that's about

00:18:19.900 63 million people. If they contributed, what, 80 bucks, you'd fund the wall. $5 billion. The goal

00:18:27.340 right now is a billion dollars on this GoFundMe campaign. And I think this is great, by the way.

00:18:32.180 I think it's a really good idea. This guy's name is Brian Colfidge. He's a Purple Heart recipient,

00:18:38.120 a military veteran, triple amputee. And he says, look, I've given a lot for my country. I'm deeply

00:18:43.020 invested in the future of my country. I don't want to have given all of that for nothing. So we've got

00:18:47.420 to build the wall and protect our liberty, protect our sovereignty, protect the integrity of our

00:18:52.620 nation. And you should help me out to do this. Now, what he said is he's working with a legal team.

00:18:59.740 They will make sure that every dollar that is donated can only be used legally by the government

00:19:06.620 to build the wall. And if they only fund it halfway, then they'll try to strike a deal with

00:19:12.120 the government to fund it the other half of the way. And if they don't make a deal, if they can't fund

00:19:15.680 the wall with this money, if they fall short of any of their goals, they're just going to refund

00:19:20.360 the money. I think this is great. I think this is terrific. Some left-wingers are making fun of

00:19:25.460 conservatives for this. They're making fun of them and saying, what a bunch of dupes they're giving

00:19:29.600 their money and paying extra taxes. Some cynical conservatives are saying that too. I think it's

00:19:33.940 great. I think it's sending a terrific message to people and to the president and to members of

00:19:41.020 Congress and the Senate to say, we want this wall. We want it so bad. We want to protect our country

00:19:47.060 so much. We're willing to put our own money on the line about this. 120,000 people in just a few

00:19:52.280 days. And the number keeps rising. I keep refreshing the page and you just see more and more people,

00:19:57.200 a thousand people, since I last refreshed it a few minutes ago, have donated money to this.

00:20:02.000 I think it's great. And I think that these Republican senators, some of the squishy ones,

00:20:07.460 I think their jaws hit the floor. This from CNN, Republican Senator Susan Collins almost dropped

00:20:13.660 her handbag Thursday as she gestured disbelief at word delivered to her by reporters that Donald

00:20:19.280 Trump would not sign the budget extension to keep the government funded until February unless border

00:20:24.500 wall money was added. Did he just say that? She asked as she left a Republican lunch. Oh, are you

00:20:31.320 ruining my life? No, you're doing your job. You're being forced to do your job because you weren't

00:20:37.280 doing your job because neither Republicans nor Democrats have ever really cared about stopping

00:20:43.300 illegal immigration and funding border security. None of them really have. It's this unholy alliance

00:20:49.720 made between these open borders left-wingers and open borders, chamber of commerce, Wall Street

00:20:54.760 journal type Republicans. Love the journal, but it's that kind of perspective that says, oh, well,

00:21:00.060 they shouldn't do it, but sure love that cheap labor. Oh, well, they shouldn't do it, but gosh,

00:21:04.700 it's pretty good for the economy. And we'll get to why it's good for the economy in, well, we'll get

00:21:11.160 to it right now, as a matter of fact, which is that there was this study that came out which showed

00:21:15.700 that the least educated state in America, do you know what it is? The least educated state in America?

00:21:21.520 I know you're thinking Mississippi, Alabama, ha ha, those dumb southerners. California, that's the least

00:21:28.860 educated state in the country. And of course, I believe that. I'm surrounded by Californians all the time.

00:21:34.760 So it's California. And then number two is Texas. Texas is still a pretty red state. Then it's New

00:21:39.820 York. Then it's New Mexico. Then it goes to Kentucky, Nevada, Arizona. I thought, how is this? Why is it

00:21:46.040 the bluest of the blue states, then the reddest of the red states, then the blue again, New York? And

00:21:51.360 why are these the least educated? We're always told New Yorkers are so educated and sophisticated.

00:21:56.460 We're always told that Californians are so educated, so sophisticated. So why is that? What's going on?

00:22:01.640 Then I looked at the percentage of illegal aliens living in these states. And it turns out they

00:22:09.060 match very well. They don't match one to one, but greatest percentage of illegal aliens is

00:22:14.240 California. Within the top five, you get Arizona, you get New York, you get all of these. Nevada has

00:22:19.140 a lot. So it's not a perfect one to one. There are other factors as well. But this is a big one. This

00:22:24.460 makes perfect sense. You're talking about people who are flooding into the country without much of an

00:22:28.740 education. I don't begrudge them. They come from bad countries and they're coming to America because

00:22:32.700 America is a good country. But when you have that unchecked, when you just allow people to flood over

00:22:38.540 completely unvetted without any limiting principle, then there are negative effects on your society.

00:22:43.680 Education levels go way, way down. Wages, especially at the low end of the wage spectrum,

00:22:48.500 go way, way down. This affects a lot of people. It might not affect the people writing for the New York

00:22:52.660 Times, but it does affect a lot of Americans. And what underlies this immigration debate? What

00:22:59.300 actually is underlying the immigration debate, the reason why the Wall Street Journal wants

00:23:02.880 illegal aliens to pour into the country, is that the U.S. population has grown so slowly. In the past

00:23:11.140 year, it's been its slowest rate in over eight decades. Growth in the South and the West is outpacing

00:23:17.060 people in the Northeast and the Midwest. But this is all according to new figures from the Census Bureau.

00:23:22.660 People are not having kids in the United States. They're not replacing themselves.

00:23:26.160 U.S. life expectancy has decreased now, two years in a row at least. That's for the first time in 50

00:23:30.760 years. Why? Because of suicide, because of drug addiction. We are living demonstrably on every

00:23:38.940 single measurement in a very decadent culture that is losing vitality. It doesn't have much vitality at

00:23:45.540 all. And the way to artificially prop up those cultures is to flood it with migrants from countries

00:23:50.580 that are not decadent yet. That is what's underlying this, is a loss of American vitality or sense of

00:23:57.820 purpose or determination, or at least in certain parts of the country. And so you try to prop it up.

00:24:03.060 This is what Europe has been trying to do for years. Europe is, you know, just a couple decades

00:24:07.640 ahead of us on this. They've been trying to take their dying populations and resuscitate them with

00:24:12.620 Muslim migrants coming from the Middle East. And that has negative effects because they're coming from

00:24:17.020 different cultures. And they're not being made to assimilate. And it just takes a while to bring

00:24:23.000 people into society. And if you have a multicultural ideological regime, they're just not going to come

00:24:27.840 in. They're just not going to come in at all. So I hope that this stand, this moment, this

00:24:35.120 President Trump's moment, the covfefe, the exuberance, the new sense of American hope, the idea

00:24:42.320 that maybe we have a few more good days ahead of us. Maybe we can fix problems. Maybe we can

00:24:47.320 take wages which have stagnated for 10 years and increase real wages. Maybe we can manufacture

00:24:52.480 things. Everyone told us we can't manufacture anymore. Maybe we can. Everyone told us we can't

00:24:57.560 stop illegal immigration. Maybe we can. Everyone told us we just have to fight wars of empire that

00:25:02.960 monitor the entire world as a sort of benevolent patriarch. Maybe we can be our own country too. I mean,

00:25:08.620 this is what underlies President Trump's major announcement today, that he's going to withdraw

00:25:13.880 troops from Syria. And this is causing a lot of consternation. This is a big debate on the right.

00:25:20.940 Here is President Trump's announcement.

00:25:23.300 We've been fighting for a long time in Syria. I've been president for almost two years, and we've

00:25:29.040 really stepped it up. And we have won against ISIS. We've beaten them, and we've beaten them badly.

00:25:35.640 We've taken back the land, and now it's time for our troops to come back home.

00:25:41.220 I get very saddened when I have to write letters or call parents or wives or husbands of soldiers

00:25:48.500 who have been killed fighting for our country. It's a great honor. We cherish them. But it's

00:25:55.520 heartbreaking. There's no question about it. It's heartbreaking. Now we've won. It's time to come

00:26:02.060 back. They're getting ready. You're going to see them soon. These are great American heroes.

00:26:07.760 This was another major announcement. It totally blindsided people. A lot of Republicans are not

00:26:14.060 happy about this. The one leading the charge, Marco Rubio, came out against this move. A lot of the

00:26:19.360 more, I don't want to call them neocons, but certainly the neoconservative types, the more

00:26:24.440 establishment foreign policy conservative types are coming out strongly against this. Lindsey Graham is

00:26:29.880 leading the charge. This, to me, is an Obama-like decision. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I

00:26:36.820 am, and I have no understanding of why we're doing this. To me, it is an ill-conceived idea. The

00:26:43.080 downside is really great, and the upside is pretty small. All right, so the warnings are dire that

00:26:48.600 Russia and Iran and Hezbollah, those guys are all celebrating today. And Assad, too. What do you make of

00:26:53.340 it? One of my colleagues just called this an Obama-like decision. I couldn't disagree more, and I couldn't agree

00:26:58.380 more with the president's decision. Look, by definition, this is the opposite of an Obama

00:27:02.760 decision. Obama got us involved. Trump's taken us out. Congress has never declared war or authorized

00:27:08.020 the use of military force in Syria. We shouldn't be there anyway without Congress doing that.

00:27:12.740 So that there at the end, that was Republican Senator Mike Lee, who comes from the more, I don't

00:27:18.080 know, civil liberty-minded wing of the Republican Party and the conservative movement. And he is

00:27:24.220 applauding it. Rand Paul is applauding the move as well. This is a longstanding debate among

00:27:30.360 conservatives. The more, call them isolationist strain, and the more Wilsonian strain, interventionist

00:27:37.480 go around the world, police the world. I would say my take on this is probably unsatisfying to both of

00:27:44.400 those, which is I don't think it really matters that much if we pull out. We only have 2,000 troops

00:27:49.480 right now in Syria. Those troops are basically helping Kurdish forces and protecting Kurdish

00:27:55.440 forces a bit. We have lost service members in Syria. It's very hard to get precise numbers on

00:28:00.980 this, but I think that number is about five American servicemen who have been killed in

00:28:06.800 combat in Syria. One serviceman killed is a terrible thing compared to the losses in Iraq and

00:28:13.360 Afghanistan. Obviously, it's very minimal. The reason, again, that I don't think this withdraws

00:28:19.500 the huge end of the world that Lindsey Graham is making it out to be is we still have 5,200 troops

00:28:25.160 in Iraq. For those of you who are a little geographically challenged, Iraq is right next

00:28:29.580 to Syria. So if we did have a strategic interest, if we did have something we wanted to do in Syria,

00:28:34.420 we could easily deploy those troops. They're right there. I think there's a symbolism to taking the

00:28:40.320 troops home because the question that the people who wanted to pull the troops out have asked is,

00:28:46.380 what is our strategic goal in Syria? What are we after? What we're being told now is if we pull

00:28:51.640 our troops out, then the Syrian butcher president Bashar Assad will be strengthened. Russia's role in

00:28:57.600 the region will be strengthened. Turkey's role in the region will be strengthened. Maybe, I guess,

00:29:02.680 what is our strategic goal? Do we want to remove Bashar Assad from power? I'm not sure about that.

00:29:09.920 I don't know. Bashar Assad is one of the worst people on earth. But who would replace him? Would

00:29:15.000 it be any better? Would we just have chaos? Would we further empower Islamist rebels? I don't know.

00:29:21.340 Would the good guys win? Would the bad guys win? I don't see. And they won't even articulate the

00:29:25.960 strategic interest. It seems to me the strategic interest is in being there to monitor, to maintain

00:29:31.380 the status quo, to not let any one power, be it Russia, a foreign power, or Bashar Assad, a domestic

00:29:38.940 power, gain too much control and this long game of chess and geopolitics. Maybe it is that. Why can't

00:29:45.980 we do that from Iraq? Why do we have to do that with troops on the ground in Syria? Do we really

00:29:50.240 think 2,000 troops on the ground is going to do a whole lot in Syria? It's going to tip a civil war

00:29:56.340 that we're not even sure which side we're fighting on? Of course not. I just don't think it's a huge

00:30:00.860 deal. And it is President Trump fulfilling a campaign promise. And he's got to fulfill those

00:30:05.000 campaign promises because he's facing re-election in 2020. And Americans broadly, not just right-wingers,

00:30:11.840 but left-wingers too, get war fatigue after a while. And unless you can articulate a strategic

00:30:16.860 objective there, and the reason why it's so essential that we have 2,000 forces, 2,000 troops

00:30:23.100 in Syria, I just don't see the interest. Okay, we've got a lot of mailbag to get to,

00:30:28.720 but first I've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube. Go to dailywire.com. It's 10 bucks a

00:30:33.480 month, $100 for an annual membership. You get me. You get the Ben Shapiro show. You get the

00:30:37.060 Andrew Klavan show. You get to ask questions in the mailbag coming up. You get to ask questions

00:30:40.140 in the conversation. You get to ask questions in backstage. You get another kingdom, which is now

00:30:46.020 been finished for the second season. And I got to tell you guys, it's really good. I can comment on

00:30:51.480 that because I contributed nothing to the writing of it. And the story is so good. I mean, don't tell

00:30:56.360 Drew I said that, but it's excellent. So go over to dailywire.com. Give us all of your money and we

00:31:01.800 will be right back with the mailbag. I'm going to burn through this mailbag today. I'm getting to all

00:31:16.500 of them from Joel. Hi, Michael. I'm a big fan. I was hoping to get your opinion on a statement I

00:31:21.540 heard recently. To understand racism, you need to understand power dynamics. To understand sexism,

00:31:28.180 you need to understand power dynamics. To understand poverty, you need to understand power dynamics.

00:31:33.960 To understand power dynamics, you need to listen and believe the stories of the powerless.

00:31:40.020 Okay. So my opinion on that statement is it's not very insightful or profound at all. What that

00:31:52.280 statement really means is shut up. That's what it means. I know it doesn't quite sound like that at

00:31:57.280 the beginning. It's okay. To understand racism, you need to understand power dynamics. Well, that's not

00:32:02.740 quite true, but I, but certainly power dynamics have something to do with racism. Okay. To understand

00:32:08.300 sexism, a power. Well, yeah. Okay. Maybe poverty. Well, yeah. I mean, you need to understand economics

00:32:13.960 and human nature and, and labor markets. Okay. Well, but then they come in and they say,

00:32:20.060 you need to listen and listen and believe the stories of the powerless. When they say, listen,

00:32:25.380 they don't mean listen, like you and I mean, listen, they mean stop talking. So you need to stop

00:32:30.740 talking and then believe the stories of the powerless. No, I'll believe the stories of the credible.

00:32:35.460 I'll believe stories of people who are telling things that are worthy of belief. They don't just

00:32:40.940 believe anybody. Well, anybody can lie. A rich guy can lie. A poor guy can lie. Rich guys have

00:32:46.940 interest. Poor guys have interest. And then of the powerless, nobody is powerless in America.

00:32:52.100 Nobody is powerless. A four-year-old orphan out on the street with drug addicted, abusive parents,

00:32:59.640 even that kid is not powerless in America. He, he at least has, uh, communities and he has certainly

00:33:06.200 the, the state to come in and get them out of those bad situations. A lot of charities to help

00:33:10.460 people. Nobody is powerless in America. So just the premise there is this very Marxist premise that

00:33:17.720 there, we have these class struggles between the oppressor and the oppressed. And that's,

00:33:22.300 that define and the oppressors, which by which they really just mean straight white guys who think

00:33:27.520 that they're guys, they need to shut up and the, everyone else gets to talk and tell them what to

00:33:32.500 do. That's ridiculous. Of course, that's not the case. People who have good ideas should be listened

00:33:36.980 to. And, uh, we should always be listening to everybody, but then we should use our judgment

00:33:43.060 and our reason to determine what is true and what is good and beautiful and what is false and a bad idea

00:33:49.860 and going to lead us down a bad path. Uh, from Justin.

00:33:52.500 Oh, great knowledgeable. My ex and I broke up over a year ago and have not really communicated since

00:33:58.520 looking back. I see all of my previous shortfalls and have noted that the breakup was most likely

00:34:03.360 caused by our immaturity as individuals. And as a couple, she really was everything I wanted in a

00:34:08.620 wife. Uh, she's the only girl I've said those three little words to. Should I send the text to my

00:34:13.440 ex? If not, how should I go about meeting new people? Justin. P.S. I thought about sending this

00:34:18.520 question to Mr. Shapiro as well. However, my ex listens to his show, but she listens to his show,

00:34:24.920 huh? Yeah, that's well, she, she doesn't listen to my show. She clearly has very questionable

00:34:30.760 judgment. You should delete her number from your phone and move on. Get a girl who has better taste

00:34:35.820 in podcasts. Um, listen, you're asking me this question because you want permission to do something,

00:34:44.500 right? Everything you're telling me is saying, I want to text my ex. She is perfect. We were both

00:34:51.080 immature. We both made mistakes. I really love her. Uh, that's the only girl I ever said I loved.

00:34:57.080 Can I text her? And if you're asking me permission, yeah, sure. I married my ex-girlfriend. You know,

00:35:03.560 I've mentioned, I've talked about this before. Sweet little Lisa and I were high school sweethearts.

00:35:06.600 We split for college. We got back together. My life is great. My life couldn't possibly be better.

00:35:10.940 Everything worked out wonderfully. I'm all for texting your ex if it's the right thing to do.

00:35:15.280 Don't text the wrong ex. If there, if the reasons that you broke up were, if you broke up because,

00:35:21.920 I don't know, immaturity, you know, she was moving somewhere, you were going somewhere,

00:35:25.460 you know, whatever, that's fine. I had one guy write into the show and say that his,

00:35:29.640 his girlfriend kept cheating on him and kissing other boys in front of him and breaking up with him.

00:35:35.500 Yeah. Dump that girl. Don't text that girl. But you know, people change, people mature.

00:35:39.220 If you really like her, if you've gone out, you've kind of played the field, you've talked to other

00:35:43.100 people and you, you like this girl more. Yeah. Text her. That's great. I'm all for it. But don't

00:35:49.580 do it because you don't have anything better to do. I mean, don't do it because you're afraid of

00:35:54.560 going out there and meeting someone new. Do it because you really love this girl. And if it's the

00:35:59.580 latter, go do it. And if it's, if it's that you're just sort of settling for her because you're afraid to

00:36:04.160 go meet a new girl, you don't know how to meet a new girl. Go to a bar, buddy, go meet a new girl.

00:36:08.000 There's a, there's a lot of fish out there, but I'm, I'm all for texting your ex and marrying your

00:36:12.820 ex. And I hope it works out for you from Richard. Dear Michael, how do you think your bestseller

00:36:18.580 packed with factual data and indisputable arguments will hold against Clapshap's new book?

00:36:25.940 Look, I mean, a work like reasons to vote for Democrats, a comprehensive guide is a,

00:36:32.400 a once in a generation work of genius. And not every, not everything can be compared to that book.

00:36:39.560 I mean, how could you possibly with such economy of words, with such brevity and therefore wit,

00:36:45.220 be able to convey such an incisive message as I conveyed in my magnum opus reasons to vote for

00:36:51.400 Democrats? I would never hold Ben to that standard. You know, I mean, Ben, for one, Ben uses words in his

00:36:56.820 books. So I, I just don't know how he could convey with such concision and precision, uh, the sort of

00:37:04.080 things that I did, but I did read Ben's book and it's a very good book. I really, really enjoyed it.

00:37:08.540 So I'm sure it'll sell, you know, a handful of copies, but you know, again, since it's not really

00:37:13.860 just cutting through right to the soul of the reader, you know, I, obviously I don't know that

00:37:18.740 it'll do nearly as well. I think my prediction is it will be the second bestselling and most

00:37:26.420 important book of the last two years. That's how I think it'll do. And you should read it. It's a

00:37:30.000 very good book from Cole. Do you have any advice for compelling, uh, for constructing a compelling

00:37:36.920 argument against abortion on a scientific level? Most people I talk to won't acknowledge the moral

00:37:42.820 dilemma that abortion presents. Thanks Cole. Let me ask you a question. Can you construct a compelling

00:37:49.740 argument against murder on a scientific level? On a scientific level. So we're talking about the

00:37:56.400 physical. We're not talking about the metaphysical or the moral or the ethical. We're just talking

00:38:01.560 about on a physical, on a meat level. Why shouldn't you murder somebody? Because you'll get blood on your

00:38:09.980 clothing. I don't know. Can you construct for me a scientific argument against burglary or a

00:38:15.520 scientific argument against rape? No, if anything, if we're talking about science, then we know that

00:38:21.860 we have a biological imperative to spread our genes. So there's certainly no scientific argument against

00:38:27.800 rape. There's really a scientific argument for rape, although not really, because again, you can't

00:38:32.240 make scientific arguments about moral questions. These questions, all of these things, really everything

00:38:38.480 that matters to us in our lives that we consider really eternal questions, is an ethical or a

00:38:44.420 moral or a philosophical or a metaphysical question. It's not a physical question. So of course you can't

00:38:49.680 do it. There's no scientific argument against abortion. There aren't really scientific arguments.

00:38:54.520 Period. When we argue, we're talking about ideas, and ideas are not scientific. I can't take an idea and

00:39:03.480 look at it under a microscope. An idea is out there, and ideas are enacted by physical processes.

00:39:09.120 And that you can study scientifically, but you can't study the idea. The reason that abortion is wrong

00:39:13.700 is because it's wrong to take a human life without due process, certainly. We know that it's a human.

00:39:21.200 We know that it's alive. We know that it's individual.

00:39:24.340 What argument could you make to end that life without due process? I can't find one. Find me

00:39:32.300 that argument. You can only make moral arguments, and if people won't acknowledge moral dilemmas,

00:39:36.800 then I guess they can't make any other argument either. But I suspect they do make other arguments.

00:39:41.600 They just don't want to face the reality of abortion. From Sally. Hi, Michael. Have you ever

00:39:46.920 noticed the linguistic link between being observant, in a religious sense, and the actual meaning of the

00:39:51.840 word? Being watchful. I don't think millennials have been encouraged to look deeper into themselves

00:39:56.100 or deeper at the world. It shows in their amoral politics. How do we bring religion into the

00:40:00.580 conversation where it is less consequential than the next Instagram ad? Thanks, Sally. A great

00:40:06.780 observation. Pun, I suppose, intended. We constantly see that. This isn't just the millennials who are

00:40:13.620 being oblivious to this. This is even true of religious people sometimes. Sometimes religious people

00:40:20.440 will say, well, I said I believe in Jesus and I'm saved. I believe in you and now I'm saved. That's

00:40:26.840 okay. I don't need to think anymore. This contradicts both the letter and the spirit of the New Testament

00:40:32.840 and the Old Testament. We know in Genesis, sin crouches at your door. It desires to have you,

00:40:40.000 but you must take control over it. It's there. It's crouching. It's not sitting. It's crouching.

00:40:45.780 It's ready to pounce on you. We know from Peter, he writes, be sober, be vigilant, because your

00:40:52.300 adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. He's constantly,

00:40:59.340 we know, we see it all throughout the Gospels. They say, be vigilant. Stay awake. Why can't you

00:41:04.860 stay awake? Endure until the end. It's not easy to endure until the end, but you should. There's a

00:41:09.440 prayer in the Catholic Church that they used to say at the end of Mass all the time, and then it became

00:41:13.640 unpopular for a while in the 60s and 70s when the church became much more kumbaya and saccharine

00:41:20.860 and sentimental, and now it's coming back a little bit because we realize the reality and personification

00:41:25.180 of evil, and it's the St. Michael prayer. The prayer is very quick. It says, St. Michael the

00:41:29.760 archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil.

00:41:33.800 May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God,

00:41:40.060 thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl the world seeking the ruin of souls.

00:41:48.060 Just listen to that language. It's prowling. Sin is always there for us. We've got to constantly

00:41:53.340 be watchful of that, and I hope some of these self-help guys who have become popular say that.

00:41:58.400 They speak to a very Aristotelian sense, which is that virtue is a habit. You form habits,

00:42:04.720 and that is your virtue. The more you practice the virtues, the more natural they will feel,

00:42:10.960 the better you will be at them. And if you're in a state of habitual sin, some sort of addiction

00:42:15.540 or whatever, then it's very difficult to break out of that. Christ says the man who sins is a slave

00:42:22.560 to sin. You've got to constantly be vigilant about that, but it's not just those millennials. I think

00:42:29.080 that's a lesson that all of society could take. From Jason, what do you make of Jordan Peterson's

00:42:35.280 nonsensical word salad whenever asked directly about the incarnation or the resurrection of Jesus?

00:42:43.120 You know, I couldn't possibly say. You'll have to ask Jordan himself about his answer to questions

00:42:47.900 on the incarnation. I have asked him this directly before. I think we did it on the air a little while

00:42:52.400 ago. I also want to make the point, though, because I hear this sometimes from the religious right and

00:42:58.520 from left-wingers. They'll criticize Jordan Peterson. The religious right will do it because

00:43:02.720 he's a Jungian, basically, so he's only speaking about metaphors, and he gives vague answers on

00:43:09.600 questions like the incarnation. And then the left doesn't like him because he's getting people to

00:43:14.660 take seriously traditional concepts and religion. Both of those sides are saying that Jordan is doing

00:43:22.560 more harm than good. I think it's pretty clear that he's doing more good than harm. I've talked to a lot

00:43:28.100 of people who are religious people who they reverted or converted to their faith because of Jordan

00:43:34.720 Peterson. And it's because what Jordan Peterson does so well is he exposes the frivolous shallowness

00:43:42.560 of modern materialism, of modern atheism, how low their arguments are, what a ridiculous and silly

00:43:49.680 view of the world that they have. And he exposes that because he's talking about mythology. He's

00:43:57.320 talking about symbolism and he's talking about the Bible. And I really hope that someday I'll be able

00:44:03.160 to sit Jordan down, as I've tried many times, and get him to follow the logical conclusions of those

00:44:09.400 ideas as I see them. But if Jordan is getting people to do that, to follow the logical conclusions of

00:44:15.700 these ideas and come to a true faith, he's doing God's work on earth. It's great stuff. I'll take one

00:44:22.700 more. Dear Lively, I have two questions. Okay, I guess I'll take two more. With the latter involving an

00:44:27.380 anecdote. One, what is your favorite Protestant denomination? And two, I made the mistake of

00:44:33.020 mentioning I heard Lutheranism described as Catholic light to a Lutheran pastor. He calmly explained to

00:44:39.380 me why Lutherans are the true Catholics and the Pope is the Antichrist, with a great deal of citations I

00:44:45.100 don't remember. Is there any validity to these claims? I'll take the second one first. No, there is not

00:44:51.060 any validity to those claims. A good book on this, though, on the history of the Reformation,

00:44:57.760 and specifically Luther, is How the Reformation Happened by Hilaire Belloc. That's a good book.

00:45:03.320 It's a short book, and I think it'll give you a flavor of why that individual was confused.

00:45:09.340 As for my favorite Protestant denomination, I've got to go with the Church of England, of course.

00:45:14.180 I've got to go with High Church Anglican, which is basically the Catholic Church,

00:45:19.720 except they don't like the Pope. Twice the liturgy, half the guilt, as they describe it.

00:45:23.700 And this is because Henry VIII, when he broke the Church of England away from the Catholic Church,

00:45:28.520 he didn't do so for theological reasons. He remained basically a Catholic until the day he died.

00:45:34.020 He did it for political reasons, obviously because he wanted to divorce his wife,

00:45:40.060 and the Pope was being stubborn about that, but also political reasons in that he had to

00:45:45.960 maintain his line of succession. He had to maintain certain alliances. But Henry VIII was given the

00:45:52.120 title by the Pope of a defender of the faith. He wrote beautifully about the sacraments and the

00:45:58.820 Catholic faith. So I really like that. Unfortunately, now the Church of England is sort of an empty husk.

00:46:04.280 It has all of the gilding, or it has all of the ornaments of the Catholic Church, but it's been

00:46:15.100 basically hollowed out from the inside. But I still like it. I still go into Protestant churches,

00:46:20.600 Anglican churches sometimes, and it's nice to hear, especially these days, a lot of the Catholic

00:46:25.660 liturgy is so awful that if you go to the Anglican Church, you can figure out what it was supposed to

00:46:31.400 sound like. So that's my favorite one. I actually take a lot from Protestants, though. I always liked

00:46:35.980 Alvin Plantinga, the Calvinist analytical philosopher at Notre Dame, and I always enjoyed

00:46:41.400 Tim Keller. Years ago, I would listen to him a lot more. So there are some good ones out there, too.

00:46:46.960 All right, that's a surprisingly ecumenical end to our show. We will be back tomorrow. I got to go

00:46:51.900 boogie to Mar-a-Lago and figure out what's going on with this government shutdown. But I'll be in town

00:46:56.420 also for the TPUSA Student Action Summit. So if you're around, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

00:47:00.720 In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. We'll see you tomorrow.

00:47:30.720 Hey, guys. Over at the Matt Wall Show today, we'll be talking about a UCLA professor that is

00:47:38.400 claiming that fire departments are not inclusive and diverse enough. What does this tell us about

00:47:43.060 left-wing identity politics? Also, a famous Hollywood actor is trying to appease the Me Too mob,

00:47:48.820 which isn't a smart move. And also, I received a hilarious parenting lecture on Twitter that we

00:47:55.260 need to talk about on the Matt Wall Show today.

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00:48:05.760 offers stability. Your rate stays the same with a variable rate at TD. If rates drop, you'll save on

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The Michael Knowles Show - December 20, 2018

Ep. 271 - Build The Slats! Build The Slats!

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