Ep. 272 - Last Call For The Wall
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
196.83707
Summary
Defence Secretary James Mattis resigns over President Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg undergoes surgery to remove cancerous growths from her lungs. What will the political fallout be? Leftist agitators once again try to ruin Masterpiece cake shop owner Jack Phillips' life.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Defense Secretary James Mattis resigns over President Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops
00:00:05.440
out of Syria. But what if President Trump's Syria move is nothing more than a border wall bluff?
00:00:10.660
We will analyze. Then, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, left-wing Supreme Court justice,
00:00:15.480
undergoes surgery to remove cancerous growths from her lungs. What will the political fallout be?
00:00:21.680
Leftist agitators once again try to ruin Masterpiece Cake Shop owner Jack Phillips'
00:00:25.980
life and the top five moments of 2018 on this, the last episode of the year.
00:00:31.320
I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:00:40.020
It's the last episode before Christmas. It's the last episode before the new year. So,
00:00:44.800
we're probably just winding down, getting ready to see our families, sit around the table,
00:00:49.700
maybe go to midnight mass, right? No. Right now, we're facing a possible government shutdown.
00:00:54.360
The U.S. is pulling out of Syria. James Mattis is resigning. Mitch McConnell may end the filibuster
00:01:00.320
once and for all in the Senate. And Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, left-wing,
00:01:05.980
far-left justice, is undergoing surgery for cancerous growths on her lungs. This,
00:01:11.500
just a week after she said her health is fine. You knew this would have to happen, didn't you?
00:01:16.080
You thought it would be a nice end of the year? No. President Trump is the reality show business
00:01:20.500
president. Of course, he's going to leave us on a cliffhanger. We'll get to all of it. But,
00:01:23.940
first, let's make a little money, honey, for the last time in 2018 with ProTalus. You know ProTalus.
00:01:29.860
With over 1 million happy, pain-free customers and a 97% success rate, ProTalus insoles have
00:01:36.040
changed the footwear industry and created a new level of expectation never before seen for comfortable
00:01:41.260
all-day shoes. Their technology has been proven 97% effective. It's fabulous. Most people don't know
00:01:48.740
this. That knee, hip, back, even upper body muscle tightness and other issues can stem from improper
00:01:54.500
alignment, just down to your ankle. Now, most footwear, even very expensive quality shoes,
00:02:01.020
offer minimal support where the foot needs it most. They are just not engineered from a medical or
00:02:05.800
biomechanical perspective to focus on alignment. And this lack of proper biomechanical support affects
00:02:10.740
your whole body. Other insoles, including custom print insoles, focus on conforming padding to your
00:02:15.360
feet. What makes ProTalus unique and different than anything else is they are actually engineered
00:02:19.480
with the intent to focus on the biomechanics of your body. What does all of that mean? It means
00:02:25.120
that you are just going to feel better. You're going to be in better alignment. It is engineered
00:02:28.460
support based on body mechanics. This holiday season, my listeners can save 20 bucks per pair
00:02:34.720
on any ProTalus insult at ProTalus.com when you enter podcast 20 at checkout. Do this. I'm telling
00:02:41.140
you, it seems like a minor thing. You're going to buy them. You're going to feel much better. It's
00:02:45.520
something you don't think about until you do, and then you will feel much better. I can attest to it.
00:02:49.780
Plus, shipping is free. If you buy two or more pairs, they will upgrade you to free expedited
00:02:53.340
shipping. They have a 90-day money-back guarantee. You won't want to send them back. Nothing to lose
00:02:56.800
except the pain. ProTalus.com, promo code PODCAST20. Save 20 bucks on any pair of ProTalus insoles.
00:03:04.700
Pretty crazy end to the year, huh, folks? We've got the most popular guy in the administration
00:03:08.600
quitting. You've got major change in foreign policy. You've got all of these crazy things
00:03:13.200
happening. How are the mainstream media reporting it? I'll let them show you.
00:03:18.720
The walls are closing in on Donald Trump. As the walls close in on Donald Trump,
00:03:28.520
The walls are closing in on the Trump presidency.
00:03:31.540
I want to begin with the walls really closing in.
00:03:34.660
The walls are closing in. The investigative walls are closing in. The walls are really
00:03:41.060
closing in. The walls are closing in. Walls are closing in. The walls seem to be closing
00:03:46.380
in. I'm overusing my cliches. I hate overusing this metaphor of the walls closing in. I mean,
00:03:51.160
we've been saying the walls are closing in for two years, but it feels like they're actually
00:03:54.940
closing right now. And as the walls start to close in on the president. As the walls close
00:03:59.340
in. He feels the walls closing in. The walls are closing in is the wrong image, but the bricks
00:04:05.460
are sort of making the roof, you know, buckle. That's the definition of the walls closing in.
00:04:10.500
And if this president feels as if the walls are closing in tonight, he's right. Because they are.
00:04:17.460
It's almost like they're all talking to each other. It's almost like they're all getting on board with
00:04:25.920
the same tired, untrue talking point. The walls are not closing in. He's getting some bad news.
00:04:32.080
He's getting some good news. He's actually standing for something. That's what's really
00:04:35.700
happening. You are getting a dramatic climax to 2018. And it's not all roses. The Jim Mattis
00:04:41.280
resignation is a big deal. And it's a big blow to his administration. But the walls are not closing
00:04:46.380
in. The walls are getting 10 feet higher. So why did James Mattis resign? This is the biggest
00:04:51.240
tough news for him. He resigned over Syria. Initially, President Trump came out and said,
00:04:56.060
James Mattis is retiring. Look, at this point in an administration, two years in,
00:05:00.640
it would make perfect sense for his first secretary of defense to retire to, you know,
00:05:05.500
it's a tough job and there is turnover. James Mattis then came out and said, no, no, no. He didn't,
00:05:10.480
he didn't explicitly say this, but he released his resignation letter. And his resignation letter
00:05:14.820
was both respectful and brutal to Donald Trump. He basically implied that Donald Trump does not
00:05:20.160
share his worldview of preserving our system of alliances and of checking power in the Middle
00:05:25.380
East and of intervening elsewhere so that we don't need to deal with bad people at home.
00:05:30.740
Why does Syria matter? Why is Syria the straw that broke the camel's back? You know, James Mattis,
00:05:36.400
it had been reported that he felt that he was in the administration to be the adult in the room
00:05:40.880
and it was his duty to serve his country. So why would this Syria move, just pulling 2,000 troops
00:05:46.460
out of Syria when you've got another 5,200 still in Iraq, why did this break the camel's back?
00:05:52.220
Syria matters because of the Kurds. If we pull out of Syria, the Kurdish forces that are fighting
00:05:57.120
there who are our allies in the region are probably going to be slaughtered by Turkey. I don't mean to
00:06:02.260
laugh, it's just really dark. Slaughtered by Turkey and Bashar Assad, who's running, ostensibly running
00:06:10.000
Syria. This is really bad. I mean, this is the strongest argument for keeping an American military
00:06:15.360
presence in Syria. Kurds, the Kurdish forces are our allies there and we don't want to look like
00:06:21.120
we're betraying them. A lot of people in the military community are saying it's going to feel
00:06:24.640
like a betrayal if we pull out. Fair enough. Now, I think some conservatives are taking criticism too
00:06:31.580
far beyond the question of the Kurds. They're taking, and whether the Kurds can withstand an assault
00:06:36.220
from Turkey or withstand an assault from Bashar Assad, some are taking it too far. One of them
00:06:41.020
seems to be the president's biggest television ally, Fox and Friends. There was a very testy
00:06:46.600
exchange this morning between Brian Kilmeade and the administration.
00:06:51.100
Sarah, he's giving Russia a big win. Vladimir Putin praised him. He also is doing exactly what he
00:06:56.760
criticized President Obama for doing. He said President Obama is the founder of ISIS.
00:07:00.940
He just refounded ISIS because he got 30,000 men there and they're already striking back
00:07:07.280
with our would-be evacuation. The president's got it. He's really on the griddle with this.
00:07:13.640
Brian, Brian, I have to respectfully and vehemently disagree with you. The idea that the president has
00:07:21.620
had anything to do with helping ISIS reemerge is absolutely outrageous. The president has put so
00:07:29.120
much emphasis on rebuilding and making sure we have the strongest military on the face of the
00:07:33.580
planet. If ISIS wants to pick a fight with somebody, they sure as heck don't want to pick
00:07:37.800
one with Donald Trump because he will destroy them and defeat them. And he's made that extremely clear.
00:07:43.280
We've wiped out 99 percent of ISIS in Syria. The president doesn't want to be in the middle of
00:07:48.420
a civil war in the Middle East and continue to put American lives on the line. If we need to fight
00:07:53.360
ISIS again, the president's not afraid to do that. All right, Sarah, thank you so much. We wish you a
00:07:58.320
very Merry Christmas. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Merry Christmas. This takes it pretty
00:08:02.820
far to say that President Trump is refounding ISIS. This is a, I mean, there is legitimate
00:08:08.460
disagreement here on the question of Syria, obviously with our relationship with certain
00:08:13.580
forces on the ground and whether or not it's in our interest to oust Bashar Assad and whether our
00:08:18.240
military objective out there is to oust Bashar Assad, what we're doing in Syria in the first
00:08:23.280
place. I had one person describe it to me who said our actual military goal is to prevent another 9-11.
00:08:30.640
So there was an op-ed out today in the Washington Post from Dan Crenshaw, which said we fight them
00:08:35.760
over there so that they don't come over here and fight us. Fair enough. That's actually the strategic
00:08:39.940
objective. There can be fair disagreement over what will accomplish that. But to say that President
00:08:44.520
Trump refounded ISIS is taking it too far, and to suggest this is coming out of the blue,
00:08:50.540
is also taking it too far, President Trump promised all along, we'll kill ISIS and we will
00:08:56.120
get out of Syria. We won't stay there unnecessarily. Here's President Trump on the campaign trail
00:09:02.620
talking about Syria. A very bad thing. Now, she talks tough. She talks really tough against Putin
00:09:09.300
and against Assad. She wants to fight for rebels. There's only one problem. You don't even know who
00:09:15.000
the rebels are. So what's the purpose? And one thing I have to say, I don't like Assad at all,
00:09:21.080
but Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS. Mr. Trump, let me repeat the question.
00:09:28.820
If you were president, what would you do about Syria and the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo? And I
00:09:37.200
want to remind you what your running mate said. He said, provocations by Russia need to be met with
00:09:43.460
American strength and that if Russia continues to be involved in airstrikes along with the Syrian
00:09:48.360
government forces of Assad, the United States of America should be prepared to use military force
00:09:54.780
to strike the military targets of the Assad regime. Okay. He and I haven't spoken and I disagree.
00:10:01.700
I disagree. You disagree with your running mate. I think we have to knock out ISIS.
00:10:04.880
He speaks pretty clearly there. He's speaking in a way that contradicts certain people around him,
00:10:10.060
certain more established ideas. And he's saying, this is what we're going to do in Syria. But the
00:10:14.520
question is, we talked yesterday about Syria, so I won't go into Syria itself too much.
00:10:19.240
My thought on it is that this is, from a geostrategic standpoint, largely inconsequential.
00:10:24.780
I don't think that this will have, I don't think this will refound ISIS. I'm not sure that this
00:10:29.520
will be a wonderful win for America. It could be a blow to some of our allies. It could empower
00:10:34.160
certain bad actors slightly, but let's not pretend that we're pulling out of the Middle East entirely.
00:10:38.880
We didn't have that many forces in Syria to begin with. We're only talking about 2,000 forces.
00:10:44.540
So why Syria right now? The actual answer is that this is all about the border wall and people are
00:10:50.180
not talking about it. We will talk about it in one second. But first, let's make just a little bit more
00:10:53.800
money. This is the last money we're going to make in the new year. So let's do it. We'll talk about
00:10:57.180
Brownells, a big proponent and supporter of the Second Amendment. They have been for nearly 80
00:11:02.380
years. Buying guns, ammo, and accessories online is convenient and totally legal. You notice now a lot
00:11:09.440
of people are getting much more into their Second Amendment rights and firearms. People, we always
00:11:13.740
think of just old stodgy dudes and mustaches, but now women, younger people, urbanites are all taking
00:11:18.320
an interest in firearms and self-protection. Brownells is the world's leading supplier of
00:11:24.000
firearms, ammunition, firearm accessories, reloading components, and more. They offer an
00:11:28.040
industry-exclusive guaranteed forever warranty on all parts and accessories. Brownells offers nearly
00:11:34.020
120,000 items from new guns and ammo to nearly any gun part imaginable. Brownells has more than
00:11:39.040
5,500 partner FFL around the country. It makes your online gun purchase go smoothly, totally legal,
00:11:44.180
very simple. Brownells is family-owned and veteran-operated, has been doing business in
00:11:48.640
the country's heartland for nearly 80 years. Don't forget about the gun guy or gun gal on your
00:11:54.480
Christmas list. Brownells gift cards make great stocking stuffers, especially if you want to send
00:11:58.640
a little Christmas present to little old me. You know, you say, Michael, I really like this show.
00:12:02.580
Let me do something good for you. Buy me gun gift cards from Brownells. Go to brownells.com. Put
00:12:08.060
some freedom in your loved one's Christmas. Don't you love me? Come on, give me a little Brownells gift
00:12:12.360
card. Why Syria right now? This is all about the border wall. What is our budget in Syria? The
00:12:19.060
budget in Syria is pretty substantial. It's over $15 billion. Now, if Syria, 2,000 troops there is
00:12:25.520
largely inconsequential, what if this is a bluff? Because it can go either way. President Trump
00:12:31.020
talked about, we're going to go kill ISIS. We're not going to be there longer than we have to.
00:12:34.140
But if it's 2,000 troops, which, you know, we're not talking about some overwhelming force of 30,000 or
00:12:39.160
40,000 troops, what if this is a bluff? President Trump on the border wall has no leverage with
00:12:44.420
Chuck Schumer. He has no leverage with Nancy Pelosi. He has no leverage in this shutdown. If they shut
00:12:48.840
down the government and they say, we're going to shut down the government, we're going to demand
00:12:51.800
that you give us $5 billion for the border wall. We're not going to reopen it. And they wait,
00:12:56.400
they could wait into the new Congress. But what is going to be the lever that actually triggers them
00:13:00.660
to give the funding, especially once Nancy Pelosi takes the reins as the Speaker of the House?
00:13:05.140
What if it's this Syria question? Because the Democrats are in a very tough spot right now.
00:13:10.600
Chuck Schumer, in particular, is in a very tough spot. He is held captive by his left-wing,
00:13:16.660
far-left activist base, which will not tolerate any money for border security. They want to abolish
00:13:21.740
ICE. They want open borders. But we know that border security is very popular among the American
00:13:27.360
people. The majority of Americans want the border wall. The majority of Americans don't want amnesty.
00:13:32.300
They don't want open borders. So the Democrats now have their main guys who go out and canvas for
00:13:38.100
them, who give them money, who are essentially their candidates, who are now their up-and-coming
00:13:43.060
candidates. And you've got, you're looking at national elections and you think they're not going
00:13:47.340
to be able to win these elections if they cater to that base. This Syria question might be a way to
00:13:52.000
do it. Because if they can go to their base and say, look, we didn't want to give them the money
00:13:57.080
for the wall, but they were going to take that money out of the Syria budget. We were, we're going
00:14:01.920
to be the adults. We're not going to let that awful, petulant Trump give up Syria and play into
00:14:07.540
Vladimir Putin's hand and abandon our allies. And we did the responsible thing. They were going to get
00:14:12.440
the border anyway. And we decided to save Syrians while we were at it. That actually might play.
00:14:18.200
That actually might give Chuck Schumer an out. And it will, look, this is not a major campaign
00:14:24.440
promise to pull 2,000 troops out of Syria. If it were a huge force, then you could see how that
00:14:29.780
would really play in 2020. But if President Trump can use that as leverage, as a bluff or not as a
00:14:34.800
bluff, whatever, to build that wall, it is a big win because he has to do it. He has to build this
00:14:40.140
wall. And Coulter has made this clear, Mark Meadows, we've all been saying, you've got to put up on this
00:14:46.420
issue or you're not going to have credibility in 2020. And right now, by the way, Mexico is actually
00:14:52.120
doing a better job of securing our border than we are. How, how are Dems going to be able to answer
00:14:56.880
that? Sarah Sanders made this excellent point just today. What we have worked out, what this
00:15:02.100
administration has been able to do in conjunction with the Mexican government and the massive and
00:15:07.740
monumental moment that took place yesterday where catch and release has ended. And it's a sad day in
00:15:13.280
America when the Mexican government is doing more to protect the American people than Senate Democrats.
00:15:18.120
I hope that they will not let that be the case by the end of the day. And they will work with us and
00:15:22.940
work with the president and Senate Republicans to get this done and let everybody go home and let us
00:15:28.340
start building the wall and let us start protecting our border. Absolutely right. It's really hard for
00:15:34.240
Democrats to refute nationally. So what, what is their answer? What do you, how do you think the
00:15:39.620
Democrats are responding to those very simple, obvious points? They're calling everybody a
00:15:44.760
racist. Of course, that's the only thing that they can possibly do. Here is a Senator Chris Murphy,
00:15:49.280
formerly my Senator, a Democrat from Connecticut. He said, uh, you, he was talking to Marco Rubio on
00:15:55.940
Twitter. He said, you and Trump are advocating putting up a wall on only one border, no wall for the
00:16:02.060
country filled with mostly white people with Canada. So now the Democrats are so confused on this issue.
00:16:08.460
They, they're so broken up about it that now it seems they're advocating for two walls.
00:16:13.100
I thought it was zero walls or two walls, all or nothing at all. I get, they must think that we
00:16:16.920
have an epidemic in this country of 3000 Canadians per day coming into our country and they're bringing
00:16:22.980
drugs. They're bringing all of those cheap socialist, uh, drugs with them from their government
00:16:27.980
healthcare system. Is that what's happening? No, of course it's incomparable. Now they have to make
00:16:32.100
it about race down there. It's not about race. It's about crime. It's about drugs. It's about
00:16:35.600
depressing wages. And it's about the actual problem. There are no Canadians pouring over
00:16:39.320
the border. There are 3000 Latin American immigrants illegally coming into the country
00:16:44.220
every single day. So you build the wall there. I don't know. Should we build a wall along our
00:16:48.820
Western shores so that, uh, uh, Filipinos don't illegally swim into this country or the Chinese
00:16:56.740
citizens? No, of course not. That's not a problem. That's a fake problem. And as we talk about
00:17:01.780
frequently, the Democrats live in a fantasy, they live in a fantasy world. And this is a fantasy
00:17:06.520
problem about fantasy racism. So looking at the new year, looking at the end of this year
00:17:11.200
on balance, what happened? James Mattis leaving. That's a big loss. He's a big loss really because
00:17:17.640
he has these great quotes, you know, for, I don't, I mean, he's been a very able, uh, secretary of
00:17:23.100
defense. He's the most popular member of the Trump administration. There was a morning consult
00:17:27.660
poll that showed that he has 35% approval rating, you know, not saying that that's a great number.
00:17:34.280
That's kind of sad that that's the highest approval rating, but his disapproval is only at 19%. And it's
00:17:38.920
because most people, most people couldn't even tell you who the vice president is. So most people are
00:17:43.160
not up to date on who the cabinet secretaries are, but he was the most popular member of the
00:17:47.360
administration. He said these great quotes. I mean, when I think of James Mattis, I just think of
00:17:51.620
this interview moment. What keeps you awake at night? Nothing. I keep other people awake at
00:17:57.520
night. You knew that he was just working on that for years. He just had that one in the back of
00:18:03.860
his head. There are other famous quotes of his. He would, he was speaking to people in Iraq and he
00:18:07.940
said, listen, I, please don't make me do this. I don't want to have to do this. I really want to help
00:18:12.940
you. But if I must, I will kill every last one of you is a pretty tough hombre. You know, the monk
00:18:18.980
warrior never got married, reads voraciously. So this is, this is a big loss. It is a big loss to lose
00:18:24.180
James Mattis. Not building the wall would be a bigger loss. It would be much harder for
00:18:29.060
president Trump. It would cripple the administration if he doesn't fight to get this wall built. And
00:18:33.700
if president Trump thinks that the way that he's going to get this wall built is by making a
00:18:37.360
concession in Syria over 2000 troops to have access to $15 billion at the very least to call the Senate
00:18:43.560
to the table and make them fund it, or if not to actually be able to fund it. And that means you're
00:18:47.840
going to lose your secretary of defense. That is a trade that president Trump has to make.
00:18:52.180
He has to come through on the wall. His look, he's come through on more campaign promises than
00:18:57.120
just about anybody. I was driving around and in Uber last night on my way to Mar-a-Lago of all
00:19:02.620
places. And the Uber driver was this woman. She said, you know, I, she had a very thick Hispanic accent.
00:19:09.080
She said, I didn't vote for Trump, but I really didn't like Hillary. And I thought they were both
00:19:13.180
bad, but say what you will about Trump. At least he's honest. Don't you think he's honest? She goes,
00:19:18.180
yeah, he keeps his promises. At least he keeps his promises. That Hillary is a liar. She doesn't,
00:19:23.140
she'll, she'll just say whatever people want to hear, but Trump keeps his promises.
00:19:27.240
Trump's biggest promise is this wall. He's got to come through. You got to make a hard decision on
00:19:31.660
that. You got to lose a really valuable player of the team. So be it. Um, what else? Uh, we know that
00:19:37.460
Democrats know that they're in a bind here. We know that they're in this really tough position,
00:19:41.180
as tough a position as the Republicans are in and president Trump is in right now.
00:19:44.960
Now let's not forget Democrats are in a really tough one. Just looking at the
00:19:48.360
early 2020 field that's shaping up, you can see this. It's a ton of infighting,
00:19:54.120
a lot of racial infighting. You heard Kirsten Gillibrand say she doesn't want
00:19:58.180
two white men at the top of the ticket. So there's this gender sexual infighting.
00:20:03.040
It's all about identity politics. Nothing really seems to unite the Democrat party. There's there,
00:20:08.440
you hear about the green new deal that you've got the environmentalist left. You hear about certain,
00:20:12.940
uh, uh, law enforcement, anti-law enforcement policies, a little bit on healthcare. They
00:20:17.840
can't really agree on anything other than that they hate Donald Trump, but they're really going
00:20:21.480
to have to answer for this immigration thing. It's bigger than the Democrat party. Um, and so
00:20:26.300
they're, they're really caught on this issue. And I, I hope we drive this issue home. I hope if need
00:20:31.360
be, we shut down the government and Chuck Schumer has to, has to deal with a party that is split
00:20:36.980
apart. What is the most darkly funny story of today? We have to get to this. The New York
00:20:44.060
Times has a bombshell report out that Planned Parenthood is accused of mistreating pregnant
00:20:49.900
employees. Now, uh, this should not come as a surprise to anybody who has any sense of humor
00:20:57.220
whatsoever, but this is what they write, quote, employers that champion women face accusations
00:21:02.000
of discriminating against their pregnant workers, showing how widespread the problem is in American
00:21:07.080
workplaces. This reminds me of this, uh, classic, uh, I think it was Fox Butterfield headline in the
00:21:14.580
New York Times that said, uh, crime rate continues to fall despite prisons filling or prisons continue
00:21:21.840
to fill despite crime rate falling. Now we would all assume if you lock up more criminals, the crime
00:21:26.840
rate rate will fall. There is a causal relationship here where the crazy left wingers see a paradoxical
00:21:34.440
relationship or a contradiction. That's the same thing here. You've got an organization that exists
00:21:40.100
singularly, simply to end pregnancies and kill babies. And the New York Times is shocked that that
00:21:48.140
agency, that that organization would not treat pregnant women with respect. They're shocked. This is
00:21:53.900
such a contradiction to them because they don't see the contradiction in the paradox of abortion.
00:21:58.680
It goes on, they say, Planned Parenthood, which has been accused of sidelining, ousting,
00:22:02.700
or otherwise handicapping pregnant employees, according to interviews with more than a dozen
00:22:08.020
current or former employees. Um, the, the organization exists to end pregnancies. They, they always say
00:22:15.160
that 3% of their services are abortion and everything else is not abortion. This is because they count
00:22:21.720
little nothings as services. So if you hand somebody a condom, that's a service. If you kill a baby,
00:22:26.960
that's a service. And they give out a lot more condoms or, or, uh, referrals to actual doctors or
00:22:33.400
whatever. 94% of Planned Parenthood's pregnancy related services are abortion. They are abortion
00:22:40.360
services in 94% of cases. It's, it's hard to arrive at a really precise number with confidence because
00:22:46.240
Planned Parenthood doesn't actually admit the number of women who go into their clinics every
00:22:51.900
year who are pregnant. They can't admit it because the reason you go to Planned Parenthood is to get
00:22:55.340
an abortion. So using various other statistics that they've arrived at, it seems that the number of,
00:23:01.480
uh, pregnancy services that are related to abortion are, uh, 94%. This is almost all of them.
00:23:08.600
This, uh, story exposes just one contradiction of abortion, which I want to talk about. It's
00:23:13.280
if pregnancy doesn't matter, if pregnancy is just, you know, it's like getting your appendix
00:23:18.020
inflamed, then why does special treatment of pregnant women matter so much? If the unborn baby
00:23:24.220
is insignificant, then why is pregnancy so significant? Why is this such a big issue?
00:23:30.040
We talk about pregnancy, leave maternity leave. This is a national issue. Ivanka Trump tried to make
00:23:35.600
this into a national issue. The New York times is making it into a national issue. Why? If the
00:23:40.620
pregnancy is nothing. If it's just a little inconvenience that can be wiped away with no
00:23:47.380
greater care than if you're cutting your fingernails, then why is the pregnancy so
00:23:51.240
significant? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Um, before we get to the biggest stories of the
00:23:57.060
year and a little Christmas story, I also got to talk about my old pal, Jack Phillips. Jack Phillips,
00:24:01.500
the head of Matt Masterpiece Cake Shop. He is the guy who was dragged into court. The Colorado Civil
00:24:06.820
Rights Commission tried to ruin his life because he wouldn't participate in a gay wedding ceremony.
00:24:11.600
He's now back in court, uh, for refusing to bake a cake for a transgender identity switch party.
00:24:18.820
And the argument here is not that he won't sell cakes to anybody. He's willing to sell cakes to
00:24:22.680
anybody, but he won't design with his artistic skill at his own, uh, he won't put in his own
00:24:29.320
art and craft into participating in something that he violates his religious views. So, uh,
00:24:35.620
this is a total setup here. It's by this transgender woman, who's a guy who thinks that
00:24:40.500
he's a woman named Autumn Scardina. And the, it was the very day that the Supreme Court agreed to
00:24:47.100
hear Jack Phillips's case because the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was going after him so unfairly.
00:24:52.100
The very day the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, this guy Autumn Scardina called up and said
00:24:57.440
he wanted a cake that was blue on the outside and pink on the inside to, uh, be part of his, uh,
00:25:03.720
gender transition party. Jack Phillips said, no, they've dragged him to court again.
00:25:08.420
Other news right before we leave here, Ginsburg, uh, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is in the hospital. Ruth
00:25:13.580
Bader Ginsburg took that fall. She broke some ribs. She was asked about her health just last
00:25:18.240
week. Here's what she said. The question that probably, oh, I don't know, 70% of America wants
00:25:24.940
to know the answer to, that would be the 70% who've offered you their, um, body parts and organs
00:25:31.760
in case you needed them. How's your health? It's fine. Thank you. And those ribs you busted?
00:25:47.960
So her health is apparently all fine, she says. And now we find out she's just undergone surgery
00:25:52.580
to remove cancerous growths from her lung. She's now at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center,
00:25:57.100
one of the best cancer centers in the world. Now, look, what they're saying is that they found
00:26:02.900
the cancerous growths because she cracked her ribs. So they went in there to look at her ribs and they
00:26:07.180
found these cancerous growths and now she's recovering from that. Uh, we wish her well,
00:26:11.980
wish her a speedy recovery. Um, but the question is why didn't she make this clear? Did she not know
00:26:18.060
a week ago that she was going to undergo surgery, fairly extensive surgery to remove cancerous
00:26:23.020
growths on her lung of all places? Not a good place to find cancerous growths? No, I think she
00:26:28.380
probably knew that. And they're trying to play this very, uh, coyly because this will be the most
00:26:33.980
significant event of 2019. I'm willing to predict it now. That's hard to predict the future. Who knows?
00:26:38.600
You're going to have some crazy war or awful attack or something. This, uh, nine, nine out of 10
00:26:44.940
chance, this will be the most significant event of 2019 or 2020 or 2021 or 2058. Whenever Ruth Bader
00:26:51.280
Ginsburg goes to her eternal dessert and rest, that that will be the biggest issue that, you know,
00:26:57.320
this question, because we've given so much power over to the courts, this question of the Supreme
00:27:02.880
Court is going to be major. If you have president Trump still in office, it's why they're ramping up
00:27:07.660
talk of impeachment. It's why they're ramping up talk of indictment. If he is still in office and he
00:27:11.840
appoints an originalist judge to the court, this will significantly swing the court by replacing Scalia
00:27:17.060
with Gorsuch, nothing changed. By replacing Kennedy with Kavanaugh, maybe nothing changed. I mean,
00:27:23.360
it could be a swing. Uh, this, his recent decision on Planned Parenthood is not a good sign, but, uh,
00:27:29.340
it could be a swing to the right slightly. It could be a swing in favor of originalism. Maybe not. Uh, we
00:27:35.720
don't know. And you saw what fight they put up there. But if we replace the most left-wing judge on the
00:27:40.380
court with an originalist, you could have riots in the streets. You will have riots in the streets.
00:27:45.840
This is going to be the most significant event of 2019. We have the top five most significant events
00:27:51.960
of 2018. We've boiled them all down. The news cycles are so fast. They're moving 24-7 that, uh,
00:27:58.920
I've been able to boil them down for you. Uh, but unfortunately, you're only going to be able to
00:28:03.340
get to that if you go to dailywire.com. Uh, I do want to say also to everyone who's watching or listening
00:28:10.380
and not just the subscribers, thank you very much. It's been a wonderful year. It's been my pleasure
00:28:15.040
to be able to do this show every day. And I really appreciate all the tremendous growth we've had on
00:28:18.860
this show. And it's just really nice. I appreciate you subscribing to the show on iTunes and giving us
00:28:23.720
five stars and watching it on YouTube and sending it around and posting it. Uh, we really, really
00:28:28.260
appreciate it. It helps keep the lights on except when I'm in my boudoir here, uh, in Palm Beach,
00:28:32.920
Florida on the road, but it's just been a blast. We got a lot of great stuff planned for 2019. I can't
00:28:37.700
wait to see you guys on the road at colleges and universities and obviously every day on this show.
00:28:42.000
So if you're not on dailywire.com though, here's the rub, go and subscribe, give us your money,
00:28:46.800
give us 10 bucks a month or $100 for an annual membership. You get me, you get the Andrew
00:28:51.720
Klavan show, you get the Ben Shapiro show, you get to ask questions in the mailbag, you get to ask
00:28:55.260
questions in the conversation, you get to ask questions backstage, you get to, you get everything.
00:28:58.820
You get another kingdom, a major show, lots of great reviews on another kingdom. And, uh, you,
00:29:05.120
and you'll, we'll be getting season three, hopefully coming out sometime next year. None of that
00:29:08.840
matters. What really matters is the leftist tears tumbler. If we shut down the government
00:29:12.200
and if president Trump backs Democrats into a corner here where they're, they're willing to
00:29:16.600
actually come to the table over the Syria question, because he's going to have the money
00:29:20.060
or he's not going to have the money, your leftist tears tumbler, it's not going to be enough. You
00:29:23.760
actually will need to go and subscribe. I've estimated about 15 times. You're going to need
00:29:28.440
to buy 15 daily wire subscriptions per person just to be able to collect all of the salty,
00:29:33.680
salty snowflakes because it's more voluminous that when, when, uh, leftist tears freeze,
00:29:38.620
they increase in volume and that this can really crush you under the weight of an avalanche. So
00:29:42.420
go to dailywire.com. We'll be right back with the top five moments of 2018 and a Christmas
00:29:47.080
political sign-off message before the new year.
00:29:49.660
The top five moments of 2018. I got to tell you, when I was looking at these moments,
00:30:04.660
I was trying to think back on all of the events this year. The news cycle is so fast right now.
00:30:09.120
I couldn't even remember them. The Kavanaugh confirmation seems like it was years ago.
00:30:13.600
The, the, uh, Michael Cohen stuff, the John McCain, all of these things, everything that's
00:30:20.520
happened this year seems so long ago because the news cycle is so frantic. Even this government
00:30:24.720
shutdown debate, which has been going on for a matter of days is, it feels like we've been here
00:30:30.720
for two months. So what are the top five moments? I, I, I will give them to you in this order from
00:30:35.500
least consequential to most consequential. Number five, the sentencing of Michael Cohen for campaign
00:30:41.780
finance violations. Doesn't seem like maybe a question of huge political import. It is,
00:30:48.060
it really matters because when the, they sentenced Michael Cohen, they went after the president's
00:30:53.060
personal lawyer, kick in his door, take his files, you know, run roughshod over his office.
00:31:00.260
Ostensibly that was for the Russia probe, the probe into Russian interference in the election.
00:31:05.140
Okay. That's ostensibly the purpose of the special counsel. Now this whole investigation was rotten
00:31:09.480
from the beginning. It was used as an excuse to spy on the Trump campaign. It involved a bought and
00:31:16.400
paid for Democrat research to spur it that was not verified at the time. Huge FISA abuse, totally
00:31:22.320
weak applications. It was, it was rotten from the beginning, but at least you could understand the
00:31:27.500
narrative. The narrative was Russia interfered in the election. We allege that president Trump
00:31:31.760
committed crimes with Russia in the course of that interference. And we're going to investigate it.
00:31:36.260
Okay. I get that. So Michael Cohen is going to go to jail, is going to go rotten prison for campaign
00:31:43.040
finance violations. Well, now I'm kind of, what does that have to do with Russia? That doesn't
00:31:47.180
have anything to do with Russia. That has to do with porn stars. That has to do with his work at
00:31:50.880
the Trump organization. What on earth does that have to do with Russia? It doesn't, but what it exposes
00:31:56.100
is that this Mueller investigation and the Southern district of New York now is simply trying to end the
00:32:02.640
Trump presidency. They are simply trying to overturn the 2016 presidential election. And if they can't
00:32:08.100
do it, if they can't oust him from office, they're going to make him so toxic that no one's going to
00:32:12.580
be able to elect him in 2020. That is their mission. That's what they're after. They don't care about
00:32:16.520
Russia. They don't care about Vladimir Putin. They don't care about Boris and Natasha. They care about
00:32:21.580
ousting president Trump from office. The sentencing of Michael Cohen showed that once and for all. The fact
00:32:27.260
that we're talking about campaign finance with regard to the special counsel probe is on its face
00:32:32.540
absurd. You're going to see this only heat up in the new year. I mean, at least now the blinders are
00:32:37.500
off. We don't have to think that this is some fair investigation, but it is going to get ugly. Bob
00:32:41.860
Mueller is saying that they could have a report by mid-February, or that's at least the, that's the
00:32:46.100
reporting that's coming out now. We'll see. We've heard this before. It was supposed to end in
00:32:49.580
September. Then it was supposed to end in November. Then it didn't happen. That's number five.
00:32:53.680
Number four, the deaths of John McCain and George H.W. Bush. Most consequential. Number four.
00:33:00.400
The reason for this is not because it was so shocking. We all knew John McCain was dying,
00:33:04.400
and we all knew that George Bush was dying. George Bush was very old. John McCain was no spring
00:33:08.740
chicken either. The reason that it was consequential is it showed the depths of degradation to which the
00:33:16.360
mainstream media will subject themselves just to attack incumbent, sitting Republican politicians.
00:33:25.400
During John McCain's life, whenever he posed a threat to a Democrat, the media were vicious against
00:33:30.700
him. They were brutal to him. George Bush, the same thing. He was out of touch. His wife was ugly.
00:33:36.720
He cheated on her. All of these things, no evidence of that, that they would throw at President Bush.
00:33:42.360
He didn't care about people. He didn't know how to use a grocery scanner. He did all of these
00:33:47.300
canards. Then when he dies, oh, those were the good old days. Oh, I have a strange new respect for
00:33:54.460
George Bush. That's what they all say because I hate Trump, and it's BS. Guess what? Even Donald
00:33:59.320
Trump, who is an extreme personality, even Donald Trump, when we get 20 years down the line and we've
00:34:05.800
got some other Republican in office, they're going to say, that guy's Hitler and Donald Trump, those were
00:34:09.140
the good old days. That's what you're going to hear. They're going to give him the Nixon treatment.
00:34:12.940
They're going to give him the Reagan treatment. It was so, they turned the John McCain funeral,
00:34:18.800
especially, into a spectacle, an anti-Trump spectacle. And it just showed how shallow it is because
00:34:24.280
these guys live good lives. Both were war heroes, John McCain and George H.W. Bush. George Bush,
00:34:30.880
such a model, father, grandfather, statesman. He held all of these offices, CIA director,
00:34:37.920
loyal vice president. And they tried to shrink his life and make it a referendum on Donald Trump and
00:34:43.740
juxtapose it with Donald Trump. And it was really sad. And it should, again, take the, peel back the
00:34:49.720
layers and the facades and realize that they just despise Republicans and conservatives. And you're
00:34:55.760
not going to get them to like you. You know, you're not. John McCain always tried to get the New York
00:34:59.600
Times to like him. And they like him when he doesn't pose a threat. And then when he did, they would
00:35:03.080
ditch him. They would stab him right in the back. Don't do it. Don't try to say, oh, I'm a Republican,
00:35:08.340
but I'm not that kind of Republican. Oh, I'm a Republican, but I hate Donald Trump. Really, like me,
00:35:12.420
like me, mainstream media. It is pointless. They will go after you. They will use you. They will abuse
00:35:17.240
you shamelessly. Number three most consequential event of 2018, the banning of Jesse Kelly from
00:35:23.340
Twitter. Again, you don't think that this is of geopolitical importance. It really is. Jesse Kelly,
00:35:28.120
he's an Iraq war veteran. He's a congressional candidate. He's a radio host, totally mainstream
00:35:32.540
guy. And big tech censored him. They banned him without any reason from Twitter. They didn't give
00:35:38.000
any explanation. They couldn't show what rules he violated. And they banned him from Twitter. The
00:35:42.120
uproar, the outrage was so great that eventually they had to reinstate him. It was just too absurd.
00:35:48.640
But they're coming after us. The reason this is one of the most consequential events is because
00:35:52.340
tech censorship has been creeping along the whole year. You saw this in Google's firing of James
00:35:58.100
Damore. You saw this in the banning of Alex Jones from social media platforms. You saw this in the
00:36:04.100
deplatforming of Gavin McGinnis, the conservative comedian, Owen Benjamin, another comedian.
00:36:08.080
On and on, you see it constantly going down this path. And people would always say, well,
00:36:13.940
it's Alex Jones. He's a shirtless vitamin salesman. Oh, who cares about that? Oh, well,
00:36:18.180
Gavin, he shouldn't have said that. Owen Benjamin, he took that joke too far. He just,
00:36:22.740
but then you get to Jesse Kelly and you realize, no, those were all just test shots. They're really
00:36:28.060
just going after conservatives. They think conservative ideas are hateful. They now think
00:36:32.300
that it's hateful to say that a man is not a woman. There was a feminist author in Canada who said,
00:36:37.520
a man is not a woman. She's an editor of a feminist journal. She's now blocked from Twitter.
00:36:41.480
She's banned. I can't, you can't go follow her. She's gone. This is a big deal because it's going
00:36:46.560
to raise big questions about how conservatives should fight big tech. It's going to raise some
00:36:52.000
questions as to whether we should use the government to do it, as to whether we should regulate them as
00:36:55.580
publishers, as to whether we can, if it would even be possible to build our own platforms.
00:36:59.900
Because the issue is, if they kick you off of, I don't know, Twitter, you can go somewhere else and
00:37:06.220
maybe you've got to raise money on Patreon. Okay. What if Patreon kicks you off? These crowdfunding
00:37:10.660
platforms, GoFundMe. Well, then you're, then you're in hot water. What if, what if they don't kick you off,
00:37:16.520
but then the leftist mob is so great that they get the payment processors to refuse to do business
00:37:22.060
to pay you your money? What about that? How far down the line does this go? Do we need to wield the
00:37:27.120
power of the state here? Do we need to find some other way to subvert the industry? This is going
00:37:31.020
to be a dominant theme in 2019. Uh, the number two, most consequential event of the year.
00:37:40.620
Let me ask you this question. You're in the Oval Office. Okay. How does it feel to be in the Oval Office?
00:37:45.200
Oh, it is good energy in this. Isn't it good energy? Yeah. It's good. It's a great place.
00:37:50.540
The problem is illegal guns. Illegal guns is the problem. Not, not, not legal guns. We have the
00:37:57.220
right to bear arms. Yes, you know, I love you. I know. Did I, did I? But I don't want to take,
00:38:02.260
I don't want to put you in that spot. No, I'm standing in that spot. I love this guy right here. Let
00:38:07.200
me get this guy. I love this guy right here. That's really nice. That is really nice. That's
00:38:17.420
good. Why is this the most common? Most people thought this was a circus. They said that why
00:38:21.100
would this be a consequential event? It is because it showed that President Trump is a unique candidate.
00:38:27.060
What was the last Republican who was able to connect with the biggest pop star in the world?
00:38:32.020
Who was the, it's really about pop culture. Most people just view the Kanye Oval Office meeting
00:38:36.500
through the lens of race. And that does matter because President Trump's approval rating among
00:38:40.400
black voters has increased dramatically. It's really very high for a Republican politician.
00:38:46.640
So that is great too. You saw Candace Owens. I just saw her last night. She's leading the
00:38:50.440
Blexit movement, the black exit from the Democrat party. And there, there is this idea that's floating
00:38:56.780
around, which is that if there is a race of people who are voting uniformly with one political
00:39:02.700
party, something has gone seriously wrong. Because you look at other races here, the Italians,
00:39:07.600
for instance, the Italians come to America and they don't all vote in bloc. You've got Nancy Pelosi
00:39:12.920
is Italian. Andrew Cuomo, Chris Cuomo is Italian. I'm Italian too. Anthony Scaramucci is Italian.
00:39:19.280
You've got other, you've got conservatives, you've got left-wingers, you've got the whole spectrum.
00:39:23.100
Same thing with the Irish. You've got really conservative Irishmen and you've got the Irish Democrats.
00:39:26.920
And yet with black voters, they are voting or have voted historically uniformly Democrat. And a little
00:39:33.060
bit of that began to crack. But I think what's even more important about that Kanye meeting is the
00:39:37.500
pop culture of it all. Kanye West is the biggest pop culture star in the world on planet Earth
00:39:43.460
other than Donald Trump. And Donald Trump has used the culture in his campaign, obviously in his
00:39:49.000
entire career, but in his campaign and in his presidency. He's created an exuberance. He's used humor
00:39:54.280
constantly. Finally, conservatives are the ones who can laugh, who can tell jokes, who are the cool
00:39:58.340
guys. And the left-wingers are the mean old scolds. This is really important. It's really helpful.
00:40:03.500
It really helps people to connect to politicians. I hope, look, Donald Trump is a unique figure. He's
00:40:08.820
an American original, but I hope conservatives can try to take that spirit and bring it in with their
00:40:13.580
other politicians. And the number one most consequential event of 2018, I like beer.
00:40:19.520
I liked beer. I still like beer. Had beers. Have some beers. One beer. Drink beer. Drinks beer.
00:40:26.220
Drank beer and drinking beer. You've probably had beers, Senator.
00:40:33.120
You know, I got a weak stomach, whether it's with beer. I like beer.
00:40:36.220
I like beer. I don't know if you do. Do you like beer, Senator, or not?
00:40:40.800
Hanging out and having some beers with friends, which I gladly do.
00:40:45.340
I like beer. I like beer. What can I tell you? I do like beer. This is the most consequential
00:40:50.680
event of the year. It's not just the Kavanaugh confirmation. It's Brett Kavanaugh fighting
00:40:54.940
back and it's the Republican president standing by his choice. Virtually any other Republican
00:41:00.420
president would have caved, would have withdrawn his nomination. Maybe any other Supreme Court
00:41:04.860
nominee would not have gone out there and fought. And he went out there and fought and
00:41:08.360
he used the culture and he made fun of those senators. And they said, they tried to make
00:41:11.920
this. Imagine living so squeaky clean a life that the worst thing you ever did was drink
00:41:15.880
beer in high school. Imagine you would be, you would get a straight shot up to heaven.
00:41:22.480
Do not stay in purgatory. Do not stay there for a thousand years. Go straight to heaven.
00:41:27.640
This guy, he has to defend himself for drinking beer in high school. What does he do? Does
00:41:31.940
he say, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have had a beer in high school? No. He went right in their
00:41:35.580
face and he said, yeah, I liked beer. And you know, I still like beer. And hey, Senator,
00:41:39.240
have you ever had a beer? When you were 18, did you maybe have a beer or two? And obviously
00:41:43.580
they go, oh, well, they're the scolds now. Sheldon Whitehouse, oh, we're not, blah, blah, blah, blah,
00:41:47.840
blah. Okay. I love that he fought back. This was a big issue. They said, oh, he has to be more
00:41:52.340
judicial. Well, then the Senate should be senatorial. He has to be more civil. Yeah. Then his inquisitors
00:41:58.680
should be civil too. And if they're not going to be civil, who cares? Why on earth would he play
00:42:03.280
by rules that they won't play by? We're, we're in a brawl here, folks. We're in a political brawl
00:42:08.440
and he shouldn't be expected to be playing by all of these beautiful rules while they're going to
00:42:13.460
go out there and shiv him right in the gut. It's ridiculous. And he came out and fought and they got
00:42:17.740
him through. And this was so important. It was important to Republicans doing as well as they did in
00:42:22.260
the midterm elections. It was important to feeling that elections do have consequences. A really
00:42:27.820
beautiful moment, the most consequential. And if God forbid anything happens to Justice Ginsburg,
00:42:33.120
2019 is going to make that look like a Kate walk. Okay. Before we leave here for the break before
00:42:38.720
Christmas and New Year's, I do want a little Christmas rundown. There's a new NPR PBS news
00:42:43.060
hour Marist poll out, which found that adults under the age of 30 are the only age group that prefers to
00:42:49.520
pay for Christmas gifts on credit cards. They're the only age group that strongly prefers to say happy
00:42:55.520
holidays to Merry Christmas. And they're the only age group which loves Christmas trees, but wants
00:43:00.860
fake Christmas trees. They prefer fake Christmas trees. Talk about the war on Christmas. This is a
00:43:06.720
new flank. The millennials coming in and attacking Christmas. This poll should be unsurprising. This
00:43:12.240
poll describes exactly what we would expect of millennials. Millennials, as the left broadly does,
00:43:19.900
they want the appearance of the thing, but they don't want the essence of the thing. They want the
00:43:24.160
appearance of whatever they're talking about, but they don't want to do what actually makes that
00:43:28.760
thing, that thing. So even with the pain, they want to pay on credit card rather than cash. I do too.
00:43:34.320
I pay for almost everything on credit card, but what is cash? Cash is a symbol, right? Cash is a symbol
00:43:39.500
of labor, of productivity, of trust in a system. And so cash itself is a symbol and credit cards are a
00:43:46.860
symbol of a symbol. Credit cards are one step removed from that. You use that to count dollars and cents,
00:43:51.920
but really it's just a symbol on cards. They prefer happy holidays to merry Christmas. What does happy
00:43:57.080
holidays refer to? It refers to Christmas. It doesn't refer to Hanukkah. Hanukkah has been over
00:44:00.700
for weeks. It doesn't refer to the new year that's in the new year. It doesn't refer to Thanksgiving.
00:44:05.100
It doesn't refer to Arbor Day. It refers to Christmas, and they want that Christmas feeling,
00:44:09.140
but they don't want it to be Christmas. They want to call it something else, happy holidays. And same
00:44:12.880
thing with the tree. They want the tree. They want all the stuff. The stuff is really nice, but they don't
00:44:16.980
want the thing that makes the tree the tree, which is the tree. They want a fake tree. They want a bunch of
00:44:20.360
plastic, and maybe they'll spray some fake Christmas tree smell on it. They don't want
00:44:24.640
the real thing. They probably drink decaf coffee too. A classic millennial story. And also just a
00:44:30.340
little inspiration for Christmas. We all know the real story of Christmas, the incarnation,
00:44:33.580
the birth of Christ. How wonderful. I want to tell one side story about Christmas. Then we can
00:44:40.000
meditate on the incarnation and the greatest event in the history of the world. Tied, I suppose,
00:44:45.560
are only second to the resurrection. At the Council of Nicaea, picture it. AD 325. You've got there
00:44:56.960
Saint Nicholas of Myra, jolly old Saint Nicholas, and you've got a heretic, Arius. Arius, who's a
00:45:04.900
heretical Christian who denies the divinity of Christ. And they're there. They're debating. They're
00:45:09.460
being really civil. They're being really collegial. And then Arius spouts his heresy and denies the
00:45:14.200
divinity of Christ. And jolly old Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus himself, gets so irritated that he
00:45:19.320
gets up and he punches that heretic right in the face. Now, did this story really happen? It's
00:45:24.280
unclear. There is some dispute in the historical record. It's certainly in the tradition. In Eastern
00:45:28.640
Christian iconography, you see it all the time. The image of Saint Nicholas slapping Arius across
00:45:34.320
the face. The story has changed a little bit over time. It was initially that Saint Nicholas
00:45:37.860
slapped an Arian, a follower of Arius, but not Arius himself. And then in the earliest texts
00:45:44.120
we have from the Council of Nicaea, there's really no evidence that Saint Nicholas even was there.
00:45:47.960
But this story has endured for a millennia now. So I like it nonetheless. It clearly has some
00:45:52.900
explanatory power, which is we are told that we have to, we just have to be civil. We just have to be
00:45:59.300
nice. We have to be tolerant. We have to, don't yuck my yum. Don't be so judgy. The truth is arrogant.
00:46:06.940
The truth is arrogant. And the truth makes claims. It asserts things. We're in a culture that doesn't
00:46:15.020
want to assert anything. We don't want to say I think. We don't want to say I believe. We don't
00:46:18.260
want to state facts. We just want to say I feel like. We want to distance ourselves. Well, maybe
00:46:22.180
that's true. That's your truth. That's not my truth. Sometimes you've got to stand up for the truth.
00:46:27.320
And sometimes the truth is going to push you to such a sense of assertiveness that you've got to punch
00:46:31.800
areas in the face. I'm not advocating violence, but I am advocating assertiveness. I am advocating
00:46:37.260
rhetorical violence if there were such a thing. I am advocating standing by your guns. We're seeing
00:46:42.800
it play out right now in this government shutdown, this Christmas government shutdown. President Trump
00:46:47.080
is there. He's going to stick by his guns or he won't have stood for the main central promise of
00:46:51.460
his campaign. Is he going to stick by it? Are we going to get it? Classic cliffhanger from,
00:46:55.940
from President Trump. We'll see what happens in the new year. Have a Merry Christmas.
00:46:59.180
Have a Happy New Year. I'll see you in 2019. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:47:29.180
Fire Forward Publishing production. Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.
00:47:33.260
Hey guys, over on the Matt Wall Show today, we're going to be talking about the continued persecution
00:47:37.360
of the Christian Baker, Jack Phillips. They're coming after him again. We've got to discuss that. Also,
00:47:42.540
the Trump administration is instituting new rules requiring food stamp recipients to work.
00:47:48.040
I think that's great. We'll discuss that. And finally, what is the worst Christmas song of all time?
00:47:53.160
We'll have that conversation today on the Matt Wall Show. Come check it out.
00:47:55.860
Is your home's title still in your name? With one forged document, scammers can steal your home title
00:48:00.560
and equity, but now you can protect yourself. Home Title Lock's million-dollar triple lock
00:48:04.700
protection provides 24-7 title monitoring, urgent alerts to changes, and if fraud happens,
00:48:09.880
they'll spend up to a million dollars to fix it and restore your title. Use promo code dailywire
00:48:14.440
at hometitlelock.com for a free title history report plus a free 14-day trial of their million-dollar
00:48:19.740
triple lock protection. Head over to hometitlelock.com now with promo code dailywire to ensure your title