Ep. 292 - The State Of The Union Is Terrific
Summary
Tonight, President Trump delivers the State of the Union, which some conservatives hate, but I've come to enjoy. Plus, Andy Millennial stops by to give his perspective on the state of the union, as well as to discuss Ariana Grande's botched Japanese tattoo.
Transcript
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31st, 2025. TD. Ready for you. Turn on the telly, cozy up with some popcorn and get ready for primetime
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executive time tonight as President Trump delivers the state of the union, which some conservatives
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despise, but I've come to really enjoy. We will analyze. Then Andy Millennial stops by to give
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his perspective on the state of the nation, you know, as a millennial, as well as to discuss
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Ariana Grande's botched Japanese tattoo. I'm Michael Knowles and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
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Tonight is the state of the union, the night that libertarians despise and I sort of enjoy,
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especially when Donald Trump is the one giving it. We'll get to that in a second. We'll get to why
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The State of the Union is a terrific experience. I have to break with some of my fellow right-wingers
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and conservatives here. I really enjoy it. So some conservatives hate it. It's basically
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libertarians who hate it because they feel it's too monarchical. It's too grandiose. You know,
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they just want the government to leave them alone, basically disappear. They view the president
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is no different from any other government office, and so they just want to ignore it. And, you know,
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Antonin Scalia felt this way too. Antonin Scalia, the late great justice, refused to go. He thought
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it was such a ridiculous parade. So plenty of conservatives don't like it, or at least
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libertarians. I think conservatives have a good deal of reason to enjoy it though. For one,
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it fulfills a requirement of the Constitution. Constitution Article 2, Section 3 says, quote,
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the president shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union
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and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. He may
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on extraordinary occasions convene both houses or either of them, and in case of disagreement between
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them with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think
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proper. He shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers. He shall take care that the laws
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he faithfully executed and shall commission all the officers of the United States. So that's the whole
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block that we get the State of the Union from. And really, we only get it from that first little
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line up there. I think there's a modern misconception, especially on the right, that the State of the
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Union is some wholly modern invention. It was just invented by Woodrow Wilson. And that isn't true.
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George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address before the White House existed.
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He delivered one, and then Jefferson discontinued the practice. So the third president
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discontinued it. And it's because Jefferson was a Democrat, lowercase d. He felt it was too
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monarchical. He was an anti-federalist, which then led to the Jeffersonian Democrats. He thought
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it was dreadful. And I think his reasoning was not so great, but we'll get to that in a second.
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Then, for a very long time, for over 100 years, no one did it until Woodrow Wilson. So you've got
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Jefferson good, then, or I'm sorry, George Washington gives it. That's good. Jefferson
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doesn't give it. That's probably a mark in favor of the State of the Union. And then Woodrow Wilson
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gives it. So that's a mark against the State of the Union. Woodrow Wilson, one of the worst presidents
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in American history. But then Warren Harding, a highly underrated president, was the first president
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to broadcast it on radio. So he gives it, good old Republican, limited broadcast, but nevertheless.
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Then Calvin Coolidge, it's harder to find any more small government conservative than Calvin
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Coolidge, Silent Cal. He gave it, and he actually was the first to broadcast the State of the Union
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to the entire nation. I think he's also the only president to actually shrink the government.
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So I think small government conservatives can take a little solace there. Coolidge broadcast it
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from coast to coast. And then President Ronald Reagan was the first ever to delay
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the State of the Union speech. So President Trump, again, following in good stead by delaying the
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speech for the government shutdown. President Trump obviously has fallen, followed in President
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Reagan's steps a lot of the time. The reason that the State of the Union, I think, is not only tolerable,
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but actually somewhat important, is that the executive is not just the DMV. The executive is not
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just the post office or the IRS. The executive is, the president in particular, as the head of the
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executive branch, is representing the spirited part of government. So our framers were very brilliant
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when they set up the government. This brilliant system of checks and balances, complex system
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that allows a balance of power between the people and the states and the federal government,
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between the judiciary and the executive and the legislature. And all of those parts of the
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government reflect different aspects of human nature. They reflect the tripartite soul,
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the ethos, the pathos, and the logos. The appetite, the pathos, the spirited part, the ethos, and the
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logos, which is the reasonable part. And you see that reflected in the pathos. The appetite is the
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Congress. It's the people who are most directly answerable to the appetites of the people and
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formerly the appetites of the states. Then you have the judiciary, which is the logos. They sit in
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their robes. They all went to the best law schools in the country. They're very straight-faced, except for
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when they like beer and they still like beer. They don't respond to anything at the state of the
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union. They're very judicious. And then you have the president, which is the spirited part of the
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government. He's the one who embodies the spirit of the country. And you look to him as one single
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representative. And so it seems to me to make perfect sense to have that representative of the
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spirited part of the country show a little spirit. He's not just a bureaucrat. He's not just some technocrat
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sitting there filling out economic tables. He's representing something a little more passionate and a
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little bit more romantic in the government. The state of the union is criticized by people who lean more
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democratic, lowercase d, in their views. And we should remember the founders and the framers were terrified of
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democracy. Rightly so. And they were terrified of the tyranny of the majority. And also what they were
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terrified of was leveling. The idea that in egalitarianism, when everybody is just exactly the
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same, that levels everybody down. People who are more impressive, people who are more virtuous,
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people who have more spirit. You can't level people up. That's not possible. The only way,
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if you want everyone to be exactly equal, is you have to cut down the tall trees. You have to level
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people down. And that is necessarily so. This is what Edmund Burke, the founder of modern conservative
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thought, saw happening in the French Revolution. He wrote this in the famous tract, Reflections on
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the Revolution in France. It seems to me, despite this silly democratic tendency, we should have
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something to look up to. We should have something dignified. And the state of the union, imperfect as it
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is, is a vessel of that dignity. The state of the union, and really just the state of the union as a
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representative of the executive dealing with the legislature, it dignifies the people who hold
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that office. President Trump, in some ways, does demonstrate dignity. In other ways, not so much
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dignity. But the office can raise you up to that. You can improve over time. Bill Clinton is a good
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example of this. Even Lyndon Johnson was able to, and he was a depraved degenerate, but he was able to
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rise on occasion to a bit of dignity. And for all of us who are the people of this country,
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it's good to look up to that. We are not simply automatons. We're not, I mean, this is the mistake
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of libertarianism or egalitarianism or lowercase d democratic politics, taken to their extreme.
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They just level everybody. They make us into little robots, consumers. There's nothing really
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metaphysical. There's nothing really noble. There's not a sense of purpose or virtue. It's just a little
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leveling in plain. I think it was Canning who said, all simple forms of government are bad. And I think
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that's just about right. And our form of government is not simple. It's not simple at all. It's about as
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complicated as it can be. It evolves. It grows through evolution, not revolution. And this example
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that the executive does something a little different than the legislature, and he has an occasion to come
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in and speak to the legislature. And a lot of the time, the legislature goes and fights back and
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thwarts his plans. We're going to see a lot of that for the next year as Nancy Pelosi is running the
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House of Representatives. I think that is just perfectly fine. And speaking of the executive
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part of government, the spirited part, there is a bombshell report out that President Trump
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spends his day in executive time. That's his phrase. The presidential private schedule leaked.
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We don't know who leaked it. And the left is having a field day. Here's Nicole Wallace on MSNBC.
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If he were your teenager, you'd call your mom friends for advice about how to get him up and out of his
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bedroom in the morning, away from the television, off social media, and phone calls with his friends.
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We start with that bombshell report in Axios, a White House source turning over dozens of Trump's
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private schedules filled with hundreds of hours of executive time over just a few months. The leak,
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either the greatest act of insubordination in modern political history or the bravest act of a White
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House whistleblower. Either way, the truth bomb has been detonated. Donald Trump doesn't do much of
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anything as president. The schedules, which cover nearly every working day since the midterms,
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show that Trump has spent around 60 percent of his scheduled time over the last three months in
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So what she's saying is some of the best news for the left. President Trump doesn't do much of
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anything as president. You can celebrate. He's not Hitler. He's not going to invade the Rhineland or
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take over Poland. Oh, great. He doesn't do anything. Because what they are saying is that President Trump
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is just spending 60 percent of his day lying around watching Fox News. Actually, that's some
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of the most productive time he spends. We'll get to that in a second. But first, let's make money,
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slash cofefe. So executive time, 60 percent. Apparently Trump only spends 15 percent of his
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day in meetings. And the left says this is just dreadful. Now, the Heritage Foundation pointed out
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that President Trump has installed a conservative agenda, specifically the Heritage Conservative
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Agenda, faster even than President Reagan. So the idea that he's not doing much as president is a
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little weird. What this really gets to is the difference between the left and the right as they
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view work. And I suppose as they view the world. Which is that for the left, if you're not in a
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meeting, if you're not in a structured meeting with a lot of bureaucrats and a lot of tables and
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Microsoft Excel open, then you're not doing productive work. You need more meetings and then
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you have to have a meeting to set up a meeting. The trouble with meetings is that meetings are
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almost never productive. Meetings, to quote my priest, Father Rutler, are the opiate of the
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bureaucrat. And the left is bureaucratic. President Trump spends 60 percent of his time in
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executive time. He's managed to affect a pretty conservative agenda in that amount of time. And
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what is executive time? He's calling people. He's calling foreign leaders. He's tweeting. He's
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taking in the news. We need unstructured time. You don't really think about the big picture
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when you're in a meeting with a bunch of bureaucrats around you. You think about it when you're
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driving around, when you're going, you've got an hour in between meetings. You're walking to the
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airport. I don't know. That is unstructured time that really helps. The left did this to
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Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan famously would end work at six o'clock. He said, if I see an executive
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who can't finish his work in eight or nine hours, I see an ineffective executive. And Ronald Reagan,
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another one of the great effective conservative presidents. So great job. If the left really
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believes this, good. You can be at ease. He's not going to take over all of Europe. The right won't
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last a thousand years because he's so lazy. For the rest of us, we know that he is working in a much
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more effective way than the bureaucracy of the left. We have got to bring on, we have a lot more
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to say about working, but we have first got to bring on someone who obviously doesn't work very
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much by virtue of his youth and vigor. Andy Millennial. What's up? Andy, thank you so much
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for coming on. It's been a while. We haven't had you on in a little while. It's been a long time,
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yeah. But you've been busy. You've been collecting a lot of experiences. Yeah. Something. I don't know.
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Something. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So what's going on? What can you update us on? Well, you know,
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not much. I mean, we've got this State of the Union. I think it's an urgent, urgent moment of political,
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you know, something of urgency going on for the country. And, you know, I would watch it myself if I
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weren't hanging with my buds. But, you know, I think I'm really hoping that an important progressive
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agenda will be put forward. It's very, very important to me that we are progressive.
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So what specifically do you want to see out of the State of the Union?
00:16:13.060
You know, I don't know a lot about issues, you know, or facts or anything like that. But speaking
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as a millennial, just speaking as my lived experience as a millennial, you know, I think I live out my
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progressivism, you know. Like, I mean, you know, like you look back in the old days and people
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didn't have tattoos, you know. And now, like, I have a tattoo on every part of my body. So that's
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like progress. You know, I made progress. People, you know, wouldn't wear stuff. They were afraid
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to wear anything. But, you know, I have, like, piercings on my nose and, you know, I put rings
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on my nose. That's progress, you know. And, like, I believe in, like, the environment, you know,
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environment. So, like, I think we've got to get rid of all this, like, oil and all these cities
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that are just ruining the environment and bring back the jungle, you know, so we can be
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walking through the jungle with tattoos and rings on our nose. And I think that's
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And that's progress. We stop speaking this language, you know. We just get rid of all
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this written language. I could have gone on with that for about 10 more minutes.
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That is progress. That's progress with a capital P.
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You know, we can go back to sacrificing babies. The left has got it all figured out.
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I think we've got it. Yeah, I think we're, I think we make the Aztecs look like children.
00:17:28.360
That's right. We, so, the State of the Union addresses tonight. You are, I have to tell you,
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you are the most articulate millennial spokesman that I've ever met.
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I'd say my, for a man my age, to have a grasp of language that's extensive, it can only be
00:17:46.280
attributed to hard study and, I think it just comes in through this hat, actually.
00:17:51.200
That's what it comes in through, through hard study, the legalization of shrooms, so, right.
00:17:59.100
Did you see this story about your fellow millennial, Ariana Grande? She got a tattoo for her
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She got a tattoo, for some reason, in Japanese, and she got it, for some reason, on the palm
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of her hand. But it turns out that the tattoo doesn't say Seven Rings in Japanese. It says
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Well, I'm very supportive of barbecue, you know.
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This is... I actually can't make a joke about this, because that is the joke. I mean, this
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is the idea that these little white millennial girls are getting Japanese tattooed on their
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wrist, and they think it means water, and really it means, like, you know, four-wheel
00:18:45.080
You know, what is this? You know, I was watching the Super Bowl, and the Maroon 5 guy, what's
00:18:49.680
his name, Adam Levine? He takes off his shirt, and like, every inch of his body is
00:18:53.460
tattooed, and you just think, like, you know, in about 20 years, it's going to look really,
00:18:57.260
really bad. I mean, look at Schwarzenegger, you know, the way what happens to your body
00:19:04.440
You know, it is funny. I have to tell you, Alyssa Milano, though, is part of a very, very
00:19:10.080
weird... You look at her, she dresses like a little girl. Have you noticed this?
00:19:15.040
But she's hot, you know. I mean, she's obviously very beautiful. It's a weird little thing we're
00:19:22.340
I don't really understand where it comes from. I have an inkling, because it's not just these
00:19:27.560
stars, it's millennials broadly are so much more tatted up than other generations. They
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all have tattoos, and I mean, I have seen people on their kneecaps, they'll have giant
00:19:38.260
citrus fruit, and one kneecap and the other, and just random little designs that don't seem
00:19:43.420
You know, I was kidding around when we started, but it really does seem to me that certain
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things that were considered primitive, like the idea that you were primitive was not a
00:19:52.280
good thing. You were trying to be civilized, we were trying to move forward, we were trying
00:19:55.200
to move... But certain things that were considered primitive, like all these piercings and things
00:19:59.280
that you see in Native cultures, and the tattoos, they actually are coming back.
00:20:03.860
I don't think it's a good thing. I think we were actually, like that trajectory up out
00:20:08.580
of the jungle, I think is a good one. I think that's the kind of one we want to stick with
00:20:12.060
that, you know, like less killing, less beating up women, things like that.
00:20:15.580
And there used to be specific times to get a tattoo. For instance, if you're in the Marines
00:20:22.100
And you wake up with a tattoo, but you can't remember how you got it. Yeah, that was okay.
00:20:26.300
That's actually to be encouraged, I think. Because you actually, I suppose, for our criminals
00:20:31.320
and also for our service members, for obviously very different reasons, those are two groups
00:20:36.520
where strength really matters, where a sort of, the niceties of civilization really kind
00:20:42.880
of have to go away. One, if you're trying to protect people and fight for the good guys,
00:20:46.340
and two, if you're making your way through prison.
00:20:48.880
Now, it's all of these little hipster guys who weigh 120 pounds, and they wear leggings
00:20:54.240
It really is strange, and it is this harkening... You know, Steven Pinker is kind of, he's kind
00:20:58.900
of a liberal, I wouldn't call him like a far lefty or anything like this, but he does
00:21:02.340
like to, because he's a scientist, he does like to say things that kind of make the left
00:21:06.700
crazy, like men and women are different. I mean, all the science shows that men and
00:21:10.060
women are different. And one of the things he talked about, and he's been talking about
00:21:13.000
it for a long time, is that the world has gotten less violent as it has become more civilized.
00:21:18.740
Obviously, our wars are so horrific because we have these engines of destruction, but if
00:21:23.860
you live in an uncivilized society, a primitive society, you are more likely to get killed or
00:21:29.760
raped than you are now in this incredible, you know, world that we have. Why these kids
00:21:36.500
who have never been to war, who have never... Most of them, the way they talk, the way...
00:21:40.800
Alexandria, occasional cortex talks, you think she has never left New York. I mean, she has
00:21:45.600
But only the really nice part of New York. We're not talking about the South Bronx here.
00:21:48.520
I know, she is. But they've never seemed to have been anywhere, and yet, and yet, they
00:21:52.460
are bedecked with this kind of, like, you know, stuff in their skin. And I don't mean to
00:21:57.940
just be... Just dismiss it, because, like, believe me, my generation, if we had thought
00:22:01.700
of piercing our faces, we would have done it just didn't occur to us. We were so stoned
00:22:05.640
out of our minds, you know? But so it's not like just saying, oh, this is... It's the
00:22:09.100
particular message it's sending, this message that, like, that we're going backwards, you
00:22:14.300
You know where I think it comes from a little bit, too, is this postmodern nihilism? Because
00:22:19.360
the tattoos are not often significant. If... I will make an exception. If someone has a
00:22:24.660
really significant tattoo, and they want... And they have really good reasons for it,
00:22:29.160
I sort of can understand that. I was at an Apple store in Grand Central, and the guy who
00:22:34.920
was helping me out, on his ring finger, had a little mustache tattoo. And then on the
00:22:40.640
middle finger, it said, S, a word for fecal matter, cray, in cursive.
00:22:47.940
Stuff cray, like short for crazy. That's meaningless. That is not... That is the embodiment
00:22:55.540
of meaninglessness. And you see... And women, too, have these crazy tattoos where it's just
00:22:59.940
like a little squiggle, or just a random little shape, all down their body. I think it's because
00:23:05.360
we are saying nothing really matters, nothing really matters to me. Why not? I'm just a big
00:23:10.140
hunk of flesh. And there's also, in this oppression matrix that we've created, that, you know,
00:23:16.360
the intersectionality ideology, the one thing that unites all of these disparate groups that
00:23:22.180
seem to contradict one another, is that they hate big daddy Western civilization. And so,
00:23:28.200
I mean, from the time of Rousseau, certainly up to the present, you have this romantic idea of the
00:23:33.020
primitive, of the savage, of the jungle. And I think on a certainly unconscious level, when we're
00:23:37.780
talking about millennials, I think that's what that's getting at a little bit. Just, you can't
00:23:42.100
make me conform, man. Well, think about it. I think about the fact that they've made these
00:23:46.020
movies, Avatar, Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves, are all the same movie. A civilized man goes back
00:23:51.280
into a more backward culture and finds that that is where truth is. That's where, you know,
00:23:56.120
honesty and integrity are. And there's always, and the women are always treated well, because,
00:24:00.340
you know, primitive cultures, women are not treated well. And it really is interesting when
00:24:04.820
you watch, Avatar was the one that always got me, because they have everything that you would have
00:24:09.020
if you had oil, but they have it by magic. So they have lights, but they have the little plants
00:24:12.740
that light up. They can fly around. Yeah, and then they fly around in dragons and all this.
00:24:16.160
Yeah, but you need that oil if you're going to get those things off the ground, you know.
00:24:20.200
Let's make a little money, honey. And as the Catholic of the Daily Wire, I think it only
00:24:24.060
makes sense that I should sell indulgences. Valentine's Day is fast approaching. What are
00:24:28.560
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00:24:32.560
you get close to the day, you're probably going to get ripped off. I think I bought dandelions
00:24:36.280
for like $400 last year. Don't do that. Sometimes they're not fresh. Chocolate, you know, you can't
00:24:41.440
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Promo code Covfefe. C-O-V-F-E-F-E. 10% savings. Indulgences.store. Don't screw it up and put
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.com. Indulgences.store. State of the Union is going to be on tonight. We're going to be
00:26:13.980
watching it. Other than progress, what are you looking for?
00:26:16.960
Well, I mean, I think it is interesting. He's been talking about, they've been talking about
00:26:21.080
A Call for Unity, which is just a really fascinating idea to me because Donald Trump,
00:26:26.680
in many ways, erased all the attitudinal stuff, all the tweets and the insults and all those
00:26:32.360
things, the style that people love and hate. I don't want to erase that, but for the moment,
00:26:36.560
I will. Just stipulate this out of the way. Donald Trump is a very practical guy. I mean,
00:26:40.580
he wants things to work. And I've always noticed this about him, that he wants, he's a narcissist,
00:26:45.580
and so he wants to be loved, but he wants to be loved for fixing stuff. He said it again and
00:26:49.340
again. I fix things. That's what I do. And he's actually taken that approach. I mean,
00:26:54.120
nothing he's done has been ideological, except in the sense that the left has given him no room
00:26:58.780
to move, so he's only been able to move to the right. That's the only way he's been able to go.
00:27:02.360
But he's perfectly, you hear him when he negotiates, like, yeah, I'll give you the dreamers
00:27:06.080
and I'll take the wall. Give you the dreamers, let all the criminals out of prison. I don't know.
00:27:09.420
Yeah, whatever. He actually has no ideology whatsoever. I think most Americans are like that. I do not
00:27:14.960
think. I think people like us have an ideology. Most Americans just want stuff fixed.
00:27:18.240
Why isn't this working? Why can't I get to work? Why can't I do this stuff?
00:27:21.680
And so it is interesting. If it weren't for his affect, he would actually probably be a uniting
00:27:28.180
figure. As it is, he has made his personality such a big part of his presidency that I think he's in
00:27:34.600
this battle, locked in this battle with Nancy Pelosi, who I seriously think, for all she's a highly
00:27:40.420
professional politician and a real killer, I think she can't let go of the battle. I do believe,
00:27:47.480
you know, I think Trump, Trump actually, you know, he gets personal, but he'd give her a lot of what
00:27:52.700
she wants, but she can't do it. She can't because he, he can let go of the battle in so much as
00:27:58.220
people smear, Lindsey Graham called him all sorts of awful names. He called all of the other
00:28:02.480
Republicans awful names and now they're buddies. He goes down to Texas for Ted Cruz. He says,
00:28:06.640
I know he used to be lying. Now he's beautiful Ted. I love him. He doesn't, he really doesn't take it
00:28:11.200
for him or against him. And I just think it is interesting that if, if you could just look at
00:28:16.400
his policies, just look at his approach, he would be a unifying figure, but he's not, you know? And I
00:28:21.180
think, and I think that that's really interesting because I think if you, if you look, he's the
00:28:25.780
opposite of Obama who had a kind of appealing, quieter style, but did things that actually tore
00:28:31.420
the country to pieces. And were deeply ideological. And were deeply ideological. And so he's the kind of
00:28:35.740
the opposite of that. But I really do believe that he and Pelosi are in a battle royal, that none of
00:28:40.760
them, that he can move because his base will follow him, but she can't because her, her base is
00:28:46.880
actually not following her. It's following an ideology. And I love that idea. If he had a
00:28:51.260
different personality, he would be, if I had some ham, I could have a ham sandwich. If I had some
00:28:55.540
bread. Well, it'll be a lot of fun tonight. It's true. And it will be fun, except boring as hell,
00:29:00.720
I think. Yeah, I think that'll be the thing. Well, at least I, you know, I've got this little
00:29:04.240
throat, chest issue. Yeah, I noticed. So I'll be able to work through that with all those good
00:29:07.540
cigars. That's the important thing. Those cigars will cure you right up and will bury you. Andy
00:29:12.540
Millennial, good to see you. I won't shake your hand on account of, but I'll see you in a few
00:29:16.300
hours. I'll be there. All right. We've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube. If you are on
00:29:22.400
dailywire.com, thank you. You help keep the lights on. You keep Covfefe in my cup. If not, head over
00:29:27.340
there. 10 bucks a month, $100 for an annual membership. You get me. You get Andy Millennial. You get the
00:29:32.540
Ben Shapiro show. You get the Matt Wall show. You get to ask questions in the mailbag. That's coming
00:29:35.240
up Thursday. Get your questions in. You get to ask questions backstage. That's coming up in a few
00:29:39.320
hours. Get subscribed. Get those questions ready. You get another kingdom. You get everything.
00:29:44.620
And you get this. You get the, oh, President Trump is going to have, what is it going to be an hour
00:29:50.640
tonight? An hour and a half of saying whatever he wants. And all those Democrats, they're going to,
00:29:55.720
it's going to be like that picture of Chuck and Nancy, the American Gothic. It's going to be that
00:29:59.540
turned up to 11. Get your Tumblr. Go to dailywire.com. We'll be right back with a lot more.
00:30:13.740
I do want to finish this thought on executive time and how we work and what work really means. I mean,
00:30:20.420
you know, the left, the left attacks Donald Trump for opposite reasons. They attack him
00:30:25.680
for being too effective and right wing and awful and terrible. And they attack him for being lazy
00:30:31.900
and not doing anything and just watching Fox News all day. And it can't be both. They've obviously
00:30:36.540
come to a conclusion and they're in search of an argument. But the way that President Trump works,
00:30:41.760
60% executive time, 15% meetings. One, I think that's a pretty good idea. And two, I think it's
00:30:48.740
pretty emblematic of our time and the way that we work these days. You know, there was a study that just
00:30:53.460
came out. About half of Americans consider themselves workaholics. 48% consider themselves
00:30:59.160
workaholics. They have on average 7.5 hours of screen time daily. This makes sense. A lot of us
00:31:06.460
are on our screens for work. And if you're not on your screen a lot for work, maybe you're on some
00:31:11.460
screen or you're obviously using screens in all your personal life. What does it mean to be a workaholic?
00:31:16.660
It's not the people who are in the coal mines for 18 hours a day. What they mean is that they worry
00:31:21.360
about work on a day that they're off. What it means is that, this is just how they described it,
00:31:25.900
they feel too busy to take a vacation ever. It means that the minute they wake up, they're on
00:31:30.920
their phone, they're checking email. They're right away logged on. 58% of respondents say that they
00:31:35.840
do that. I certainly do that. They say that these are the top three symptoms of workaholicism.
00:31:44.740
Does this mean that we're working harder all the time? No. Actually, it doesn't. But what it means is
00:31:49.720
that we're almost never not working. I mean, I say this as a man who sleeps 27 hours a day.
00:31:54.680
You know, I'm not working like grinding away at the coal mine all day long. But I am always
00:32:00.660
sort of working. It's very rare that I'm not working. And I don't think I'm the only one. I
00:32:04.540
think most people are there checking emails. In the old days, you would have business hours. And then
00:32:09.380
after business hours, you wouldn't really be bothered. Now, what's business hours? I get calls
00:32:13.900
all through the night. I make calls all through the night. I expect people to pick up on the East
00:32:17.280
Coast or on the West Coast. President Trump is emblematic of this. He's always sort of working.
00:32:23.780
So when he's watching Fox and Friends and tweeting, obviously, that's work. He's gaining information.
00:32:29.000
He's pushing his agenda. He's in one of his biggest roles. He's a spokesman. He's a communicator.
00:32:34.760
That's maybe the chief charge of the president as a political figure. And that doesn't have business
00:32:40.220
hours. The modern economy doesn't have business hours. So there are some proposals now. I just read
00:32:45.540
one of them where a few companies are giving women over 30 time off to date. You think this is
00:32:52.700
ridiculous. What a ridiculous idea. These millennials are so coddled, whatever. I actually think it's a
00:32:58.440
pretty good idea. Because what it makes us aware of is the one moral hazard of our economy, of our
00:33:06.380
work hard, free markets, capitalist American economy, which is so wonderful. The one hazard is that we
00:33:13.200
lose perspective. And we think that we're just economic creatures. We're just automatons,
00:33:18.320
consumers, whatever. But really, life is so much more than that. That's one aspect of what we do.
00:33:23.900
But we only do that to serve ourselves. We have higher aims than just buying a lot of nice stuff.
00:33:29.780
We have relationships and duties and responsibilities to our families, to our communities, and to our God.
00:33:35.360
We have a purpose in our life beyond just consuming the nicest electronics. And in this economy,
00:33:41.720
especially I've lived in New York and L.A., it's really hard for people to date because they're
00:33:46.300
working all the time. And so I think this actually, in a kind of silly way, is addressing that problem.
00:33:53.760
And more executive time is, if that's the way of the American economy, so be it. And that's good.
00:33:59.760
And we can be more effective that way. And if private solutions are coming around to trying to
00:34:05.300
get a little bit more of a balance in life and try to make you see that life is about more than just
00:34:10.680
chugging away on Excel spreadsheets or something, I think that's a good move too.
00:34:14.880
We have to get to Nancy Pelosi's Bible quote. If you didn't see this, Nancy Pelosi has been using
00:34:22.700
this quote from the Bible. Nancy Pelosi is a self-described Catholic. Of course, she has a radical
00:34:28.240
abortion agenda. But she at least says that she's a Catholic. Andrew Cuomo, who legalized infanticide
00:34:34.200
two weeks ago, he says that he's a Catholic too. Nancy Pelosi has been giving this little stump
00:34:41.560
speech for years and years where she quotes a line of the Bible. There's just one problem.
00:34:46.680
I can't find it in the Bible, but I quote it all the time. And I keep reading and reading the Bible.
00:34:51.480
I know it's there someplace. It's supposed to be in Isaiah. But I heard a bishop say,
00:34:55.540
to minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to
00:35:04.460
dishonor the God who made us. It's there somewhere in some words or another, but certainly the spirit
00:35:12.280
of it is there. It's there somewhere it's got to be. I know it's supposed to be in Isaiah. Oh,
00:35:18.220
really? Did I, Isaiah, you should take that up with him. Isaiah promised you it was going to be
00:35:22.640
there. It's supposed to be there. I mean, it's not. It isn't there or anywhere else in the Bible.
00:35:27.600
But Nancy Pelosi, the gospel according to St. Nancy of the, of Sacramento or of wherever,
00:35:35.580
she insists that it's there, but it's not. It's not there. The quote that she's using is,
00:35:42.920
the Bible tells us in the Old Testament, to minister to the needs of God's creation is an
00:35:47.120
act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us. What Nancy Pelosi
00:35:52.100
is doing is an act of worship. It is an act of self-worship. That's what she's doing. She's
00:35:57.960
saying, listen, I know that this is in the Bible. I know that this is what the Bible tells us. I mean,
00:36:02.840
it doesn't, and it's not anywhere in the Bible, but I want it to be. And so I will turn the scripture,
00:36:08.260
the word of God to what I want. This is an analogy that is used for this sometimes is looking down a
00:36:16.540
well. I have no doubt that Nancy Pelosi has read the Bible on some occasions in her life, skimmed it
00:36:20.940
at least. And what we do when we just skim the Bible for our own purposes, without any sort of
00:36:27.640
interpretive doctrine, without any sort of people teaching it to us, going through it with us,
00:36:34.540
guiding us spiritually through it. What it's like is it's like looking down a dark well,
00:36:39.700
a profound and dark well, and all you see is your own reflection in the water.
00:36:44.900
That's what Nancy Pelosi is doing. She's looking at the Bible, whatever she skimmed,
00:36:49.480
and she's seeing her own reflection. And so it couldn't possibly be the case that that quote
00:36:54.700
is not in the Bible. It has to be because Nancy said so. And what is the quote? The quote is,
00:36:59.460
to minister to the needs of creation is an act of worship. No, that would be idolatrous.
00:37:05.900
To worship the creation is idolatry. Now, we have stewardship over the earth. We have dominion
00:37:16.300
over the earth. That's our job. That's the duty that God gave to us. Worship is worship. We worship
00:37:22.780
God. We don't worship the creation. We're not supposed to worship ourselves. This is the trouble
00:37:27.800
with being lightly educated. A little learning is a dangerous thing. This is the trouble
00:37:35.300
with only reading books of quotations or only reading quotation memes on the internet. There's
00:37:40.940
that famous meme. It's a picture of Abraham Lincoln. It says, don't believe everything you
00:37:45.260
read on the internet. Abraham Lincoln, 1862. And I like books of quotations. Winston Churchill,
00:37:52.940
I believe, recommended books of quotations to people. He had some of the great quotations in
00:37:58.320
all of those modern books. Actually, speaking of Churchill, I was at a dinner with a fairly well-known
00:38:04.620
actress. And we were having dinner, left wing. And this actress said we were discussing Winston
00:38:11.000
Churchill. She said, you know, Churchill said during the Second World War that parliament was about to cut
00:38:16.860
funding to the arts. And Winston Churchill said, then what are we fighting for? Of course, he didn't
00:38:25.400
say that. I knew this immediately because I know anything about Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill did
00:38:30.660
not fight the Second World War. He didn't fight in the Boer War. He didn't escape from a prison camp in
00:38:35.700
South Africa. He didn't do all of that to preserve government funding for stupid plays that often are
00:38:42.560
terrible. And bad modern murals. I promise you he didn't do that. Because I know something about
00:38:47.900
Winston Churchill, so I just know that that isn't true. But what people do is they look down that well
00:38:53.060
at whatever profound issue they're looking at, and they only see their own reflection. I was, I forget,
00:38:59.040
I was tweeting about something the other day on the internet. And some dummy blue checkmark guy
00:39:03.800
tried to make some point, but it wasn't a very good point. And, but because he didn't seem terribly
00:39:10.560
intelligent, and he didn't seem terribly humble, he couldn't understand that his point had been
00:39:15.900
refuted. So I used a line from the Bakke by Euripides, which is, talk sense to a fool, and he
00:39:23.640
calls you foolish. It's useless to talk sense to a fool. And then he responded with a quote from Oscar
00:39:29.180
Wilde that said that quotations are a substitute for wit. And then I said, I know Oscar Wilde didn't say
00:39:35.940
that. And I looked it up, and that quotation is not true either. We have, we're in this very shallow
00:39:41.100
culture. We're in a very glib culture, where we are quoting all of these great ideas, great thinkers.
00:39:47.960
We are pretending that we are following in a long intellectual tradition, and we are not. We are
00:39:53.760
severing ourselves from that tradition, because we are not being cultured, and we're not being educated.
00:39:58.520
And what we are doing is just substituting a false fantasy of that tradition, and everyone else
00:40:05.760
who's also uneducated and uncultured thinks that that's true. What requires, what is required to
00:40:12.060
fix this is humility. We actually can't just tell the left, you guys are a bunch of idiots.
00:40:18.200
I mean, we can maybe, you know, once every so often we can say that. But what we need is a little
00:40:21.800
humility too, because even us on the right, we are not well educated. This is just a symptom of the
00:40:27.400
20th and 21st centuries. Our education systems have been destroyed. K through 12, college and
00:40:33.740
graduate school. They've been really hollowed out by ideology, by leftism, by trying to look down the
00:40:39.080
profound well of our tradition, and only seeing ourselves, only seeing the perpetual present.
00:40:45.500
This is a really big issue. I'm going to be speaking at UCLA tomorrow. I'll be giving a lecture
00:40:49.960
on a similar topic, so if you're around, go check it out. Before we go, I also have to get to the
00:40:54.660
Super Bowl. I know, I didn't watch the Super Bowl. I was on an airplane. Apparently no one else
00:41:00.120
watched it either, though, so I don't feel that bad. I suppose it happened. This was the lowest
00:41:05.940
moment of the Trump presidency. I'm sorry that I even have to watch this.
00:41:14.480
It's a very tough question. It's a very good question. If he wanted to, yes. Would I steer him
00:41:23.000
I wouldn't. And he actually plays a lot of soccer. He's liking soccer. And a lot of people,
00:41:27.600
including me, thought soccer would probably never make it in this country, but it really
00:41:31.200
is moving forward rapidly. I just don't like the reports that I see coming out having to
00:41:36.700
do with football. I mean, it's a dangerous sport. And I think it's really tough. I thought
00:41:43.320
the equipment would get better, and it has. The helmets have gotten far better, but it hasn't
00:41:48.240
solved the problem. So, you know, I hate to say it because I love to watch football.
00:41:54.520
I think the NFL is a great product, but I really think that as far as myself, well,
00:42:00.860
I've heard NFL players saying they wouldn't let their sons play football. So it's not totally
00:42:08.740
I don't even disagree with much of what he said, but that soccer line, Barron plays soccer.
00:42:13.880
Mr. President, please, I, you know that I care about you, your office, your family seems
00:42:20.760
lovely. The soccer, please don't. What good is it if we secure our border, we deport illegal
00:42:27.880
alien criminals, we get our economy moving again, we make America, what good is that?
00:42:34.360
What does that avail? If American children are playing soccer, what's the point? What
00:42:40.100
then are we fighting for? To quote, not Winston Churchill, really sad. The future of football
00:42:45.160
is in question. I don't care because I don't watch football and I like baseball. And I think
00:42:49.280
baseball is a much more sophisticated sport and more enjoyable to watch. And I think football
00:42:53.560
is very boring. And it's especially boring during that Super Bowl where they scored a
00:42:57.660
combined 16 points. But we're looking at the lowest rated Super Bowl ever, low, 10-year
00:43:03.200
low. We're looking at a few reasons for this. Part of it is TV. People aren't watching linear
00:43:11.560
TV anymore. But of course, they can stream it on any device they want. Part of that is the
00:43:16.040
growing popularity of other sports like soccer. Part of it is politics. Part of it is get woke,
00:43:21.380
go broke. The NFL came in and embraced Colin Kaepernick, let all of those ingrates on the field
00:43:27.840
make a mockery of our country and make a mockery of the sport. They tolerated it. They encouraged it.
00:43:33.400
That incompetent football commissioner did it. And now look at what has happened. And now an ad that
00:43:38.580
was supposed to be run during the Super Bowl from CBS was shut down for being too political
00:43:45.220
in the other direction. Don't ask if your loyalty is crazy. Ask if your loyalty is crazy enough.
00:43:51.880
When they question you running towards danger for those who are unable or unwilling. When they laugh
00:43:57.660
at the thought of you willingly sacrificing your life for someone you may never know. Stay that way.
00:44:03.660
Some people think you're crazy being loyal, defending the Constitution, standing for the flag.
00:44:09.420
Then I guess I'm crazy. Then I guess I'm crazy. Then I guess I'm crazy. And for those who kneel,
00:44:16.500
they fail to understand that they can kneel and that they can protest, that they can despise what
00:44:22.620
I stand for, even hate the truth that I speak. But they can only do that because I am crazy enough.
00:44:32.580
Great commercial. It's from Nine Line, which I believe is a vet-owned company. In normal America,
00:44:36.960
Colin Kaepernick would be ostracized. Nike would not be allowed to advertise. And this company would
00:44:42.160
be doing great. And today it's the opposite. That spells trouble, not just for the NFL, about which
00:44:46.860
I don't care at all, but for the country. We'll have to see what happens tonight at the State of the
00:44:51.260
Union. In the meantime, I'll see you in a few hours. In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is
00:44:56.120
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Robert Sterling. Executive producer, Jeremy Boring. Senior
00:45:06.620
producer, Jonathan Hay. Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover. And our technical producer is
00:45:11.520
Austin Stevens. Edited by Danny D'Amico. Audio is mixed by Dylan Case. Hair and makeup is by Jesua
00:45:17.720
Olvera. Production assistant, Nick Sheehan. The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production.
00:45:22.380
Copyright Daily Wire 2019. Today on The Ben Shapiro Show, President Trump prepares for the State of
00:45:28.100
the Union. Stacey Abrams prepares for her response. And Virginia Democrats implode. That's today on The