The Michael Knowles Show

00:00:00.000 As the 2020 Democrat presidential primary heats up, one issue above all takes center stage,

00:00:06.140 B.S. Yes, B.S. artists descend on Iowa and New Hampshire to spread heaps of cow dung,

00:00:13.300 ironically often about heaps of cow dung. We will analyze B.S. from the campaign trail to

00:00:18.660 the mainstream media. All of this and more. Check it out. I'm Michael Knowles. This is

00:00:23.120 The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:31.000 This is an important question. There is a philosophical text that people don't read as

00:00:37.240 much anymore. It came out, I think, about 20 years ago called On B.S. by Harry G. Frankfurt,

00:00:43.780 who's a philosopher from Princeton. And I got to tell you, watching the Eric Swalwell

00:00:48.000 presidential announcement video, watching Pete Buttigieg, try to pick a fight with Mike Pence,

00:00:54.440 watching all of the crazy Me Too attacks on Joe Biden. It just occurs to me that this campaign

00:01:03.100 is about B.S. We will analyze exactly what B.S. means and why this campaign seems to be about

00:01:11.280 nothing or actually specifically about B.S. But first, there's a lot of things in life that aren't

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00:02:39.900 BS. So there's this book that came out about 20 years ago on BS by Harry G. Frankfurt. And what he

00:02:50.440 pointed out is that one of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much

00:02:56.220 BS. Quote, everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. So you see it all around

00:03:02.400 you. Now, perhaps the reason for that is not that people are BSing more than they used to,

00:03:07.660 but because we're communicating so much more than we used to. So now, obviously, you're watching this

00:03:12.980 on the internet or you're listening to it in your car or on your phone or wherever. Everybody is

00:03:17.300 talking to everybody. This is a product of the internet age. Okay. Maybe the percentage of BS

00:03:22.360 remains the same, even though the volume has greatly increased. But as Harry Frankfurt points out,

00:03:28.720 quote, in consequence, we have no clear understanding of what BS is, why there is so much

00:03:35.100 of it, or what function it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it

00:03:41.680 means to us. In other words, we have no theory. And coincidentally, I was watching all these

00:03:48.920 Democrat presidential candidates coming out. And not only are they BSing, they're even using the word

00:03:54.960 BS quite a lot. Here's Julian Castro. But I don't think, I think it's, I think it's bulls**t to say

00:04:00.840 that we're just going to, you know, no, I think it's bulls**t to say that people can get away with

00:04:05.420 laughing it off. You know, I think that that's completely the wrong way to look at it.

00:04:10.640 I really love, I love Bill Maher here. He goes, oh, oh, you said BS. Oh, you said, that's how you know

00:04:16.240 they're super serious, by the way, is when the candidates swear on the campaign trail. That's how you

00:04:20.960 know they're very serious. But Julian Castro is not the only person who is using the word BS on

00:04:27.300 the trail. You've got this new guy, this congressman from California, Eric Swalwell. He

00:04:32.780 puts up his announcement video, his campaign ad, and in that ad, he uses the word BS as well.

00:04:39.660 Donald Trump was bold, but a lot of what he was bold about was just bulls**t.

00:04:43.180 That's what it is. It was just BS. BS, according to this book on BS, quote,

00:04:50.960 is not fundamentally that the speaker regards his statements as false. So it's not that BS is when

00:04:58.300 you just intentionally lie and it's just obvious lies and that's not really what defines BS. What

00:05:07.400 defines BS instead is that the BSer intends the BS statements to convey a certain impression of

00:05:16.480 himself. So when you BS, it's not that you're intentionally lying. I guess you could be lying

00:05:22.300 or that you're telling the truth or that you're saying. It's actually that you don't really have

00:05:27.320 any regard for what you're saying at all. You don't really have any regard for the truth value of what

00:05:31.900 you're saying. You don't really have any regard for the object of what you're saying. All you are

00:05:36.280 really concerned with is how you are being perceived, what impression you are giving of

00:05:42.620 yourself. So when guys like Julian Castro or Eric Swalwell, when they even use the word BS,

00:05:49.220 they are just trying to give an impression of themselves. Yeah, I'm going to talk tough. Yeah,

00:05:55.220 I'm going to speak casually. Yeah, I can use profanity. But it's not actually conveying an idea

00:06:01.980 or an idea about which they really care. This is obviously what's going on in the 2020 Democrat

00:06:08.980 primary. This is what Pete Buttigiegaga's attack on Mike Pence is all about. We talked about this

00:06:14.520 yesterday. Pete Buttigiegaga went out and he's the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He's gay. And he

00:06:21.600 came out and he said, I want the Mike Pence's of the world to know that if you have a problem with who I

00:06:28.320 am, you have a problem with my creator. He goes out unprompted and says, Mike Pence has a false

00:06:37.500 faith. Mike Pence is violating the commands of God. He's insulting God. Now, what did Mike Pence do

00:06:45.640 to deserve that? Nothing. Mike Pence has never criticized Pete Buttigiegaga. Mike Pence has never

00:06:52.020 attacked Pete Buttigiegaga's sexuality. Actually, we only know of two instances where Mike Pence ever

00:06:59.160 referred to Pete Buttigiegaga. One, when Pete Buttigiegaga deployed to Afghanistan, the Navy Reserves,

00:07:05.920 Pence called him and wished him well. And then a second time actually was when Pete Buttigiegaga

00:07:12.160 declared himself gay, came out of the closet publicly. And Pence was asked about this. And

00:07:17.700 what did Pence say? Did he attack his sexuality? Did he launch a homophobic tirade? No. He said,

00:07:23.980 quote, I hold Mayor Buttigiegaga in the highest personal regard. I see him as a dedicated public

00:07:30.040 servant and a patriot. So actually, the only time that Pence has ever spoken publicly about Pete Buttigiegaga

00:07:37.420 was to give him a compliment. So then why does Pete Buttigiegaga go out and go after Pence? Because

00:07:46.420 of BS. So he's saying Pence has a problem with me. Pence has a false faith, a false religion. Why is he

00:07:54.360 going? It doesn't matter if any of those claims are true. It doesn't matter that Pence has never

00:07:58.940 attacked Buttigiegaga. It's that Pete Buttigiegaga needs to be perceived as a victim. And so he's got

00:08:06.240 a BS. It's all just about how he can portray himself, how he can make himself be perceived by

00:08:12.160 people. Pete Buttigiegaga is white. He's a male. He's Ivy League educated. He went to Harvard. He was in

00:08:18.540 the military. He's a Rhodes Scholar. He is an elite guy. He's a young mayor. So it's very hard for him

00:08:26.000 to portray himself as a victim. He has to invent false enemies. He has to tilt at windmills. He has

00:08:34.000 to BS. Going back to that other guy, the guy in California who's now running for president for some

00:08:39.660 reason, who knows why, Eric Swole. Well, here is just a clip. You should watch the whole announcement

00:08:44.740 for a masterclass in BS. But here is just a little clip of him introducing himself to the American

00:08:50.640 people. You tell him he can't do something, he's going to do it. Today, we are just governing crisis

00:08:56.360 to crisis. You know, I'm from the first generation that might do worse than our parents. We can't do

00:09:02.280 nothing. We have to in this country go big on the issues we take on. Most Americans believe we need to

00:09:08.140 have coverage for all when it comes to health care. Be bold in the solutions we offer. Most Americans

00:09:12.400 believe that to be free of gun violence. I went to the funeral for four police officers who were

00:09:16.480 killed by an assault weapon to take the most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the most

00:09:19.500 dangerous people and do good in the way that we govern. And most Americans agree that to address

00:09:25.980 climate chaos, to make sure your house doesn't end up underwater or on fire, we should do something

00:09:31.080 about it, but make sure that we're not pitting workers against their job. The economy is not the

00:09:36.120 unemployment rate. Donald Trump was bold, but a lot of what he was bold about was just bull. And the

00:09:40.500 economy is not the stock market. It's you. The economy is you. We need to do better, not worse.

00:09:51.020 We need to be strong, not weak. We need to, we need to, we need to. This is BS from the beginning. This guy

00:10:03.260 is a total BS-er. This guy, Eric Swalwell, here's his entire resume. Here's his entire career.

00:10:10.300 He went to college at Campbell University in North Carolina. So I'm going back all the way until he was

00:10:16.220 18. He then transfers to the University of Maryland. He then studies politics. Okay. Well, he's there. He's

00:10:23.400 on the student government. So he's a student politician, not just a student politician. He is the

00:10:27.620 student liaison to the city council of College Park at UMD. He sticks around a UMD for law school.

00:10:37.080 Okay. Now he's, he's got a couple internships in there. Who does he intern for? Is it a private

00:10:42.020 business? Is it for, no, no, it's for a congressman in California's 10th district. Then

00:10:47.800 after law school, he goes and works as the Alameda County deputy district attorney. So it goes straight

00:10:55.380 into politics there. Then he's on the Dublin heritage and cultural arts commission. So a

00:11:00.320 political appointment. Then he's on the Dublin planning commission, another political appointment.

00:11:05.260 Then he's on the Dublin city council, local politician. Then he runs for Congress and wins

00:11:10.420 from California's 15th congressional district. This guy, since the age of 18 has done nothing but

00:11:18.040 work in government, work in politics, run for office. That's all he's done in his entire life.

00:11:26.700 This guy is, it's like if on the house of cards, if there were a campaign ad for the challenger

00:11:34.100 candidate and it's so exaggerated, it's so hyperbolic, it would be Eric Swalwell's announcement.

00:11:40.160 He even said, by the way, this I find sort of distasteful. He said the September 11th terrorist

00:11:45.500 attacks occurred during his internship on Capitol Hill and that inspired him to public service.

00:11:51.880 So he's trying to link his own career ambitions to 9-11. If 9-11 inspired you to service, you would

00:11:59.620 have joined the military. You were exactly military age at that time. What was he, 19 years old or

00:12:04.660 something? 18 years old? But it didn't. And actually it obviously didn't inspire him to public service.

00:12:11.880 He already got the political internship. He was already working on Capitol Hill. Pure example of

00:12:17.820 BS. You're going to see a lot of this. He's going to say things like, listen, climate chaos. Climate

00:12:25.140 chaos is a big deal. That's the new phrase I guess they use. It's better than climate change or global

00:12:29.960 warming because whenever the people understand what you mean by climate alarmism, whichever euphemism

00:12:37.060 you're using, they start to hate it. So they always have to change the euphemism. So now they're on

00:12:40.680 climate chaos. If you don't want your house to get set on fire, then you've got to, I don't know

00:12:45.800 what, tax people at a 90% tax rate or spend $93 trillion on the Green New Deal. What do you have

00:12:50.300 to do? Look, Eric Swalwell won't tell you specifics. He just has to talk out of both sides of his mouth.

00:12:55.800 We need to stop climate chaos. We need to make sure workers have their jobs. We need to do good.

00:13:01.000 That's actually his slogan, do good. It's like, okay, what is the least objectionable campaign

00:13:06.160 slogan we could have? Do good. Okay. That's, yeah, that's, uh, that's testing pretty well.

00:13:11.500 Okay, good. That's focus group testing very well. Do good. It says the economy isn't GDP or the

00:13:19.060 unemployment rate. Actually, sort of it is. The, the economy is you, you total BS. Now he's the

00:13:27.800 youngest, he's the newest BSer in this race. You'll notice in that whole announcement, he doesn't talk

00:13:33.400 about anything specifically. He doesn't make one detailed policy proposal. You know, there's that

00:13:39.520 guy on the internet, Andrew Yang. He's this crazy futurist meme guy, and he's sort of a joke

00:13:45.920 candidate. At least that guy has policy proposals. At least that candidate actually will give you

00:13:52.920 a specific proposal for any number of policies. BSers don't do that. BSers just talk in these broad

00:14:00.420 terms and out of both sides of their mouths. He's the youngest in the race. The oldest BSer in the

00:14:06.160 race is Joe Biden. And look, Joe Biden, actually his BS has gotten him into trouble here because all

00:14:13.460 he really cares about is being perceived as this nice empathetic guy. That's why he smells people's

00:14:17.820 hair and pats them on the shoulder and gives them massages and holds their hand and nuzzles them

00:14:22.180 is because he doesn't care about anything specific. He doesn't really care about the truth value of what

00:14:27.320 he's saying. He just wants to be perceived well. Well, now that's coming back and hitting him.

00:14:31.080 There's a new accusation against Joe Biden. This from a young woman named Lily Jay. Lily Jay talks

00:14:38.860 about how she met Joe Biden at some event and she doesn't know how to feel about it. I'll let her say

00:14:46.880 her piece. Then we'll explain why she doesn't know what to say about it. She says, quote,

00:14:51.400 I introduced Biden as an ally. When he came to the stage, he leaned in and gave me coffee-scented

00:14:57.380 words of encouragement. Then he held my hand and pointed at me as he said something to the crowd.

00:15:03.260 Holding hands with the vice president felt a little odd. When was the last time I had held

00:15:07.380 hands with anyone? But I didn't experience it as intrusive or unsettling. I remember later being

00:15:12.860 disappointed that most of the press pictures of me that day captured some degree of physical contact

00:15:17.840 with either the vice president or president. I could have sworn there was a moment I stood on

00:15:23.100 my own. All right, I have to pause there for just one second. She was surprised that the newspapers

00:15:29.380 included photos of her standing with the leader of the free world instead of by herself.

00:15:37.800 Can you imagine the ego, the pride, the hubris, the arrogance to say, you have a photo taken

00:15:49.200 with the president of the United States. You have another photo taken just sort of smiling on your own

00:15:55.300 and you want the newspapers to run the one of just you. Why does the president have to be in my photo?

00:16:02.040 That's the hubris. That's the pride that these people are talking about. She goes on.

00:16:11.300 Mostly I tried not to think about my day at the White House at all. It was meant to be lemonade

00:16:15.380 from lemons, a capstone to an experience I'd sooner forget. Why hadn't I been more aware of Biden's

00:16:22.000 contact with me? Why didn't it occur to me to be perturbed? This is it. This sums it all up.

00:16:30.100 Why didn't it occur to me to be perturbed? She wasn't perturbed. She met the president and the

00:16:36.320 vice president of the United States and they were nice to her and they spoke to her and they said

00:16:39.580 nice things to her. And that was a good day. But now in retrospect, she realizes she could have

00:16:47.760 gotten a lot more currency if she had pretended to be a victim, if she could have pretended to be

00:16:51.440 aggrieved. This is the great new privilege. This is the new currency. This is the BS.

00:17:01.960 Because what she was focusing on then was the actual interaction, the interaction itself,

00:17:07.120 which is the vice president's talking to me, he's saying nice things to me, he's,

00:17:11.060 this is really nice. Okay, thank you very much. Now she's thinking, oh, hold on. In this new

00:17:17.060 environment, I could be perceived as a victim. Even though I'm not sure that I'm a victim,

00:17:22.660 I don't, it doesn't sound like I'm a victim. There's no evidence that I'm a victim at all.

00:17:25.600 But now, because I met the vice president and he touched my hand, now I can get another 15 minutes

00:17:32.600 of fame. Now I can be perceived as aggrieved and important and have social currency.

00:17:39.160 All BS. And yet, despite all of that, Joe Biden is still at the top of the field of the 2020 race.

00:17:44.520 According to Morning Consult, Joe Biden is polling at 32% right now. Even with all of the weird touchy

00:17:51.700 gropey things, he's only lost one percentage point in the polls over the past week. Bernie Sanders is

00:17:57.560 number two right now, but he's number two with 23% support. So Biden is up nine points on Bernie

00:18:03.500 Sanders right now. That is a pretty good lead. Obviously, a lot of it at this early date is still

00:18:10.940 name recognition. Joe Biden was the vice president. If Barack Obama comes out for him hard early on,

00:18:17.660 then perhaps he could translate that into really maintaining a lead in this race, though I'm not

00:18:23.060 so sure. What we do know for sure, though, is that of all of these candidates, of all of the issues,

00:18:31.220 the only thing that unifies them is they are all simply about perception and in particular about being

00:18:39.620 perceived as a victim, being perceived as empathetic, being perceived as likable. This is true of Elizabeth

00:18:47.340 Warren. Her central issue is trying to say that being one one thousandth Native American makes her a victimized

00:18:54.680 minority. Eric Swalwell, just all about being perceived, just he's the, he's the guy, he's the

00:19:01.320 straight shooter. He's the, hey, he's reasonable. Hey, come on, guys. No, no policy proposal in that

00:19:07.980 whole race. Beto O'Rourke, the same thing. Joe Biden, the same thing. Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg,

00:19:14.200 all of them. The entire issue is about being perceived as a victim. The question now for Democrats is can

00:19:23.560 they win on that? Can they win on just appearing empathetic? Whether it's the kind of slick old

00:19:31.400 walking simper smiley Joe empathy or whether it's the aggrieved minority empathy like Pete Buttigieg

00:19:37.560 or Liz Warren or Kamala Harris or whomever. Can you win just on that or do you have to offer

00:19:45.960 a specific solution to a specific problem? This is actually going to see the re-litigation of how

00:19:53.540 Trump won because there was a big debate that broke out after 2016. Did Trump win because he

00:19:58.800 ran on a mood, because he ran on an attitude, because he was just a talked tough and said the

00:20:04.820 right words? That's what a lot of people think. That's what the never Trumpers think. That's what

00:20:09.920 the anti-Trump left thinks. That's even what a lot of conservatives think. Or did Donald Trump

00:20:14.940 win because he offered specific policy solutions that were different from what his Republican

00:20:21.540 opponents offered? He talked about raising barriers to trade. This was anathema to Republican dogma.

00:20:31.300 He talked about building a gigantic wall and cutting off immigration. Anathema to chamber of commerce,

00:20:41.100 Republican dogma. He spoke in brutal terms about very specific problems. In many ways, the 2020 race

00:20:49.360 could show us which that was. I tend to favor Ann Coulter's argument. I tend to think that the

00:20:55.320 American people are not just gullible idiots. I think they actually vote for specific reasons.

00:21:00.340 They know what they're talking about. And Donald Trump was offering them something that was different

00:21:04.600 from what a lot of other people were. And so they gravitated toward him. I actually think talking to a lot

00:21:09.800 of people all throughout the country. I mean, how many states have I been to in the last year just on

00:21:14.740 this Young America's Foundation speaking tour? I have been all over to just about every part of

00:21:19.520 this country. And when I talk to people and I talk to Trump supporters, I find that it's not that

00:21:25.560 they're cheering on when Donald Trump is really mean or vicious or cruel. Actually, most of them say

00:21:31.220 he's doing good things and his personality is a little out there and he's a little too brash,

00:21:36.620 but I still like him anyway. They like him in spite of his personality excesses,

00:21:41.880 not because of them. This comes as news to elites on the coasts, on both parties for that matter.

00:21:49.080 But it just seems to me that eventually you might get through the Democrat primary. You might get

00:21:55.980 through, but at a certain point, you have to offer something concrete. Even Barack Obama, who was the

00:22:03.120 hopey, changey, vague candidate, even he sort of offered something concrete in so much as he was the

00:22:08.900 guy who voted against the Iraq war. Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq war. He differentiated himself

00:22:13.720 by saying, I voted against the Iraq war. That was something specific. And I think a lot of people

00:22:19.900 gravitated toward that, especially in the Democrat party. You can't just rely on fake lie messaging

00:22:28.060 forever. Eventually reality reasserts itself, but fake lie messaging can get you around for a while.

00:22:34.320 This is, again, a prime example of BS, this time from the mainstream media. There was a poll that

00:22:41.380 was just conducted by NBC Wall Street Journal. Tax times coming around. You maybe are looking at your

00:22:48.620 refund right now, trying to figure out what you're going to pay, what you're going to owe.

00:22:53.040 How many of you believe that you will get a bigger tax refund this year than you did last year?

00:23:00.520 How many of you believe that you will save money on your taxes this year compared to last year?

00:23:07.560 NBC News Wall Street Journal asked that question. Only 17% of Americans believe that their taxes will

00:23:14.680 go down. 28% of Americans believe that they will pay more in taxes. 27% say that they will pay the same.

00:23:23.160 28% say they don't know enough to say. Only 17% believe that their taxes will decrease

00:23:30.860 because of that tax bill last year.

00:23:35.680 This is reflected in public approval of the tax bill. According to Pew Research last month,

00:23:40.620 just 36% approve of the tax cut. 49% disapprove of the tax cut. Just one third of Republicans

00:23:50.320 believe that they're getting a tax cut. 10% of independents believe it. 7% of Democrats believe

00:23:55.480 it. Even among hardcore Trump supporters, 36% believe that they are getting a tax cut. Another

00:24:05.140 36% say that they're staying the same. And 6% say that they're paying more. Even among hardcore Trump

00:24:11.520 supporters. What is the reality? There was an analysis done by the Tax Policy Center. Tax Policy Center

00:24:17.780 is non-partisan. It showed that 80% of Americans will receive a tax cut under the 2018 tax law.

00:24:28.180 80% of Americans will see their taxes decrease and yet only 17% of Americans think that their taxes

00:24:36.780 will decrease. That is the power of the mainstream media. That is the power of BS. That is the power

00:24:47.500 of demagogue politicians who went out from day one and they said, it's a tax scam before the tax bill

00:24:55.280 was even released. They said, it's a tax scam. It's a tax hike. They don't care about the truth

00:25:00.320 value of that statement. They would have said the statement regardless of what the tax bill said.

00:25:05.900 What they were positioning themselves as is, we oppose Trump. Trump bad, we good. Therefore,

00:25:12.780 what Trump does is bad and therefore the tax bill is bad. Therefore, the tax bill is going to raise

00:25:16.380 your taxes. And then you saw this breathlessly reported throughout the mainstream media for

00:25:22.680 months and months and months. And then you're now seeing the effect of that even as tax day rolls

00:25:30.760 around. Now, there is a little, the issue with BS is that you can always pull some random statistics

00:25:40.540 to try to buttress your claim. And then people who are uninterested in truth will just endlessly recite

00:25:45.240 those. So you can point out now, tax refunds are actually down $6 billion this year. So there are $6

00:25:51.760 billion less in refunds this year. However, the reason for that is that people are getting more in

00:25:57.220 their take-home pay. People actually are getting more in each paycheck. A lot of people have direct

00:26:01.680 deposit. A lot of people don't notice that they're getting more in each paycheck. Wasn't a ton more,

00:26:05.440 but it's a little bit more. Also, it's because the very wealthy are, depending on where you live,

00:26:12.700 especially in coastal cities, especially in blue states, their taxes are actually not decreasing.

00:26:17.520 In some cases, they're increasing. Nevertheless, the reality remains, the vast, vast majority of

00:26:23.760 Americans get a tax cut. Matt Iglesias, that left-wing writer for Vox.com, he came out and said,

00:26:29.840 a lot of people don't want to take credit for messaging victories like this. But fewer than

00:26:35.980 one in five Americans thinks they're getting a tax cut, even though objectively the vast majority

00:26:40.660 of Americans are. He was bragging about this. He was bragging about BS for a whole year, and it worked.

00:26:46.900 The question of the 2020 race is how long can this work for? How long before someone punctures it?

00:26:52.480 Is there going to be a real candidate, a forceful candidate in the race who punctures all of that BS?

00:26:57.160 Yes. We'll have to find out. Now, speaking of the mainstream media,

00:27:05.540 I'm assuming you weren't watching this week on ABC, but they're talking about Donald Trump's new

00:27:10.500 appointments. Donald Trump is appointing new people. There was a big gutting of the Department

00:27:14.160 of Homeland Security yesterday, and he's been talking about adding Herman Cain to the Federal

00:27:19.860 Reserve Board. This is a prime example of what the mainstream media does. This is how they convinced

00:27:25.120 you that the tax cut was actually a tax hike. This is how they convince you of all of their

00:27:30.520 lies. But the way they do it is they go on television, they have a nice tie, they put on

00:27:36.400 their jacket, they speak with a really super serious voice, and they say things that aren't

00:27:40.580 true. We'll get to that in one second. But first, I've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.

00:27:44.680 Go over to dailywire.com. Ten bucks a month, $100 for an annual membership. You get me, you get the

00:27:49.400 Andrew Klavan show, you get the Ben Shapiro show, you get the Matt Walsh show, you get to ask questions

00:27:52.840 in the mailbag, you get to ask questions backstage, you get another kingdom, most importantly. You get

00:27:58.960 the Leftist Tears Tumblr. Oh, that's really good. You got that? Oh, that's really good. You know,

00:28:10.380 it's a very subtle taste today. It tastes like nothing. It tastes like the subtle,

00:28:14.540 non-existent issues of the 2020 Democrat presidential primary. But sometimes that's

00:28:19.420 kind of nice. You don't want, you want a nice, just a play on the taste buds. You don't want it

00:28:23.460 to overpower you. Go get your Leftist Tears Tumblr at dailywire.com. We'll be right back.

00:28:37.040 Here is Yvette Simpson, who works for Democracy for America, some left-wing group. She's on

00:28:44.400 ABC reacting to the report that President Trump may appoint former presidential candidate Herman

00:28:51.620 Cain to the Federal Reserve Board. I think at this time, it's more important to make sure

00:28:56.760 that appointments are, you know, are validated or Herman Cain. I just want to leave it there.

00:29:02.480 Herman Cain, the Federal Reserve. It makes no sense to me. Actually, I worked for a candidate who ran in

00:29:07.380 a primary against Herman Cain. The question is not, in my mind, Herman Cain's qualifications. I mean,

00:29:12.720 he actually has been at a Federal Reserve Bank. I think he understands these issues. The question

00:29:16.920 is around the independence of the Federal Reserve. Okay. So then they pivot a little bit. We're very

00:29:21.620 lucky here. The reason we got this clip is because Lanhee Chen of the Hoover Institution,

00:29:26.540 who used to work for Mitt Romney, he happened to be on this panel and he just couldn't let that

00:29:31.500 egregious lie go. The entire mainstream media have been talking now for weeks about how crazy it would

00:29:37.860 be to appoint Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve Board. Why on earth would you ever appoint Herman

00:29:42.260 Cain, the 999 guy, that wacky presidential candidate Herman Cain? Herman Cain is a very accomplished man.

00:29:50.560 He was the CEO of Godfather Pizza. That's pretty impressive. Also, he was already on a Federal Reserve

00:29:56.920 Bank board. Herman Cain served on a Federal Reserve Board before. He is imminently qualified for this.

00:30:04.860 He obviously would be a good person. And so this woman, Yvette Simpson said, okay, well, never,

00:30:09.880 but they just, it's just this posturing. They say, oh, look, I'm not even going to answer this

00:30:15.340 question. I'm not even going to answer how crazy it would be to have Herman Cain on the,

00:30:19.340 Herman Cain, the Federal Reserve, I'm just going to leave it there. It's just this innuendo. It's just

00:30:25.100 this perception. But here, let me make the argument for Herman Cain's qualifications. He's already been

00:30:31.460 on a Federal Reserve Board. Okay. That seems, okay. That seems to refute your argument. Then

00:30:37.780 more innuendo, more insinuation. Well, the combination of the nomination, potential nomination

00:30:45.300 of Stephen Moore and Herman Cain. I mean, Lonnie would probably have freshman students in their

00:30:50.020 economics class that are more qualified than Stephen Moore and Herman Cain to be in those positions.

00:30:54.440 Are the freshmen in the economics classes, have they been the CEO of a major corporation?

00:31:02.520 Have those freshmen in the economics classes been on Federal Reserve Boards? No. But it's just this

00:31:08.540 attitude. It's just this posture. And so they're all of these 2020 candidates for sure are running

00:31:14.760 on posture. They're all running on attitude. Is that enough? You know, we've seen certain races

00:31:22.780 have been about mostly nothing. Certain presidential races have been very consequential, very much about

00:31:30.020 issues. So when you look at, say, the 2000 presidential race, Bush versus Gore, that race was basically

00:31:37.820 about nothing. We had just won the Cold War. We had this massive economic boom, which was given to us

00:31:44.080 by Reaganomics and by the information age, by the tech explosion. We had relative peace abroad,

00:31:51.840 relative peace at home. So the campaign was basically about nothing. What was the major issue

00:31:58.700 of that campaign? The main one that I can remember is George Bush saying, we must restore honor and

00:32:05.020 dignity to the White House because Bill Clinton got a little frisky in the Oval Office. And that was

00:32:10.400 basically the biggest issue of the campaign is that Bill Clinton got frisky in the Oval Office

00:32:13.860 with his intern. Not about a whole lot. Fast forward to 2008. 2008 was about a lot. It was a referendum

00:32:20.660 about the Iraq war. And it was a referendum on the financial crisis, on the housing crisis.

00:32:27.800 Maybe those issues were debated unfairly, but they really were about real issues.

00:32:33.100 2016 was about real issues. You had just finished eight years of Barack Obama,

00:32:38.380 the slowest recovery we had ever seen in the country, a coarsening of race relations,

00:32:46.200 divisiveness that slowly took course. You saw a guy who was elected because he was supposed to get us

00:32:54.640 out of wars in the Middle East. We actually began more wars in the Middle East under him. You had a

00:32:59.400 demoralization of the left and you had a lot of righteous anger on the right. You had a guy who

00:33:06.240 weaponized the IRS against his political opponents, weaponized the DOJ against his political opponents.

00:33:13.220 We're now learning he weaponized the DOJ and the FBI to spy on the Republican presidential candidate

00:33:19.700 who would come after him. You had this massive corruption. You had a total disruption of the

00:33:25.360 entire healthcare sector. One sixth of the economy being taken over. A president who told you if you

00:33:31.560 like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. And then whoops, you can't keep your doctor. A

00:33:36.120 president who told you the new healthcare system, it's not going to cost anything. And then when

00:33:39.560 it cost a ton of money, when the rate of increase increased, when premiums shot through the roof,

00:33:43.600 he said, well, you didn't think you were going to get all that free stuff for nothing, did you?

00:33:47.840 You didn't think that free stuff was going to be free, did you? And you had a lot of pent up

00:33:52.080 righteous anger about real issues. Previously, you'd had the Tea Party movement. Then you had,

00:33:57.100 I guess what you would call the Trump movement in 2016. That was a campaign about issues,

00:34:01.980 but now things are going pretty well again. So now when I look at the political scene,

00:34:07.300 I'm sort of reverting back to the nineties. I see immense economic prosperity. We have

00:34:13.100 very high employment, record high employment right now, record low unemployment and record low

00:34:18.760 unemployment specifically among groups that have typically have higher unemployment, like black

00:34:25.320 Americans and Hispanics. You're seeing people get to keep more of their money, tax decreases,

00:34:32.500 relative peace abroad, drawing down from conflicts overseas. You're seeing a restoration of judicial

00:34:39.000 restraint at the federal courts, at the Supreme Court. Overall, things are going pretty well.

00:34:44.880 Even on, on issues that could be real hobby horses for the left, like environmentalism,

00:34:49.180 you're seeing massive environmental advancement. The United States is leading the world

00:34:53.200 in reducing carbon emissions and taking care of the natural environment. We're doing better than

00:34:57.780 all of the people in the Paris climate accord at actually upholding those values. Things are going

00:35:04.480 relatively terrific. I sound like Drew Clavin, like things are going tickety boo. And so I think

00:35:12.600 that environment of prosperity, that, that equitable, just environment that we're looking at

00:35:19.800 opens the door again to BS, to just attitudes, to just puh, to just posturing.

00:35:29.320 But can that take them over the finish line? I don't see how it does. I don't see, where,

00:35:34.040 where does that, where does that end for them? What, what voter in Michigan, what voter in Wisconsin,

00:35:40.980 what voter in Pennsylvania, what voter in Florida who has seen the country improve

00:35:46.680 is, is, is going to flip because Pete Buttigieg invented some victimhood? Because Pete Buttigieg

00:35:59.780 imagines that somebody doesn't like him for his sexual preferences? Because Cory Booker's crying tears

00:36:06.700 of rage? Because why would anybody flip that vote? I just don't see it. It just seems a little thin.

00:36:13.940 It just seems, also because things are improving. So one, one of the, the lines, one of the,

00:36:20.160 the kind of insinuations here is that because there's turnover in the Trump administration,

00:36:26.200 things are getting worse. I mean, Herman Cain and the Federal Reserve, I mean, I mean,

00:36:31.220 I'm just going to leave it there, okay? I'm just going to leave it there. I don't know. It seems like

00:36:35.260 you're getting a guy who's qualified and experienced to take over a job. That sounds good.

00:36:39.700 All, all of the replacements seem to have been pretty good. Mike Pompeo is doing a great job.

00:36:44.380 John Bolton is doing a great job. From everything we can tell, Mick Mulvaney is doing a good job as

00:36:49.620 the acting chief of staff. From what we can tell, John Kelly did a better job than Reince Priebus.

00:36:55.860 Sarah Sanders did a better job than Sean Spicer. Things have been improving. And now the DHS secretary

00:37:01.720 has been canned and there is now an acting DHS secretary and we'll see who the, the permanent

00:37:07.400 replacement is. Seems like an improvement. The, it seems like it could really only be an improvement

00:37:13.960 because the crisis at the border has not abated. It's actually gotten worse. There are reports

00:37:18.440 coming in now that we're getting a hundred thousand people entering this country illegally

00:37:22.280 every 30 days. So we're getting over 3,000 people a day. One of the relative record numbers

00:37:30.200 that came out last month was 2,500 a day. And that was considered outrageous. Just a few months ago,

00:37:34.960 it was only 1,000 a day, which is still very high. 100,000 in a month is a huge number.

00:37:41.260 So what does President Trump see? He sees that the person doing the job is not doing it well enough.

00:37:46.960 So he cans them and replaces them and hopefully they start to do it better.

00:37:51.360 Again, the, the, the attitude, the insinuation, the BS is going to say, because of all that turnover,

00:37:56.920 it's chaos. It isn't working. You've got to vote for us. In reality, it seems to me those voters

00:38:04.300 are going to take the exact opposite impression. Say, oh, things are improving. Okay, good. Oh,

00:38:09.540 finally, once all the BS clears, once the mainstream media clears, they're going to look

00:38:12.820 at their bank accounts. They're going to look at their paychecks and say, oh,

00:38:16.880 yeah, I'm, I'm making a little bit more money now. That's a good thing. That's a good thing.

00:38:22.420 Before we go, I do have to get to this in our remaining minutes. I have been saying it for years.

00:38:27.920 Finally, a radio host named Rick Wiles is, he's finally coming out and buttressing what we've all

00:38:36.520 been thinking. Look, for how many millennia now have we been waiting for the Antichrist to come?

00:38:42.440 And you guys didn't realize he was right under your own nose the whole time, our very own Ben Shapiro.

00:38:47.700 Ben Shapiro denies the deity of Jesus Christ. I've, I've heard him say this before. That's right.

00:38:53.820 What I'm shocked by is that there are millions of conservatives in this country, including

00:38:59.200 Christians who support him. Yeah. Go gaga over him. Yes. They'll buy his books. They'll buy those.

00:39:05.740 They'll, you know, they'll boost his career. And yet he openly denies that Jesus Christ is a son of

00:39:13.020 God that makes him an Antichrist. Yes. All right. St. John said that anybody who denies that Jesus Christ

00:39:22.340 came to earth as God and human flesh is Antichrist. Yes. There is no one Antichrist. There is a spirit

00:39:30.240 of Antichrist. And Ben Shapiro has the spirit of Antichrist because he denies that Jesus Christ

00:39:37.140 is the son of God. He denies that he's resurrected. He said, we don't even use that word resurrected.

00:39:42.560 All right. He, he's a Kabbalist. He laughed when he said prophet, he mocked a prophet, called him a rebel,

00:39:49.960 rebel, criminal. Why, why are any of you out there following Ben Shapiro? Why? You're, you're

00:39:57.480 schizophrenic. Yes. You're spiritually schizophrenic. You got to cut off this stuff, but the money's

00:40:05.200 flowing to people like Ben Shapiro. Right. And the doors are opening for him because he denies Christ.

00:40:11.940 I love this last argument at the end. He says, he begins, he says, why are you giving your money

00:40:18.460 to Ben Shapiro? The implication being, you're not giving your money to my program. Then at the end,

00:40:23.100 he says, the money's flowing. They just keep giving the money to Ben Shapiro, which is a terrible thing

00:40:27.560 because you should be giving your money to me. I agree. I think people should be giving all of their

00:40:33.920 money to the Michael Knowles show. I mean, the fact that they give it to the Ben Shapiro show,

00:40:37.220 although the very fact that I have a show does bring up a little problem with Rick Wiles' argument

00:40:43.660 here. Because if, if Ben Shapiro is the Antichrist, it does occur to me, he's like the worst Antichrist

00:40:51.700 ever. He could not be worse at being the Antichrist. He, because Ben has a network called the Daily

00:41:01.580 Wire. And there are five hosts on that network. There is Ben, then there's Drew, then there's me,

00:41:11.420 then there's Matt Walsh, and then there's Jeremy Boring, the God King, hosts the backstage show.

00:41:16.640 So there are five hosts on Ben Shapiro's network. And so this guy definitely wears a yarmulke.

00:41:23.780 Definitely, I don't see him at church on Sundays. But then this guy is an outspoken Anglican.

00:41:31.580 I am an outspoken Catholic. Matt Walsh is an outspoken Catholic. And Jeremy Boring is an

00:41:37.380 outspoken antinomian. I don't even know what you'd call his theology, fundamentalism, something,

00:41:42.320 I don't know. At least he would call it Christianity. He believes in Jesus. So one of the guys who owns

00:41:49.180 the Daily Wire, the guy who's running it right down the hall, hosts a show. He's quite Christian.

00:41:55.540 Four out of five of the Daily Wire hosts are outspoken Christians. But wait a second. Now I'm

00:42:06.000 seeing it. Because if a guy were the Antichrist, and he didn't want you to know that he was the

00:42:11.860 Antichrist, what is the most Antichrist-y thing he would have done? He'd hire a bunch of Christians

00:42:18.820 to spread their views and faith and beliefs and message on his airwaves. That would be

00:42:25.540 that subtle little serpent. That's what he would do. He would hire all these Christians,

00:42:30.300 and then they would get to talk about their faith on the air all the time, every single day.

00:42:34.340 And then that is how he would affect his Antichrist agenda. The only rebuttal I could imagine to that

00:42:45.060 is that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and that the devil can't cast out demons.

00:42:53.280 Who said that? Was that the Antichrist who said that, or was it somebody else? It was another

00:43:03.080 Jewish guy who said that, I think. All right. I had to bring it up because I regularly refer to

00:43:08.360 Ben as the Antichrist. But then when I started thinking about the argument, when I started

00:43:12.180 thinking, when Rick Wiles, the radio host, really spelled it out for me, I just don't think it quite

00:43:18.700 holds up. That's our show. We got a lot more to get to, but unfortunately, you know,

00:43:22.620 you know how this happens. I'll see you tomorrow. Get your mailbag questions in for Thursday. I am

00:43:27.460 going to be traveling. By the way, I'm going to be giving a speech at the University of Missouri,

00:43:31.220 Kansas City. So I think we'll be in studio, but I'll be flying out for that tomorrow.

00:43:36.640 Check it out. I'm hoping we'll stream it. But if you're in Kansas City, come by and say hello.

00:43:41.000 In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. I'll see you tomorrow.

00:43:48.720 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Robert Sterling,

00:43:51.360 executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer Jonathan Hay. Our supervising producer

00:43:56.240 is Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens. Edited by Danny D'Amico. Audio

00:44:01.700 is mixed by Dylan Case. Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera. Production assistant Nick Sheehan.

00:44:07.520 The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2019.

00:44:12.780 Today on The Ben Shapiro Show, the media and Democrats slander President Trump over immigration,

00:44:17.220 and an NBA player talks about his white privilege. That's today on The Ben Shapiro Show.

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Ep. 328 - Democrats’s Bulls＊＊t Primary

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