The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 334 - Still No Collusion, Still No Obstruction

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00:00:30.980 Edelweiss, Edelweiss, every...

00:00:34.940 Oh, hello there.

00:00:35.640 Oh, I'm sorry.

00:00:36.340 It was just such a lovely day.

00:00:37.480 Birds chirping.

00:00:38.260 Attorney General William Barr has released the Mueller report with relatively few redactions,

00:00:43.060 and he gave a highly entertaining press conference this morning at about 6.30 a.m. Pacific.

00:00:48.840 We will go through the good, the bad, and the ugly of all of the relevant sections of the report,

00:00:54.440 what it means for President Trump, what it means for the media, what it means for 2020.

00:00:58.020 I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:00.080 I had Edelweiss in my head because apparently that's what was being played at the White House

00:01:11.820 this morning.

00:01:12.640 Just a beautiful sunshine day because obviously the White House is presenting this report as

00:01:18.420 fully exonerating President Trump and totally condemning the media and the Democrats who

00:01:24.500 have been pushing this story for two years.

00:01:27.280 There's good stuff in the report.

00:01:28.680 There's bad stuff in the report.

00:01:29.920 There's stuff in the report that doesn't reflect well on President Trump, but all in all, they

00:01:34.860 are right.

00:01:35.720 All in all, this is a really, really good day for President Trump.

00:01:40.020 We will get into why that is.

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00:03:30.800 Anything in the news today?

00:03:31.900 I guess so.

00:03:32.420 I guess there is.

00:03:33.600 They were playing the song Edelweiss at the White House, and Maggie Haberman of the Democrat

00:03:38.520 Party, I mean of the media, I mean of the New York Times or whatever she writes for,

00:03:43.320 she said they were playing Edelweiss.

00:03:45.480 Do they know what that song means?

00:03:48.380 She's trying to call Trump a Nazi because Edelweiss comes from The Sound of Music.

00:03:51.920 What she forgets is that it was sung by people opposing the Nazis in The Sound of Music.

00:03:56.620 That exemplifies how the media have gotten this story wrong from the very beginning.

00:04:02.200 And that is why the day began, before they released the redacted report, the day began

00:04:07.520 with Attorney General William Barr giving a press conference on the report, why they're

00:04:14.160 releasing the report, why certain parts of the report have been redacted, and taking

00:04:18.640 reporters' questions.

00:04:20.120 The main takeaway here, the main takeaway from this whole press conference, is that Attorney

00:04:24.720 General William Barr has an IQ at least twice that of every reporter in that room combined. 1.00

00:04:32.660 It was dizzying and distressing to look at how stupid the reporters came off and how well 1.00

00:04:42.800 William Barr came off. 1.00

00:04:44.660 This guy is no joke.

00:04:45.920 The media are now trying to present him as some sort of hack, private lawyer for President

00:04:50.960 Trump.

00:04:51.480 Can't do that with William Barr.

00:04:52.840 William Barr was the Attorney General in 1991.

00:04:56.460 William Barr has been around a long time.

00:04:58.780 He's a very smart guy.

00:04:59.900 He's a very serious guy.

00:05:00.940 He's a very well-respected guy.

00:05:02.720 That really came through in this press conference.

00:05:06.200 It actually reminded me a lot of Antonin Scalia, the way that he would listen to questions,

00:05:11.440 the way he could identify instantly where these reporters were going, and the way he just clobbered

00:05:16.020 them with the answer.

00:05:17.760 So the left has been going after William Barr for a couple of weeks now.

00:05:22.020 The question that is to be asked is, is the summary that William Barr gave of the Mueller

00:05:30.240 report a fair assessment or an unfair assessment?

00:05:34.220 Is the assessment that he gave basically correct when he released his four-page report a couple

00:05:40.180 weeks ago?

00:05:41.120 Or is he covering up and spinning and trying to fix the media for Donald Trump?

00:05:47.980 Here is Attorney General Barr's main takeaway.

00:05:50.640 The counsel found no evidence that any American, including anyone associated with the Trump

00:05:57.140 campaign, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government or the IRA in this illegal

00:06:03.960 scheme.

00:06:05.300 Indeed, as the report states, quote, the investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. person

00:06:11.740 knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the IRA's interference operation, unquote.

00:06:17.080 Put another way, the special counsel found no collusion by any Americans in IRA's illegal

00:06:24.980 activities.

00:06:26.820 No collusion.

00:06:28.620 He makes a point of simplifying this for people.

00:06:32.060 The special counsel found no collusion.

00:06:37.420 Now, we've known this for a while.

00:06:38.960 I think even the sophisticated Democrats in the media have known there's no collusion.

00:06:43.040 Van Jones, a very sophisticated left winger, said a year ago, over a year ago, the Russia

00:06:48.780 thing is a nothing burger.

00:06:49.940 So then the question comes down to, was there obstruction?

00:06:55.060 So there's no collusion.

00:06:56.480 It's not as though President Trump was working with Vladimir Putin to fix the 2016 election.

00:07:00.780 But even though there was no collusion, was there obstruction?

00:07:04.500 So once the Mueller investigation began, did President Trump try to obstruct the investigation?

00:07:11.260 Now, it's a perfectly legitimate question to ask, how can you obstruct an investigation

00:07:16.860 when there's no underlying crime?

00:07:19.580 If I haven't committed a crime, how can I be said to try to obstruct an investigation

00:07:24.920 into a crime that never happened?

00:07:26.940 That's a fair question.

00:07:29.240 Arguments on both sides, which we'll get to in a second here.

00:07:31.680 But did President Trump behave in some crooked way to fix this investigation, to fix the conclusions

00:07:39.880 here, to work with Barr, to work with Mueller, to work with any of these things?

00:07:43.020 Did he obstruct justice?

00:07:45.280 Now, the mainstream media are furious today and Democrats are furious because William Barr

00:07:51.580 and the DOJ briefed the White House on the report.

00:07:55.560 So this is now their big takeaway and they're saying this is the evidence of some corruption

00:08:01.300 here in the Trump administration and the DOJ because the Attorney General briefed the

00:08:08.200 President's team before releasing it to Congress and before giving this press conference and

00:08:13.800 before releasing it to the press.

00:08:16.840 William Barr clears up this question, which all of the news media have been going on and

00:08:21.960 prattling on about for hours.

00:08:23.240 Chuck Todd said it was evidence that Trump colluded with the Attorney General.

00:08:27.920 William Barr gives the very simple explanation of why the White House was briefed on this

00:08:31.860 report.

00:08:32.700 Following my March 29th letter, the Office of the White House Counsel requested the opportunity

00:08:38.400 to review the redacted version of the report in order to advise the President on the potential

00:08:44.820 invocation of privilege, which is consistent with longstanding practice.

00:08:49.480 Following that review, the President confirmed that in the interest of transparency and full

00:08:54.960 disclosure to the American people, he would not assert privilege over the special counsel's

00:08:59.940 report.

00:09:01.220 Accordingly, the public report I am releasing today contains redactions only for the four

00:09:07.460 categories that I previously outlined and no material has been redacted based on executive

00:09:12.940 privilege.

00:09:13.620 Very important that he makes this point because they say, well, you briefed the White House.

00:09:20.120 They're going to cook this up.

00:09:21.540 They're going to interfere with its release.

00:09:23.720 No, he says.

00:09:24.720 The President is fully within his rights to exercise executive privilege and determine what

00:09:32.940 goes out, what doesn't go out.

00:09:34.440 He's fully within his rights to do that, and therefore he has to see, or I suppose his team

00:09:40.880 has to see the redacted version of the report before it goes out.

00:09:47.440 So just definitionally, he's got to see it.

00:09:50.780 William Barr sends it over to them, and they do not make any additional redactions.

00:09:56.540 So the White House has not interfered in this report.

00:09:59.920 The White House being briefed on this did not result in any additional redactions, any

00:10:05.060 changes to the report whatsoever.

00:10:09.100 Now, the thing to remember here, the thing you've got to always keep in mind, is that

00:10:13.000 the mainstream media are not that intelligent.

00:10:15.420 I don't even mean this just to beat up on the media, but they're just not that intelligent.

00:10:20.100 The reason you sometimes think they're very intelligent is because they wear suits and

00:10:23.880 they have nice ties and they speak really seriously into a camera.

00:10:27.580 They're not.

00:10:28.400 They're not really that smart.

00:10:29.460 And you see this in the exchanges that the reporters are having with William Barr.

00:10:34.700 So this one reporter goes on for probably a whole minute trying to basically make the

00:10:41.140 case that Barr has acted improperly and that this is a crooked press conference and she's 0.89

00:10:46.740 trying to go after him.

00:10:47.680 Obviously, she can't stand President Trump.

00:10:50.440 And just look at how swiftly William Barr takes her down.

00:10:54.980 Listen to this.

00:10:55.420 And here you have remarks that are quite generous to the president, including acknowledging his

00:10:59.840 feelings and his emotions.

00:11:01.620 So what do you say to people on both sides of the aisle who are concerned that you are

00:11:04.980 trying to protect the president?

00:11:06.480 Well, actually, the statements about his sincere beliefs are recognized in the report that

00:11:13.960 there was substantial evidence for that.

00:11:15.760 So I'm not sure what your basis is for saying that I'm being generous to the president.

00:11:20.180 You think it's an unprecedented situation?

00:11:22.020 It just seems like there's a lot of effort to say, to go out of your way, to acknowledge

00:11:25.560 how this is going to work.

00:11:25.920 Well, is there another precedent for it?

00:11:28.280 No, but it's unusual.

00:11:29.220 Okay, so unprecedented is an accurate description, isn't it?

00:11:32.140 Yes.

00:11:32.540 Okay.

00:11:32.760 What do you say to people who are concerned that you are trying to protect the president?

00:11:35.660 Eric?

00:11:36.000 Eric?

00:11:37.640 Just absolutely devastating.

00:11:39.400 Well, you're being really, really generous to the president.

00:11:43.180 Um, how am I doing that?

00:11:46.120 Okay.

00:11:46.840 Well, you, you're, you're saying this is unprecedented.

00:11:50.120 Is it precedented?

00:11:51.100 No.

00:11:51.560 Then I guess it's unprecedented, isn't it?

00:11:53.360 Yeah, but, but I don't like you.

00:11:57.100 Really?

00:11:57.880 There are a lot of exchanges that go on in this press conference just like that.

00:12:02.000 It basically sums up the forces of reality, the people who are analyzing this document,

00:12:08.820 and the media who have cooked up a narrative for two years.

00:12:11.940 You are watching that narrative collapse in real time.

00:12:15.720 It is extraordinarily enjoyable.

00:12:18.040 And we haven't even gotten to the report yet.

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00:13:44.440 They're very angry that William Barr is handily explaining all of the totally proper procedure

00:13:50.980 that's gone on here with the release of this report.

00:13:53.420 So they pin their hopes on Mueller.

00:13:56.640 You saw the t-shirts.

00:13:58.360 It's Mueller time.

00:13:59.340 The left has been building up Bob Mueller for a long time now.

00:14:03.420 And so one reporter asks, why is Bob Mueller not here giving this press conference?

00:14:10.340 And William Barr clears up this very important point.

00:14:14.200 There's a lot of public interest in the absence of the special counsel and members of his team.

00:14:18.360 Was he invited to join you up on the podium?

00:14:20.300 Why is he not here?

00:14:21.180 This is his report, obviously, that you're talking about today.

00:14:23.640 No, it's not.

00:14:24.200 It's a report he did for me as the attorney general.

00:14:27.520 He is required under the regulation to provide me with a confidential report.

00:14:32.440 I'm here to discuss my response to that report and my decision, entirely discretionary, to make

00:14:38.920 it public, since these reports are not supposed to be made public.

00:14:43.280 Boom.

00:14:44.460 Perfect answer.

00:14:45.580 What the media have been trying to do is to establish this very dubious legal idea that

00:14:53.440 the special counsel is above everybody else.

00:14:55.780 This is the problem with the special counsel.

00:14:58.580 Why on earth is some random lawyer who gets picked suddenly the most powerful person on

00:15:03.300 the face of the earth, more powerful than the president of the United States?

00:15:06.420 The media have been trying to build this up because they don't like that Donald Trump was

00:15:10.080 elected.

00:15:10.480 They don't like that Donald Trump's appointees are now running the government.

00:15:13.480 So, that reporter says, look, this is Bob Mueller's report.

00:15:17.620 How come Bob Mueller's not here?

00:15:19.340 And Attorney General William Barr says, no, no, that's my report.

00:15:23.340 It's not his report.

00:15:24.580 It's my report.

00:15:25.400 He did it for me because I am the attorney general and some randomly appointed special

00:15:31.900 counsel is not allowed to be the most important political figure on the face of the earth.

00:15:38.180 Now, this brings up another question, too, because there is some discrepancy between the Mueller

00:15:45.900 report and the way that Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein

00:15:51.720 are talking about it, which we'll get to in one second.

00:15:54.300 This last gasp, though, the last gasp of these reporters who really, really want to convince

00:16:00.640 everybody that this is just a bunch of spin.

00:16:03.040 This is a bunch of PR.

00:16:03.980 Barr, this is a show.

00:16:06.180 They actually just ask this to Barr straight out, and Barr gives them a straight answer.

00:16:11.500 Impropriety for you to come out and sort of what appears to be sort of spinning the

00:16:14.920 report before the public gets the chance to read it?

00:16:19.140 Okay, thank you very much.

00:16:21.620 No.

00:16:22.940 No, no, no.

00:16:24.100 That's what he's saying.

00:16:25.520 So, there's, there's, it's not improper.

00:16:28.040 It's obviously proper if he hadn't given this press conference, the left would be screaming

00:16:32.540 that he hadn't given this press conference.

00:16:34.260 So, now let's get to the report itself.

00:16:36.540 The reason I open up with this is because there isn't very much new in the report.

00:16:41.240 I haven't made it through all 400 pages yet, or 380 pages, or whatever it is.

00:16:45.100 I've probably gotten through about 100 pages.

00:16:46.940 You really don't need to read the whole thing because only certain sections of it are relevant

00:16:52.480 to these questions at hand.

00:16:53.700 Did the president commit a crime?

00:16:55.540 Did the president obstruct justice?

00:16:57.580 Did senior members of his campaign obstruct justice?

00:17:00.960 So, you, you actually can get basically all the information you need with about 100 pages

00:17:06.780 of it, and the main takeaway here is that we don't really learn anything new.

00:17:13.000 We don't learn anything new that we didn't already know about President Trump or that we

00:17:18.380 didn't already strongly suspect that he was doing.

00:17:20.360 We knew that President Trump didn't like the special counsel.

00:17:24.200 We knew that President Trump wanted to shut down the special counsel.

00:17:26.960 We knew that President Trump wasn't as familiar as lifelong politicians with the way that government

00:17:32.060 works.

00:17:32.540 We know that he behaved like a real estate developer in New York rather than as a lifelong politician.

00:17:38.800 We knew all of these things.

00:17:40.660 I think the Mueller report tells us more about the Mueller investigation than it tells us about

00:17:46.700 President Trump's conduct.

00:17:48.420 Anybody out there who's telling you, this is a bombshell, this is explosive, this is amazing,

00:17:57.020 ask that person, what new conclusion can they reach?

00:18:04.400 What's the news?

00:18:06.440 All of the fake news, all of the mainstream media, cable news, they're trying to spin this as some

00:18:13.080 shocking development.

00:18:14.780 Ask them to pinpoint exactly what is new here.

00:18:20.000 I'll tell you the one point that they bring up.

00:18:22.280 I just pulled it up from the report itself.

00:18:25.220 The one point that a lot of them dishonestly bring up, as they say, this is from the special

00:18:30.140 counsel's report.

00:18:30.880 According to notes written by Hunt, when Sessions told the president that a special counsel had been

00:18:38.200 appointed, the president slumped back in his chair and said, oh my God, this is terrible.

00:18:44.840 This is the end of my presidency.

00:18:47.120 I'm effed.

00:18:49.260 Now, this is the line that you're going to see flying around the internet.

00:18:51.760 A lot of people tweeting this saying, this is not something an innocent man would say.

00:18:58.780 This, he was hiding something.

00:19:00.560 He committed a crime.

00:19:01.580 What you have to ask yourself is, if that's evidence that he committed a crime, how come

00:19:06.200 the special counsel couldn't find that he committed a crime?

00:19:09.680 If that line, I'm effed.

00:19:11.740 If that's evidence that President Trump committed a crime, how come we had an investigation for

00:19:15.180 two years that concluded he didn't commit any crime with the Russian government during

00:19:21.140 the 2016 election?

00:19:23.660 Now, you might say, what the left would say is, well, maybe the crime he committed was

00:19:28.600 obstruction.

00:19:29.520 Right.

00:19:30.040 Okay, maybe.

00:19:30.980 But he said this when the special counsel was appointed.

00:19:34.900 This is before obstruction could have taken place.

00:19:37.260 So what is this actually referring to?

00:19:39.300 What the hacks want you to think is that this is referring to some action he took during the

00:19:44.940 campaign.

00:19:45.800 Actually, Bob Mueller himself explains later in the report what this means.

00:19:52.040 He says, the president returned to the consequences of the appointment and said, everyone tells

00:19:56.640 me if you get one of these independent counsels, it ruins your presidency.

00:19:59.980 It takes years and years and I won't be able to do anything.

00:20:02.840 This is the worst thing that ever happened to me.

00:20:06.200 That's why he's effed.

00:20:07.500 That's why it's the end of his presidency.

00:20:09.580 That's why he reacted that way.

00:20:12.420 Don't take my word for it.

00:20:13.860 Don't take Donald Trump's word for it.

00:20:15.340 Take Bob Mueller's word for it.

00:20:17.000 He puts that in that same paragraph in the special counsel report, which the left doesn't

00:20:23.080 want you to read.

00:20:24.420 What he's pointing out is that once the independent counsel or the special counsel gets appointed,

00:20:30.240 everything becomes about the special counsel.

00:20:32.840 It stalls all of your plans, stalls your legislative agenda.

00:20:36.320 It gets the media constantly talking against you.

00:20:38.980 It drops your approval numbers.

00:20:40.440 It does ruin your presidency.

00:20:42.900 We saw this happen during the administration of Bill Clinton.

00:20:46.500 That's what he's pointing to.

00:20:47.820 Anybody telling you otherwise is lying.

00:20:50.600 Now, what about the report?

00:20:53.640 There are some redactions.

00:20:54.980 These redactions, by the way, are for very limited reasons.

00:20:58.500 Most of it is for personal privacy.

00:21:00.640 You're not allowed to release information about people who were investigated, but ultimately

00:21:05.240 not indicted.

00:21:06.160 Because that's obviously not fair to them.

00:21:08.800 They were not indicted.

00:21:10.400 They did not have any accusations in a court of law.

00:21:13.660 They didn't have the opportunity to defend themselves or to clear their names.

00:21:16.960 So you can't just arbitrarily release what could be damaging information against them

00:21:22.460 without giving them the opportunity to defend themselves.

00:21:25.300 The other reasons are harm to ongoing matters.

00:21:28.720 This is another big one that you see throughout the report.

00:21:31.780 So a lot of these things are still being investigated, so they can't release information that is going

00:21:38.300 to damage that.

00:21:39.340 Okay.

00:21:40.300 Five sections here of the report.

00:21:41.920 There's a section on the special counsel investigation, the investigation itself.

00:21:46.760 There's a section on the social media campaign that Russia ran to try to sow discord in the

00:21:52.080 United States.

00:21:53.000 We know a lot about that.

00:21:54.220 We've talked about that a lot.

00:21:55.520 There's a section on Russian hacking and dumping.

00:21:57.920 The Russian government directing the hacking of the DNC and of Hillary Clinton and the document 0.50

00:22:03.240 dumps with regard to WikiLeaks.

00:22:05.960 Then the fourth section, which is on the Russian government contact with the Trump campaign.

00:22:10.660 And finally, on prosecution and declination decisions.

00:22:15.040 Only three of those sections matter to what we're talking about today.

00:22:18.300 We don't care really about what the Russians did themselves.

00:22:21.600 What we care about is the investigation.

00:22:23.180 We care about any relations that the Trump campaign had with Russia, and we care about

00:22:28.640 who got prosecuted and who the special counsel declined to prosecute.

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00:24:04.660 So those are the only really relevant sections of the Mueller report that we care about.

00:24:12.300 So we know the investigation at this point.

00:24:14.480 We've talked about the investigation itself ad nauseum.

00:24:17.200 Section 4, Russian government contact with the Trump campaign.

00:24:20.320 The office identified multiple contacts, links, in the words of the appointment office,

00:24:25.000 between Trump campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government.

00:24:31.160 Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:24:32.440 Based on the available information, the investigation did not establish coordination

00:24:38.300 between Russia and the Trump campaign.

00:24:41.300 In other words, no collusion.

00:24:43.860 Section 5, this gets to specifically obstruction here.

00:24:47.000 The office determined that certain individuals associated with the campaign lied to investigators

00:24:51.020 about campaign contacts with Russia and have taken other actions to interfere with the investigation.

00:24:55.900 So, we're now talking about obstruction of justice.

00:24:59.200 The takeaway here is that people in politics behaved like people in politics.

00:25:05.880 Don't let anybody tell you that everyone behaved beautifully here.

00:25:09.560 Nobody did anything wrong.

00:25:11.040 Everyone did totally the upright moral thing.

00:25:13.540 That's not what happened.

00:25:15.760 These campaign guys behaved like campaign guys in some cases.

00:25:20.060 These guys lied in some cases.

00:25:23.300 In some cases, the charges were totally overblown.

00:25:25.960 However, that's not really the point.

00:25:30.800 The point is, was there a crime?

00:25:33.880 What crime was committed?

00:25:36.020 How was this crime derived, uncovered, contrived, whatever?

00:25:41.400 What does it mean in the broad scope of Russian interference?

00:25:45.100 Here's a good example of this.

00:25:46.360 George Papadopoulos, campaign official who lied to investigators.

00:25:50.860 He spoke to an intelligence asset.

00:25:54.040 He said he met the intelligence asset because the guy said that he had dirt on Hillary Clinton.

00:26:00.420 And George Papadopoulos said that he met with him before he started working for the Trump campaign.

00:26:07.000 Now, it turns out he met with him after he learned he was going to work with the Trump campaign.

00:26:12.120 Investigators asked him about this.

00:26:13.540 He asked him, why would somebody approach you with dirt on Hillary Clinton if you weren't working for the Trump campaign?

00:26:20.800 And George Papadopoulos said it was a very strange coincidence.

00:26:24.460 So this is not good lying.

00:26:26.200 This is pretty bad lying.

00:26:27.680 It's pretty obvious lying.

00:26:30.440 This raises other questions.

00:26:32.020 Why did that asset, Joseph Mifsud, approach George Papadopoulos when he was already working for the Trump campaign?

00:26:41.140 Why did that happen?

00:26:43.080 Was there maybe something going on behind the scenes that we don't know about with the intelligence agencies and the Obama administration?

00:26:50.360 I don't know.

00:26:50.860 There are going to have to be other investigations to figure that out.

00:26:53.620 But it is the case.

00:26:55.520 Guys like George Papadopoulos did lie to investigators.

00:26:58.560 That's in there.

00:27:00.280 Now, how about Michael Flynn?

00:27:01.180 Michael Flynn made two false statements.

00:27:04.120 He told investigators that he did not ask the Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak,

00:27:08.220 to refrain from escalating tensions in response to the U.S. imposition of sanctions on Russia.

00:27:14.000 But he did ask Kislyak to do that.

00:27:18.400 Who cares?

00:27:19.980 Who cares?

00:27:21.900 He then, apparently, the other false statement he made was he asked the Russian ambassador to vote against a resolution submitted by Egypt to condemn Israel.

00:27:31.180 And he said he didn't ask him to do that, and he did.

00:27:34.740 Who cares?

00:27:35.500 That seems a lot less fair to get Michael Flynn on that than George Papadopoulos.

00:27:39.900 George Papadopoulos, it looks like they got him pretty much dead to rights.

00:27:42.600 He lied to them.

00:27:43.580 They pushed him.

00:27:44.420 He lied some more.

00:27:45.600 Michael Flynn, it looks like a setup.

00:27:46.880 Just to show you the difference between how different members of the campaign were treated.

00:27:52.340 When we talk about this as a witch hunt, to see which parts of the witch hunt, which parts are not.

00:27:56.560 Obviously, what we care about is President Trump.

00:27:59.440 So, why didn't they go after President Trump?

00:28:01.720 One, Bob Mueller says there are lots of problems with prosecuting a sitting president.

00:28:07.020 And he says, specifically, if we had confidence, after a thorough investigation of the facts, that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.

00:28:17.520 Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.

00:28:23.500 So, in other words, if they could totally exonerate the president of obstruction of justice, they would have.

00:28:29.520 They couldn't totally exonerate him.

00:28:31.640 Okay?

00:28:32.240 That's in there.

00:28:33.240 Also, they couldn't go after him.

00:28:37.580 They couldn't find any crime that he committed.

00:28:41.320 So, accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

00:28:46.580 So, what's going to happen?

00:28:47.500 The guys on the left are going to say, it does not exonerate him.

00:28:50.320 And the guys on the right are going to say, it does not conclude that he committed a crime.

00:28:54.660 So, let's dig in.

00:28:55.540 What did Trump do?

00:28:56.600 What did he actually do?

00:28:58.300 He told the White House Counsel to stop Attorney General Jeff Sessions from recusing himself.

00:29:03.840 He told the White House Counsel to stop what started the chain events that led to the special counsel investigation.

00:29:11.660 Then he complained that his AG wasn't helping him out.

00:29:15.260 And then he asked Sessions to unrecuse himself.

00:29:17.820 We already knew that.

00:29:21.300 We already knew that.

00:29:22.720 We saw that play out on Twitter.

00:29:24.960 Then, when the investigation was announced, President Trump asked the Director of National Intelligence and the heads of the CIA and the NSA what they could do to publicly dispel the collusion narrative.

00:29:35.420 Now, is that obstruction?

00:29:36.520 No, it's not obstruction because the collusion narrative was false.

00:29:44.440 Now, if Trump had actually conspired with the Russian government and he called his intelligence agencies and he said, go out there and lie for me, that would certainly be obstruction.

00:29:52.300 But in this case, what it sounds like is President Trump called up the agencies and said, hey, you guys know I didn't do this.

00:29:58.140 Go out there and tell them I didn't do this.

00:30:00.520 Now, is that, was that proper for him to do?

00:30:02.920 Was that professional for him to do?

00:30:04.400 Was that presidential for him to do?

00:30:06.440 Who cares?

00:30:07.200 I don't know.

00:30:07.840 I guess maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

00:30:10.040 Maybe he wasn't as well practiced as lifelong politicians.

00:30:14.140 But that's not obstruction.

00:30:16.580 He also asked James Comey to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation after James Comey said the FBI was not investigating him personally.

00:30:24.500 So, same thing.

00:30:25.760 Add the FBI to the CIA, the NSA, and the DNI.

00:30:29.740 He just asked James Comey, then head of the FBI, hey, James Comey, you know that I didn't collude with the Russians.

00:30:36.340 Can't you tell people that?

00:30:38.900 You're going to take out a sitting president for that?

00:30:43.580 He then referred to the appointment of the special counsel as the end of his presidency.

00:30:47.920 But then Bob Mueller explains why he did that.

00:30:50.880 Did that because special counsels in general disturb presidencies.

00:30:54.340 Then he asked Sessions to resign.

00:30:56.520 Sessions submitted a letter of resignation.

00:30:58.700 He did not accept it at first.

00:31:00.720 Then he did.

00:31:01.980 Again, we saw that play out on Twitter.

00:31:04.400 Then he told Don McGahn, the White House, White House counsel, that special counsel Bob Mueller had conflicts of interest and he should be removed.

00:31:13.580 This is one that the left is really focusing on.

00:31:16.640 But Don McGahn, the White House counsel, didn't follow the orders and then nothing happened.

00:31:20.700 So you have Trump complaining to the White House counsel and saying that the special counsel should be removed.

00:31:28.820 Don McGahn does not remove the special counsel.

00:31:30.820 Even if he had removed the special counsel, I don't think that's grounds even to say that Trump should be impeached for obstruction.

00:31:37.020 But it didn't happen.

00:31:39.640 Then he asked Corey Lewandowski to tell Jeff Sessions to say the investigation was unfair to the President of the United States.

00:31:48.540 Lewandowski didn't do that because he didn't want it on the record because he didn't want to end up in this report like he ended up anyway.

00:31:53.000 Then he edited a press statement for his son, Donald Trump Jr., to delete a line that Trump Tower might involve, the Trump Tower meeting, the famous Trump Tower meeting with Russians, might involve information helpful to his campaign.

00:32:08.760 This one, I think, is probably the one that gets closest to obstruction because he's there kind of working with his son to work on the press and present this Trump Tower meeting as something different.

00:32:24.100 But again, there was no Russian conspiracy.

00:32:28.100 So regardless of the Trump Tower meeting, regardless of the emails, regardless of the press statement, it amounts to nothing.

00:32:33.980 He then pressured Don McGahn, the White House counsel, to deny media reports that he asked him to get the special counsel removed.

00:32:44.400 Which, by the way, the White House counsel did not do, even if he had.

00:32:47.860 I don't think that really amounts to that much.

00:32:50.080 He asked Michael Flynn's legal team to give him a heads up on information that implicated him.

00:32:55.500 He praised Paul Manafort.

00:32:57.120 He praised and then he attacked Michael Cohen.

00:32:59.900 We saw all of this play out on Twitter.

00:33:02.460 This is the big defense.

00:33:03.980 If you're obstructing justice, you do it in secret.

00:33:10.800 You don't do it in public.

00:33:12.360 Can you name one other example of a president obstructing justice in public like that?

00:33:18.720 I don't think so.

00:33:20.740 Bob Mueller, by the way, makes this point in the report.

00:33:23.660 He says several features distinguish this from typical obstruction cases.

00:33:27.080 Some of the actions, like firing FBI Director James Comey, totally within his authority as president.

00:33:34.120 Also, there's no underlying crime.

00:33:37.940 Also, the Twitter of it all, they took place in public view.

00:33:42.480 It's going to be very hard for the left to twist this report into some awful indictment of the president.

00:33:51.080 It's really, what is the takeaway?

00:33:54.080 Nothing new.

00:33:55.840 We know that President Trump is a real estate developer from New York.

00:33:59.000 We know he pressures and bullies people like business executives do.

00:34:02.880 We know that he pressures and bullies people like he does in public on the campaign trail, even to members of his own administration.

00:34:10.260 We know that there's no Russian collusion, and as, this is an important point, as William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein point out, he is exonerated on obstruction of justice.

00:34:25.900 Bob Mueller submits the report, not to the American people, not to Congress, not to the president, to the Attorney General.

00:34:31.500 Then, it is up to the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General to determine whether or not he is to be gone after, whether or not he's committed a crime, or whether or not there isn't evidence that he's committed a crime.

00:34:46.060 It is not for the Attorney General to say, well, here's the report, make up your own decision.

00:34:50.920 No, it's up to the Attorney General to make that decision.

00:34:53.940 He and the Deputy Attorney General both concluded no obstruction of justice.

00:34:59.360 Our long national nightmare is over, the Russian collusion narrative is over, the Mueller investigation is over, two years for nothing to find out that Donald Trump is a tough-talking guy who pressures his subordinates, which we already knew.

00:35:19.100 We got a lot of mailbag to get to.

00:35:20.980 I also have to tell you something, folks.

00:35:23.500 My college speaking tour just got 10 schools longer.

00:35:26.780 We announced yesterday a partnership with the Young America's Foundation.

00:35:32.480 Not only are we not going to cancel the speaking tour because of that ridiculous leftist assailant at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, we are going to turn it up into high gear.

00:35:42.900 If you would like to have the tour stop by your school, go through the Young America's Foundation, put in a request through them.

00:35:49.960 We are going to make college campuses great again.

00:35:52.280 Go to dailywire.com.

00:35:53.260 You know everything you get.

00:35:54.080 You get the Leftist Tears Tumblr.

00:35:55.300 You've never needed it more than today.

00:35:56.920 We'll be right back with the mailbag.

00:36:09.100 Ran a little late, but one of the bigger news days of the year, so we got to get through all of that Mueller report, especially as we lap up those leftist tears.

00:36:18.740 Just as good as I remember them.

00:36:20.120 First question from Mary.

00:36:21.900 Hey, Michael, would you talk about your stance on body positivity movement, the body positivity movement we see in the media and the culture?

00:36:29.520 Yes.

00:36:30.300 This is, I saw this the other night.

00:36:32.460 There was a student at one of the schools I spoke at who wore a shirt that said fat, like she was proud that she's fat.

00:36:41.560 And you see all of the body positivity movements in all its various forms.

00:36:46.340 This is sad because as with virtually all positivity movements, nobody who says, I'm positive, I'm positive, I'm positive, I'm just so happy, actually is.

00:36:58.680 That's always hiding some amount of shame or discontentment or negativity.

00:37:05.860 Now, what's the answer to this?

00:37:07.520 The answer to this is not to think less of yourself.

00:37:10.340 The answer is to think of yourself less.

00:37:12.420 Obviously, it's not healthy to be really overweight.

00:37:18.780 It's not evil to be really overweight, but it's not healthy.

00:37:22.000 So if you can fix it, fix it.

00:37:25.000 We all have things about ourselves that we want to improve.

00:37:28.120 That's one aspect of it.

00:37:29.640 I have plenty of things about myself that I want to improve.

00:37:31.780 It doesn't mean that I hate myself all the time.

00:37:34.960 But the key is, think of yourself less.

00:37:37.660 It's not all about you.

00:37:40.180 You don't have to be proud of everything.

00:37:41.780 Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

00:37:45.280 Only the left could turn the queen of all sins into the greatest possible virtue, pride. 0.94

00:37:50.320 You don't need to be proud of your body.

00:37:53.360 You should be humble.

00:37:55.700 You shouldn't hate your body either.

00:37:57.540 You should be humble.

00:37:59.400 Humble, grateful, move on with your life.

00:38:02.500 There are many more interesting things in the world than your own body weight.

00:38:06.360 Move on.

00:38:06.800 It's a big world out there.

00:38:08.200 Go enjoy it.

00:38:09.200 From Antonio.

00:38:11.320 Hi, Michael.

00:38:12.100 Why do so many ex-leftists hesitate to call themselves conservatives?

00:38:16.620 Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson, for example.

00:38:19.540 Thanks, Antonio.

00:38:21.860 Because they're not conservatives.

00:38:24.660 That's actually the reason.

00:38:26.700 What we're seeing now is not just a binary between leftists and conservatives.

00:38:32.020 We're seeing another category, which is liberals.

00:38:34.260 So, I happen to know Jordan and Dave, and I don't think they're conservatives.

00:38:42.000 Dave just invited me on his show, so maybe we can actually talk about this question.

00:38:45.840 But Dave is a liberal.

00:38:47.100 He's a classical liberal, he says.

00:38:48.700 And in American political speak, we like to say that classical liberals and conservatives are the same thing.

00:38:55.260 They're not.

00:38:56.140 They're not the same thing.

00:38:57.400 Friedrich Hayek, who's an economic hero of many conservatives and libertarians, famously wrote an essay where he said,

00:39:05.260 why I'm not a conservative, because he's not.

00:39:08.600 He's something a little different.

00:39:09.860 Liberals and conservatives are different.

00:39:11.860 What happens in this particular moment, however, is that the far left is pushing things that both liberals and conservatives disagree with.

00:39:20.740 The far left has turned strongly against freedom.

00:39:25.700 Strongly against liberty.

00:39:26.780 So, classical liberals like Dave Rubin, who says, I believe in free speech.

00:39:31.860 I believe in the exchange of ideas.

00:39:33.600 They partner up with conservatives like me, who I don't exalt freedom, liberty, some abstract right to that,

00:39:42.120 as though it's the be-all and end-all of society, as though it's the very end of politics.

00:39:47.280 I like tradition.

00:39:48.380 I like veneration.

00:39:49.320 I like virtue.

00:39:50.120 I like the good.

00:39:50.980 I like prescription.

00:39:52.060 I like all of those things that probably Dave is a little more skeptical of.

00:39:55.940 But the classical liberals and the conservatives now are teaming up because we've got this urgent, totalitarian enemy

00:40:02.640 that is trying to shut down all discourse in the United States, which is the left.

00:40:08.800 So, I think it's actually very honest of them not to call themselves conservatives,

00:40:11.880 and I'm glad that we can have allies in this battle against censorship and against relativism

00:40:18.160 and against all of those pernicious ideologies, those destructive ideologies that are coming from the left

00:40:25.080 and are going after liberals and conservatives alike.

00:40:28.020 From Anonymous.

00:40:30.260 Hi, Michael.

00:40:31.560 I'm in a really big dilemma with my future mother-in-law.

00:40:34.540 I've been with my wonderful fiancé for almost four years.

00:40:37.860 Ever since I met him, his mother has had an issue with me.

00:40:40.180 She makes offhand comments like,

00:40:42.220 He won't love anyone like his mother.

00:40:45.000 We are not hosting a wedding reception because we're paying for everything.

00:40:51.360 When we told her, she flipped out.

00:40:53.020 She said many horrific things to me that I would never say to anyone.

00:40:56.560 She called me the B word, ding dong, ding dong, etc.

00:41:00.420 She even mentioned my family in a nasty way.

00:41:03.620 My fiancé went upstairs and started to cry.

00:41:07.120 Out of respect for him, I kept my mouth shut and took it.

00:41:09.740 What should I do?

00:41:10.500 Should I just forget it?

00:41:11.300 Thank you.

00:41:12.080 No, your fiancé should grow a pair.

00:41:14.280 Pardon my graphic language.

00:41:17.300 Are you kidding me?

00:41:19.180 His mother speaks to you like that?

00:41:20.900 Gets nasty about your family and he goes upstairs and cries?

00:41:25.920 What's the matter with him?

00:41:29.780 Clearly there's some weird mommy issue going on here. 1.00

00:41:32.700 He'll never love a woman like he loves his mother or whatever. 0.90

00:41:35.380 I mean, that's sick.

00:41:37.600 That is really weird.

00:41:38.520 I've seen these kinds of relationships sometimes and they're really sick.

00:41:42.340 Doesn't mean you have to cut off contact altogether, but you need to make clear.

00:41:45.760 You're the wife.

00:41:46.880 You're the most important woman in his world.

00:41:49.560 It's not even close.

00:41:50.660 It's not even like a close second.

00:41:52.620 You need to make that clear.

00:41:53.820 And he needs to man up and accept that and put his foot down.

00:41:57.780 To abandon your fiancé there while your mother is yelling profanities and insulting her family?

00:42:04.900 Give me a break.

00:42:05.740 Not only does the mother-in-law need to apologize.

00:42:09.400 I don't know that she will.

00:42:10.680 Probably sounds like she won't.

00:42:11.840 Your fiancé needs to apologize.

00:42:13.900 And then he needs to man up.

00:42:14.960 And those problems are going to be a lot easier to deal with if it's clear who's the man, who's in charge, and who the most important woman in his life is.

00:42:26.900 From Michael.

00:42:28.220 Michael, you recently spoke mockingly and derisively of the value of celebration of life ceremonies.

00:42:33.120 But what about the wishes of the deceased and those who expressly say that they want a celebratory event as opposed to a much more somber church service?

00:42:41.740 Do their wishes count for nothing?

00:42:43.720 Why do you believe the wishes of the event organizers should hold primacy over those of the deceased?

00:42:49.200 Thank you, Michael.

00:42:50.840 First of all, the wishes of the deceased don't really count for anything because they're dead.

00:42:55.160 But neither really do the wishes of the event organizers, as you call them.

00:42:59.600 And what you're really referring to are the loved ones and the family of the deceased.

00:43:04.680 Because we're not just talking about preferences.

00:43:07.300 The whole conversation about, oh, I prefer this, I prefer this, is actually what got us into this mess in the first place.

00:43:15.840 When someone dies, that's a sad thing.

00:43:19.260 Even if they live to be 100 years old, even if they lived a good life, yes, you can take solace that they lived a good life.

00:43:26.840 You can take solace that they're no longer in pain.

00:43:30.140 But you'll miss them.

00:43:31.860 It's sad when they go.

00:43:34.180 You grieve for them.

00:43:36.000 This is natural.

00:43:38.000 Even Jesus grieves when his friend Lazarus dies, even though he's going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

00:43:43.840 But to pretend that a funeral is some giddy, happy ceremony, like the one in that magazine article where there are hot dog carts and Jerry Seinfeld is doing comedy sets, it's not true.

00:43:59.840 You're trying too hard.

00:44:01.860 You're trying to convince yourself of something that isn't true.

00:44:04.220 And moreover, what are you celebrating?

00:44:11.000 Because when people have these celebration of life ceremonies that aren't funerals, in my experience, I know people who have done them, and I've read about others, the people who hold them tend to be atheists.

00:44:21.920 They tend to be irreligious.

00:44:23.300 They tend to think that there's no life after death, and when you die, you just turn to worm food, and ultimately there's not a whole lot of meaning in the world, and it's all just kind of an accident, but hey, you had a good time.

00:44:34.220 You're not celebrating anything.

00:44:36.940 That's the most depressing thing I've ever heard.

00:44:40.420 And a funeral, which you call somber, is not a depressing event.

00:44:46.760 It's actually encouraging.

00:44:49.400 It's inspiring, because we're sad that we're losing our loved one.

00:44:53.980 But when you have a funeral and you believe in the resurrection, you know that they are in a better place.

00:44:59.680 You know that they are seeing their maker face to face.

00:45:04.540 You have hope that they're living an everlasting life.

00:45:08.180 That's hope.

00:45:08.960 That's a celebration.

00:45:11.620 But you're not going to be able to reach that joy if you just pretend that everything is happy-happy and death isn't death, and that you're going to celebrate something that ultimately you don't believe has any hope.

00:45:23.380 Dante, when he writes the Divine Comedy, in order to get up to heaven, in order to see the love that moves the sun and the other stars, he has to go down through hell.

00:45:33.300 He has to come out the other side, and then ascend up through purgatory and up to paradise.

00:45:37.140 In our culture, we want everything to be really nice all the time.

00:45:42.200 We don't have to want to deal with any of the inconvenient, tragic facts of life.

00:45:47.500 But mortality is a tragic fact.

00:45:50.040 It's not happy-happy-joy-joy.

00:45:52.840 It's a tragic fact, and there happens to be a happy ending.

00:45:56.920 It happens to actually turn out to be a comedy, but it's a comedy.

00:46:00.500 It has a happy ending because of this true hope that lives within us, and that's the hope that you're going to see in a church,

00:46:09.660 looking at your maker face-to-face, not eating hot dogs and watching a comedian do a set at some frivolous celebration of life.

00:46:17.620 From Tom, what is the best way for a beta male to become an alpha male, especially in terms of relationships?

00:46:24.360 First step, stop using those terms. 1.00

00:46:27.180 Those terms are so stupid. 0.99

00:46:29.580 It's just this issue of, if you're just talking about manliness and alpha male and masculinity all the time, 1.00

00:46:36.960 probably you don't exhibit a whole lot of it.

00:46:41.700 If you've got to talk about it, if you've got to say it, probably you don't exhibit a whole lot of it.

00:46:47.540 How to be a man.

00:46:48.460 I don't know.

00:46:48.900 You could go, I mean, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, I guess. 0.97

00:46:52.760 But how to be a man, you, first of all, should be a gentleman.

00:46:57.840 If you're asking specifically with regards to relationships and women, 1.00

00:47:02.200 alpha male type wannabe idiots do this all the time. 1.00

00:47:05.420 And they try to be really boastful and they peacock and they try to be big jerks. 1.00

00:47:10.280 That's not how to be a man. 0.99

00:47:12.060 First, try to be a gentleman.

00:47:13.500 A gentleman puts people at ease.

00:47:16.300 That's all a gentleman does.

00:47:17.860 So when you're on a date, ask questions.

00:47:20.400 And don't just ask questions.

00:47:21.920 Be interested in what she's saying.

00:47:25.500 Like women. 1.00

00:47:27.160 Love women.

00:47:28.520 That's the first step.

00:47:29.920 Then be confident.

00:47:30.800 Then, don't feel that you have to prove yourself.

00:47:35.940 Don't try to work out all these little tricks.

00:47:38.600 Don't try to scheme.

00:47:39.840 Don't try to get one over.

00:47:41.700 That's very unmanly stuff.

00:47:44.600 There's a good book on this called Manliness by Harvey Mansfield.

00:47:47.920 It's worth reading.

00:47:49.060 And whenever you hear people going on to you about alpha and beta, just ignore what they have to say.

00:47:55.560 That's going to be probably the most helpful advice on your journey to become a man.

00:48:00.120 Good luck, son.

00:48:01.580 Godspeed.

00:48:02.120 All right, that's our show.

00:48:02.960 So much more to get to, but what can you do?

00:48:05.040 You've got to read a 400-page report first thing in the morning.

00:48:08.420 Go over to dailywire.com.

00:48:10.480 We have got some more stuff coming up today.

00:48:12.780 But in the meantime, have a good weekend.

00:48:15.120 And I will see you on Monday.

00:48:16.360 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:48:17.060 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:48:17.960 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Rebecca Dobkowitz and directed by Mike Joyner.

00:48:28.160 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:48:30.180 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:48:31.940 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.

00:48:34.400 And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:48:36.720 Edited by Danny D'Amico.

00:48:38.260 Audio is mixed by Dylan Case.

00:48:40.180 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Ulvera.

00:48:42.340 And our production assistant is Nick Sheehan.

00:48:44.420 The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production.

00:48:46.420 Copyright Daily Wire 2019.

00:48:48.420 Hey, guys, over on The Matt Wall Show today.

00:48:51.080 The Mueller Report is here.

00:48:52.340 It's finally been released.

00:48:53.340 It's the day that everyone's been waiting for.

00:48:55.460 Well, some people have been waiting for it anyway.

00:48:57.620 Nobody has read the whole thing yet because it's 448 pages long.

00:49:01.180 But why are we talking about it then?

00:49:03.080 What can we say?

00:49:03.680 Well, I think that there are a few basic takeaways that we can ascertain already.

00:49:08.060 And they are not takeaways that the left is necessarily going to like.

00:49:12.580 So we'll talk about that.

00:49:13.960 Also, some other topics, including the fact that Bernie Sanders, the socialist, is, it turns out, pretty stingy when it comes to his own charitable giving.

00:49:21.740 What does that tell us?

00:49:23.000 We'll talk about that and more today over on The Matt Wall Show.

00:49:25.740 We'll talk about that and more.

The Michael Knowles Show - April 18, 2019

Ep. 334 - Still No Collusion, Still No Obstruction

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