The Michael Knowles Show


Ep. 38 - Donald Trump, Traditionalist, or： What I Learned In The UK


Summary

I ve returned from the motherland with a tweed-clad, pipe-smoking, queen-saving realization. Donald Trump is a traditionalist. And the place where this difference is clearest is in Oxford, the University of Oxford.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I've returned from the motherland with a tweed-clad, pipe-smoking, queen-saving realization.
00:00:06.800 Donald Trump is a traditionalist.
00:00:09.180 We'll discuss the Disraeli-esque, high-culture conservatism of our reality TV president.
00:00:15.340 Then, investor Hal Lambert joins to discuss his new Republican-only investment fund
00:00:20.380 with the stock ticker symbol MAGA.
00:00:23.280 Finally, Emily Butler and his eminence Paul Bois join the panel of deplorables
00:00:27.260 to discuss sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein and President Trump's huge IQ.
00:00:34.040 I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:00:44.820 I don't know if you could tell, but I'm back from England.
00:00:48.420 I don't know if any of that gave it away, maybe the tweed or this absolutely ridiculous pipe.
00:00:53.900 I was very nice. I spent some time in the motherland.
00:00:56.360 I was in London, and then Oxford.
00:00:58.780 I stopped by to see the son of the supreme ruler of the multiverse, Andrew Klavan's son,
00:01:03.440 and then I was up in the Cotswolds in the countryside.
00:01:06.060 I'll have one last puff before I put this out.
00:01:09.900 Delicious.
00:01:11.360 And it gave me an interesting view on politics because I've been to the UK before very briefly.
00:01:17.240 I'd never really spent any time there, and politics is different there.
00:01:20.340 Conservatism is different there.
00:01:23.580 It even threw into light some of what I couldn't quite understand about Donald Trump.
00:01:28.520 The conservatism there has something that very often we're missing, which is traditionalism.
00:01:36.060 It's the sort of conservatism that comes out of Edmund Burke, who says the age of chivalry is gone.
00:01:42.340 That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded it, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
00:01:48.980 He's writing about the French Revolution there and how terrible it was, even though he supported the American Revolution.
00:01:53.760 And the trouble with American conservatism is very often it is just the stuff of sophisters, economists, and calculators.
00:02:01.240 All we really talk about are how we want low taxes and small government for its own sake,
00:02:06.960 and not really the reasons why we want those things, what greater goods those things serve.
00:02:13.420 And it's very often grounded in what would be rationalistic ideas.
00:02:17.100 So Edmund Burke really doesn't seem to have much care for rationalism,
00:02:20.960 but that's the idea that we always just stand for something.
00:02:23.880 It's just principles floating out in the breeze, but it isn't founded on any real institutions like civil society, the church, the family, local communities.
00:02:32.740 A lot of the reasons why we prefer more local and smaller government in the United States.
00:02:37.320 The place where this difference is the clearest between traditionalism and those other varieties of conservatism,
00:02:44.540 like libertarianism, neoconservatism, the religious right, whatever,
00:02:49.320 the place where that is clearest is Oxford, the University of Oxford.
00:02:52.960 I didn't realize this.
00:02:53.980 I went to Yale.
00:02:54.860 Yale is like the Disneyland version of Oxford.
00:02:57.940 Oxford is like the real thing, you know, and Yale is Epcot version of that.
00:03:02.740 It's a stunning place, and it has at it the weight of history.
00:03:07.400 The difference between these politics is really clear there, and the difference between the U.K. and the United States.
00:03:13.440 There's no date that we can say this is the founding of the University of Oxford.
00:03:17.440 We know that there was teaching there around 1096, but it sort of sprung up a little organically.
00:03:23.240 It developed over 1,000 years.
00:03:25.480 It's older than the English language in its current form, but we know that Yale was founded in 1701.
00:03:32.200 When I look at the various controversies that have hit those two places in the last few years,
00:03:37.460 I'm not surprised that Oxford has weathered them better than Yale.
00:03:42.220 So at Yale, we had to rename Calhoun College.
00:03:44.940 You remember that crazy controversy, students screaming at their professors, yelling at them,
00:03:49.900 professors being fired for offending the little snowflakey 18-year-olds who were shrieking profanities at them.
00:03:56.180 They did rename the college eventually.
00:03:58.740 At Oxford, there was a similar fit of hysteria about Cecil Rhodes, the statue of the guy for whom the Rhodes Scholarship is named
00:04:07.000 because he was an imperialist and a colonialist, and he dealt in Africa and all of that.
00:04:11.460 It went nowhere.
00:04:12.260 It went nowhere.
00:04:13.220 They totally let the statue stay because there's a weight of something, a weight of history that describes the conservatism of the United Kingdom
00:04:22.140 and describes that place that we just don't really have, unfortunately.
00:04:27.080 In American politics, it's usually pretty easy to nail down which political party does which thing,
00:04:35.140 which side in politics has which ideology.
00:04:38.840 In Britain, it's a little harder.
00:04:40.140 You can't really tell sometimes who are the conservatives.
00:04:43.140 You can't really tell who are the – is this liberal?
00:04:45.060 Is this leftist?
00:04:46.120 Even – I was joking with Andrew Klavan about this.
00:04:49.660 In England, even the socialists seem sort of conservative.
00:04:54.100 They have – because as he says, whatever the British do, they're living in the past.
00:04:59.560 So even if they're socialists, if they're communists, whatever, there's just a certain breeding into their culture that they can't seem to overcome.
00:05:09.180 Even the socialism in England, which is very bad and not good for society, even that is better than the socialism in Italy or France.
00:05:18.700 It just is a little more orderly.
00:05:20.640 It's a little less lazy or what have you.
00:05:22.900 Now, with Trump, now with Trump, political ideology has become a little murkier and a little less clear as well over here.
00:05:32.660 There are questions.
00:05:33.200 Is he a populist?
00:05:34.060 Is he a conservative?
00:05:35.220 Is he a secret Nazi Russian KGB Manchurian candidate?
00:05:38.300 All of the above, perhaps.
00:05:39.180 From my vantage last week in the motherland, perhaps the defining feature of President Trump's political vision came into view, his respect for American institutions and tradition, his traditionalism.
00:05:51.280 Among all the calls to topple Columbus statues and rename Columbus Day, Trump signed a proclamation on Monday that said, quote,
00:05:57.400 So it seems like a minor point.
00:06:26.560 The tradition of Columbus Day, who we're honoring, what day it is, whatever.
00:06:30.820 But to Trump, it's quite important because it's about respect and an understanding and absorption, a living through the institutions that have made our country great and not merely platitudes and simple words and phrases and ideas that do it.
00:06:48.400 He's weighed in vigorously on the issue of NFL players, not respecting traditions like standing for the national anthem and saluting the flag.
00:06:55.240 Even his economic policy of skepticism toward big government and big business alike, of grand charitable gestures by billionaires that look a lot like Donald J. Trump, has echoes of the distributism that was embraced by the 20th century traditionalists like G.K. Chesterton and T.S. Eliot, among others.
00:07:12.020 Speaking of Eliot, even Trump's constant use of highly modern media like reality TV and Twitter to propagate support for traditional institutions reminds one of Eliot's use of modernism to attack, to attack modernism rather.
00:07:26.080 And yes, I think that is the first time that Donald Trump has ever been compared to T.S. Eliot.
00:07:29.780 President Trump's take on patriotism might have been written by Benjamin Disraeli, the British traditionalist and prime minister who pioneered one-nation conservatism.
00:07:41.420 And one-nation conservatism posits that societies develop organically, that members within those societies have obligations toward each other.
00:07:49.080 It emphasizes the pragmatism that reality requires and insists that patriotic devotion, among other impulses, compel the fortunate to take care of the less fortunate.
00:08:00.860 When one part of America hurts, we all hurt.
00:08:07.060 And when one citizen suffers an injustice, we all suffer together.
00:08:14.260 Loyalty to our nation demands loyalty to one another.
00:08:18.100 Love for America requires love for all of its people.
00:08:25.140 When we open our hearts to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice, no place for bigotry, and no tolerance for hate.
00:08:37.340 Make America Great Again is a beautiful phrase.
00:08:40.700 It's why Reagan used it in the first place.
00:08:42.720 The Make America Great Again, it's simple.
00:08:45.440 The language is Saxon, it's curt, it's evocative.
00:08:49.140 It's called a populist appeal by the common knowledge of the political commentariat, but what have they ever known?
00:08:54.780 The phrase isn't actually that populist.
00:08:57.620 The phrase isn't, do whatever you want in America.
00:09:00.140 The phrase isn't, make America work for you, you, you, you, me, me, me.
00:09:03.640 The phrase is, make America great again.
00:09:06.440 It's a call to make use of the strong institutions inherited by this country and developed in this country to sustain the life of a country whose organic growth has produced the most just, most charitable, most free nation in the history of the world.
00:09:20.880 And speaking of MAGA, speaking of Make America Great Again, we've got to bring on Hal Lambert.
00:09:28.200 We have the investor Hal Lambert on today of Point Bridge Capital.
00:09:32.580 Hal has created an ETF, an exchange-traded fund, for investing exclusively in companies that back Republicans.
00:09:40.480 It's ticker symbol, why it's MAGA, of course, M-A-G-A.
00:09:44.520 Hal, thank you for coming on.
00:09:46.560 Thank you for having me, Michael.
00:09:47.560 So, first question, I guess this is kind of a gimme, but I've got to ask, how did you come up with the idea for a MAGA ETF, a Republican-only ETF?
00:09:57.740 Well, you know, it sounds simple, but it actually wasn't, it's never been done before, so clearly it wasn't too simple.
00:10:03.400 But I've been in the investment business for about 20 years, managing money.
00:10:07.060 I've been involved in politics for the last decade.
00:10:09.800 I've helped a couple of different Republican presidential campaigns.
00:10:14.060 I was involved with Ted Cruz's campaign.
00:10:16.200 So was I.
00:10:17.560 Were you?
00:10:18.300 Okay.
00:10:18.840 Before that, Governor Perry.
00:10:20.400 In fact, I ran a super PAC for Ted Cruz.
00:10:22.720 So very involved in politics for a number of years.
00:10:26.340 And being in the investment field, I noticed a lot of people were, you know, upset about what's going on, and they've been boycotting products, right, and services.
00:10:35.180 And at the same time, they didn't realize that they actually own those products or services.
00:10:40.040 They own those companies and their mutual funds.
00:10:41.460 And so they're boycotting it on the one hand, and then they're losing money on the other.
00:10:45.820 Right.
00:10:46.440 And, you know, Starbucks is a perfect example.
00:10:48.900 A lot of people were boycotting Starbucks.
00:10:51.800 The stock was going lower.
00:10:53.620 They might have been losing money and not realizing it.
00:10:55.620 So I kind of started thinking, how do I tap into that and enable people to both, you know, with their money and with their buying power, make choices.
00:11:04.860 And there wasn't a choice in the market.
00:11:06.640 There's never been a politically based ETF before.
00:11:09.140 And that's kind of how the idea started.
00:11:11.060 That's an interesting point, too, because I had just considered it as a reaction to the left constantly politicizing every aspect of our culture, every business.
00:11:19.860 They're going to do this.
00:11:20.740 They're going to do that.
00:11:21.420 But it also makes sense if you are boycotting a business.
00:11:25.620 You probably don't want to be owning it in your portfolio.
00:11:28.580 You don't want to be hurting yourself, slapping your nose to spite your face.
00:11:33.020 Do you worry that this ETF and maybe others that will follow your example, do you worry that that will further politicize the culture?
00:11:41.280 Or is it an appropriate response to a culture that the left insists already on politicizing?
00:11:47.460 No, I think it's a very appropriate response to the culture in general.
00:11:51.140 And I think it's a good investment decision as well.
00:11:53.940 So, you know, you mentioned it being pro.
00:11:55.860 It is pro.
00:11:56.520 So you're wanting to support companies that are supportive of Republican candidates.
00:12:00.080 And we may be upset with Republicans, and many of us are.
00:12:03.020 But it's – unfortunately, it's a binary choice, right?
00:12:05.600 So you've got a Democrat or a Republican.
00:12:07.980 Who do you want to be investing with that's supporting the candidates?
00:12:11.160 Do you want the ones that are supporting heavily Democratic candidates or Republican ones?
00:12:15.120 So that's an option.
00:12:17.380 And that's the real question too because someone like me who's slightly to the right of Attila the Hun, I probably would take a lower return if it meant that I got to slap Schultz across the face or something.
00:12:29.040 But is there going to be any conflict between the returns you're getting and your politics?
00:12:35.840 You know, is it the case that Republican-supporting companies actually are the ones that throw off the great returns?
00:12:42.200 Or are you sacrificing a return to make a political statement?
00:12:46.760 Yeah, I don't think you're sacrificing a return.
00:12:49.180 So what I did was I took the S&P 500, and I screened it for the political contributions of the PACs and the employees of those companies.
00:12:56.820 And I took the top 150 companies in the S&P.
00:12:59.520 So the S&P is already a pretty exclusive club.
00:13:02.040 So you've got a great number of companies.
00:13:04.600 It's 150 stocks.
00:13:06.700 They're heavily supportive.
00:13:07.920 They're great stocks.
00:13:08.780 You've got a lot of defense companies like General Dynamics, Lockheed, Boeing.
00:13:13.060 You've got a lot of financials.
00:13:15.180 You know, there's some surprise companies in here.
00:13:17.400 Goldman Sachs has always been thought of as a big Democratic company.
00:13:20.300 Well, actually, in 2010, they switched, and they became a heavily Republican-supporting company.
00:13:24.560 So there's some very good stocks in this portfolio.
00:13:27.280 I don't think there's a sacrifice being happened.
00:13:28.820 Well, you know, I did not realize that because I just had it in my head that Goldman and a lot of major corporations, certainly a lot of Wall Streeters, are backing Democrats.
00:13:38.440 They back the establishment.
00:13:39.980 So basically, this fund would be like Hobby Lobby or something.
00:13:43.240 But you're saying, actually, a lot of these companies that we think are left-wing are trending toward Republican donations.
00:13:50.040 Correct.
00:13:50.740 You know, you can watch what they say, or you can watch what they're doing with their money.
00:13:54.560 And I'm looking at what they're doing with their dollars.
00:13:57.160 And they may come out and say one thing, but they're doing something else with their dollars.
00:14:01.700 And at the end of the day, money matters in politics.
00:14:04.740 And when you're talking about lots and lots of money, this is a lot of money that's being contributed.
00:14:09.160 It's affecting election outcomes.
00:14:11.520 So when people – go ahead.
00:14:13.100 Well, this is the – you're absolutely right.
00:14:16.200 There are a lot of election outcomes that can be swayed by all of this.
00:14:20.700 But the elections themselves, the campaigns themselves, are even less clear in the world of Donald Trump because we see him sniping at Bob Corker today, little Bob Corker.
00:14:29.740 We see him fighting with Republicans.
00:14:32.100 Fights very often that he hasn't picked.
00:14:34.240 Fights that they're picking.
00:14:35.180 But will there be any implications for the MAGA fund if there's a split, if there's a rift between the GOP and Donald Trump?
00:14:44.080 Will that be taken into account in the fund itself?
00:14:48.280 I don't think that it will affect things because at the end of the day, they're going to have to work with President Trump.
00:14:54.020 And what he's doing when he's talking about Bob Corker is, hey, this is a guy who's not necessarily supportive of some of the things that President Trump won on.
00:15:03.980 And so what's interesting about what President Trump's been able to do is he's gone after the NFL.
00:15:09.220 It's pretty interesting to think about it.
00:15:10.300 This story has been going on for over a year, right?
00:15:13.000 ESPN has been pumping this.
00:15:14.100 By the way, ESPN is owned by Disney.
00:15:16.000 Disney is one of the top three contributors to the Democratic Party.
00:15:18.720 Of course.
00:15:19.020 So just kind of think about it from that perspective.
00:15:20.940 But Trump's gone after what's happening in the NFL while everybody else was silent.
00:15:25.440 This has gone on for a year.
00:15:27.020 Finally, he stood up and said, you know what, we're not going to put up with this.
00:15:30.740 Part of what you said earlier in your monologue I thought was great.
00:15:33.220 You know, we're different than England.
00:15:35.300 People here, the Republicans here, a lot of times seem to be scared of the media.
00:15:39.160 And Donald Trump's not scared of the media.
00:15:40.780 And he's going to go out and say what he thinks.
00:15:44.100 And a lot of the times he's right.
00:15:45.600 He's saying what everybody else is thinking and other people are afraid to say.
00:15:48.160 And the best part is if you go out and you try to appease the media and you try to get them to like you and say, I'm a conservative, but I'm not that kind of conservative.
00:15:56.340 I'm not that kind of Republican.
00:15:58.000 It's never enough.
00:15:59.120 It's never enough for them.
00:16:00.080 And Donald Trump has totally ignored that common sense, the common conception that we need to coddle up to the media.
00:16:08.200 And he's won every time.
00:16:09.820 I don't think it's ever blown up in his face.
00:16:11.600 No, he's and he's winning big in this battle because at the end of the day, you know, the American people are on his side.
00:16:19.620 They're on the side of people standing for the flag or for the side of standing for the anthem.
00:16:23.600 Absolutely.
00:16:24.420 And people ought to be invested in companies that are supportive.
00:16:27.440 I mean, the left is not for this.
00:16:29.480 Left is fine with people sitting.
00:16:31.780 You know, they're fine with the athletes.
00:16:33.420 They want to come out and talk about free speech.
00:16:35.420 That's right.
00:16:36.020 They're not free speech.
00:16:37.120 I mean, they can't wear a certain button on their on their on their uniform.
00:16:40.800 They can't wear they can't wear anything to honor the victims and the heroes of 9-11.
00:16:45.720 But and that's all fine.
00:16:47.300 But then when they're disrespecting the flag, then it's a matter of free speech.
00:16:50.320 Absolutely absurd.
00:16:51.580 Well, Hal, I wish you the best of luck.
00:16:53.920 I think I probably would violate a thousand rules and regulations by by speaking too much about the fund itself.
00:17:00.480 But I do love the idea that I think it's I think it is a lot of a great idea and a great way.
00:17:06.420 I like Donald Trump, who is attacking the culture and he's a cultural warrior.
00:17:11.320 I think it's a great way to just keep pushing and pushing and bringing this fight onto their level and into their field and be playing offense.
00:17:20.860 Well, I appreciate it.
00:17:22.160 And people can find me.
00:17:23.880 I'm on Twitter at at MAGA index.
00:17:26.520 And as well, they can go to invest politically dot com and look at what's on the on the website.
00:17:31.900 So either one of those, they can learn about it.
00:17:33.900 But you can buy this this ETFs traded everywhere.
00:17:36.840 Anyone that has a brokerage account can buy it.
00:17:38.580 The ticker is MAGA and just call up your broker.
00:17:41.180 Or if you trade online, you can go online and buy it.
00:17:43.620 And that's that's it's as easy as that.
00:17:45.520 Excellent.
00:17:45.880 All right.
00:17:46.180 You got to go follow Hal on Twitter.
00:17:48.320 I know, of course, many of our listeners are just survivalists up in the hills of Montana who put every 100 percent of their portfolio into rations and ammo for the apocalypse.
00:17:59.660 But, you know, maybe consider diversifying your portfolio.
00:18:02.280 Hal, thank you for being here.
00:18:03.500 I'm sure we'll have you back and talk again.
00:18:05.940 Thank you.
00:18:06.800 OK, now we have to bring on our panel of deplorables.
00:18:10.620 We have an excellent panel of deplorables today.
00:18:13.280 We have not only the birthday girl herself, Emily Butler.
00:18:17.100 We have his eminence, his royal eminence, Paul Bois.
00:18:21.240 But I've got some bad news for you.
00:18:22.660 I have to I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you are not a subscriber to The Daily Wire, you will not be able to see them.
00:18:29.300 We can't talk about little Bob Corker together.
00:18:32.100 We won't be able to talk about Harvey Weinstein, who's accused of raping all of Hollywood and more.
00:18:38.240 Unfortunately, you can't do that unless you go over to dailywire.com right now.
00:18:41.620 Thank you to everyone who has subscribed.
00:18:43.680 You help us keep the lights on.
00:18:45.060 You help me afford three piece tweed suits just just for your amusement, just so that Marshall can have a little chuckle all day.
00:18:50.780 So thank you very much for that.
00:18:53.700 You'll get me.
00:18:54.560 You'll get the Andrew Klavan show.
00:18:56.040 You'll get the Ben Shapiro show.
00:18:57.340 You'll get no ads on the website.
00:18:58.740 I know.
00:18:59.080 Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:19:00.160 Wait a minute.
00:19:01.700 Here it is.
00:19:02.960 Talk about institutions and traditions.
00:19:05.980 There is no tradition, I think, that I cherish more than every morning drinking delicious leftist tears to give me strength like spinach for Popeye.
00:19:14.000 And the only vessel that you should ever use to gulp down those tasty, tasty tears is the leftist years tumbler.
00:19:20.780 It's made out of crushed up little Steven Crowder mugs.
00:19:23.800 So it's really been hardened and you won't have any leaks.
00:19:27.560 You can have your leftist tears hot, cold, always salty and delicious.
00:19:30.840 Go over to dailywire.com right now and we will be right back.
00:19:33.720 All right.
00:19:45.040 On that point, Emily, I want first your take on this political investing idea.
00:19:50.280 Would you ever invest in companies or in a fund strictly for their political views?
00:19:55.100 Well, I think that question comes down to two questions, which is, one, can I afford to do so?
00:20:02.900 And two, what kind of a political statement do I want to make?
00:20:05.960 So on the first question, probably not.
00:20:09.200 Of course.
00:20:10.360 Panel of deplorables doesn't pay that well.
00:20:12.120 Not so much, no.
00:20:14.520 So I might have to pick up a second job or two or three just to be able to put my money into the stock market.
00:20:22.020 But, you know, when facing with the kind of political statement I want to make, you know, I'm kind of intrigued by it.
00:20:27.800 I think having the ability to decide specifically politically where your money is going.
00:20:33.720 I mean, we talk about actually putting money into politics and things like that.
00:20:37.740 Like, I think, as Mr. Lambert said previously, like, all spending is political.
00:20:42.940 When you turn on the TV and you watch ESPN, you're paying money to Disney, which is paying money to Democrats.
00:20:48.060 Like, every single choice we make influences the money in our politics.
00:20:52.820 And I personally would like to put my money behind representatives I believe in, companies that believe in my representatives.
00:20:59.660 And to be honest, I really think that people on the left, the Hillary Clinton supporters, the Bernie Sanders supporters,
00:21:08.120 probably don't even know enough about money to be investing in the stock market themselves.
00:21:12.700 They're socialists, so their money should come from the government.
00:21:15.060 That's right.
00:21:15.540 Well, it just comes from the sky.
00:21:17.060 It falls down from the sky.
00:21:18.480 Even though they also think there's a limited amount of it and it's a pie and the rich guy got that way by stealing the poor guy,
00:21:23.720 they have a complicated economics, I've learned.
00:21:27.460 It's true.
00:21:28.200 It's true.
00:21:28.580 Absolutely right.
00:21:30.040 Well, yeah, I agree with that.
00:21:31.920 Mr. Bois, is this similar to boycotting shops that you don't like and stores that you don't like?
00:21:37.940 Should we put our money where our political mouth is?
00:21:40.680 We run our mouths all day.
00:21:42.040 Should we put our money there?
00:21:43.180 Or should we invest in the most liberal companies if they make money?
00:21:47.560 Very often they don't.
00:21:48.840 But assuming for the hypothetical they do make money, should we just invest in them, put our money wherever we're going to get the best return,
00:21:54.640 and then use all that money we make to support right-wing candidates when they run for office?
00:22:01.320 Look, I wish we could just live in a culture right now where we could put our money wherever we want.
00:22:08.480 We could go to whatever store we want.
00:22:10.400 We could invest wherever we want.
00:22:11.820 I mean, I want that culture.
00:22:13.480 That's why I'm in this fight.
00:22:15.240 But unfortunately, we're not in that culture.
00:22:17.060 We are in, I think, what is rightly described as a cold civil war where certain institutions that have a lot of power and a lot of money use that power and use that money for very nefarious ends.
00:22:28.760 And a lot of it is to curtail freedoms.
00:22:31.260 A lot of it is to attack Christianity and create an entirely new America where none of those values have any place in it.
00:22:40.540 So absolutely, I fully support this portfolio and I fully support using your money in whatever way you can to support conservatives and not give it to liberals.
00:22:52.800 Typical Paul Bois optimism.
00:22:55.180 Everything's always rosy to you, isn't it?
00:22:57.320 Okay, we have to move on to Harvey Weinstein raping all of Hollywood.
00:23:01.320 The New Yorker has published a bombshell report.
00:23:04.560 They've said that three women have accused Hollywood super producer and Democrat mega donor of rape.
00:23:12.500 There have been a ton of other women who have accused him of sexual assault and of sexual harassment, including celebrities, including Mira Sorvino, Rosanna Arquette.
00:23:22.060 Paul Bois, you've lived in Hollywood a long time.
00:23:24.780 Do you believe this report?
00:23:26.100 Is it possible that such a super Hollywood producer and Democrat mega donor could really be a dirty, rotten low life?
00:23:35.040 No, Michael.
00:23:36.680 I'm glad you did.
00:23:37.160 I got nervous for a second.
00:23:38.980 As Harvey Weinstein said, Hollywood's the best moral compass.
00:23:42.200 There's no sexual harassment in this industry.
00:23:46.280 Come on.
00:23:47.200 I mean, no, in all seriousness, yes, I do believe the report, and I see no reason not to believe it.
00:23:54.120 One thing that's quite striking is that all of them fit this pattern.
00:23:59.000 It's always Harvey Weinstein.
00:24:00.580 He invites some young, good-looking actress up into his hotel room.
00:24:04.360 His staff is always there, so they're comfortable at first, and then he asks them to leave.
00:24:07.760 And then once they're gone, he takes off his clothes and does something really perverted and creepy.
00:24:13.160 So, yes, I fully believe the report, and I think the man is getting his comeuppance, and his downfall is long overdue.
00:24:21.300 This should have happened way back in the 1990s, but you know what?
00:24:25.640 It's very unfortunate that it took this long to get out.
00:24:28.180 This is another reason why British traditionalism gets it right.
00:24:31.700 These three-piece suits are very difficult to get off.
00:24:35.100 They really restrain the baser impulses of mankind.
00:24:38.760 If I were Harvey Weinstein, I can barely unbutton this if I'm looking in a mirror and taking ten minutes.
00:24:45.080 It's a profound statement and a sartorial statement to say that perhaps we ought to have some moral foundations
00:24:51.720 and traditional institutions to rein in the debauched impulses of Hollywood's elite.
00:24:58.320 Emily, how did he get away with this for so long?
00:25:02.520 You know, Michael, it's a real puzzler.
00:25:05.840 It's a head-scratcher.
00:25:08.320 In an industry full of dirtbags, how one dirtbag just managed to get away.
00:25:17.540 You know, I think the bigger question is really how, at this point in his career, did he finally come crumbling down?
00:25:24.860 And that's an aspect of it I'd actually like to explore more.
00:25:28.440 You know, like Bill Cosby, how these people finally get brought down because this is not isolated.
00:25:36.540 I mean, you have to be—you're so powerful, and you're at such a level where Gwyneth Paltrow is afraid to speak out against you,
00:25:44.400 Angelina Jolie, all these other actresses who are fearful for, you know, their careers,
00:25:49.600 fearful for any sort of semblance of a life that they've built already, you know,
00:25:54.760 in the brink of that span of time of whatever Harvey Weinstein wants to do with them
00:25:58.640 or what Bill Cosby wants to do with people.
00:26:01.420 It's a question to me of how these things actually break and how finally the truth gets out
00:26:07.420 and how the mighty actually topple because this is not—again, this is not isolated.
00:26:12.940 There are hundreds of other people in this industry just like him,
00:26:17.440 and he's one of the biggest, the baddest, the toughest, the meanest.
00:26:20.220 Like, he is the one who has the most accomplices who can just shut everyone down.
00:26:24.620 And the bravery that it takes to persevere in the face of that—I mean, now the writers of the New York Times
00:26:32.560 are getting slapped with a lawsuit like we knew they would—and to have that bravery to confront that
00:26:39.620 and say, you know, no, we're going to push back on this because rape, sexual assault,
00:26:46.660 so many of these things come down to a he said, she said.
00:26:49.420 It's a very ugly crime. It's a very nasty crime, and it's also something that's very incredibly difficult to prove.
00:26:56.080 It's very difficult to prove.
00:26:57.360 I mean, you can be with somebody an entire night.
00:27:00.120 Like, I can be with my husband. We're having a great evening.
00:27:04.400 We love each other. Like, there's nothing there that sets up.
00:27:07.240 But in that moment between two people where some person says, no, stop that,
00:27:11.400 and the other person doesn't stop, you know, that's something that really comes down to he said or she said.
00:27:18.540 And especially when the other person is the biggest guy in this town.
00:27:22.260 For people who don't know who Harvey Weinstein is, he—I mean, perhaps his influence is waning now.
00:27:27.540 Clearly, this seems to be his downfall.
00:27:29.660 This guy was the king. I mean, he was the biggest guy out here.
00:27:33.800 Obviously, these women are saying that he hurt their careers when they rebuffed his advances,
00:27:38.380 and it's hard to see how that isn't true.
00:27:40.740 So Vino did—clearly had a decline in her career, and for this town—I've never mattered enough in Hollywood
00:27:49.360 to really see this too closely or anything like that, but a number of my friends have had this happen to them.
00:27:56.740 And I've heard the stories, and I've been at some parties where some shady-looking characters are praying,
00:28:03.980 you know, where they're speaking to young girls and surrounding themselves with young women.
00:28:08.900 It is—it's not even an open secret in this town.
00:28:11.860 It is the currency of this town.
00:28:13.920 Mr. Bois, how did this guy get found out?
00:28:17.420 How did he fall apart now?
00:28:18.980 Why now?
00:28:20.580 Well, I think the reason why now is, like you said, his power really is on the decline.
00:28:25.420 If this were five years ago or ten years ago, I don't think this would have come out.
00:28:29.780 I mean, there are reports right now circulating about how there were photos taken by reporters in the early 2000s
00:28:37.840 of him putting another reporter in a headlock and calling another reporter the C-word,
00:28:42.000 and that never got out because so many people in Hollywood media were on his payroll.
00:28:47.880 Hollywood Reporter, Variety, I mean, they would literally buy up articles written by journalists
00:28:56.100 and buy them up and, you know, option the rights for them.
00:28:59.160 You know, they'd be having deals with Harvey Weinstein about getting their article turned into a movie
00:29:03.960 or them writing a screenplay.
00:29:05.420 So this guy owned so much of Hollywood, and it just—his power was on the decline.
00:29:11.520 And I would not be surprised.
00:29:13.120 This is, of course, more, you know, my more conspiratorial leanings.
00:29:16.240 Well, we like to encourage that on the show, of course.
00:29:18.520 So please throw out whatever baseless accusations you have.
00:29:22.540 I liken this to—I mean, I don't know if anybody out there is watching the show Narcos right now,
00:29:26.280 but I liken this to basically like the Cali cartel.
00:29:28.620 It's so good.
00:29:29.140 The Cali cartel taking out Pablo Escobar.
00:29:32.120 You know, someone, one of his enemies in Hollywood, a power broker somewhere,
00:29:38.280 gave the green light, and it trickled down, and now it's winding up on the New York Times.
00:29:43.000 I really find it hard to believe that this was just, you know, two wily reporters, and they uncovered it,
00:29:49.040 and now the truth is out there, and he's getting his justice.
00:29:51.860 I don't think so because, like Emily said, there's so many people in this industry—
00:29:55.800 He was too protected.
00:29:56.860 He was too big.
00:29:57.920 Yeah, who do this kind of garbage, and it's just coming out now because somebody wanted to take him out
00:30:04.760 and get rid of him and clean up where he left off and take his investors and take his pipeline of influence.
00:30:11.540 That's what I think.
00:30:12.240 Well, moving now to Washington, D.C., which is Hollywood for Ugly People,
00:30:16.040 we have to discuss this Donald Trump, little Bob Corker spat.
00:30:20.780 He's back to bickering with his fellow Republicans.
00:30:23.880 Bob Corker, who's the Republican, nominally Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
00:30:28.780 said he worries that Donald Trump will start World War III.
00:30:31.660 Donald Trump responded with typical Trumpian subtlety
00:30:36.200 and said that Corker begged for his endorsement, and Trump said no,
00:30:40.660 and that's why Corker won't run for re-election next time.
00:30:43.800 Corker then said the White House is an adult daycare center, and someone didn't show up for work today.
00:30:48.780 Trump then gave him a lovely moniker, little Bob Corker, kind of like Lil Marco,
00:30:55.000 but with two Ds in it, little.
00:30:56.700 Mr. Bois, Trump is being called irresponsible and immature and reckless here,
00:31:03.180 but is he the one who started all these spats?
00:31:04.940 I mean, look, I never defend Trump's rhetoric in these situations, but...
00:31:11.640 I always defend Trump's rhetoric, but we'll get to that later.
00:31:14.080 I'm sorry, go ahead.
00:31:15.320 But in all of these situations, he's never attacking innocent people.
00:31:19.300 Like, Bob Corker is stepping into the wrong here,
00:31:21.800 and he's lambasting the president in an interview with the New York Times.
00:31:25.380 When he's on his way out, it's just cowardly,
00:31:27.980 and he's not even that conservative in the first place.
00:31:32.780 So, honestly, no, I never like President Trump's rhetoric,
00:31:37.500 but at the same time, Bob Corker's not innocent,
00:31:39.840 and he's walking into it, and he should know better.
00:31:42.680 That's true.
00:31:43.440 The rhetoric always sounds a little harsh or a little childish or whatever.
00:31:47.200 It doesn't have the effect of a Reagan speech or Winston Churchill speech,
00:31:51.740 let's say, to put it diplomatically.
00:31:53.600 But are we defending Bob Corker now?
00:31:56.440 I mean, this guy has an F report card from conservative review on his votes as a senator.
00:32:04.460 Should we really be defending this guy, or is Donald Trump the guy we ought to be defending?
00:32:08.720 Oh, no, we should be defending Trump.
00:32:10.460 We absolutely should be on Trump's side at the end of the day.
00:32:14.160 I mean, look, it's a scale of moral imperatives right now.
00:32:19.560 I mean, yes, it's not right that Trump is saying this kind of thing,
00:32:23.500 he's calling someone little.
00:32:24.720 But the moral imperative right now of preserving what we're trying to do versus bury an existential threat
00:32:34.060 is right now much more important than just a personal feud between Trump and Corker.
00:32:40.200 And by Corker giving ammunition like that, it's harming.
00:32:45.860 It's damaging.
00:32:46.580 And the real thing is, if Donald Trump calling a liberal Republican squishy senator by some childish name,
00:32:54.400 if that's what's going to help us get a conservative agenda passed,
00:32:57.820 if it's going to help us get tax reform, if it's going to help us get whatever,
00:33:00.840 and that's up for debate, then do it, man.
00:33:03.000 Call him little.
00:33:03.660 Maybe he is a little guy.
00:33:04.980 Emily at Birthday Girl Butler, would it be better for Trump to refrain from using the nicknames,
00:33:10.180 or isn't that why we're here?
00:33:12.760 Are you not entertained?
00:33:13.900 Is that not why you have come?
00:33:16.300 I'm so pleased with season two of the Trump administration.
00:33:22.040 Season two of the Gold House.
00:33:23.340 I tune in nightly.
00:33:25.020 I mean, it's just fantastic.
00:33:27.100 But I, you know, I'm so torn on things like this.
00:33:31.120 Like, I like Trump for his rhetoric.
00:33:33.580 I voted for him because of his rhetoric, because people everywhere, especially people on the left,
00:33:39.280 needed to see that rhetoric wasn't going to topple a country.
00:33:44.120 The way that everything was going with Hillary Clinton, the way that she was talking,
00:33:48.060 the way that she's echoed, everything in her book,
00:33:49.660 which still is, just echoes that we're tearing this country apart.
00:33:53.660 And you can always tell the people who are actually tearing the country apart
00:33:57.500 when they say that this country will not be torn apart if we unite against the people we're politically divided against.
00:34:05.300 Yeah, that's right.
00:34:05.500 Unite against those evil 40 million Americans, yeah.
00:34:08.220 You know, I mean, it's ridiculous.
00:34:10.760 Like, the things that he says are ridiculous, and I, you know, if I were on his advisory board,
00:34:15.060 I'd say, don't even respond to this guy.
00:34:16.780 He's not worth it.
00:34:17.660 He's not worth the time.
00:34:18.480 People didn't know who he was before.
00:34:19.960 People don't care.
00:34:21.260 You're only making yourself look immature, as we all know that he's doing.
00:34:26.120 But when it comes down to it, there's nothing harmful that he's doing.
00:34:31.260 It's pedantic.
00:34:32.420 It's childish.
00:34:33.380 There's nothing harmful about this.
00:34:35.680 I don't necessarily see where there's anything helpful about this.
00:34:38.240 I don't necessarily see where it's going to get a conservative agenda pushed through,
00:34:42.160 because he doesn't really have the media on his side to go, like, digging in through Bob Corker's past.
00:34:47.500 That's kind of what the conservative media helps to do.
00:34:50.420 Right.
00:34:50.960 And there is, too, you know, Tillerson, there's this rumor that Tillerson called Donald Trump a moron.
00:34:57.340 The mainstream media, that's every single question they're asking.
00:35:00.140 What do you think?
00:35:00.720 Tillerson called you a moron.
00:35:01.720 What do you say?
00:35:02.500 And he answered with his little joke, and he said, well, I guess we'll have to get the IQ tests out.
00:35:06.440 I guess we'll have to do that.
00:35:07.680 He does always, he always hits them back.
00:35:09.280 He's very often making jokes, and listen, I compared him to T.S. Eliot earlier in that show.
00:35:15.040 I do not regret it at all.
00:35:17.140 I think he has a similar traditionalism, and they both use very evocative language to defend Western civilization.
00:35:25.060 There it is, Donald Trump, T.S. Eliot.
00:35:26.760 Okay, panel of deplorables, thank you for being here.
00:35:29.680 Paul Bois, the birthday girl, Emily Butler.
00:35:31.900 That's it.
00:35:32.380 That's all I've got to say today.
00:35:33.880 I've got jet lag.
00:35:34.720 I want to finish smoking my pipe, so I'm going to get out of here.
00:35:37.740 Come back tomorrow.
00:35:38.800 This is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:35:40.100 I'm Michael Knowles.
00:35:41.040 Get your mailbag questions in, and we'll see you tomorrow.
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