The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 394 - Red Flags All Around

00:00:00.000 In the wake of two mass shootings that would not have been prevented by any of the gun control

00:00:05.480 legislation proposed in recent years, Republicans and Democrats are coming together to endorse,

00:00:10.700 you guessed it, more gun control legislation that will not stop any future shootings.

00:00:15.980 But hey, at least the laws will infringe on our constitutional rights.

00:00:20.020 We will analyze the many red flags in red flag laws.

00:00:24.080 Then the mainstream left keeps up its defamatory temper tantrum.

00:00:27.900 We'll look at a few examples of that, what it means for 2020, what it means for our political future.

00:00:33.280 Finally, conservative environmentalist Benji Backer stops by to try to turn me green.

00:00:39.000 Good luck, buddy. All that and more.

00:00:40.620 I'm Michael Knowles and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:49.560 Red flags and green conservatives.

00:00:52.160 We've got a whole slew, the whole rainbow of politics today.

00:00:55.500 I want to start with red flag laws because, unfortunately, it seems the president,

00:01:00.540 conservatives in Congress, and obviously the entirety of the far left did not watch my show yesterday.

00:01:06.500 They just didn't listen.

00:01:07.400 I hate to say I told you so, particularly on this topic, but I pointed out yesterday that

00:01:12.420 all of the reaction, particularly on the left, to these two awful shootings over the weekend

00:01:18.620 has been emotivist. It has been grounded in raw emotion.

00:01:24.140 The slander, the temper tantrums, the political attacks that have come out of it have not been

00:01:29.820 grounded in reality, have not been grounded in crime statistics, have not been grounded in

00:01:34.580 legislation that actually would change anything.

00:01:36.960 It is just this raw emotional response.

00:01:39.540 And I feared, as I have seen my fears vindicated, that conservatives, in the desire to be seen

00:01:48.080 as doing something, would allow their emotions to run away with them and embrace gun control laws

00:01:55.380 that would not have stopped the attacks and will not stop future attacks.

00:01:58.820 Turns out I was right. You know, after the last few mass shootings, the conservatives did a pretty

00:02:05.880 good job of thinking with their heads and not just thinking with their overheated emotions.

00:02:11.640 This one was different. I guess it, I don't know why, but for some reason, this one has

00:02:16.500 conservatives backing gun control. So what are the gun control laws that get proposed when there

00:02:21.960 are mass shootings? They always talk about banning assault weapons. And obviously there's no such thing

00:02:26.840 as an assault weapon. All weapons are assault weapons. The term was made up in the 1980s to

00:02:31.920 confuse people who don't understand the difference between an automatic, fully automatic assault rifle,

00:02:37.540 which have been banned in this country for decades, and regular old guns where you pull the trigger

00:02:42.300 once and one bullet comes out, which is true of pistols. It's true of revolvers. It's true of the AR-15

00:02:48.120 and every other rifle in between that you can get in the open market. So they talk about banning

00:02:54.520 assault weapons. I don't think that's really going to go anywhere. I don't think there's an appetite

00:02:58.300 for that. We know that the so-called assault weapons are involved in very, very few shootings

00:03:04.440 per year, very, very few homicides. The vast, vast majority of homicide and suicide of gun deaths per

00:03:12.340 year come from handguns, 22 times, more than 22 times the number of deaths that include rifles of any

00:03:20.980 sort, including the so-called assault weapons. So I think the assault weapons ban is dead on arrival.

00:03:26.860 Then there's the question of banning handguns, which are obviously involved in the vast majority

00:03:31.080 of gun-related deaths per year. That isn't going to happen. Why? Because it's unconstitutional.

00:03:35.420 They tried to ban handguns in DC. That was overturned in the Heller decision. You have a second

00:03:40.060 amendment right to a gun. And if they're not going to ban handguns, then they're not going to address

00:03:45.620 the problem, the problem of gun-related deaths. So then you get to the question of a constitutional

00:03:52.640 amendment, which is what the left really wants. What the left really wants to do is just gut the

00:03:56.940 second amendment, take away your individual right to keep and bear arms, which we've had in this

00:04:01.800 country since the very beginning and since we, which we inherited from English law. I don't think

00:04:07.560 they're going to do that. I don't think there's any support for that, even among many Democrats who

00:04:11.820 represent red states ain't going to happen. So then we get to this legislation, which everybody

00:04:18.080 is endorsing, and that is red flag laws. Why are red flag laws popular? Right now you've got

00:04:26.500 Donald Trump saying that he supports red flag laws. You've got Lindsey Graham saying he supports

00:04:31.340 red flag laws. He's working with Democrat Dick Blumenthal, the guy who lied about his Vietnam

00:04:35.320 war service to endorse red flag laws. Why is this gaining support? It's gaining support because people

00:04:40.880 don't know what it is. It's kind of sounds good. Like all of these pieces of gun control

00:04:46.480 legislation, it sounds good in theory. Yeah, if there are red flags, we don't want that guy to

00:04:50.620 have a gun. And so they're getting behind it also because it hasn't been in the public view for a long

00:04:55.900 time. So people don't know why they're so bad. Right now, 17 states have approved some version of a

00:05:02.600 red flag law. That includes Florida, New York, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, and California. Before the 0.76

00:05:09.620 Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting last year in Broward County at that high school, there were

00:05:14.820 only five states that had these laws. So red flag laws are gaining steam over the past year and they

00:05:20.980 don't work is the trouble. So one of the earliest states to pass a red flag law was Connecticut. They

00:05:25.400 passed red flag laws in 1999. And obviously one of the deadliest mass shootings at a school

00:05:31.120 happened 13 years later at Sandy Hook. Now, what do red flag laws do? They say that if there are red

00:05:40.880 flags in a person's history, you know, their behavior, what they're writing, they're getting

00:05:45.480 in trouble at school, they're posting things on the internet, it's pretty nebulous. Then you can bring

00:05:50.840 that kid before a judge and the judge can deem him incapable of holding a gun and take away his

00:05:57.760 constitutional right to own a gun. In certain states, the parents can haul their kids or family

00:06:02.360 members can haul their crazy uncle, you know, before the judge and say, he shouldn't have his

00:06:06.400 constitutional right to own a gun. And the judge can say, okay, that's fine. And then this is regularly

00:06:10.880 brought back up and this lack of a constitutional right can be extended basically in perpetuity.

00:06:18.100 Why is this so bad? I'm not against taking guns away from crazy people. I don't think crazy people

00:06:23.600 should be able to get guns. And we do have a problem in this country of crazy people getting 0.95

00:06:27.440 guns, but it should be very, very, very difficult to take away someone's right to have a gun. Why?

00:06:34.780 Because the right to own a gun is not the same as the right to drive a car. Driving a car is a

00:06:39.220 privilege. Owning a gun is your civil right. It is your second amendment right. It is right there in

00:06:45.120 the constitution. So how should we make it such that you can take away guns from crazy people? We'll get

00:06:51.240 to that in a second. But first I have to thank our friends over at ancestry.com. And I love

00:06:56.580 ancestry. I have been a longtime client of ancestry and a longtime customer because I love history.

00:07:03.420 I was a history major. My grandfather has spent years and years researching our genealogy and I

00:07:08.140 love it. Do you ever wonder where your family comes from? You can discover more about them and

00:07:11.680 learn more about your history by combining the ancestry DNA test with billions of historical family

00:07:17.920 records. So I've already done my ancestry DNA test. It's very easy. You spit in a little tube,

00:07:22.260 you mail it in, and it tells you all about, all about your background, which is kind of surprising

00:07:27.140 to me. I found out that I'm actually more British than Italian. Big surprise to my swarthy skin and

00:07:32.300 oily hair, but it turns out I'm slightly more British than Italian. The ancestry test is only one part of

00:07:41.100 it because then you can go back and connect it with all of these historical records. I mean,

00:07:46.500 I found out I have four ancestors from the Mayflower. We can trace that all the way back.

00:07:50.860 Ancestors who fought in the American Revolution alongside George Washington, who went to Valley

00:07:55.360 Forge or Bunker Hill. I mean, you can get all this sorts of stuff and it goes back very, very far.

00:08:00.220 They've combined DNA results with over 100 million family trees and billions of records to give you

00:08:07.860 more insight into your genealogy and origins. Only ancestry can tell you such a rich story with unique

00:08:15.320 features that give a more complete picture about the person that is in your tree, the person that

00:08:21.460 you are because of all those people before you. You can find out how your ancestry has become more

00:08:26.680 than just a name and it's very easy to get started. Right now, go to ancestry.com today. You will get

00:08:32.560 20% off your Ancestry DNA kit. That is ancestry.com for 20% off your Ancestry DNA kit. Ancestry.com.

00:08:41.640 Go over there, check it out. You get 20% off and it is super cool. It's like my favorite hobby.

00:08:46.160 Go check it out right now. So I think we should be able to take guns away from crazy people.

00:08:53.400 Totally believe that. Red flag laws are not the way to do it. It should not be the same as taking

00:08:59.960 away someone's right to drive a car. You know, if you get too many speeding tickets, they can take

00:09:06.140 away your driver's license because you don't have a civil right to a driver's license. You don't have a

00:09:09.620 constitutional right to drive a car. So it's easier to take away that right. Guns are different. You

00:09:15.720 have a civil right to a gun. So if we're going to take away people's civil rights, you got to go for

00:09:21.360 it. You got to really go for it. You should basically not be able to take away someone's right to own a

00:09:25.680 gun unless you are willing to throw them in a padded room and lock the door, put them in a straight

00:09:30.620 jacket, take away their right to vote, take away their right to live on their own, take away their right

00:09:35.620 to work and be a part of polite society on their own. I'm fine. I think we should be able to do

00:09:41.680 that. This ties in with the mental health aspect of all of these mass shootings. We don't have a

00:09:46.720 system in this country anymore to lock up crazy people who are a danger to themselves and a danger

00:09:51.500 to others. We should have that. It was very well-intentioned when we got rid of the insane

00:09:56.780 asylums. We got rid of them in large part because of the development of psychiatric drugs whereby people 1.00

00:10:03.560 would take them and they would stop being crazy. They would get even. They would be able to behave

00:10:09.040 in normal society. Trouble is that once they got out of the asylums, they stopped taking the drugs. 0.95

00:10:14.220 They wind up on the street. They wind up a danger to themselves and to others. We went way too far in

00:10:19.840 that direction. Many of the pioneers of closing down the asylums now regret it because we let way 1.00

00:10:23.860 too many people out. We need to make it easier in this country to involuntarily commit people.

00:10:28.460 When you involuntarily commit people, you are taking away their civil rights. But this is not an

00:10:32.880 infringement on their liberty because when you are insane, you are not capable of liberty.

00:10:37.960 You need to be sane in order to access your freedom. Otherwise, you become a slave to passions

00:10:43.720 and into lunacy. What the left wants to do though, they don't want to go all that way. They don't want

00:10:49.960 to follow those ideas to their logical conclusions because they don't really view guns as a civil right.

00:10:55.820 They don't really view your Second Amendment rights as a core civil right. They view it as this

00:11:00.820 unfortunate vestigial part of the constitution and they want to get rid of it. And so they're going

00:11:07.500 to chip away at it slowly and consistently. Don't let them do that. And conservatives shouldn't fall

00:11:13.240 for this. Whether it's the president, whether it's senators, whether it's your rank and file

00:11:17.020 conservative. Fine. You want to do something? That's the quote. You know, do something. Do something to fix

00:11:23.980 the shootings. Do something, even if it won't stop the shootings. Do something like pass red flag laws, 0.92

00:11:29.240 which did not stop the shootings in the states where those laws were passed. Fine. Don't stop

00:11:35.920 halfway though. Don't let them have their cake and eat it too. If you want to take away people's civil

00:11:40.200 rights, take away their civil rights. But don't lie to me and only take away the civil rights you want 0.99

00:11:46.440 to take away, but not all of the others. That doesn't make any sense. It's pretty dangerous. It's

00:11:51.660 unconstitutional. If you want to take away people's civil rights, make a serious argument for it. 0.71

00:11:57.520 They're not going to do it though, because there aren't serious arguments to be made here. The left

00:12:01.400 is not making serious arguments. They're having a temper tantrum. You saw this over the past few

00:12:07.180 days. We talked about it yesterday. It's still going on. Here on MSNBC is MSNBC host Nicole

00:12:12.820 Wallace making her big, this is her big argument about white supremacy and the threat it poses to the 0.94

00:12:18.240 country. Her big argument is that president Trump is talking about exterminating Latinos. Here she 0.99

00:12:25.100 is. Certainly the last Republican president fought for, sought, and, and, and it's not ideal,

00:12:31.440 but had 44% of the Latino vote. It was so politically powerful inside the last Republican

00:12:38.860 administration. President Obama used the power of the presidency to try to pass comprehensive

00:12:43.720 immigration reform with the Latino community, Latino leaders at the table. You don't have a 1.00

00:12:47.940 president, as you said, talking about exterminating Latinos. Do you have that president? Is that the 0.69

00:12:53.020 president you've got? I, could you show me that clip? Hey, control room, show me that clip where

00:12:57.800 Trump talks about exterminating Latinos. Do we have it? Oh, we don't have it because obviously that's 0.85

00:13:02.700 never happened. That is a fever dream inside the ridiculous fantasies of this MSNBC host. So she had 0.96

00:13:09.720 to walk this back. Even MSNBC has a certain level of shame, I guess. And this is her walking it back

00:13:14.620 quote, I misspoke about Trump calling for an extermination of Latinos. My mistake was unintentional

00:13:22.440 and I'm sorry. Trump's constant assault on people of color and his use of the word invasion to describe

00:13:29.720 the flow of immigrants is intentional and constant. Okay. So it's obviously not, not an apology at all.

00:13:38.500 She, in the second part says Trump is a really bad guy and he uses the term invasion to describe an

00:13:43.780 invasion of people. Uh, not people of color, by the way, we're talking about illegal aliens who 0.83

00:13:47.820 actually are invading the country because they're foreign nationals. But I love this first part. I 1.00

00:13:52.120 misspoke about Trump calling for an extermination of Latinos. My mistake was unintentional and I'm 0.83

00:13:57.120 sorry. How many times have you accidentally accused someone of genocide? Does that, is that a

00:14:03.460 regular thing that people do? Sorry. I, you know, it's like a Freudian slip where you say one thing,

00:14:08.780 but you mean your mother and then you accuse her of genocide. No, that's not, that's not how it works.

00:14:13.380 She knew exactly what she was doing. She's not sorry for it. And she's not apologizing for it.

00:14:17.220 That's MSNBC for you. But maybe we should expect that of MSNBC. I mean, that is an hysterical channel

00:14:23.260 where the furthest left numbskulls go on to spread their lies. We should not be able to expect that

00:14:31.240 from presidential candidates and U.S. senators. And yet that's what we got. So Cory Booker,

00:14:36.100 Senator Spartacus, spewing tears of rage, needs to try to get his poll numbers up. And so he's

00:14:41.260 accusing the president of being a white supremacist, a white nationalist, a white bigot, 0.93

00:14:44.960 or whatever, you know, whatever the term du jour is to, to malign your political opponents. 0.58

00:14:50.700 Now, a while ago, Cory Booker was asked on CNN about this white supremacy question. He said,

00:14:57.680 President Trump needs to call out white supremacy. He needs to condemn white supremacy. So what does 0.62

00:15:01.700 President Trump do? He condemns white supremacy. They asked Cory Booker about this. Is that good

00:15:05.760 enough? Of course it is not good enough. Senator Spartacus himself. And for him to fail even to

00:15:11.520 condemn Nazis or even to talk about white supremacy as a problem in this country, to me, that is being

00:15:17.080 complicit in the violence that is happening. Senator, another thing that the president said

00:15:21.180 in his remarks today, I'll read it to you. He said,

00:15:23.820 in one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy. Do you welcome

00:15:31.020 that acknowledgement? No. No, of course I don't. Because what Cory Booker wants is for President

00:15:39.560 Trump to be a Nazi. Because that's his narrative. That's the story he's telling. And it doesn't matter 0.85

00:15:45.080 that President Trump consistently, it seems like every few weeks for the past three years,

00:15:49.360 says, I condemn racism. Racism is evil. Hatred warps the soul. It gnaws away at the soul.

00:15:53.680 It's awful. We're Americans. We share the same blood of patriotism. Where are you going? On and

00:15:58.340 on and on. I mean, we could spend a whole show playing those clips. But in Cory Booker's mind,

00:16:04.200 Trump is a neo-Nazi. So that when Trump says things that contradict that narrative, he hates it. He 0.78

00:16:10.260 doesn't welcome that. He doesn't really want Trump to condemn it at all. Pretty pathetic. But, you know,

00:16:16.560 look, Cory Booker is a desperate presidential candidate who is going nowhere. He's not going to be

00:16:20.880 president. We have the brother of another presidential candidate, Joaquin Castro, who's the

00:16:29.100 brother of Julian Castro. Joaquin Castro is a sitting congressman. And he took it a step further. He's not

00:16:36.340 just running his mouth with these stupid fantasies and these stupid smears. He's actually going out and 1.00

00:16:41.880 nearly doxing his own constituents. This was a tweet. Sad to see so many San Antonians as 2019 0.99

00:16:50.940 maximum donors to Donald Trump. The owner of Bill Miller Barbecue, the owner of Historic Pearl,

00:16:58.300 realtor Phyllis Browning, etc. Their contributions are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic

00:17:05.240 immigrants as invaders. Where to begin? First of all, it just is not true what he said. They're not

00:17:13.160 labeling Hispanic immigrants as invaders. They're labeling foreign nationals who illegally cross into

00:17:18.760 our country as invaders, which they are just by definition. Not Hispanic immigrants. They're not 1.00

00:17:25.660 immigrants. They're foreign nationals. They're illegal aliens. They are invaders. But look at what he's 1.00

00:17:31.720 doing. Because this is really ramping it up. It's not just defaming the president. It's not just

00:17:37.280 hurling a totally vile, unfair attack. It's not just being a hypocrite. On the one hand, calling for 0.99

00:17:42.580 the president to condemn white supremacy. Then the next minute saying you don't welcome his condemning

00:17:47.020 white supremacy. What this is doing now is threatening regular old American citizens, threatening your own

00:17:54.440 constituents. What Joaquin Castro is saying is, hey, it's a nice political donation you got there.

00:18:01.720 Sure would be a shame if I called you a white supremacist for it from my platform, from my

00:18:06.520 taxpayer-funded platform here in the U.S. Congress. He's intimidating people into not donating to

00:18:14.080 Republicans by threatening to not quite dox them. He doesn't quite release their personal information.

00:18:21.280 I mean, just by revealing their identities from that massive national platform, surely their personal

00:18:26.000 information is now going to get out. This is the age of the internet. Everybody's personal

00:18:30.760 information is everywhere. So if you just call attention to somebody from such a big stage as

00:18:34.740 that, that information is going to get out. Functionally, it is the same as doxing. But what

00:18:40.420 a vile, disgusting thing to do. And the Democrats are not backing down. He's, Joaquin Castro is actually

00:18:48.980 doubling down when called out about this on MSNBC.

00:18:51.760 My post was actually a lament. If you look at my language, I said that it's sad that these folks, many of whom

00:18:59.560 are prominent business owners in San Antonio, a city that's about 65 percent Hispanic, their customers, the people

00:19:08.500 that have made them wealthy, their employees, the people that have worked for them for years, many of those folks are

00:19:14.940 Hispanic. And they're giving their money to a guy who's running ads talking about Hispanics invading

00:19:21.040 this country. So it was a lament about all of us go to the restaurants these people own, the businesses

00:19:27.620 that they own. We patronize these places and they're giving this money, their money to this guy who's taking

00:19:33.840 their money and using it to buy Facebook ads, talking about how Hispanics are invading this country 1.00

00:19:39.760 and that there is a cost to that. We saw the cost to that in El Paso over the weekend that people

00:19:47.140 died. It's so disgusting what he's doing. You see, he, the left always does this. This guy doxed his

00:19:54.900 own constituents effectively. He at least exposed to them, shamed them and threatened them, his own

00:20:01.680 constituents. And then when he gets called out on this, he portrays himself as the victim. Oh no,

00:20:08.020 I wasn't shaming them. I wasn't threatening them. I wasn't threatening all the other people who are

00:20:12.800 going to donate to Republicans. I was lamenting. I was just lamenting. It's so sad. Gosh, I hope,

00:20:20.080 I hope no one laments Joaquin Castro's home address. They'd be lamenting it. They'd be lamenting where

00:20:26.540 Joaquin Castro, I hope no one laments like Maxine Waters and says we should go to our political

00:20:30.560 opponents where they live. We should mob them in the streets. We should go where their children sleep. 1.00

00:20:34.340 It's a lament. Okay. You're crying, Joaquin. It's a lament. Okay. And to lie about it, to lie. He's

00:20:41.220 saying that Republicans are calling Hispanics invaders. Not true. He's calling people who

00:20:46.480 invade our country invaders, which they are. So disgusting. What a disgusting man he is. 0.99

00:20:53.360 What a, what a really vile, awful person. You know, for the other clips, for the other guys, 1.00

00:20:59.120 uh, you know, Nicole Wallace or, or even Cory Booker, those attacks are dishonest. They're corrupt 0.95

00:21:06.520 and they're creepy and they're wrong. But, but that attack from Joaquin Castro is so direct because 0.98

00:21:13.900 it's, it's on civilians. It's on his own constituents. It's such a, it's like what the mob does. It's what

00:21:19.340 the gangsters do. It's, it's really awful. It, it demands a response from Republicans. It demands that

00:21:26.500 we get, that, that we engage in some, in some of these dirty tactics too. Hate to do it, but,

00:21:32.340 but it demands that response. What he's doing is a vile attack on his own constituents. He should be,

00:21:36.780 should be censured for it. He should be removed from Congress. He should be ashamed of himself.

00:21:41.940 Other attacks though, have been even more esoteric. And this is where you go from the realm of tragedy

00:21:47.200 to the realm of force. You had the, the former FBI director of counterintelligence

00:21:52.280 come onto MSNBC and he wasn't talking about, he wasn't just totally making up these normal lies of 0.76

00:21:59.880 calling Hispanics invaders and, and calling Trump a white supremacist. He found the hidden esoteric

00:22:05.800 message. So you thought, here's what you thought. You thought that President Trump was condemning white

00:22:11.320 nationalism and white supremacy. You thought that he said, we're going to lower the flag to half-mast

00:22:17.500 because of these tragedies. But what this guy saw, what this MSNBC, former counterintelligence FBI

00:22:25.320 guy saw was the secret, hidden, esoteric Nazism in President Trump's remarks. Take a listen.

00:22:33.480 We have to understand the adversary and the threat we're dealing with. And if we don't understand how

00:22:38.080 they think, we'll never understand how to counter them. So it's a little things and language and

00:22:42.980 messaging that matters. The president said that we will fly our flags at half-mast

00:22:48.100 until August 8th. That's 8-8. Now, I'm not going to imply that he did this deliberately,

00:22:56.140 but I am using it as an example of the ignorance of the adversary that's being demonstrated by the

00:23:01.200 White House. The numbers 8-8 are very significant in neo-Nazi and white supremacy movement.

00:23:06.520 Why? Because the letter H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. And to them, the numbers 8-8 together

00:23:14.520 stand for Heil Hitler. So we're going to be raising the flag back up at dusk on 8-8. No one's thinking 0.88

00:23:23.160 about this. The only true statement he said there is no one's thinking about this. It's the only

00:23:28.640 relevant statement he made. See, President Trump, he's lowering the flags to half-mast, but only

00:23:34.640 to put forward his secret, hidden, esoteric Hitler message. Nowhere, by the way, in this coverage,

00:23:42.260 you'll notice, do people talk about the other mass shooting. So there was one mass shooting in El

00:23:46.480 Paso that was undertaken by an eco-fascist, a radical environmentalist who also was a racial bigot,

00:23:51.980 and they've pinned that one on the right. They're not talking about the shooter in Ohio who was an

00:23:57.140 avowed Elizabeth Warren supporter. How about Joaquin Castro publishes all the names of Elizabeth

00:24:02.600 Warren's donors? Why didn't he do that? Those people are donating to the same person endorsed

00:24:08.560 by the mass shooter in Ohio. Those people are donating to someone who inspired a mass shooter

00:24:14.580 in Ohio. How about they published the list of the names of Media Matters supporters? Look,

00:24:20.360 the guy was reposting a ton of Media Matters tweets. So Media Matters is inspiring mass shooters,

00:24:26.340 right? Let's publish their supporters. Let's publish the people who have ever said anything

00:24:32.040 positive about Antifa. No, they don't talk about that because that's not politically convenient

00:24:35.900 to them. They need to pretend that white supremacy, white supremacist terrorism is the biggest, 0.98

00:24:40.700 biggest problem in the whole country. There were two shootings over the weekend. Half of those 0.99

00:24:45.920 shootings were from radical leftists. That's not part of the conversation. Tucker Carlson came out and,

00:24:51.140 and he unambiguously in his typical Tucker way, came out against the hysteria in blunt terms. He

00:24:57.360 pointed out, there are two attacks. One of them was from leftists. No one's talking about that.

00:25:01.740 He observed that this whole issue of white supremacist terror is being totally singularly

00:25:07.480 harped on by the media to exploit dead Americans for political ends. And he called BS.

00:25:12.400 But the whole thing is a lie. If you were to assemble a list, a hierarchy of concerns,

00:25:19.820 of problems this country faces, where would white supremacy be on the list? Right up there with Russia,

00:25:24.420 probably. It's actually not a real problem in America. The combined membership of every white

00:25:29.780 supremacist organization in this country, would they be able to fit inside a college football stadium?

00:25:34.840 I mean, seriously. This is a country where the average person is getting poorer,

00:25:39.700 where the suicide rate is spiking. White supremacy, that's the problem. This is a hoax, 0.98

00:25:45.280 just like the Russia hoax. It's a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a

00:25:50.780 hold on power. That's exactly what's going on. Now the left, the typical people on the left like

00:25:55.440 Media Matters, who you'll remember is an organization regularly posted about by the mass

00:26:00.520 shooter in Ohio, Media Matters, just reminding you of that. Media Matters is going after Tucker trying

00:26:05.300 to take away his show for saying that the singular focus on white supremacy is the biggest problem

00:26:10.940 in America is a hoax. Well, just look at the numbers. The Guardian out of the UK published an article

00:26:16.380 just a few days ago showing the number of how many people have been killed worldwide over the last eight

00:26:21.120 years in white nationalist linked attacks. Worldwide, not just in the United States. Last eight years.

00:26:28.800 How many people do you think? Give you one guess. Like what are you going to say? 10,000? 5,000? 3,000?

00:26:35.580 2,000? 175 people. Awful. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy. But that's the number. Those are the

00:26:45.120 data. 175 people, less than 22 people per year worldwide killed in white nationalist linked

00:26:50.400 attacks, according to the Guardian. In 2016, there were 45,000 suicides in the United States alone.

00:26:58.800 On average, 22 per year people killed in white nationalist linked attacks worldwide.

00:27:05.260 Just one year, 45,000 people killed themselves in the United States alone. 33,000 annual deaths

00:27:11.140 related to guns in the United States. Each year, between 8,000 and 9,000 gang-related homicides just

00:27:17.220 in the United States. Obviously, what Tucker is saying is empirically true. But the mainstream media

00:27:25.940 are only focusing on that one thing. Media Matters, which I'll remind you, was posted regularly by the

00:27:30.780 Ohio Mass Shooter. Just wanted to remind you of that. Media Matters going after Tucker Carlson. Why?

00:27:36.140 Because Tucker's a white supremacist? Of course not. He's not a white supremacist. Going after Tucker 0.89

00:27:40.460 because he's a white nationalist? Of course not. He's not a white nationalist. They're going after

00:27:45.160 Tucker because Tucker has a big show. And Tucker's got a big platform and a lot of people listen to him.

00:27:49.940 They're going to go after all of us. They already are going after us. They go after Ben Shapiro and call him

00:27:53.620 a neo-Nazi. The guy wears a yarmulke every day. Orthodox Jew. Doesn't matter to them.

00:27:59.780 They use this absolutely outrageous, unfair attack to lump in all right-wingers with an eco-fascist

00:28:07.420 who shot up a mall in El Paso, Texas because he had some political positions that might fall in the

00:28:16.920 right-wing camp. He also had some that certainly fall in the left-wing camp. The El Paso shooter said

00:28:22.040 explicitly, I was not inspired to do this by Donald Trump. I held these views long before

00:28:26.040 Donald Trump. The same group, they lump all of us in. They don't acknowledge that they

00:28:32.360 were retweeted by the shooter in Ohio. The same people. So despicable. So shameless. That's the

00:28:40.580 present left. The future left gets even more farcical. We'll take a little visit down to the

00:28:44.820 Democratic Socialists of America convention in just a little bit. But first, we're going to bring on

00:28:48.760 our pal, the conservative environmentalist Benji Backer. We are going to talk about trade and

00:28:54.540 channel. We got a whole lot to do. We got to take a break though. You are almost out of time

00:28:58.880 to purchase tickets to our backstage live show on August 21st at the incredible Terrace Theater

00:29:03.720 in Long Beach, California. Ben Shapiro, Daily Wire God King, Jeremy Boring, Andrew Klavan, and myself

00:29:08.900 will be chopping up the winners and losers of politics and pop culture. Best of all, we'll be

00:29:13.620 answering your questions from the audience. Tickets are available at dailywire.com slash

00:29:19.060 backstage. And there are still a few VIP tickets available. Not many though. They are really

00:29:24.700 running out. So make sure if you want to get that VIP ticket package, you got to go do it ASAP.

00:29:28.320 That includes premium seating, photos, and meet and greets with each of us and a special gift

00:29:32.020 from Ben, among other things. They are selling fast. Head over to dailywire.com slash backstage.

00:29:37.260 Get yours today. Go to dailywire.com. We'll be right back with a whole lot more.

00:29:43.620 All right. We are joined now by our pal Benji Backer, president of the American Conservation

00:29:56.160 Coalition. We talked about red flag laws at the top of the show. We are going to talk about green 1.00

00:30:01.260 conservatives at the bottom of the show, and maybe Benji will turn me into an environmentalist. I

00:30:06.020 don't think it's going to happen, but hope springs eternal in the human breast. Benji,

00:30:10.480 thank you so much for being here. Hey, it's great to be here. Benji,

00:30:14.060 you are that rare breed of individual. You are the environmentalist conservative.

00:30:19.400 How many of there are you? You're like the only one.

00:30:22.560 That's just not true. I think I would say most conservatives are environmentalists.

00:30:26.960 It's actually really interesting. I go and I speak to conservative groups all the time and what

00:30:31.240 they say, well, I always ask before the, before I get into the speech, who here considers himself

00:30:36.960 an environmentalist? And almost every single person raises their hands. And then I say,

00:30:41.820 who considers themselves an environmentalist in today's terms? Not a single one raises their

00:30:47.920 hands. That's the problem here. The environmental movement has become so politicized that every

00:30:53.380 conservative doesn't feel like they can be a part of the discussion, even though they care about the

00:30:57.520 environment just as much or even more than their leftist counterparts. And I think it's a problem for

00:31:02.160 two reasons. One, you have one side dominating the conversation as a result. And on the flip side,

00:31:08.300 you have conservatives that don't propose policy solutions that aren't engaged as much as the left,

00:31:12.620 even though they care just as much. Right. I think that's a totally fair distinction. And

00:31:16.520 do conservatives care about the environment? Of course we should. It's right there in the word

00:31:20.500 conserve. And I've always considered myself at least a supporter of conservation or concert. But I now

00:31:27.200 think with this modern environmentalist movement, there is a difference between the environmentalists

00:31:32.240 and the conservationists. The conservationists wanting to preserve nature and its beauty for us

00:31:37.480 because we love it so much. And environmentalists who, you know, they hug trees. They think that

00:31:42.420 animals have rights. They seem almost to want to serve the environment rather than to conserve it so

00:31:48.460 that it can serve us. But what is the relationship? Because I think we can all get on board with

00:31:53.620 conservation. What is the relationship between that and global warming, which you see everybody

00:32:00.080 talking about around the world. We're told that we're either all going to die in 14 months or 35

00:32:04.800 years or a hundred months or two years ago. And there seems to be so much alarmism around it that

00:32:09.940 conservatives reflexively pull away from, from that E word environmentalism.

00:32:15.480 Yeah, that's so true. And I actually, uh, as a millennial and, uh, actually I think I'm Gen Z

00:32:19.620 technically, uh, I started wearing a watch recently because I'm like, if we only have 14 months to live,

00:32:24.860 I might as well start counting down the days. Right. Um, but, uh, no, that is the problem is

00:32:30.260 that it's become so politicized because of climate change. And we're told that we have to change our

00:32:35.260 entire lives to fix the problem of global warming or climate change. But what's funny about that is

00:32:41.340 that the science doesn't even say that. If you look at what the UN and every other kind of

00:32:46.680 organization, nonprofit or government agency that's put together climate data says,

00:32:50.760 none of them say that we only have 12 months, 12 years, 15 years to fix this problem. They say

00:32:57.000 that it's a global problem, that we have time to fix it. And it's not going to ruin our lives

00:33:00.820 overnight. Does that mean that we should ignore it? No, but that also doesn't mean that we have to like

00:33:05.020 basically walk to school every day and walk to work every day. Like we are told we have to do.

00:33:10.960 And it, but it's been used as a tool of the left. What we work on is it doesn't really matter if you

00:33:18.660 believe in climate change or not, because at the end of the day, reduced emissions are good for

00:33:23.000 everybody. No one wants pollutants in the air clogging up the atmosphere with smog or whatever

00:33:28.960 the pollutants are. So it's good for everyone to reduce emissions. So no matter if you're a climate

00:33:33.600 skeptic or climate alarmist or anything in between, there is an incentive to reduce emissions. And so I

00:33:39.760 personally believe in climate change. I don't believe that it's going to, you know, end the

00:33:43.060 world in 12 years or that we have only 12 years to fix it. But regardless of where you are on the

00:33:47.820 issue, there is an incentive to reduce emissions. But isn't there a cost to it? I mean, we're,

00:33:51.900 we're constantly told we need, we have these sweeping laws to reduce emissions from automobiles

00:33:58.920 that put new regulations on cars. That's why we get all these like kind of light, modern cars that,

00:34:04.960 you know, aren't gas guzzlers, aren't those cool cars from the seventies. This is a little bit of a

00:34:09.400 hobby horse of mine. And, you know, there's obviously a cost to the economy. There are a lot

00:34:13.600 of proposals like cap and trade for, for example, and others to, that would weigh on business, would

00:34:18.680 weigh on the economy. So if we're not certain that it's going to kill us all, if we're not certain

00:34:22.720 what the effect of these policies is going to be, if the majority of, of pollution is coming out of

00:34:30.400 emerging economies, like in China, for instance, if, even if the United States radically transformed

00:34:35.940 its economy, wouldn't do a whole lot on the global scale. I mean, you saw those reports out of the

00:34:41.160 Paris climate accord that, that even if everyone signed on, it would only reduce global, the global

00:34:46.440 mean temperature at a fraction of a degree over a hundred years. Then what is the end goal? Because

00:34:53.280 this, this, the whole issue just seems so blurry to me. No one can tell me what it's going to look

00:34:57.400 like if we do nothing. No one can tell me what the cost of the emissions is going to be.

00:35:02.700 Specifically, what do we want? So on the, on the first part of that, it is not impossible to reduce

00:35:09.900 emissions, uh, without, or it's not impossible to reduce emissions without growing the size of

00:35:14.600 government because you, you even look at clean energy today and like Texas is number two in wind

00:35:21.240 power in the country, which most people don't know because they think Texas is just the devil state if

00:35:25.340 they're an environmentalist probably. But at the end of the day, it's becoming cheaper and more cost

00:35:30.160 efficient to use nuclear wind, uh, you know, hydro and, and, and solar, which are clean energy

00:35:37.400 sources. And so that's taking emissions out of the air and it's actually more cost effective.

00:35:41.380 So you've got companies across the country that are switching to a hundred percent clean energy

00:35:45.160 and they're reducing their emissions as a company because it's cheaper and because it helps the

00:35:50.340 environment at the same time. So those two things don't have to, the economy, the environment

00:35:54.300 don't have to conflict, despite what the left says, they definitely do not have to. But at the

00:36:00.080 same time, what we need to do is in the United States, we lead the globe on pretty much every

00:36:05.440 issue, um, within history. And so if you look at what we can do on climate change and reducing

00:36:10.840 emissions, we can use an all the above energy approach and figure out new technology and

00:36:16.080 innovation. There's this thing called carbon capture, which takes carbon out of the atmosphere

00:36:20.060 and reuses it for products, uh, which is really, really cool. And those are the types of things

00:36:24.500 that we can give to other nations like China and India. If we switch to wind and solar overnight,

00:36:29.820 like the green new deal wants us to do, none of those countries would be able to do that.

00:36:33.860 And you're right. It would just be a shot in the dark. But if we do something in the United States,

00:36:38.220 like we're already doing leading the world in emissions reductions, if we continue doing that

00:36:42.780 and we're able to transfer our technology and our innovation to other countries who are still

00:36:47.980 using traditional energy sources, that's the way to curb climate change. And that's the way that

00:36:52.560 the left won't talk about it. Well, fortunately, China already steals all of our technology. So 0.89

00:36:56.760 they've, they've probably already stolen our carbon capture, whether or not they'll implement

00:37:00.260 it. I'm, I'm a little skeptical because there's this other side of it, which is we do lead the world

00:37:06.120 and we, we also lead the world in protecting the environment. You know, we pulled out of that

00:37:10.080 Paris climate accord. And then the report came out that in 2017, we actually led those signatories

00:37:17.260 in reducing carbon emissions. Well, the signatories to it, not only didn't lower their emissions,

00:37:21.820 they actually increased their carbon emissions. So do we need these big multinational, you know,

00:37:29.220 virtue signaling accords to fix the environment? Or is this more of a local thing starting with the

00:37:35.420 man in the mirror, just saying, we're going to implement this technology because we want to

00:37:39.340 protect our lovely, beautiful environment. I think, I think the latter and what people don't

00:37:44.320 understand in the, in oftentimes within this community is that every country is in a different

00:37:49.100 place. China's in a different place than we are. Europe is in a different place than we are. You

00:37:53.140 can't create a multinational agreement and just put everybody into the same box. It's like common core

00:37:57.980 on steroids. So what it comes down to is the opportunity for us as a country to show what we can

00:38:05.240 do with what we have and, and showcase that to other countries. And we're already doing that.

00:38:09.620 Like you mentioned, seven out of the last 10 years, we have led the world in emissions reduction. We

00:38:15.760 haven't done that because of a Paris Accords. We haven't done that because of a carbon tax. We

00:38:19.040 haven't done that because of cap and trade. We've done that because of innovation and technology. Does

00:38:23.460 that mean we're done? And that we should stop caring about the environment that we don't have

00:38:26.500 work to do? No, it doesn't mean any of that. But it shows that we're on the right track. And it also

00:38:31.360 shows that when you take an approach where you're looking at your own government and your own

00:38:36.560 economy first, and you're looking at how you can improve that, that is the best way to go forward

00:38:41.340 on every environmental protection. And that's why state parks, for example, are way more, way better

00:38:46.380 managed than national parks. When you get it lower down, as we know, as limited government

00:38:51.100 conservatives, it oftentimes is a lot better. And that's the same thing on the environment. A

00:38:55.600 multinational agreement is way less effective than the United States doing its own actions. State actions

00:39:00.500 are even more efficient. That's just how it goes within the environmental community. But again,

00:39:04.860 that's just something that's not talked about. Yeah, that's an absolutely correct point. Speaking

00:39:09.340 of that issue being talked about, where can people find you? Yeah, so we are a nonprofit focused on

00:39:14.920 these issues, trying to build the grassroots of the environmental community within the conservative

00:39:19.480 community. It's acc.eco. So instead of .com, it's .eco, acc.eco. And if you're conservative or

00:39:26.580 libertarian or moderate who cares about the environment, we're the home for you. I like that, acc.eco.

00:39:31.800 I want a .eco website. That seems very cool. Michaelknolls.eco. Michaelknolls.eco. I wanted

00:39:36.940 to stand for economics though, baby. Give me all that sweet, sweet money. You can make it whatever 0.84

00:39:41.300 you want. And then I guess I could be a green Republican too. Benji, thank you so much for

00:39:47.540 being here, man. We got to let you go. But check it out, acc.eco. I also follow you on Twitter.

00:39:52.420 Always love your tweets. So check them out there, Benji Backer. Benji, we'll talk to you soon.

00:39:57.600 Appreciate it. Thanks.

00:39:58.340 All right. Speaking of China, by the way, before we get to these wacky socialists in America,

00:40:03.120 I do want to point out, we mentioned the escalating trade war with China yesterday.

00:40:08.960 CNN has a headline today, which shockingly is correct. And I know, you know, look, a broken

00:40:14.960 clock twice a day is right. CNN points out today that China has a $1.1 trillion weapon in trade right 0.96

00:40:21.340 now that they may or may not use. I hope they don't use it, but they very well might. And that $1.1

00:40:27.000 trillion weapon is, they buy up our debt. And so they buy up all of our debt. They are America's

00:40:35.100 biggest creditor. So in theory, if China wanted to, they could trigger a panic in bond markets

00:40:41.420 by dumping some of their US treasuries that they have.

00:40:44.140 I've mentioned this just to remind people that trade is a much bigger issue than partisans and

00:40:51.940 ideologues on both sides are trying to make it out to be. There's some people who say free trade

00:40:56.000 all the time, no argument for tariffs, no argument to keep manufacturing in your own country. And then

00:41:01.320 there are some, uh, some people on the other side who are, who have been saying for years and years,

00:41:07.120 we need, we only need economic protection. We got to keep our jobs here. We got to,

00:41:10.680 we don't need to trade with the rest of the world. We, you know, I think unfortunately the camp in,

00:41:15.640 in the primary camp is the larger one, but it's much more complicated than that.

00:41:20.720 You know, if tariffs are always evil, why does everybody have them?

00:41:24.480 If a trade war with China is just invariably terrible, are there other costs? Are there,

00:41:32.420 you know, why would China buy up all of our debt? Why does China want all of this manufacturing?

00:41:36.440 Why does China devalue its currency to increase their trade deficit or their trade surplus rather?

00:41:42.700 If trade deficits and trade surpluses don't matter, why has China made such a concerted effort

00:41:47.260 to exacerbate that trade deficit? Obviously this is much more complicated and involves a lot more

00:41:54.280 than cheap Chinese goods. We all want cheap goods. We all as consumers want cheap goods,

00:41:59.200 but there is more to life. There is more to the economy. There is more to politics than consumerism.

00:42:04.660 So I don't think, I mean, just to remind you a little bit of the timeline here,

00:42:11.280 China has been, since 2001, since it entered the World Trade Organization,

00:42:15.800 they have been breaking the law. They have been illegally subsidizing their steel and aluminum.

00:42:19.860 They've been stealing our intellectual property. They've been levying hidden taxes on U.S. companies

00:42:24.500 by forcing those companies to work with local banks there that add no value. They just simply

00:42:30.120 take money. It's just an extortion racket. They have been spying on us, putting spyware in our

00:42:36.700 technology, and they've been illegally manipulating their currency to exacerbate that trade deficit and

00:42:41.900 to keep the exports flowing out of China. We now responded to that under President Trump,

00:42:47.680 first time we've gotten serious on it in a long time, by levying tariffs and then just this week by the

00:42:54.500 Treasury Department labeling China a currency manipulator. Now we're going to see what China

00:42:59.180 is going to do for that. Are they going to back down or are they going to go really hard? Are they

00:43:02.800 going to, say, sell off their U.S. Treasuries? A sell off of their, I don't think the sell off of

00:43:06.940 U.S. Treasuries is going to happen because it would undermine China's desire to attract foreign

00:43:11.240 investment. But all of this is to say, we are in a trade war that has been a long time coming.

00:43:17.720 It is not avoidable. It is not just the stupidity of President Trump or the inability of President 1.00

00:43:24.260 Trump to understand the wonders of free trade. We don't currently have a legal free trade 1.00

00:43:29.920 relationship with China. This has been building for almost two decades. Trump is finally doing

00:43:34.920 something about it. We should gear up. We should buckle up because it has to happen for the long-term

00:43:39.100 health of the United States. Speaking of crazy socialists, not just in China, but in the United

00:43:43.640 States, you know, you look around at the present left, the candidates running for president and the 0.87

00:43:49.520 people on television and you think, gosh, this is pretty bad. Because I am both an optimist and a

00:43:56.840 pessimist, I want to tell everybody who thinks things couldn't get any worse, oh yes, they can.

00:44:04.080 Looking at our universities, looking at the young activists, looking at the democratic socialists of

00:44:09.040 America, things are going to get a whole lot wackier. Just take a little glimpse at the grievances that

00:44:15.460 the DSA is having at their national convention. Quick point of privilege once again. Hi, James

00:44:20.820 Jackson, Sacramento DSA, he, him. I have already asked people to be mindful of the chatter of their

00:44:27.020 comrades who are sensitive to sensory overload. And that goes double for the heckling and the hissing.

00:44:32.840 It is also triggering to my anxiety. Like the be comradely doesn't just, isn't just for like,

00:44:38.940 you know, let's keep things civil or whatever. It's so that people aren't going to get triggered

00:44:42.600 and so that it doesn't affect their performance as a delegate. Okay. Your need to express yourself

00:44:47.680 is important, but your need to express yourself should not Trump or over like, I can't wait until

00:44:54.460 that guy's a Congressman. Congressman trigger the Democrat representing, I don't know, probably AOC's

00:44:59.900 district in about 10 or 20 years. There are going to be a lot of rules too. I mean, they could barely

00:45:04.860 even get started with all the triggering comments because of all the rules. Just let, just a little

00:45:09.260 glimpse of some of the regulations the DSA imposes on their own conference. We have quiet rooms that

00:45:14.880 are available. There's a range of options of these, right? One thing to note there, please don't go into

00:45:19.280 that space with anything that's like an aggressive scent, for instance, right? First and foremost,

00:45:24.560 use the proper doors. Don't try and exit through these or any other sort of like fun shortcuts you

00:45:31.520 see. Um, you have to have your credentials at all times. There are, um, right-wing infiltrators who are

00:45:36.560 trying to get in here. Um, and generally, uh, try to be chill, right? Take a deep breath.

00:45:44.480 Can I feel better? Before you say anything. Please don't tweet photos of your credentials. If you have

00:45:50.700 friends here that you would like to be here and they don't have credentials, don't let them in. 0.99

00:45:54.700 Don't make exceptions for those people. Don't really talk to anybody who doesn't have a pretend

00:46:00.120 credential, especially if they claim to be from the press. Please do not talk to anybody who identifies

00:46:04.840 themselves as a member of the press. Don't talk to cops. Don't talk to MAGA. Don't talk to cops if

00:46:12.300 there are cops there for any reason at all, right? If you do see someone talking to cops, uh, let the

00:46:18.720 marshals know. Okay. I, did you get all that? Did you get all the things you, you cannot do?

00:46:27.020 You can't do it. That's going to be the democratic socialists of America. You can't do that. That's

00:46:32.260 going to be their campaign slogan. Get used to it, folks. I mean, we should enjoy the glory days of

00:46:35.800 right now when they're just trying to take away our, our cars and our airplanes and our cows and our

00:46:40.620 houses, because these guys, AOC is moderate compared to the future democratic socialists of America.

00:46:46.580 Gear up for the end of our politics. Okay. That's our show. We got a lot more to get to,

00:46:51.520 but we'll do it tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles

00:46:54.580 Show. See you then.

00:46:55.460 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Rebecca Dobkowitz, director Mike Joyner, executive producer

00:47:06.520 Jeremy Boring. Our senior producer is Jonathan Hay, supervising producer Mathis Glover, technical

00:47:12.660 producer Austin Stevens, editor Danny D'Amico. Our audio mixer is Mike Coromina, hair and makeup by

00:47:19.280 Jesua Olvera, production assistant Nick Sheehan. The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production,

00:47:24.420 copyright Daily Wire, 2019.

00:47:26.360 Hey guys, over on the Matt Wall Show today, as we rush headlong into social unrest and, and worse,

00:47:31.560 there are people who seem to be trying to speed up the process. We'll discuss that. Also,

00:47:35.680 a white supremacist attacked me for opposing white supremacy. And so I will respond to that stupid 1.00

00:47:41.500 bigot today. And feminists are concerned that women don't talk enough. Is that really a problem 1.00

00:47:47.400 in this culture of ours? I don't think so, but we'll try to get to the bottom of that today too,

00:47:52.300 on the Matt Wall Show.

The Michael Knowles Show - August 07, 2019

Ep. 394 - Red Flags All Around

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript