Ep. 401 - Save The Planet： Don’t Recycle
Episode Stats
Words per minute
183.0943
Harmful content
Misogyny
9
sentences flagged
Toxicity
37
sentences flagged
Hate speech
10
sentences flagged
Summary
The San Francisco Airport has officially banned plastic water bottles. Then, Joe Biden releases his first televised campaign ad. Finally, a new study published in an influential journal may have just confirmed 75 years of kooky, cranky, far-right conspiracy theories.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Did you know that over 85% of grass-fed beef sold in U.S. grocery stores is imported?
00:00:05.260
That's why I buy all my meat from GoodRanchers.com instead.
00:00:08.900
Good Ranchers products are 100% born, raised, and harvested right here in the USA from local family farms.
00:00:14.600
Plus, there's no antibiotics ever, no added hormones, and no seed oils.
00:00:21.280
Best of all, Good Ranchers delivers straight to your door for added convenience.
00:00:24.760
So lock in a secure supply of American meat today.
00:00:26.980
Subscribe now at GoodRanchers.com and get free meat for life and $40 off with code DAILYWIRE.
00:00:32.400
That's $40 off and free meat for life with code DAILYWIRE.
00:00:37.640
The San Francisco airport has officially banned plastic water bottles.
00:00:42.500
In a city teeming with human feces and used syringes, hydration for travelers is officially a bridge too far.
00:00:50.540
Ironically, a number of studies show the ever-multiplying environmental regulations not only don't help the environment,
00:00:59.100
We will examine the real purpose behind the rules.
00:01:02.500
Then, Joe Biden releases his first televised campaign ad, and the title is absolutely hilarious and completely oblivious.
00:01:12.220
Finally, a new study published in an influential journal may have just confirmed 75 years of kooky, cranky, far-right conspiracy theories.
00:01:23.380
I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:01:33.620
Thank goodness I have my reusable leftist tears tumbler.
00:01:37.500
Otherwise, I think the police would come in and arrest me.
00:01:41.360
I think it would be a capital offense if I had a reusable water bottle here.
00:01:45.200
But the leftist tears tumbler is there to protect you at all times from the floods of leftist tears and from the increasing environmental regulations.
00:01:53.420
We'll get to these nonsense regulations and what they really mean, because they are certainly not about protecting the environment.
00:01:59.460
But first, let me tell you why I feel so good, why I wake up so refreshed, and that would be bowl and branch.
00:02:09.260
Everything they make from bedding to blankets is made from pure, 100% organic cotton.
00:02:14.740
That means they start out super soft, and they get even softer over time.
00:02:19.100
And what you do is you buy directly from them so that you are essentially paying wholesale prices.
00:02:24.220
One of the perks of my job is that on occasion, on a handful of times, I've gotten to stay at really, really nice hotels.
00:02:32.080
When I pay for my own hotels, I'm usually at the one on the side of the highway that costs 20 bucks a night.
00:02:37.220
But on occasion, I've gotten to stay at some really, really nice ones.
00:02:40.420
And one of the best aspects of the really nice hotels is the bedding.
00:02:47.860
First time I slept on one, I thought, I need to get these sheets.
00:02:50.560
When you try to buy luxury sheets, they can cost up to $1,000 in the store.
00:02:57.040
But bowl and branch sheets are only a couple hundred bucks.
00:02:59.580
The way they do it is they cut out the middle man.
00:03:01.900
They can go straight to you, and they are absolutely incredible.
00:03:06.300
I give them out as gifts to my friends and family.
00:03:12.700
If you want to get me a present, I don't know, Christmas is coming up in like, what, five or six months.
00:03:21.040
If you don't love them, send them back for a refund.
00:03:25.820
There is no risk, no reason to not give them a try.
00:03:31.200
Right now, my listeners get $50 off your first set of sheets.
00:03:41.720
Go to B-O-L-L and branch.com, promo code Michael, M-I-C-H-A-E-L.
00:03:48.260
That's the only way to get your 50 bucks off your first set of sheets.
00:03:53.720
We have got to talk about something that's not as comfortable, that's not as convenient,
0.95
00:04:00.420
that's not as luxurious, and that is all these stupid environmental regulations that
0.99
00:04:05.360
San Francisco airport has officially banned plastic water bottles.
00:04:12.120
This is the great political issue of our day, not open borders, immigration, economic turmoil,
00:04:26.080
This new regulation comes three years after California banned single-use plastic grocery
00:04:35.500
The earth was hurtling toward Armageddon, but then we got rid of single-use plastic grocery
00:04:43.000
This, of course, all comes at the same time that we cannot get plastic drinking straws any
00:04:52.100
We've gotten rid of the plastic drinking straws.
00:04:58.220
You can shoot heroin in the streets of San Francisco outside of an elementary school, and
00:05:07.660
But if you sip your iced coffee out of a plastic drinking straw, that is nearly a capital offense,
00:05:16.380
I think they're increasing the severity of that crime.
1.00
00:05:20.900
This plastic water bottle ban is incredibly stupid, and it's not just stupid because it
1.00
00:05:30.540
It's stupid because the purpose isn't to help the environment.
0.97
00:05:34.540
The purpose is just to harm you, like all of these other regulations and bans.
1.00
00:05:46.940
In San Francisco airport now, the ban is only affecting water bottles.
00:05:52.400
But you know, you go into the store at the airport or any deli or any convenience store,
00:05:58.700
They sell soda bottles, iced tea bottles, Gatorade, juice drinks, all these different kinds
00:06:03.980
All of those are fine at San Francisco airport.
00:06:15.540
One time I flew to New York for a bachelor party, so I was already a little dehydrated.
00:06:19.100
I get on the airplane, and I forgot that travel dehydrates you.
00:06:22.240
I felt like I was in the middle of the Sahara desert.
00:06:24.980
Men lose up to half a gallon of water from their bodies during a 10-hour flight.
00:06:33.580
And you are also not allowed to bring any liquid past security in airports.
00:06:43.160
I guess you could bring, I don't know, a metallic water bottle or a reusable water bottle that's
00:06:48.260
empty through security and then go to the one water fountain somewhere in the airport
00:06:53.640
or you can go into the airport bathroom and fill up your water bottle.
00:07:09.380
So three years ago in California, other states have followed suit.
00:07:12.320
But in 2016 in California, they banned single-use plastic grocery bags.
00:07:21.860
And when they did that, New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, he declared that the ban would
00:07:27.120
quote, help reduce the litter in our communities, protect our water, and create a cleaner and
00:07:43.180
We haven't seen the effect in New York yet because it just happened.
00:07:46.860
But in California, the ban actually caused more plastic pollution.
00:07:53.300
There was a study out of the University of Sydney that showed that the ban on the single-use,
00:07:57.740
little, thin, nothing plastic grocery bags led to a massive increase in the sale of thicker,
00:08:04.020
more environmentally damaging plastic garbage bags.
00:08:09.100
So, you know, the kind you line your garbage with at home.
0.86
00:08:13.360
What is the relationship between grocery bags and garbage bags that none of these economists
00:08:17.680
or none of these regulators or none of these environmental activists could have thought of?
00:08:23.980
Back in the good old days when we had plastic grocery bags, you would go, you'd get all
00:08:27.360
your groceries, and then you'd save your plastic grocery bags, right?
00:08:30.940
And if you're anything like my family, you'd save like 300 of them.
00:08:34.340
You'd never use as many as you actually got, so you just have them in a pantry somewhere.
00:08:39.080
You would slowly use them, and the way you would use them is to line your small little
00:08:48.360
It was, it was actually an organic way to recycle.
00:08:52.600
Because you got these bags, you don't want to go out and buy new garbage bags.
00:08:58.580
Throw your trash away, put that in the trash, throw it out, you're good to go.
00:09:00.940
Now that you can't do that, now that those bags don't exist, people have to line their
00:09:07.780
trash bins somehow, so they're going out there buying much more environmentally damaging
00:09:12.600
Well, at least it's better as far as the grocery bags themselves are concerned, right?
00:09:18.500
Another study showed that paper bags, which is what replaced the single-use plastic bags,
00:09:23.120
are actually worse for the environment than the single-use plastic bags.
00:09:28.160
Britain's environmental agency showed in 2011, that far back, eight years ago, that you would
00:09:33.880
have to reuse a paper bag, a paper grocery bag, three times if you wanted to bring its
00:09:39.480
environmental impact down to the level of a single-use plastic bag.
00:09:49.940
Ironically, you do reuse the environmentally pretty fine plastic bags, but you don't reuse
00:09:58.100
So they're actually much worse for the environment.
00:10:01.260
It takes a lot more energy to make the paper bags.
00:10:08.480
And in all of that energy and all of that time, you could have just made that single-use,
00:10:17.140
Okay, then, Michael, you conservative, you anti-environmentalist.
00:10:27.820
I know the way that we can save the environment, right?
00:10:32.080
It's what, at the grocery store checkout, what they tell you.
00:10:42.480
That's when you really want to protect the planet from global warming.
00:10:46.120
All the most liberal people you know have those bags.
00:10:52.040
No, that's the worst for the environment of all.
00:10:54.920
A headline from Quartz came out just this past April.
00:10:59.380
Quote, your cotton tote is pretty much the worst replacement for a plastic bag.
00:11:09.300
2018 study from Denmark's Ministry of Environment and Food found that cotton shopping bags need
00:11:18.560
So if you want to bring the paper bag down to the environmental impact level of a plastic bag,
00:11:26.880
Do you know how many times you got to reuse a cotton shopping bag?
00:11:35.800
I'm not going to go to the grocery store 20,000 times in my life.
00:11:39.520
I go like twice a year anyway, but you're not going to do it.
00:11:42.420
And really what people do is they buy the bags and they use them one or two times and
00:11:45.380
they forget about them and then they lose them somewhere.
00:11:51.560
How many times are you going to repeat that cycle?
00:11:55.140
You're going to have to reuse these bags like 200,000 times before you can bring the environmental
00:12:10.160
What is the best way to protect the environment in your grocery shopping endeavors?
00:12:22.560
Now, okay, maybe the environmentalists just got it wrong.
00:12:25.300
They, look, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
00:12:33.540
Are they saying, oh gosh, we got to ban those cotton bags.
00:12:37.300
No, of course not because it's not about protecting the environment.
00:12:44.180
This is a big difference between conservationism and environmentalism.
00:12:51.100
Conservation, Teddy Roosevelt loved conservation, right?
00:12:55.140
It's where we protect the natural environment because we like it.
00:13:01.880
We want to protect all the deer so that we can go out and hunt and kill the deer and then
00:13:12.340
And in environmentalism, it is no longer the idea that we're preserving the environment
00:13:24.100
And the environment is this beautiful quasi-divine deity, I guess.
0.81
00:13:34.200
We need to save the earth as though the earth could be saved.
00:13:39.660
This religion of environmentalism has taken the place of traditional religion.
00:13:55.380
It offers Armageddon in global warming, which is going to kill us in 14 months or 12 months
00:13:59.960
or 10 months or 12 years or 35 years or whatever it is now.
00:14:03.060
It even offers the sale of indulgences in the form of carbon tax credits.
00:14:13.200
And as traditional religious observance has waned, environmentalism, among other leftist
00:14:23.040
You see this perhaps most clearly, not even just in the United States with the plastic water
00:14:36.320
A 34-year-old mother of three put her recycling in the wrong color bag.
1.00
00:14:44.140
So, you know, here we have black bags for trash or white bags for trash, and then we have blue
00:14:50.520
And she went to her borough council to get the correct bags to be used for recycling, and
00:14:58.200
So then she got permission to use the black bag, which is usually for trash, for her recycling.
00:15:04.820
She's still separating it and putting her recycling out there.
1.00
00:15:11.820
She was arrested and thrown in jail for still recycling, but not recycling in the correct color bag.
00:15:23.800
They found her on a closed circuit TV camera putting out the wrong color bag on the day for the recycling.
0.88
00:15:30.740
So they arrested her and threw her in jail.
0.99
00:15:35.020
The color of the bags in no way affects the environment, right?
00:15:40.060
But it does affect the moral dictates of the Church of Environmentalism.
00:15:44.620
Also in the UK, completely on the other side of this, the country's most prominent environmental
00:15:50.660
activists, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, just flew on a private jet to stay with their
00:16:00.460
This was their fourth trip on a private jet in 11 days.
00:16:06.460
They can fly on as many private jets as they want, except at the exact same time, just last
00:16:10.920
month, Harry and Meghan posted on Instagram about how important it is to protect the environment.
00:16:16.180
This is the post, quote, as a continuation of our monthly social awareness approach to
00:16:21.680
shine a light on the accounts that are working toward positive change.
00:16:24.920
For the month of July, we turn our attention to the environment.
00:16:28.020
There is a ticking clock to protect our environment with climate change, the deterioration of our
00:16:33.480
natural resources, endangerment of sacred wildlife, sacred, like we're worshiping the wildlife.
00:16:40.040
The impact of plastics and microplastics and fossil fuel emissions, you know, like the
00:16:50.220
We are jeopardizing this beautiful place we call home for ourselves and for future generations.
00:16:59.860
Now, you could say it was just some staffer at the palace posting that Harry and Meghan didn't
00:17:07.900
They don't, they're not really that intense about the environmental thing.
0.55
00:17:12.880
They're, they're just caught up in, in the royal family.
0.84
00:17:17.260
The Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry, gives a quote, quote, environmental damage has been treated as a
00:17:26.420
So deeply ingrained is this thinking that it has been considered part of the natural order that
00:17:31.300
humankind's development comes at the expense of our planet.
00:17:34.060
Only now are we starting to notice and understand the damage that we've been causing.
00:17:38.960
With nearly 7.7 billion people inhabiting this earth, every choice, every footprint, every action
00:17:46.620
Please visit the accounts we're following this month to figure out how you can create change
00:17:52.700
We can only do this together and every little bit helps.
00:17:58.160
Every footprint, every action makes a difference.
00:18:01.660
Except for private jets, four times in 11 days.
00:18:07.220
You see, economic growth is not worth environmental degradation.
00:18:11.560
A trip to Uncle Elton's house in Nice, that is worth environmental degradation, but not economic
00:18:16.580
Because economic growth just affects like all those poor people, all those common people.
00:18:22.520
It doesn't look as good on an Instagram post when you're the prince.
0.86
00:18:30.600
This is the same as any other sort of religious hypocrisy.
0.91
00:18:33.360
The guy who sits in the front pew at church on Sunday and then he spends Monday through Saturday
0.99
00:18:38.620
boozing and gambling and womanizing and lying and cheating.
00:18:41.340
It's not just failing to live up to one's own standards, which we all do.
00:18:49.100
That's not an argument against having standards.
00:18:51.600
It's not just like Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and these other leftist environmentalists
00:18:56.680
who take private jets everywhere, you know, Leo DiCaprio or somebody.
00:18:59.900
It's not just that they're failing to live up to their own standards.
00:19:03.320
It's not just that they're failing to live according to their ideology.
00:19:14.680
They're just pretending to believe it to conform to what has become the new secular moral order,
00:19:22.900
They want you to pretend to care about nature and then not do anything to protect it.
00:19:28.460
But you got to pretend because we need a moral order and in a secular atheistic society,
00:19:36.980
I think you should stop virtue signaling on the environment.
00:19:39.880
I think you should not yammer on about the environment and post about it on Instagram.
00:19:43.680
And then you should protect the natural environment because it's nice and I like beautiful things.
00:19:48.740
And by the way, if you want to protect the natural environment,
00:20:00.680
2020 is, I've got to move away from the environment.
00:20:03.440
I'm getting too wrapped up here in saving the earth by constantly using plastic grocery bags.
00:20:09.260
So we've got to move on to 2020, which it won't matter if we save the planet anyway
00:20:13.100
because our country is going to be in ashes if the Democrats win.
00:20:16.140
Joe Biden has released his first TV ad and you could not have possibly scripted this ad any better.
00:20:24.720
Joe Biden, the 76-year-old doddering candidate in the race who can't even remember his own URL for his campaign website,
00:20:39.600
We know in our bones this election is different.
00:20:48.420
we feel it in our bones that this election is different.
00:20:52.460
I feel it in my bones because I don't have anything else to feel.
00:21:09.140
I just, it's like this classic thing with Biden.
00:21:18.720
I mean, he's, he's an old guy, but just, you know, if you're writing this,
00:21:21.280
if it's going through all the different stages of production, post-production, it's being released.
00:21:31.640
It just reminds people that you are a thousand years old.
00:21:35.000
The stakes are higher, the threat more serious.
00:21:42.040
And all the polls agree Joe Biden is the strongest Democrat to do the job.
00:21:48.480
For eight years, President Obama and Vice President Biden were an administration America could be proud of.
00:21:54.700
Our allies could trust and our kids could look up to.
00:21:57.540
Together, they work to save the American economy, to pass the historic Affordable Care Act,
00:22:03.240
protecting over 100 million Americans with pre-existing conditions.
00:22:07.300
Now, Joe Biden is running for president with a plan for America's future.
00:22:14.020
To make a record investment in America's schools.
00:22:20.520
Most of all, he'll restore the soul of the nation.
00:22:23.200
Biden, battered by an erratic, vicious, bullying president.
00:22:35.640
Because it's not a great ad, but I think it's signaling that the Biden campaign is moving closer to the right direction.
00:22:43.800
There are four parts to this ad, other than him talking about how he feels aches in his bones,
00:22:57.100
So, this is how he launched his presidential campaign.
0.99
00:23:00.820
The first lines out of his mouth in his announcement video were perpetuating that Charlottesville hoax
00:23:08.380
that President Trump called neo-Nazis and white supremacists very fine people.
00:23:12.100
Even though you can see in the video footage, Trump explicitly condemns the neo-Nazis and the white supremacists.
00:23:22.960
You see the images from Charlottesville and the tiki torches and the white supremacists saying Trump is a racist.
0.97
00:23:29.920
The next part of the ad is Biden is the most electable.
00:23:34.260
This is the, probably the weakest part of the whole ad in terms of the Democratic electorate.
00:23:44.280
Hillary's argument in 2016 was vote for Hillary.
1.00
00:23:49.860
Don't vote for that other guy who played guitar on The View.
00:23:54.820
I mean, don't vote for any of the other candidates who wanted to get into the race, but didn't because Hillary was the inevitable electable candidate, actually including Joe Biden.
00:24:07.500
So I don't think the electability argument is really going to work.
00:24:18.100
Actually, one of the arguments against Barack Obama in 2008 and for Hillary Clinton was Hillary is the electable candidate and America's never going to elect a guy named Barack Hussein Obama to be the president.
00:24:36.520
We obviously were just fighting a war against a man named Saddam Hussein.
00:24:43.560
He did get elected because he actually offered a vision.
00:24:51.600
But he offered something that Hillary Clinton did not.
00:24:54.580
And Joe Biden is falling into this trap of just vote for me.
00:24:58.160
You're only the most electable if you get elected, buddy.
00:25:04.940
One poll has him tied with Elizabeth Warren at this point statistically.
00:25:08.140
And he keeps dropping as other candidates keep rising.
00:25:12.020
Then the third part of his ad is pretty good, which is he's tying himself to Obama.
00:25:17.160
It's a tough play because Obama is sort of passe now in the Democratic Party.
00:25:22.760
But if Obama comes out and endorses Biden, that would be a huge help to Biden.
00:25:26.800
Obama hasn't done it yet, but Biden should keep sucking up and try to get him to do it.
00:25:32.400
At this point, she might be more popular than her husband.
00:25:37.920
If he could try to get her support, that would be very helpful.
00:25:39.920
Tying him himself to Obama's legacy is probably a good idea in any circumstance.
00:25:45.860
But it's especially an important idea in this circumstance because what else does he have?
00:25:52.660
He didn't accomplish anything in the Senate other than hold up the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991
00:26:01.140
It was a very good crime bill, but he's got to run away from that aspect of his career now
00:26:05.060
because the Democrats are going soft on crime and law enforcement.
00:26:08.040
So the only thing he's got is that he was the vice president to a relatively popular president named Barack Obama.
00:26:16.320
Then he closes the ad on Trump is a jerk, basically.
1.00
00:26:19.040
Trump's a terrible guy and I'm going to restore the soul of this nation.
1.00
00:26:23.380
Biden has vacillated in this campaign between being the moderate candidate in the Democratic Party.
00:26:31.400
He's still a pretty left-wing guy, but compared to, I don't know, Beto O'Rourke or Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren,
00:26:42.360
He's vacillated between that and between being the hard left radical,
00:26:48.000
saying he no longer supports the Hyde Amendment.
00:26:55.220
He's not going to win by being somebody other than Joe Biden.
00:26:58.500
So I think if he doubles down on this, I'm the legacy of Obama.
00:27:09.680
I'm going to bring us all back to that good era before that awful, mean old orange man,
1.00
00:27:14.620
the mango Mussolini, came in and made everybody angry.
00:27:19.620
But he just keeps putting his foot in his mouth.
00:27:21.560
I'm not convinced that this is going to be enough.
00:27:25.220
Even just the way the ad is made, it's like old TV.
00:27:28.780
It looks like it's from two campaign cycles ago.
00:27:31.220
Meanwhile, you've got President Trump, who is the king of social media.
00:27:36.440
He's a king of the media and a creation of the media.
00:27:39.960
I mean, he's kept himself in the headlines for 40 years at this point.
00:27:43.520
Someone who's going to use the same old, tired, traditional media strategies,
00:27:47.280
even if he makes it through the primary election.
00:27:49.920
Probably not going to have an easy time in the general.
00:27:51.740
We have got to get to my favorite news story of the entire day,
00:27:59.560
It's about a conspiracy theory from all those far-right kooks that has gone on for 50 years,
00:28:12.040
And then it turns out a study shows it might have been true.
00:28:16.080
I've got to bring on my friend Matt Best, who's here.
00:28:18.820
And I've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
00:28:21.520
You are almost out of time to purchase tickets to our backstage live show tomorrow night,
00:28:26.240
August 21st, at the incredible Terrace Theater in Long Beach, California.
00:28:35.940
Ben Shapiro, Daily Wire, God King Jeremy Boring, Andrew Klavan, and most importantly, me.
00:28:43.860
Best of all, we'll be answering your questions from the audience.
00:28:47.780
You know, again, we don't do a ton of them, but when we have done them, they are so fun.
00:28:53.320
Tickets are available at dailywire.com slash backstage.
00:28:56.140
There are still a few VIP ticket packages available, which include premium seating,
00:29:00.860
photos, and meet and greets with each of us, a gift from Mr. Shapiro, and more.
00:29:05.640
They're almost gone, so head on over to dailywire.com slash backstage and get yours today.
00:29:27.260
Matt Best, you probably know him as one of the guys over at Black Rifle Coffee Company.
00:29:36.960
He deployed five times to Iraq and Afghanistan with the 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment.
00:29:45.740
After he left the military, he then worked as a contractor with the CIA for five years.
00:29:50.000
Then he gets his bachelor's degree and he starts creating satirical videos.
00:29:56.300
He helps build brands like Article 15 Clothing, the Drinking Bros podcast, and then, as you would
00:30:02.020
all know, a company that I love, Black Rifle Coffee.
00:30:04.780
So he's got a new book out, and it's got a hilarious title, Thank You for My Service.
00:30:09.220
Matt came by, and we were able to chat for a few minutes while he was going through LA.
00:30:20.000
By the way, Matt, with a name like Matt Best, you pretty much have to run for Senate, don't you?
00:30:25.260
There's a lot to live up to, especially with one T.
00:30:30.100
Yeah, my parents set me up to hopefully do something great.
00:30:35.020
You've got a very hilariously named title for your book, Thank You for My Service.
00:30:43.280
I think a lot that people would be interested in.
00:30:45.460
I know people are interested in you because of your coffee.
00:30:50.380
But also, you know, it occurs to me, something like 1% of Americans serve in the military at this
00:30:57.200
You know, I have a lot of military members in my family, so I kind of lose sight of that.
00:31:03.000
The majority of Americans probably have little to no contact with anybody who's actually served
00:31:10.320
And that's really the whole reason I wanted to write this book, to kind of discuss the
00:31:14.180
internal workings of being in special operations and loving my job.
00:31:17.320
I think too often people that don't understand the veteran community painless is kind of depressive
00:31:24.820
And I think we're the complete antithesis of that.
00:31:29.520
And I kind of wanted to combine that all into one crazy package and then tell some fun war
00:31:34.700
I've had some veteran pals of mine have said this.
00:31:37.100
They say one of the big issues in our current culture, which basically rewards victimhood,
00:31:43.080
you know, this leftist kind of, if you can claim victimhood, you get special privileges,
00:31:47.480
that in some ways it's actually turned military veterans, who should be the most heroic, the
00:31:52.440
most honored, you know, in our society, they've turned them into a special victim class too.
00:31:58.720
I mean, if you look at any Hollywood movie out there, it's just the veteran comes back
0.99
00:32:02.120
from war, his puppy dies, he gets addicted to depressive medication, whatever the case,
00:32:08.400
And, you know, while there are issues about people coming back from war that need to be
00:32:13.440
addressed, I think the larger part of the veteran community that comes back is motivated
00:32:18.220
And I really want to change that narrative, um, in Hollywood and just in civilian culture
00:32:23.220
So what do you think the biggest misconceptions are?
00:32:29.780
I think when people, they don't know if they say, thank you for your service.
00:32:33.160
Um, but you know, when I come back and someone finds out I have five deployments in a ranger
00:32:37.300
battalion, it's almost like, oh, I can't imagine what you've seen.
00:32:40.660
You know, I signed up for that job to go participate in the defense of America and willingly and knowingly
00:32:46.540
go take care of bad guys that want to kill innocent Americans.
00:32:49.500
So I'm just thankful for the opportunity to go serve my country.
00:32:52.680
And I want people to know that there's guys and gals out there just like that.
00:32:56.100
And you've also, when you came back, you've had an incredibly successful career as a civilian.
00:33:02.520
Yes, I got out and, you know, went through a couple of transition things and then I went
00:33:07.280
So I spent almost three years plus on the ground with, uh, in that capacity, which I learned
00:33:11.760
a lot, uh, from there and then that transitioned into entrepreneurship and trying to create
00:33:18.160
What, what about your military service do you think translated to the business side?
00:33:21.900
Is that, uh, cause we hear, you know, veterans are the best workers, obviously they're very
00:33:26.060
disciplined, obviously they're very courageous.
00:33:29.060
Is that overblown or, or do you think that your experience in the military really has helped
00:33:34.940
You know, I think something, especially in the special operations community is creative
00:33:39.460
So looking at a very complex problem and then activating the team to navigate that.
00:33:46.560
You're presented with all these challenges every day.
00:33:49.120
The stress is immense, but you have to rally that team and solve the problems and keep moving
00:33:54.340
And that's the reason why we hire so many veterans at Black Rifle Coffee for that sole reason
00:33:57.680
is they have such a diverse set of skills that honestly, I don't know where else you'd
00:34:01.720
find someone with that other than the veteran community.
0.98
00:34:03.640
And, you know, it's funny because you, you do stand out a little bit to me and that a
00:34:07.780
lot of my veteran friends are, they're not very verbose.
00:34:14.320
They're men of few words and you're, you're kind of like a triple threat.
00:34:17.500
I mean, obviously you've got this service physically, you're like pretty tough guy, wouldn't want
00:34:23.400
You also have this business acumen, this business brain, but you're also good on camera.
00:34:28.900
You've also been able to really master this moment in social media, use that to help your
00:34:35.060
business, use that to obviously communicate through your book.
00:34:44.760
You know, again, I don't think that being a veteran should define you for the whole rest
00:34:52.060
And I've always loved art and being a creator and an ideator.
00:34:55.240
And so given the opportunity post-military, I kind of took all my experiences and started
00:35:00.200
YouTube videos to make people laugh and engage my community.
00:35:03.640
And I think that's what's most important about telling this story is whether you're
00:35:07.380
into artistry or drawing or making cups, mugs, whatever you want to chase in life, you can
00:35:12.820
do it and don't let anybody restrict you from doing that.
00:35:15.980
One thing I love about Black Rifle Coffee, actually my favorite thing about Black Rifle Coffee
00:35:23.340
I don't care how many veterans you employ, if it's not good tasting coffee, maybe I'll
0.69
00:35:41.680
And so when I co-founded it with Evan Hafer, the CEO, former Green Beret, he used to roast
0.98
00:35:46.460
coffee overseas in Iraq and during the invasion and as a CIA contractor.
00:35:50.560
So he really had this massive passion for coffee because it's so communal.
00:35:54.940
Every morning, the team guys would come in, share that cup of coffee, talk about the operation
00:36:00.720
And so that's really why we called it Black Rifle.
00:36:03.180
It's a tribute to military service and brotherhood.
00:36:06.220
And obviously, Evan is a coffee nerd, so it's going to be the best tasting coffee out there.
00:36:10.700
But you know, my second favorite thing about Black Rifle, obviously the first, most important
00:36:17.840
So I go to these other coffee shops and I feel they're a little unpatriotic.
00:36:26.000
They're donating to things that seem anti-American.
00:36:28.060
And we have, at this moment, an actual epidemic of anti-Americanism.
00:36:35.400
Betsy Ross is apparently now some kind of bigot.
1.00
00:36:37.580
You've got major politicians running for president, Democratic politicians, who are applauding
00:36:45.780
Does this anti-Americanism, does this worry you in the long term or do you think it's
00:36:50.680
It is the whole reason why we exist because I'm not going to placate the PC culture.
0.99
00:36:56.420
Mark Twain, something said to the effect of being a patriot is loving your country all the
00:37:02.580
And America stands for unity and just absolute love.
00:37:08.340
And, you know, I will say something about other corporate entities.
00:37:11.000
When a law enforcement officer is asked to leave my coffee shop, the person that asked
00:37:14.500
that will be escorted out and the law enforcement will be given a free cup of coffee.
00:37:18.960
It's absolutely atrocious that we're treating civil servants and veterans this way.
00:37:27.220
And by the way, you know, one of the lines that we keep pointing out is get woke, go broke.
00:37:32.520
So there's this very small group of leftist agitators who wants to tear down the whole
00:37:38.840
country, basically, and they want to protest the flag.
00:37:41.580
And generally speaking, when companies cater to them, their profits decline.
00:37:51.060
That's right, because they're probably not working very hard anyway.
00:37:53.580
But then, you know, your company is kind of just the proof of this is you go out there
00:37:59.080
and you say, look, guys, you can get coffee at a million different places.
00:38:02.680
Here's a cup of coffee that doesn't hate America.
00:38:05.300
And all of a sudden, you become one of the biggest coffee companies in the world.
00:38:08.260
Yeah, I think there's a sense of irreverence and passion for America.
00:38:14.180
And I think something that we do well is we're a very transparent company in what we do.
00:38:17.780
We show where we donate our funds to, who we're supporting.
00:38:27.680
It's very hard in 2019 to be transparent with a corporate entity and know what they're
00:38:33.420
You know, other people say support veterans, but they're throwing money that absolutely
00:38:37.720
And one thing, you know, I also like that you guys have a sense of humor.
00:38:40.160
I find politics these days is so, you know, God, everyone takes themselves so seriously.
00:38:47.700
You really embrace the love of country with some levity to it, too.
00:38:51.640
You know, I mean, you've got like the Benjamin Franklin, you know, snake, join or die right
00:38:59.720
I find a lot of that kind of comedy in the book.
00:39:02.380
I mean, I think a lot of military books also are a little drier.
00:39:06.760
I don't want to be uncharitable, but they're a little drier.
00:39:10.160
Yeah, I believe, you know, kind of humor through horror and all the experiences that I've had
00:39:14.540
And there are people that have done extraordinarily more amounts of stuff in the military than
00:39:22.240
And so if you're not smiling and loving and creating community, then why are you even here?
00:39:36.640
And I figure, like, first of all, compared to like Ramadi, this isn't that bad.
00:39:40.940
And also, compared to, you know, compared to fighting overseas, probably a media blitz
00:39:48.160
I can't wait to hear back from everyone else listening on what they think of the book.
00:40:00.560
And in terms of my day to day, probably the most important, thank you for your coffee.
00:40:06.920
And thank you for my service and everything here and having me on the show.
00:40:12.880
Now we've got to talk about something much more important than any of this, which is how
00:40:21.260
This is more important than the environmental protection.
00:40:23.480
This is more important than even Matt's book, even though it's a very good book and I
00:40:38.800
Things we've been told for 50 years, 100 years, they can be upended overnight.
00:40:44.980
You got to eat a ton of carbs and not a lot of fat.
00:40:49.620
Conspiracy theories are popping up and apparently true overnight.
00:40:53.380
One of them is one of the oldest ones in the book.
00:40:57.920
Truly proof that nobody knows anything for decades.
00:41:00.300
The kookiest, crankiest, wackiest conspiracy theorists on the right have harped on one
00:41:09.540
That the fluoride that the government puts in drinking water is harmful to us.
00:41:17.240
The U.S. began fluoridating water because it prevents tooth decay.
00:41:21.480
And the caricature that almost immediately developed of right-wingers was that they all
00:41:26.400
thought that this was a communist plot to destroy us and the fluoride in the water was messing
00:41:34.380
This was parodied in the great film Dr. Strangelove when the Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper talks
00:41:45.900
I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion.
00:41:59.080
I mean that's just, that's not the conspiracy theory part.
00:42:00.960
But then this is where the caricature comes in.
00:42:02.980
And the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
1.00
00:42:14.580
Okay, ha ha ha, you crazy stupid right-wingers.
1.00
00:42:19.520
Well, it turns out the conspiracy theorists very likely have a point.
1.00
00:42:23.560
There is a new study out, published in an influential medical journal,
00:42:26.540
that links fluoride consumption during pregnancy with lower childhood IQs.
00:42:34.160
Apparently, the fluoride in the drinking water, according to this study,
0.99
00:42:38.700
is so affecting our precious bodily fluids that it's making us all stupider.
0.97
00:42:44.480
To put this into perspective, three quarters of the United States drinks fluoridated tap water.
0.98
00:42:52.340
I can't even buy a regular water bottle without any fluoride in it
00:42:56.760
So I have to bring my own water bottle and fill up the fluoridated tap water.
00:42:59.780
Oh my gosh, maybe this is, all of the conspiracies are just coming together right now.
00:43:05.340
The main takeaway from this is not necessarily that communist infiltration
00:43:15.480
But the main takeaway is that we know much, much less about the material world
00:43:26.960
We pass these environmental regulations, all these big policies,
00:43:30.760
because we say this is how we're going to help the environment.
00:43:37.200
We end up harming the environment with the very policies that were intended to help the environment.
1.00
00:43:42.980
We tell everybody, you've got to eat the food pyramid.
00:43:45.420
You've got to stuff your face with cereal and pasta and breads.
00:43:50.840
And then, 50 years later, they tell you, actually, we got it a little bit wrong.
00:43:55.080
You actually shouldn't have any of those things at all, ever, but you should eat a lot of fat.
00:44:01.160
And I don't know what it's going to be tomorrow.
00:44:02.720
One day we find out coffee is really healthy for you.
00:44:04.920
The next day we find out coffee is really bad for you.
00:44:06.540
Then the next day it's really healthy for you again.
00:44:13.560
Global warming is guaranteed going to flood New York by 2013 or 2015 or actually never,
00:44:20.420
but it'll, you know, maybe in a little bit, but we're not quite sure when.
00:44:23.220
The earth is going to end in 10 months, 12 months, 14 months, 35 years, 12 years, 14 years.
00:44:32.260
We know much, much less about the material world than we think that we do.
00:44:37.940
Now, what this calls for, my humble suggestion, is a little humility.
00:44:47.420
Maybe not passing these sweeping, gigantic, major governmental changes,
00:44:52.920
giving the government huge amounts of power on dubious premises.
00:44:59.300
Maybe looking for a little bit of evolution rather than revolution in our politics and our culture.
00:45:06.960
And yet we live in a culture right now that celebrates pride.
00:45:15.640
This is true not just in our precious bodily fluids in our tap water,
00:45:19.500
not just in environmental regulations, but in everything else too.
00:45:28.720
But how can you ever recapture humility in a culture that celebrates pride?
0.98
00:45:35.780
But we won't be able to figure it out today because we're out of time.
00:45:38.680
I will see those of you who are going to be at Long Beach tomorrow live at our Daily Wire backstage live event.
00:45:46.120
We'll be back on Thursday and do a Friday show.
00:45:51.080
If you enjoyed this episode, and frankly, even if you didn't, don't forget to subscribe.
00:46:02.060
And if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe.
00:46:07.560
We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts.
00:46:12.160
Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show, The Andrew Klavan Show, and The Matt Walsh Show.
00:46:19.680
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Rebecca Dobkowitz, director Mike Joyner, executive producer Jeremy Boring.
00:46:26.720
Our senior producer is Jonathan Hay, supervising producer Mathis Glover, technical producer Austin Stevens, editor Danny D'Amico.
00:46:35.100
Our audio mixer is Mike Coromina, hair and makeup by Jesua Olvera, production assistant Nick Sheehan.
00:46:41.500
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2019.
00:46:45.840
If you prefer facts over feelings, if you aren't offended by the brutal truth, if you can still laugh at the nuttiness filling our national news cycle,
00:46:54.040
well, tune on in to The Ben Shapiro Show, where you'll get a whole lot of that and much more.