The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 42 - Trump Wants Hillary To Run Again (#MeToo!)

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00:00:26.840 Kia. Movement that inspires.

00:00:30.840 President Trump wants Hillary to run again. 1.00

00:00:34.020 Me too.

00:00:34.960 And speaking of hashtag Me Too,

00:00:37.200 we'll discuss the Me Too meme and how saccharine slacktivism hurts real victims.

00:00:41.960 Then we'll be joined by possibly the first Democrat ever to grace the Michael Knowles Show couch

00:00:46.680 to run down the latest list of left-wing talking points.

00:00:49.960 Finally, Ariel Davidson and his eminence Paul Bois join the panel of deplorables

00:00:54.720 to talk America's quiet victory over ISIS,

00:00:57.340 John McCain's spurious, spurious nationalism,

00:01:00.560 and California's official third gender. 0.97

00:01:03.140 That's what I am.

00:01:03.880 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:01:04.620 This is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:05.520 We have got so much to talk about today.

00:01:16.500 Obviously, we have our first Democrat in studio.

00:01:19.420 I guess there's Dave Rubin, but I read somewhere that Dave is a Nazi alt-writer,

00:01:23.700 so I'm just going to take that at face value.

00:01:25.720 Certainly, the first elected Democrat that we have in studio,

00:01:28.640 we'll get to him and ask him which chapter of my book was his favorite.

00:01:31.700 But let's start with, I think, the second most covfefe press conference in history.

00:01:37.700 The first, of course, was when President Reagan fired all of the air traffic controllers.

00:01:41.860 This one was very close, President Trump yesterday.

00:01:44.980 Oh, I hope Hillary runs. 1.00

00:01:46.460 Is she going to run?

00:01:47.300 I hope.

00:01:47.920 Hillary, please run again. 0.88

00:01:49.340 Go ahead.

00:01:49.600 So she's at odds with you over whether or not this is disrespecting the plan.

00:01:54.560 Is she right or is she wrong?

00:01:55.780 I think she's wrong.

00:01:56.460 Look, when they take a knee, there's plenty of time to do knees,

00:01:59.960 and there's plenty of time to do lots of other things.

00:02:02.620 But when you take a knee, well, that's why she lost the election. 1.00

00:02:07.060 I mean, honestly, it's that thinking.

00:02:08.800 That is the reason she lost the election.

00:02:10.620 When you go down and take a knee or any other way, you're sitting, essentially, for our great national anthem.

00:02:20.300 You're disrespecting our flag, and you're disrespecting our country. 0.77

00:02:24.640 And the NFL should have suspended some of these players for one game.

00:02:29.940 Not fire them.

00:02:31.260 Suspended them for one game.

00:02:32.760 And then if they did it again, it could have been two games and three games, and then for the season.

00:02:36.500 You wouldn't have people disrespecting our country right now.

00:02:39.280 And if Hillary Clinton actually made the statement that in a form sitting down during the playing of our great national anthem is not disrespectful,

00:02:50.520 then I fully understand why she didn't win.

00:02:53.000 I know.

00:02:53.700 I mean, look, there are a lot of reasons she didn't win, including the fact that she was not good at what she did. 0.64

00:02:59.880 But I will tell you, that is something that I had just heard about.

00:03:03.660 And I think that her statement in itself is very disrespectful to our country.

00:03:10.160 I love him so much.

00:03:12.060 I can't get over it.

00:03:14.300 This is why we elected this guy.

00:03:16.620 I sometimes worry that people who aren't from New York don't even appreciate this stuff as much as I do.

00:03:23.260 He actually set this up, by the way.

00:03:25.080 He tweeted out.

00:03:25.780 He said, some people want Hillary to run again. 1.00

00:03:27.240 Please, Hillary, run again. 0.98

00:03:28.260 So he sets it up at this press conference.

00:03:30.980 They ask the question, and he knocks it out of the park.

00:03:33.280 Please, Hillary, run again. 0.98

00:03:34.660 Then he brushes her off.

00:03:35.820 He says, well, this is why there are times to kneel.

00:03:38.860 There are times not to kneel.

00:03:40.380 And I know it seems like a throwaway statement.

00:03:42.720 What he's saying is, I'm not an ideologue.

00:03:45.100 I am not a rationalist.

00:03:46.640 I'm not an ideologue.

00:03:47.960 I simply have a view of respecting the country.

00:03:50.900 I have a traditional view, traditionalist view in some ways, of America.

00:03:54.700 And you've got to respect the country.

00:03:55.920 You don't need to be fired.

00:03:57.520 Maybe you get suspended for one game, maybe two games.

00:03:59.960 I don't know.

00:04:00.800 And then to say, I see why Hillary lost.

00:04:03.800 Well, there are a lot of reasons why Hillary lost, but that's one of them. 0.99

00:04:06.620 It's just he's unrelenting.

00:04:08.580 He never stops.

00:04:09.860 I mean, this is what we elected.

00:04:11.700 This is what we've been waiting for on the Republican side for a long time is a guy who will just stand firm against this cultural onslaught from the mainstream media and from the entertainment complex.

00:04:23.320 He'll just stand firm and say, no, no, I'm pretty sure that's why Hillary lost.

00:04:28.380 No, I think I'm going to respect the flag.

00:04:30.280 Great stuff.

00:04:31.060 Excellent press conference.

00:04:32.560 Very, very covfefe.

00:04:34.300 I agree with him, of course.

00:04:35.760 He wants Hillary to win. 0.99

00:04:36.920 Me, too.

00:04:37.820 Speaking of me, too.

00:04:40.360 We talked about this a little yesterday.

00:04:42.380 Alyssa Milano sent out a tweet which launched this huge social media campaign.

00:04:47.280 It's all over Facebook and Twitter.

00:04:48.420 She said, and this is in response to the Harvey Weinstein scandal, it turns out he raped like every aspiring actress in all of Hollywood, and this is a widespread problem in Hollywood for a very long time.

00:05:00.580 Now it's all coming to light.

00:05:01.780 People are talking about the horrific incidents that have happened to them.

00:05:04.700 And she tweeted out and said, if you've been sexually harassed or assaulted, write me, too, as a reply to this tweet.

00:05:12.960 There's the problem.

00:05:14.120 There are a few problems with this slacktivism, with this hashtag activism.

00:05:19.700 But the first is in her launching it.

00:05:21.940 She says, if you've been sexually assaulted or harassed, those are categorically different things.

00:05:28.160 Those are categorically different.

00:05:29.340 They're both bad.

00:05:30.060 We should stop both, I suppose.

00:05:31.220 One is a heinous crime.

00:05:34.380 One is assaulting somebody's soul as well as their body, violating their liberty.

00:05:41.280 And the other is being rude and untoward and, you know, maybe the guy at the office winks at his secretary.

00:05:47.600 That's all terrible, too. 0.93

00:05:49.500 Quite different than rape.

00:05:50.860 And to conflate those two is offensive and disrespectful toward the victims of actual rape.

00:05:55.940 Now, men are virtue signaling back, because that's how the Internet works, with the hashtags, hashtag I will and hashtag how I will change. 0.63

00:06:05.740 So here are just a few of them.

00:06:07.100 Hashtag I will promote women's voices, believe survivors, and work to end rape culture and purity culture, two sides of the same patriarchal coin.

00:06:17.100 How I will change.

00:06:17.920 I will listen to women more closely, seeking to understand before seeking to be understood.

00:06:22.960 Then, if it helps, I will act.

00:06:25.400 I will listen more, learn more, acknowledge more, and support more.

00:06:29.520 I'm willing to have more courageous conversations.

00:06:33.220 Use those courageous words.

00:06:34.740 How courageous.

00:06:35.200 How I will change means acknowledging my own capacity for harmful behavior and taking responsibility for unlearning that toxicity.

00:06:43.960 I don't really take issue with the premise here that men can be dogs and they should behave themselves.

00:06:48.480 I take issue with the supposed surprise, the shock, the earnestness of the tweeters.

00:06:54.800 I think it's mostly feigned.

00:06:56.240 I think it's fake.

00:06:57.160 But some might be real because these people are utopians.

00:07:00.760 And they think that mankind can be perfected with just a few more regulations, a little less freedom, a little more effort.

00:07:07.420 That isn't going to happen.

00:07:08.840 And living in delusion will help nobody.

00:07:11.360 So let's dispel some of the delusion around this.

00:07:14.220 We begin with the courageous conversations.

00:07:16.860 What is courageous about echoing the dominant cultural meme?

00:07:20.980 What is courageous about saying, you're always right, I'm always wrong, whatever the left tells us is true, even if the statistics are spurious, that's true, I'll believe anything.

00:07:30.760 There isn't a rape culture in the United States. 1.00

00:07:32.940 That was one of the allegations.

00:07:34.340 There is a rape culture. 0.96

00:07:35.400 There is no rape culture in the United States. 0.99

00:07:37.800 Rape happens because we're fallen people and crime happens and murder happens and awful things happen and will always happen because we're not going back to the Garden of Eden.

00:07:47.800 This isn't an earthly paradise and human nature isn't perfectible.

00:07:50.920 That's going to happen.

00:07:51.920 But you know what a rape culture is? 1.00

00:07:52.960 It's Pakistan. 0.97

00:07:53.460 That's a culture that institutionalizes and through its own cultural mores creates venues in which rape is approved of. 1.00

00:08:03.160 That is a rape culture. 1.00

00:08:04.520 There is no approval of rape in the United States.

00:08:07.420 To tweet a the trending hashtag alleging rape culture undermines the rape culture, right? 0.94

00:08:14.180 It undermines your own claim. 0.99

00:08:15.540 It's a defeater for your ridiculous argument. 0.99

00:08:18.880 The hashtags, too, are empty virtue signaling. 1.00

00:08:21.680 It is saccharine.

00:08:22.720 It is slacktivism that accomplishes nothing.

00:08:26.380 It reminds me of – I don't know if people remember this – Kony 2012.

00:08:30.780 Do you remember in 2011 or 2012 there was this meme?

00:08:33.480 I remember, Michael.

00:08:34.260 Do you remember this?

00:08:35.260 It was everywhere.

00:08:37.200 Kony 2012.

00:08:38.120 He was some warlord in Uganda and some filmmaker said, we're going to stop Kony this year.

00:08:43.520 And then every little dummy on Twitter and Facebook posted about it and they felt they were doing something.

00:08:49.120 They felt they were accomplishing something.

00:08:50.800 They accomplished nothing.

00:08:51.620 He's still at large.

00:08:52.720 It is useless.

00:08:54.960 It is to make yourself feel good, to give the impression of doing something.

00:08:58.740 I've heard this described about smoking cigars and I will acknowledge it.

00:09:02.920 The nice thing about smoking is you feel like you're doing something but you're really just sitting down and not doing anything.

00:09:08.160 That's slacktivism.

00:09:09.160 Michelle Obama did this.

00:09:10.160 Michelle Obama did this.

00:09:10.500 She held up a sign when those girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria.

00:09:15.060 The sign said, no joke, hashtag bring back our girls.

00:09:19.060 This is the courageous piece of paper hashtag.

00:09:23.240 Your husband is the president of the United States.

00:09:25.300 If you want to bring back the girls, you can bring back the girls.

00:09:28.180 Now, perhaps the issue isn't as simple as all of that.

00:09:31.920 Perhaps there are geopolitics at play that complicate things.

00:09:35.960 Don't pretend that your hashtag is doing anything.

00:09:38.900 It's accomplishing absolutely nothing.

00:09:41.700 Also, don't tweet about it.

00:09:42.740 If you're a guy, don't tweet, I will.

00:09:44.820 I'm with you. 0.94

00:09:45.460 I, these guys, these like fake feminist, sensitive, earnest, nice guys, they're like the creepiest guys around. 0.97

00:09:52.980 Do not, but they are creeps. 0.92

00:09:54.620 I would not let my fiance near any of them. 0.55

00:09:56.940 They are women. 1.00

00:09:58.380 Do not believe them.

00:09:59.660 The, the feminist men protest too much, methinks. 0.98

00:10:04.380 Next, if you've been raped, go to the police. 0.98

00:10:06.820 Go to the police. 0.70

00:10:07.840 Do not go to your professor.

00:10:09.500 Do not go to your administrator on campus.

00:10:12.500 Do not pass go.

00:10:13.760 Do not collect $200.

00:10:14.560 It is a serious crime.

00:10:16.800 It is possibly the most serious crime.

00:10:19.200 If it has happened, make sure that it is prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

00:10:23.320 We have a system for prosecuting crimes.

00:10:25.980 It's called the criminal justice system.

00:10:29.080 It's not the sort of crime to be dealt with by campus tribunals.

00:10:33.960 This leads into another aspect, though.

00:10:36.200 We have a criminal justice system to protect the rights of the accusers, but also to protect the rights of the accused.

00:10:42.040 So the people who have had a crime committed against them and also those that they accuse of doing it.

00:10:46.800 These campus tribunals have been absolutely demolishing the due process rights of the accused in countless cases.

00:10:55.780 But a lot of the tweets that have been coming with, I will, or I, you know, this is what I will do, they say that we'll always believe the people who allege that they have been raped.

00:11:06.240 Hillary Clinton said this during the campaign, which is quite ironic because she smeared the people who alleged rape against her own husband.

00:11:12.240 Someone might ask, why would anyone make up a rape?

00:11:16.760 Why would anyone allege that they've been raped if they haven't?

00:11:19.160 I don't know.

00:11:19.780 It's pretty weird, man, but it does happen.

00:11:22.020 In just the last eight years, there have been five instances, five major instances of this, presumably many others.

00:11:29.680 There was obviously the Rolling Stone UVA rape hoax.

00:11:32.980 This was a major story in Rolling Stone.

00:11:34.780 A girl alleged she had been gang raped at a fraternity.

00:11:38.160 It didn't happen.

00:11:38.820 The story absolutely fell apart.

00:11:40.180 They had to retract the whole thing.

00:11:42.900 At UC Santa Cruz a few years ago, a girl paid someone on Craigslist to beat her up, and then she alleged that she had been raped.

00:11:49.180 That also fell apart.

00:11:50.720 In 2013, a University of Wyoming student posted a rape threat against herself in a campus Facebook group.

00:11:58.320 That also was uncovered, but not before it caused a lot of anxiety to the campus community and a lot of other people.

00:12:04.040 2009, a Hofstra student had consensual sex with five guys at once. 0.94

00:12:09.400 Her boyfriend found out and said, you look like you've just had sex with a lot of guys, and she said, I've been raped. 0.98

00:12:15.940 He said, go to the police. 0.98

00:12:16.900 She said, no, I don't need to.

00:12:18.640 Then they went to the police anyway.

00:12:19.920 They arrested these guys.

00:12:20.960 They threw them in jail only because there happened to be a video of this event.

00:12:26.000 Why?

00:12:26.540 Don't want to know.

00:12:27.220 Now, what were these guys let off the hook for it because the video showed that it was consensual?

00:12:32.920 But nevertheless, the allegation was made.

00:12:34.640 It could have ruined these guys' lives.

00:12:36.320 In 2013, a University of Florida student falsely claimed she was raped in a parking lot.

00:12:41.240 Then she said it was false but intended to show a greater truth.

00:12:45.280 So it was a complete lie, but then it was – the lie was meant to serve the greater truth.

00:12:49.620 And then later she admitted it's because her parents were pressuring her to graduate from college, and she probably wasn't going to do that.

00:12:56.600 Conservative columnist George Will was accused of not taking rape seriously in a letter by four Democratic senators because he made these exact same points.

00:13:06.880 And he responded in exactly the right way.

00:13:09.260 He said he takes sexual assault and rape much more seriously than they do.

00:13:16.380 You know, some would prefer it if professors and campus tribunals dealt with this crime.

00:13:20.900 Some would prefer it if judges, juries, and executioners dealt with it.

00:13:26.660 We in the latter category are taking this issue much more seriously, and the people who are engaging in frivolous slacktivism are doing nothing but hurting a very serious issue.

00:13:37.640 All right, on that note, now that we've covered the gamut from silly Trump conferences to rape, let's bring on our guest today.

00:13:46.060 We have four-term California Assemblyman Mike Gatto.

00:13:48.920 Mike, thank you for being here.

00:13:50.220 It's great to be here.

00:13:51.140 Now, you have the distinct privilege, maybe the distinct terror and disadvantage of being the first Democrat politician to ever come on our show.

00:14:00.980 So thank you for coming on. 0.99

00:14:02.040 It makes me either very brave or very stupid. 0.99

00:14:03.960 That's right. 0.99

00:14:04.420 Well, that'll be left for the audience to judge, I guess.

00:14:06.760 Yes, I have a hunch of which one it is.

00:14:09.660 My first question for you, obviously, you and I have a lot in common.

00:14:12.120 You're a Democrat politician.

00:14:13.620 I am the best-selling author of Reasons to Vote for Democrats, a comprehensive guide.

00:14:18.180 Which was the most compelling chapter in my book, did you think?

00:14:21.800 Well, so I have to ask you, has anyone ever gotten a copy of your book and said, oh, my gosh, it's blank?

00:14:25.820 There have been a few people who were not just trolls by it.

00:14:29.820 I wanted to sort of ad-lib that.

00:14:31.720 I wanted you to give me a copy and say, oh, my gosh, it's blank.

00:14:34.540 Oh, my gosh.

00:14:34.940 Well, I did.

00:14:35.360 This copy is for you.

00:14:36.440 You can put it up in your office.

00:14:39.680 That is great.

00:14:40.380 You know, right next to all of the great political philosophers.

00:14:42.840 There is a professor I know who, at the end of every semester, he asks his students about reading that he never assigned and sees who is the greatest BS artist.

00:14:54.420 So I was going to say then I guess page 117 is the reason why I love this book.

00:14:59.220 Well, I'm really – thank you so much.

00:15:01.200 I appreciate your reading it even just right now.

00:15:04.140 And it's personalized.

00:15:04.980 It is personalized because I do appreciate that you're willing to come on and talk to Republicans.

00:15:10.760 Right now, the parties are so completely polarized that people aren't willing to do that.

00:15:17.480 You're one of the few – I don't want to say you're reasonable.

00:15:20.240 I think that would be going way too far.

00:15:22.280 But maybe I'll call you semi-reasonable.

00:15:25.020 So we probably agree on a great many things.

00:15:27.480 I want to ignore those completely and only talk about what we disagree on.

00:15:30.580 Sure.

00:15:30.800 There are a lot of Democratic talking points that are going around now that I think are bunk.

00:15:36.720 I think a lot of Democratic politicians think they're bunk too.

00:15:40.300 Can we go through a few of these and maybe give your opinion?

00:15:42.100 Happy to do so.

00:15:42.380 All right.

00:15:42.560 And by the way, the dialogue reason is the whole reason I'm here.

00:15:44.520 I think it's so important right now that – I mean, everybody knows how polarized this country is.

00:15:49.140 But I think it's more important than ever that we talk, that the two sides talk.

00:15:52.220 And it is impressive that you're doing that because – I talk about this sometimes on the show.

00:15:58.540 I think there are two kinds of debate.

00:16:00.280 There are debates where you score points and you're just, yeah, I got my point and ha-ha, I smacked you down.

00:16:06.160 And then there – but I don't get anything out of that.

00:16:08.540 I don't in any way benefit from that.

00:16:10.380 But there are debates where even rarely I'll change my mind.

00:16:13.680 You know, I was pro-abortion.

00:16:15.100 I was pro-choice.

00:16:16.240 I had lunch with a bioethicist named Diana Schaub.

00:16:18.760 By the end of the lunch, I was pro-life.

00:16:20.580 Wow.

00:16:20.760 A rare occasion, but people can change their minds when they discuss things.

00:16:24.580 First question.

00:16:25.620 First talking point.

00:16:27.220 Did El Presidente, the Donald himself, did President Trump cheat Hillary Clinton out of the presidency?

00:16:33.680 So I think if you read the more sensible articles on this, you will find out that President Putin wants the American public to believe that this happened.

00:16:44.940 He wants the American public to lose faith in our elections.

00:16:47.760 He wants the American public to think that he is that powerful.

00:16:51.220 And more importantly, he wants Russians to believe that he is so powerful that he's pulling the strings in the biggest superpower on earth.

00:16:58.060 I think there's a real danger with that narrative because are our elections at risk?

00:17:02.460 Yeah.

00:17:02.760 I've been somebody who has raised this issue that we have to be careful about voting machines.

00:17:07.560 We have to be careful about vote-by-mail bouts.

00:17:09.100 People can take them, and it happens all the time.

00:17:11.320 It happened in Hollywood in a very recent election.

00:17:13.180 But this idea that our entire democracy has—our entire Republican form of government has been hacked or stolen by the Russians is so detrimental to people having faith in the system.

00:17:22.920 That is such a mature analysis of it because I think—I even know Democrats on the grassroots level, members of my family, friends of mine who say it. 0.83

00:17:34.860 Putin is controlling the government, and Donald Trump is a Manchurian—I mean, ridiculous things, right? 0.97

00:17:41.500 Donald Trump, the guy we've known for 40 years, is really a secret plant of KGB operative Vladimir Putin. 0.94

00:17:48.180 Yeah.

00:17:48.540 I mean, Putin's got a hard time controlling his own country.

00:17:51.180 Right.

00:17:51.280 I mean, you know, when these rumors started going out there, I mean, he was sort of at danger of there being another type of orange revolution or people, you know, a real strong alternative coming forth.

00:18:01.300 And so, you know, I mean, he spread these—I think he's been active in spreading these rumors.

00:18:04.640 Of course.

00:18:05.140 And that there, I think, is the fake news, right?

00:18:07.640 People allege the fake news.

00:18:08.820 I pride myself on being a strictly fake news program.

00:18:12.380 But there is the fake news, right?

00:18:14.780 I don't think anyone is under the misconception that Vladimir Putin is a benevolent force.

00:18:20.380 He loves the United States.

00:18:21.580 He wants to do us well.

00:18:22.920 But clearly, he's caused some chaos, even by crafting the narrative that he's caused some chaos.

00:18:28.660 That's right.

00:18:29.020 Absolutely right.

00:18:30.080 The New York Times suggested that Donald Trump did not pay income taxes for two decades.

00:18:35.400 This was blown up by my twin sister, Rachel Maddow.

00:18:41.840 We have evidence that he did pay.

00:18:44.100 They tried this on Mitt Romney.

00:18:45.540 They said that Mitt Romney didn't pay his income taxes.

00:18:48.400 I promise you they'll try it on the next Republican nominee.

00:18:51.760 Does an attack like that, does it work?

00:18:53.560 Does it hold any water?

00:18:55.340 Does it work in the other direction?

00:18:57.180 Probably not. 1.00

00:18:58.020 Republicans are the greedy, awful capitalists. 1.00

00:19:01.340 Why does that attack? 1.00

00:19:02.340 Why does that stick around?

00:19:04.040 Well, I think that, first of all, people are justifiably upset because there's a huge gap between the rich and the poor in this country right now.

00:19:10.120 And I think we really run the risk of being sort of the opposite of what the founding fathers wanted, which was a country of egalitarianism, where everybody is more or less equal and has an equal opportunity.

00:19:20.440 That being said, people probably don't understand the arcane tax code.

00:19:23.840 I don't understand our arcane tax code.

00:19:25.340 I haven't paid taxes in a decade.

00:19:26.780 I certainly don't deal with that.

00:19:27.680 Although I hope you pay taxes on that.

00:19:29.260 That is true.

00:19:30.860 Mike is pointing out my lovely $400 check from Mr. Ben Shapiro.

00:19:35.300 I can confirm he did not pay taxes on that.

00:19:36.720 Oh, my gosh.

00:19:37.860 I know some people, the California government, who might be audited.

00:19:41.960 Don't please, I promise you they don't watch my show.

00:19:44.980 And Ben did ask, because this is the original check.

00:19:47.940 He said, oh, great, you didn't cash the check.

00:19:49.720 And I said, no, no, no, there's this wonderful thing called mobile deposit.

00:19:52.160 So I get to cash the check and I get to frame it and put it on my show.

00:19:56.140 But what happened?

00:19:56.980 I mean, obviously, people in real estate, like our president, you know, if you have one year where you have one huge loss, you can carry forward that loss for 10 years, 20 years indefinitely.

00:20:07.700 So I'm guessing what happened, I mean, he should release his tax returns.

00:20:10.760 We probably know.

00:20:11.820 But I'm guessing what happened is he had one year where he lost a ton of money.

00:20:14.500 And he's carried forward those losses for all these years.

00:20:17.460 And he probably hasn't paid much taxes because of those losses.

00:20:19.880 But we know, at least 10 years later, we know, because that was what my sister Rachel Maddow released, he paid $38 million of taxes in 10 years.

00:20:28.060 So I'm sure, yeah, in 95, he had a huge loss.

00:20:31.200 I assume he wrote off those losses, as well he should.

00:20:34.820 But he didn't write off for 20 years at least, right?

00:20:37.420 And the question you bring up is, you know, there's this big gap between the rich and the poor, the middle class has shrunk, and there's a widening gap.

00:20:46.180 I'm not in the upper 1%, even with my blank book.

00:20:49.200 I didn't make it to the 1%.

00:20:50.420 But why do I care if some guy gets really rich?

00:20:52.680 Why do I care?

00:20:53.300 I have an unbelievable standard of living.

00:20:56.160 I'm in the top probably tenth of a percent of world wealth and income.

00:21:01.680 Sure.

00:21:01.900 Let me give you two reasons why you should care.

00:21:03.100 So first of all, our country was founded on the idea that there was no royalty.

00:21:06.540 That's actually written in our Constitution, you know, no titles of royalty.

00:21:09.800 And when you have a system where, you know, I mean, where Paris Hilton's great-grandchildren or Kim Kardashian's great-grandchildren will be wealthier than yours, no matter what you do, no matter how many wonderful, clever books you have.

00:21:20.800 Listen, first of all, I plan on writing a lot of blank, clever books.

00:21:23.340 But, I mean, we see study after study.

00:21:26.520 Dynastic wealth, for some families it holds true.

00:21:29.140 For many, it disappears within two, three generations.

00:21:32.300 Not completely disappears.

00:21:33.660 Maybe they'll move from the top quintile to the second top quintile.

00:21:37.540 Well, let me give you an even clearer reason why people should care.

00:21:40.480 If you go to Buenos Aires, you know, the rich go to work in armored SUVs, the poors are in slums, and they're very upset. 1.00

00:21:47.340 Do we want to live in a country like that?

00:21:48.540 We don't.

00:21:49.620 The last time the gap between rich and poor was so significant was 1929.

00:21:53.160 How'd that turn out?

00:21:54.200 I mean, I think that we're at a real danger unless we have a thriving middle class. 0.96

00:21:58.700 And that's why everybody should care about this.

00:22:00.280 I'm not saying confiscate wealth.

00:22:02.000 I'm not saying – but I think we do need to level the playing field.

00:22:04.520 Well, I will grant you, and I will also point out that at the time of the founding of the country, there were a handful of extraordinarily wealthy people and a bunch of not wealthy people.

00:22:15.020 And there was no income tax.

00:22:16.100 Yeah, his name was King George III.

00:22:16.360 Well, sure, there was them, but also the framers. 0.85

00:22:19.980 However, you make a very good point.

00:22:21.680 How did it turn out in 1929?

00:22:23.420 We got Democrats elected for four terms, five terms.

00:22:26.160 So I agree.

00:22:27.020 It's something to worry about if I have to worry about another Franklin Roosevelt.

00:22:31.960 Tax me more.

00:22:32.720 That's fine by me.

00:22:33.860 Speaking of the slums, speaking of all of these housing difficulties, you wrote a very good piece in the L.A. Times about affordable housing in Los Angeles.

00:22:44.660 Now, just to fill people in, I don't know if people follow this more local story, housing in L.A. is awful, and the homelessness problem is unbelievable.

00:22:56.300 So friends of mine live in a very nice building.

00:22:58.520 It's a luxury building.

00:23:00.080 A fifth of that has to go to low income. 0.58

00:23:02.260 So you've got drug dealers, crazy people living in this –

00:23:04.980 Or the developers, nieces, and nephews. 0.74

00:23:06.480 Or the developers, nieces, and nephews, and there's a lot of corruption in this to begin with.

00:23:09.440 But you're in this luxury building, and then around the corner, three blocks away, is Skid Row, is Skid Row, which I don't see anything compassionate about letting drug dealers and crazy people live on the streets to destroy a neighborhood and kill each other.

00:23:25.140 Why is L.A., why has this government failed so much to address the problems of housing and homelessness?

00:23:31.960 Well, I think there's been a fundamental lack of honesty.

00:23:34.360 You know, we just talked about the gap between the rich and the poor.

00:23:36.540 Nobody wants to address the big problems.

00:23:37.760 Nobody wants to address things like the Federal Reserve printing money, which has driven the cost of a loan down, has driven property values up, so that they're so crazy that now you've got people who are so frustrated with their inability to buy a house that they're saying, okay, the government should subsidize me buying a house.

00:23:52.100 And that gets to be a little bit odd.

00:23:54.640 And you have this weird situation where we have more subsidies, more socialistic policies going into place.

00:23:59.520 And then I also think nobody wants to address the root cause of homelessness or the various root causes of homelessness.

00:24:04.860 I mean, California just a few years ago put in place this ballot initiative where we released on the streets a lot of people for a lot of crimes where otherwise they would have been getting the attention that they deserve, getting the drug rehab that they deserve when they're incarcerated.

00:24:21.620 And yet those people are now just on the streets.

00:24:23.300 And people think that homelessness is only caused by the high price of houses.

00:24:27.320 That's not correct.

00:24:28.080 It's caused by mental illness, a lot of various things, drug use, a lot of things that we have to address all of them if we're going to be honest about it.

00:24:33.720 And I love that point, especially in the mental illness, because when we developed these psychotropic drugs in the 1980s, we emptied out the insane asylums because people were fine. 0.57

00:24:45.580 Trouble is, once you feel fine, you stop taking your psychotropic drugs.

00:24:49.980 That's right.

00:24:50.320 And, you know, when someone suggests that maybe we ought to put criminals in prison or that we ought to put crazy people into facilities where they can take medication and see the world more clearly, they say that's not compassionate.

00:25:03.820 That's depriving them of some freedom.

00:25:06.600 Is there really any liberty or any compassion in letting these people live in squalor on the street?

00:25:12.020 Well, that's the law of unintended consequences, right?

00:25:15.020 I mean, Proposition 47 passed by all the voters in the state of California, or the majority of voters in the state of California, reduced all of these drug crimes from a felony to a misdemeanor.

00:25:24.820 The difference between a felony and misdemeanor, of course, is the judge could look that person in the eye and say, unless you go to rehab, unless you get help for this drug addiction that you've got, you're going to go to jail for a long time.

00:25:35.060 And this scared a lot of people straight.

00:25:37.220 And because now this is a mandatory misdemeanor, which means in Los Angeles County you'll spend about 12 hours in jail, you've got a lot of people not even addressing their addiction.

00:25:44.740 And that's a real problem.

00:25:45.540 And it's counterintuitive because a lot of my progressive friends say, oh, let these people, yeah, okay, yeah, our society is too hard on drug offenders.

00:25:51.040 I stipulate that.

00:25:52.360 But we've got to somehow give the tools to judges and juries so that people can find the rehab that they need so that they're not using drugs and stealing and being homeless.

00:26:00.040 And screwing up all of our neighborhoods.

00:26:01.240 That's right.

00:26:01.420 All right, last Democrat talking point because we have so much news to get to.

00:26:04.200 Obviously, the Las Vegas shooting, largest mass shooting in American history.

00:26:08.700 The gun debate is always back, front, and center.

00:26:15.380 There have been some proposals on how to curb this problem because they say maybe we'll get rid of bump stocks.

00:26:21.520 But you can bump fire from a regular AR-15.

00:26:23.900 It's a little more difficult.

00:26:25.620 Also, with any bump fire, it's very difficult to aim, so it only really works if you're shooting at a gigantic crowd of people.

00:26:31.060 Is the only answer here to repeal the Second Amendment?

00:26:35.400 You have a lot of people on the left proposing this.

00:26:37.760 Is that the point where we are right now in American society?

00:26:41.000 We want to give up our right to keep and bear arms.

00:26:43.120 Well, so I'll make three points on this.

00:26:44.380 The first one is I got a text from a very successful TV journalist.

00:26:49.460 She's a reporter for a major network.

00:26:51.300 Major fake news source, I want to assume.

00:26:52.700 It's got to be fake news.

00:26:53.640 Right after this incident, and she texted me and said,

00:26:58.300 Oh, my God, why don't people realize that the Second Amendment only applied to muskets and blah, blah, blah, and went on this horrible rant?

00:27:04.180 And I wrote her back, and I said,

00:27:06.460 Yeah, and I don't think—I guess that you should agree that the First Amendment doesn't apply to this conversation on our iPhone.

00:27:12.380 And it was like, I mean—

00:27:13.220 That is an excellent analogy.

00:27:14.880 I mean, people's ideas of rights being transitory and frozen in time.

00:27:19.960 You'd throw out the whole Constitution with that attitude.

00:27:21.620 But the second thing is, again, I see a total lack of honesty.

00:27:25.860 I mean, most of the most horrific crimes—

00:27:28.140 I mean, you probably know my father was murdered by someone with a handgun.

00:27:31.780 Most of the most horrific crimes are committed in our cities with handguns.

00:27:35.580 And there is no honesty in the debate.

00:27:37.860 People do not want to address this.

00:27:39.520 A mass shooting gets our attention.

00:27:40.780 I realize that.

00:27:41.580 But, you know, and what those people suffered through is horrible, and nobody should have to suffer through that.

00:27:46.440 But I'd like to see people talk more about the root causes of gun violence,

00:27:50.020 which is more often than not caused by a handgun.

00:27:53.060 The third thing is, if Democratic politicians want to repeal the Second Amendment,

00:27:56.380 if any politician wants to repeal the Second Amendment, they should be honest about it.

00:27:58.840 They should say, the Constitution belongs to people.

00:28:01.180 It's ours to amend. 0.73

00:28:02.060 Thomas Jefferson said famously, every 25 years or so, we should amend the Constitution.

00:28:05.740 He used bloodier language to describe it this year.

00:28:08.660 Yes, he did.

00:28:08.980 But if people want to do that, the people own the Constitution.

00:28:12.780 It belongs to all of us.

00:28:13.880 And if they want to repeal the Second Amendment, then it's a movement that people should be honest about.

00:28:19.960 We shouldn't dance around the issue if that's how people feel.

00:28:22.240 Now, I, for one, do not believe in that.

00:28:24.000 But, you know, politicians who do should come out and say it.

00:28:26.660 They should be honest.

00:28:27.900 You are channeling.

00:28:29.140 This should scare you, by the way.

00:28:30.140 You're channeling my feelings, at least on the honesty point of this, because I think all the time when they bring up assault rifles, which have been illegal for 80 years, and then they say assault weapons, which is a term that was made up in the mid-'90s to conflate regular rifles with assault rifles, they look scary.

00:28:48.880 They're big and scary.

00:28:50.120 They look like machine guns.

00:28:51.660 And so we say, okay, we've got to get rid of those.

00:28:53.600 If we get rid of those, we'll be fine.

00:28:54.620 But as you point out, the awful murder of your father, handguns are the real problem in gun crime.

00:29:03.900 Two-thirds of so-called gun violence is middle-aged guys killing themselves.

00:29:08.440 And more people are killed by hands and feet every year than are killed by any sort of rifle, including assault rifles or shotguns, or pardon, assault weapons, quote-unquote, or shotguns.

00:29:18.520 The honesty in this debate, I really only see honesty on the right among a handful of Democrats who are willing to have the courage to go out there, like you, Joe Manchin, other Democrats, who are willing to face the issue seriously.

00:29:33.260 But a total dishonesty permeating the rest of the debate.

00:29:38.040 Is there any way to fix that?

00:29:39.400 I don't know.

00:29:40.140 You know, as long as both parties are raising money off of these tragedies, then I think we're going to continue to have this lack of meaningful debate.

00:29:46.720 I've never been so depressed with politics in America than I was after this Las Vegas shooting.

00:29:51.080 I mean, literally, a guy like me who's been in politics for a long time, in and out of politics, I'm cynical and jaded as the rest of them.

00:29:56.440 I was so depressed.

00:29:57.460 Getting a fundraising email from Democratic candidates dancing around the Second Amendment issue, getting fundraising emails.

00:30:03.320 I mean, also, the Republican Congress congressional candidate who's given away bump stocks.

00:30:07.900 I mean, come on.

00:30:08.740 I mean, just give me a break, people.

00:30:10.720 Can we get some honesty?

00:30:12.220 I mean, the guy who—the LAPD has a profile of the guy who killed my father.

00:30:15.480 They think he was a petty drug user, someone who's high out of his mind.

00:30:18.600 I would much rather see our society address the drug problem.

00:30:21.420 I would much rather see us address mental illness and things like that.

00:30:24.600 I think we can get a lot of headway.

00:30:25.940 And I also think we need jobs.

00:30:27.480 It's not as glamorous to address the preponderance of crimes that affect people, that affect the rest of their lives,

00:30:33.220 than these one-off, spectacularly awful crimes that are spectacular for a reason, right?

00:30:41.700 Because they're not the common crime that happens.

00:30:44.340 Correct.

00:30:45.060 Absolutely right.

00:30:45.780 Well, all right.

00:30:46.600 That's fine.

00:30:47.060 I really enjoy going through the talking points with you.

00:30:51.820 Give me time, though.

00:30:52.520 I'll disappoint you at some point.

00:30:53.600 I'm sure you'll disappoint when we talk about all of this news that we've got to get to.

00:30:57.240 But it is great because I bet you that if we were on, like, a cable news show or something,

00:31:01.960 and it just had to be, what do you think about Trump?

00:31:03.960 Yes or no?

00:31:04.480 What do you think about this talking about?

00:31:05.680 Yes or no?

00:31:06.680 You'd have to stick to the talking points.

00:31:09.160 Maybe you wouldn't.

00:31:09.740 Maybe you'd have the courage of your convictions.

00:31:11.380 I think most people would do that.

00:31:13.040 Excellent.

00:31:13.520 We have to get to the news.

00:31:14.420 We have so much news to talk about.

00:31:15.760 We need Mike to just say the craziest, most wild and absurd left-wing things you've ever heard.

00:31:21.240 But you can't see that unless you go to dailywire.com right now.

00:31:25.040 We want to thank all of our current subscribers.

00:31:27.140 It's just $10 a month or $100 for an annual membership.

00:31:31.180 You'll get me.

00:31:32.180 You'll get the Andrew Klavan show.

00:31:33.620 You'll get the Mitch Spiro show, who I know.

00:31:35.560 I know.

00:31:35.960 Ah, droning.

00:31:36.720 Who cares?

00:31:37.180 Who cares?

00:31:37.540 But wait!

00:31:38.780 You'll get the Leftist Tears Tumblr.

00:31:40.620 Look at this.

00:31:41.420 It is so delicious.

00:31:42.220 I was hoping that I know.

00:31:44.180 I was really hoping I could fill it up on this fountain of Mike Gatto today.

00:31:47.640 But unfortunately, I haven't been able to yet.

00:31:49.720 Maybe a little later on.

00:31:50.820 I'll just keep playing Trump clips.

00:31:52.600 You can have yours.

00:31:53.780 It is the finest vessel for Leftist Tears in the entire country, perhaps in the entire universe.

00:31:59.680 They observed recently, scientists observed, gravitational waves coming out of two stars colliding

00:32:04.880 and creating the molecules that have forged the Leftist Tears Tumblr Cup.

00:32:09.580 It is indestructible.

00:32:10.960 Go to dailywire.com right now.

00:32:12.280 We'll be right back.

00:32:14.180 We have so much news here.

00:32:25.060 U.S.-backed forces have captured Raqqa, the self-described capital of ISIS.

00:32:31.520 This is so much winning.

00:32:33.000 Ariel, does this mean that we have officially defeated ISIS?

00:32:37.640 Yes and no in some ways.

00:32:39.160 So, the best way to look at this is to say to ourselves, we've taken the self-designated

00:32:46.400 caliphate.

00:32:47.140 So, we've definitely feel the blow to the collective ego of ISIS.

00:32:53.140 This is a top selling point for them to attract militants from all over the Middle East and

00:32:58.980 the world.

00:32:59.340 So, if we look at it from that perspective, yes, it's been a collective blow to their ego.

00:33:04.320 Now begins the actual work of rebuilding Raqqa, which I think will present lots of challenges

00:33:09.700 in the future.

00:33:10.300 I also want to give a shout-out to the Kurds, because the Kurds were a huge part of this

00:33:15.780 victory.

00:33:16.880 It was Kurdish-backed militia as well as some Arab factions.

00:33:20.180 And, you know, the fact that we have abandoned aid for those in Kurdistan, I think it works 1.00

00:33:25.380 really poorly, especially given this recent victory.

00:33:28.100 So, you know, I guess to answer your question, in terms of the ideological defeat of ISIS,

00:33:35.640 yes, but they're still going to be able to communicate with one another on their chat

00:33:40.380 rooms, online, and until, you know, maybe we've taken their physical location, but in

00:33:45.720 terms of their ability, which, you know, is how they recruit members, but in terms of

00:33:49.620 their ability to attract followers, that's still very much alive and well.

00:33:53.820 So, you know, we've cut the blood flow in some ways, but it's still living and existing.

00:33:59.920 So it's going to, we're going to have to address it as a global organization.

00:34:03.260 You've always got to be glass half empty, Ariel.

00:34:05.720 Come on already.

00:34:06.600 She gave a shout-out to the Kurds. 1.00

00:34:08.200 She did give it, I'm very pro-Kurds. 1.00

00:34:11.800 I am pro-Kurds too, so I, yeah. 1.00

00:34:16.620 You're right to acknowledge that we have a massive Kurdish audience.

00:34:19.240 We want to thank all of the Kurds who are watching the show right now.

00:34:22.480 And no, they're great.

00:34:23.080 They always team up with us when we're fighting the bad guys.

00:34:25.480 Good stuff.

00:34:26.800 Your eminence, how much credit can we give Trump here?

00:34:29.720 As Ariel said, there's still the ISIS ideology.

00:34:32.280 There's still people who are Islamic extremists who will talk to each other and try to organize.

00:34:37.880 But we've blown them all up. 0.80

00:34:38.960 We blew up their whole city.

00:34:40.820 Barack Obama saw ISIS form under his watch.

00:34:45.140 He couldn't take out the city, or he didn't want to.

00:34:47.460 He didn't want to take out the organization, perhaps, or he didn't prioritize it.

00:34:51.000 But how much credit can we give, dear leader?

00:34:54.380 Well, I certainly think most of the credit belongs to the forces on the ground who have

00:34:59.240 been fighting bravely throughout all this.

00:35:02.300 These past several months, their cities are in absolute ruin.

00:35:06.600 They've just been going through hell.

00:35:07.760 So I definitely think we should keep them in our thoughts and prayers right now as they

00:35:11.480 clean up the mess that ISIS has made.

00:35:13.620 But in terms of what Trump has done in order to create this outcome, certainly he delegated

00:35:19.520 decisions down to the forces and the military personnel on the ground to go ahead and take

00:35:26.080 action without getting prior approval from Washington, D.C.

00:35:29.180 That was something that happened in May when General Mattis announced the ISIS annihilation

00:35:36.280 strategy.

00:35:36.960 And that has been very, very effective thus far.

00:35:38.880 I mean, we're just six months away and we've already taken Raqqa.

00:35:43.480 So yes, I do certainly think that Trump's decision making there certainly should be credited

00:35:49.280 with this victory.

00:35:50.780 I'll just correct you on, you said General Mattis, and just for our bloodthirsty listeners

00:35:55.500 who love internet, that would be Mad Dog Mattis, Mr. Mad Dog.

00:36:00.440 Mike, the two Obama-era foreign policy doctrines seem to have been leading from behind and strategic

00:36:08.380 patience.

00:36:10.140 This is quite a change.

00:36:11.800 President Trump campaigned on defeating ISIS, prioritizing defeating ISIS.

00:36:16.640 Now it looks like they are defeating ISIS.

00:36:19.860 I'm not asking how much we can give credit to L. Donald here, but how much can I blame

00:36:24.760 Barack Obama?

00:36:25.520 One of my favorite hobbies.

00:36:27.220 Well, the answer is you can't blame Barack Obama at all.

00:36:30.420 And I mean, you know, Donald Trump and his followers have got to stop taking credit for

00:36:34.460 policies that Barack Obama put in place where you're now seeing play out.

00:36:39.700 You know, today or yesterday, Donald Trump sent something.

00:36:41.880 The Dow hit 23,000.

00:36:43.380 Oh my gosh, great, great, great.

00:36:44.960 The reality is the Dow has been on a tear since about 2009 at the depths of the mortgage

00:36:50.740 crisis, and that started under Barack Obama, continued under President Trump.

00:36:55.440 And the reality is, is that if you own the successes, you ought to own the failures too.

00:36:59.440 At some point in the next three years, the next, in the Trump presidency, I'm assuming

00:37:02.860 we're going to go into recession.

00:37:03.880 I'd like to see his followers own those defeats as well.

00:37:06.740 I absolutely will not.

00:37:07.960 Thank you very much.

00:37:08.700 Sorry, go ahead.

00:37:09.580 Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.

00:37:12.600 And I think a lot of these policies were put in place a long time ago, and they were going

00:37:17.480 in the right direction.

00:37:18.740 Some have, some haven't.

00:37:19.820 I'll grant you the stock market.

00:37:21.300 We can't, the Republicans can't take total credit for the stock market here.

00:37:24.080 It has been building since 2009.

00:37:26.460 This seems a little different.

00:37:27.660 There does seem to have been a big shift in military policy.

00:37:31.020 So I'm not sure.

00:37:31.860 I am willing to give Donald Trump some credit here, but I do grant.

00:37:36.520 It's, you know, Barack Obama campaigned.

00:37:38.480 He said, GM is alive and Osama bin Laden's dead.

00:37:41.100 But of course, the work to capture Osama bin Laden had been building for over a decade,

00:37:46.620 or almost a decade, rather.

00:37:48.100 So yes, these, there is more complication here.

00:37:51.780 Bill Clinton took a lot of credit for the great economy in the 90s.

00:37:54.240 Probably you could credit Ronald Reagan and George Bush for that.

00:37:57.340 But I'm only going to give credit to the Republicans and blame it.

00:37:59.920 The Democrats, thank you very much.

00:38:01.600 Intellectually honest.

00:38:02.540 It is intellect, it's consistent at least.

00:38:04.580 Consistent, that's right.

00:38:05.940 There now, this is the big story, there are three genders in California. 1.00

00:38:10.240 Which one are you?

00:38:11.320 Which one am I?

00:38:12.260 Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, a man you know very well, Mike.

00:38:15.860 He signed the Gender Recognition Act Sunday, which lets residents choose non-binary on identification documents,

00:38:23.800 such as driver's licenses and birth certificates.

00:38:26.680 I believe I just heard Paul Bois sighing as I read that description.

00:38:31.140 Tell him to stop breathing heavily, please.

00:38:32.600 Not surprised at all.

00:38:34.240 Ariel, you know, we just had Blair White on last week. 0.98

00:38:36.700 We just had on a YouTuber who is transgender, biological male, identifies as a woman.

00:38:43.760 What's wrong with codifying this third gender, hmm? 1.00

00:38:47.660 Well, I think it's different from being, you know, from identifying as a man or a woman.

00:38:52.800 That doesn't necessarily, I don't think that poses a problem, actually.

00:38:56.160 And I think you touched upon that in your last podcast.

00:38:59.340 I think when we talk about sort of not identifying as either, I'm kind of approaching this from a statistical standpoint.

00:39:06.520 So I do economic research, as you know.

00:39:08.560 And a lot of the research, whether it be from the U.S. Census Bureau or be from a statistical database belonging to the state,

00:39:16.060 it is codified by male or female.

00:39:18.160 This is how we look at economic outcomes.

00:39:20.060 This is how we look at average earnings.

00:39:21.980 This is how we basically address any statistical analysis is through looking at the lens of male and female. 0.51

00:39:29.620 So coming at it from sort of a statistical perspective, if enough people decide that they identify as neither,

00:39:36.140 then I think this could pose some problems down the road.

00:39:38.820 I know, for instance, in Oregon, when they did an unspecified gender, 0.99

00:39:44.520 I think it cost something around $30,000 to update their statistical databases.

00:39:49.700 California is about 10 times the size of Oregon.

00:39:52.740 So we could be looking at a bill of around half a million in order to make these adjustments,

00:39:57.300 which if you look at California spending is really not that much because our state spends a ton.

00:40:03.020 But when you look at sort of what challenges might come down the road,

00:40:06.840 I don't think enough people are going to identify as non-binary that it's going to be a statistical problem.

00:40:11.400 But if it does sort of become the vogue or popular way of the resistance,

00:40:16.500 which, as we know, intersectionality and the whole Marxist rhetoric that comes with that,

00:40:20.920 I have no doubt that it will be a form of resistance to Donald Trump.

00:40:24.440 Just wait.

00:40:25.800 Then it could be a problem.

00:40:27.180 And of course.

00:40:28.100 So, you know, I really don't take a huge issue with it right now.

00:40:30.800 But I do see, you know, at least from a statistical standpoint and measuring outcomes,

00:40:35.140 it could be a problem in the future if enough people decide either that this is their form of resistance,

00:40:40.160 in which case it sort of denigrates a mission or the intention of it as a whole,

00:40:44.960 which was to sort of give people who felt like they couldn't fit in either category,

00:40:49.320 you know, a voice or an identity.

00:40:50.820 And now I can see people abusing it as a political form of resistance.

00:40:54.240 Yes, absolutely.

00:40:55.300 So in that sense, I think it could be a problem.

00:40:56.860 And of course the issue is that there isn't a third gender. 0.99

00:40:59.460 There is not a third gender.

00:41:00.860 There are a minuscule number of people who were born intersex, hermaphroditic.

00:41:05.880 They had both sexual organs.

00:41:07.620 In some cases they have crazy chromosomes that don't fit male or female.

00:41:12.980 That is a vanishingly small number of people.

00:41:15.900 And there are a slightly larger number of people who are either male or female

00:41:20.640 who have a psychological affliction that makes them think that they are the other gender

00:41:24.380 or desperately want to be the other gender or feel on a metaphysical level that they are the other gender.

00:41:29.560 Listen, I identify as an author.

00:41:31.520 I'm not an author, but I identify as one.

00:41:33.760 I have empathy on this subject.

00:41:35.740 But Mike, no one really thinks there's a third gender.

00:41:38.640 Is there some good being done to society by indulging in this delusion?

00:41:43.600 Well, let me start with a couple principles.

00:41:45.740 And the first one hopefully means something to a lot of your audience,

00:41:48.660 which is simply just live and let live.

00:41:51.160 It doesn't hurt anybody to allow people to be called a pronoun or a gender that they want.

00:41:56.360 I disagree with what Ariel said a great amount.

00:42:00.660 I think that transgender people face a lot of stigma in our society.

00:42:04.540 I can't imagine anybody wanting to go through that just as a form of political protest against Trump.

00:42:08.580 I'll make the bold prediction here in 2017 that that's not going to happen.

00:42:12.300 I think, you know, this really just comes down to live and let live.

00:42:14.940 Why just not let people live the way that they want to live?

00:42:17.260 I don't think it hurts anybody.

00:42:18.780 And I think that this thing gives a modicum of respect and dignity to people who want it.

00:42:23.940 But does it?

00:42:24.640 I mean, that is the question.

00:42:25.760 Is the road to hell paved with good intentions?

00:42:28.160 Because one might say, well, who cares if a man not only pretends that he's a woman, 0.82

00:42:34.280 but pretends that he's a mythical, undefined third gender?

00:42:40.540 It doesn't really affect me.

00:42:41.820 It doesn't affect my bottom line.

00:42:44.540 It doesn't affect my bank account or something.

00:42:46.260 But, you know, we're not just material creatures.

00:42:51.000 We learn, as Winston Churchill said, when great forces are on the move in the world,

00:42:55.840 we learn that we are spirits, not animals.

00:42:58.720 There is an insistence.

00:43:00.780 If the government is going to say that there is a third gender,

00:43:05.000 then the government is telling me you have to view surreality, unreality as reality.

00:43:10.920 With the full coercion and compulsion of the law,

00:43:14.220 they're telling me that I have to look at the world and pretend that it's something that it isn't.

00:43:19.120 Your eminence, Paul Bois, is there any evidence here that there are bad consequences from this,

00:43:25.660 that the road to hell is paved with good intentions?

00:43:27.480 Oh, well, the road to hell we are on, Michael.

00:43:30.900 Paul Bois coming live from the Vatican is always.

00:43:33.000 With good intentions, I mean, yeah, maybe 50 years ago,

00:43:38.800 this isn't even just about making transgenders feel good about themselves,

00:43:42.260 as the bathroom debate was about. 1.00

00:43:44.320 This is just, like you said, this is the government just legislating complete fantasy.

00:43:49.540 I mean, if they want to be ideologically consistent here,

00:43:53.300 why don't they just go ahead and just say you can put whatever you want?

00:43:56.200 You know, say that you're a unicorn.

00:43:57.660 Say that you're a raggedy Ann doll.

00:44:01.220 Whatever it is you want to come up with, you know, the possibilities are endless, are limitless. 0.99

00:44:05.240 You know, it's ridiculous. 0.83

00:44:07.640 And like you said, the government right now, by doing this, 0.94

00:44:11.120 is literally saying that the state is pretty much saying and stamping their approval

00:44:17.700 on something that doesn't exist.

00:44:19.560 Guys, I should point out, I know we've left this out of the show credits,

00:44:23.140 Paul Bois is played by Carol O'Connor.

00:44:25.120 I don't want to let that go without pointing that out.

00:44:27.620 Next on, we have to get off the transgender thing. 1.00

00:44:29.800 That's all anybody ever talks about these days.

00:44:32.080 John McCain.

00:44:33.400 Senator John McCain, shockingly, is attacking President Trump.

00:44:36.280 Here he is.

00:44:36.680 To fear the world we have organized and led the three quarters of a century to abandon the ideals

00:44:43.520 we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership

00:44:48.680 and our duty to remain the last best hope of earth for the sake of some half-baked, 1.00

00:44:55.420 spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems.

00:45:01.900 Ariel, spurious means false.

00:45:04.460 Does this mean that John McCain only approves of true nationalism?

00:45:07.900 Well, I think, you know, he's sort of, he's making a jab at the America First agenda

00:45:16.280 that Donald Trump put forth during his campaign.

00:45:20.840 I think if we look at sort of, you know, I do agree, there were some things that John McCain

00:45:25.880 said that I did agree with.

00:45:27.360 The idea that we are a nation united by ideals.

00:45:29.980 I think what occurred over the last four, last eight years was a dividing a nation by identity

00:45:37.100 politics, right?

00:45:38.320 And actually, this is something Alan Bloom, East Coast Strasian, wrote about in the closing

00:45:43.640 of the American Mind in the late 80s.

00:45:45.220 He said, you know, mark my words, we are a nation that was founded on ideals, but increasingly,

00:45:50.440 and he observed this in the 60s, increasingly there's a push to divide us by, you know, what

00:45:56.440 we don't have in common, which whether it be our race, our gender, our sexuality.

00:46:01.180 And, you know, I'm someone that I firmly believe that we should be pushing back against that.

00:46:05.720 I firmly believe that we should be returning to this idea of uniting behind ideals.

00:46:10.260 And I don't think America, as the abstract concept, is divisive.

00:46:15.280 I think it is representative of ideals.

00:46:17.220 So saying America first isn't inherently divisive.

00:46:21.140 In fact, I think that's the attitude we should be having.

00:46:23.660 And I think it's a welcome departure from the last eight years of we've been poo-pooing

00:46:28.720 the idea of American exceptionalism.

00:46:30.680 If we can't identify an objective good, if we can't say that America offers one of the

00:46:35.920 best systems in the world for women to advance themselves, you know, if you go to other countries 1.00

00:46:40.620 across the globe, there are not the educational opportunities, career opportunities, basic

00:46:46.800 independence that we have as women in America.

00:46:49.320 And I'm comfortable saying we have a better system.

00:46:51.700 I can't believe this.

00:46:52.240 I don't think that should be a controversial statement.

00:46:54.800 Marshall, can you stop this hateful rhetoric?

00:46:57.460 Can you please mute Ariel?

00:46:59.420 I can't.

00:47:00.300 I'm going to throw a desk or something.

00:47:02.520 I know.

00:47:03.240 I know.

00:47:03.800 And so I don't have a problem with the idea of saying, you know, we have an awesome,

00:47:08.180 wonderful system and we should celebrate that.

00:47:10.540 And that came across in parts of McCain's speech.

00:47:12.680 But I think, you know, there have been people, nefarious elements, especially within the

00:47:18.300 alt-right.

00:47:19.520 I mean, we've seen it with these scattered Nazi marches.

00:47:23.500 I heard Mike Gatto's on the alt-right.

00:47:25.300 That's just what I heard.

00:47:26.140 I don't know.

00:47:26.720 I don't know.

00:47:27.100 That's a rumor.

00:47:27.420 So we've seen people warp that message and use it to advance their horrible agendas.

00:47:32.520 And I couldn't agree more.

00:47:33.740 That's a problem.

00:47:34.960 But to say that, you know, that fake patriotism is what drives the majority of the country, 0.92

00:47:40.100 I don't look at 250, you know, white supremacist buttheads in Charlottesville who don't deserve 0.95

00:47:46.720 the time of day. 0.97

00:47:48.360 Right?

00:47:48.640 I don't look at them as that's America. 0.55

00:47:50.340 I think that's a bad word.

00:47:51.220 I wasn't sure if she said butthead or something else.

00:47:53.920 So I was just clarifying whether I can curse because I do like to curse on it.

00:47:57.360 Yeah, no.

00:47:57.480 I didn't want to swear on the Michael Moles show.

00:47:59.760 You can't do it.

00:48:00.460 We have only the highest standards here.

00:48:02.600 And I take your point absolutely.

00:48:04.680 I don't look at them and say that that's America.

00:48:07.100 I look at, you know, what the people I run into every day on the train who help me when

00:48:13.480 I drop something.

00:48:14.460 Or I look at, you know, I look at America as being full of people who I can connect with.

00:48:18.500 And if the people I run into on the train are America, then this country is in a lot 0.99

00:48:22.860 of trouble.

00:48:23.440 Mike, is nationalism a bad word?

00:48:26.020 Nationalism isn't a bad word. 0.95

00:48:27.320 I mean, there's nothing wrong with saying that our country is great and our country is

00:48:30.880 exceptional and our country is different and unique in the history of mankind because it

00:48:34.120 is.

00:48:34.560 But I think John McCain knows a thing or two about nonsense patriotism.

00:48:38.520 He knows a thing or two about chicken hawks.

00:48:40.680 He's been debating them his whole career.

00:48:42.320 And he knows a thing or two about giving and sacrificing so much for a war that might have been not

00:48:47.260 well conceived or well thought of from a political standpoint.

00:48:52.020 What's fascinating, though, about the John McCain versus Donald Trump thing is my friends,

00:48:55.620 you know, in both parties who one day love John McCain, the next day hate him, one day think he's a

00:49:01.520 hero, the next day are slamming him.

00:49:03.700 When he stands up that he's going to vote for this, they say, oh, he's great.

00:49:06.440 And I mean, and this is really indicative of politics in 2017.

00:49:09.740 There is no truth.

00:49:11.760 There is no sense of an absolute strong moral concept.

00:49:16.280 Yeah.

00:49:17.020 Thank you.

00:49:17.300 Yeah.

00:49:17.960 That's that's an unfortunate product of our postmodernity.

00:49:22.380 But we're going to try to fix it here.

00:49:23.840 We're going to keep pandering like The New York Times says we does, pandering to our audience

00:49:27.680 because it likes the truth.

00:49:29.200 Mike, thank you for being here.

00:49:30.440 Appreciate it.

00:49:31.040 I'll see you next time.

00:49:32.160 A semi almost possibly reasonable Democrat.

00:49:34.760 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:49:35.700 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:49:36.880 Come back tomorrow and we'll do it all again.

00:49:38.740 We'll see you next time.

00:50:08.740 Great.

00:50:09.340 Let's hear you next time.

00:50:09.880 Bye-bye.

00:50:09.960 Bye-bye.

00:50:11.700 Bye-bye.

00:50:13.560 Bye-bye.

00:50:14.320 Bye-bye.

00:50:16.820 Bye-bye.

00:50:17.540 Bye-bye.

00:50:22.540 Bye-bye.

00:50:31.560 Bye-bye.

00:50:32.740 Next time.

00:50:33.260 Bye-bye.

00:50:33.400 Bye-bye.

The Michael Knowles Show - October 17, 2017

Ep. 42 - Trump Wants Hillary To Run Again (#MeToo!)

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